Rabbit: August 1969
Title: Rabbit
Chapter Number/Title: August 1969: Summer (30/100) [[ Previous | Next]]
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1658
Workshop?: Suggestions always welcome. Need to work on having clearer arcs/conflicts, I think.
August 28, 1969
Summer
“But you promised!”
“Yeah, you promised!”
“I did?” Rodolphus smiled without looking back, and walked on. His swift but easy strides outstripped the hurried steps of Rabastan and the other young boy. He did not altogether mind having them around - at least, it was all right when his own friends were away. All the same, he would rather spend his time in the air and not lagging behind because of little boys' questions. Every minute not in the air and training was a minute wasted.
“Yes,” Rabastan responded. “Last time you went out, you said that next time you went flying when Darren was here, you’d take us along.”
“That next time is now,” Darren noted, just in case that part was unclear.
Rodolphus chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, all right then.”
“Yessssss!” the two boys hissed in unison and celebrated: Darren by jumping and punching the air in celebration, Rabbit by closing his eyes and scrunching his face. As the triumph faded, they noticed that they had fallen a way behind the older boy, and ran ahead to catch up. Rabastan felt the beads of sweat on his face turn into little streams in the summer sun.
“Rodolphus, Rabbit says you have loads of great new stories about Hogwarts,” Darren offered.
“Oh, hullo again,” Rodolphus looked down at the eager-faced boy. “I guess there are plenty of stories. What sort were you looking for?”
Darren stopped walking to think, and then rushed to catch up once more. “Anything! Father’s stories are all a little old. Because, you know, he’s old. But you’re still there, and soon we’ll be there too! Are there lots of pretty witches at Hogwarts? Oh, and how many people come to the Quidditch matches? Has anyone ever got smashed into bits, or lost an arm? Is it truly true that there are half-breeds in your classes?”
Rodolphus gave a weak attempt to hide his laughter, managing to direct it toward the vast fields before him, instead of to the small inquisitor.
“Half-bloods, Avery. Not half-breeds. I suppose Hogwarts still has a few standards.”
“Father says it’s just a matter of time, though!” Rabastan countered. “Doesn’t he, Dolphin?”
Darren Avery’s eyes gleamed. “Whoa, do you think maybe if there are half-bloods now, and things keep getting worse, that they'll have half-breeds by the time we’re there? I’d like to clobber a centaur at Quidditch. HA! Can you picture that, Rodolphus, a horse on a broomstick? I’d go, BAM WHAM and he’d fall OH NO MY FREAKISH HORSEY FACE.”
“Blech!” Rabastan retorted. “Better than Muggles, though. What do you think, Dolph, what’s worse? If they let in Muggles, or half-breeds?”
Rodolphus sighed and continued ahead. “Rabbit, that question is beyond ridiculous. It’s a school for wizards, remember? Even Hufflepuffs agree on that, as far as I know. No Muggles, no animals, no half-breeds, no squibs.”
“Ewwww, squibs.” Rabbit crinkled his nose and shuddered.
“Still,” Darren picked up. “There are almost practically Muggles there already, right?”
“Unfortunately,” Rodolphus confirmed.
“So it could happen!”
"No." Rodolphus halted for a second, glanced at them each, and resumed walking. “The line between filthy Muggle-born so-called wizards and their rubbish Muggle parents is very thin, and not nearly as important as the one between us and them. But it's a line. I assure you both, if Hogwarts allows any such thing as Muggle students, it will lose all its funding and support, and you’ll both be off to Durmstrang instead, and I wouldn’t give a fig if the castle collapsed.”
“We could collapse it! Bambly bambly crumble bambrmbrammmm!”
Rabastan joined in. “Trambly crambly bam! WITH DRAGONS roooaaawwwr!”
Darren swooped by like a dragon, circling around the Lestrange brothers and coming back to his place. “OH NO IT’S ON FIRE NOW.”
Whether from boredom or some discomfort at the small children happily planning the arson of his school, Rodolphus cleared his throat loudly. “Once, I played in a match where the Gryffindor captain lost all his teeth.”
That did it: the boys were enchanted once more.
“Did he get them back in?”
“Well, naturally.”
“That’s too bad,” Darren concluded. “Otherwise he’d have to go on with no teeth, like an eerie hag.” Naturally, he stretched his lips over his teeth to demonstrate. “Hab you lost any teef, Rodolpus?”
“No, not playing Quidditch.”
“Oh.”
“Rodolphus is too fast for that!” lauded Rabastan. “You’ll see, on his broom, he goes, ‘whiisshhhh.’”
“Bludgers’ll get you, though. I’ve been hit in the leg, but it was nothing. Slytherin has the best Beaters, and we have the bats. So I’m rather safe, all in all.”
“Slytherin has the best everything.” Rabastan nodded his head, confirming this great truth.
“Why the best Beaters, though?” Darren asked, face back to normal.
“Cleverness. The other houses try to put younger types in the position, when they’re too small to be strong. So after three years, there’s a good Beater, but it takes too long to be worth it. Slytherin, though, waits until you’re bigger, and stronger, and then puts the bat in your hand. And in the meantime, the ones they know will make good Beaters, they use them as they can and train them extra on the side.”
“What are you, then?” Darren tried to size up the older boy, who seemed to him to be big and strong enough for anything.
“He’s a Beater,” Rabastan praised. “Right, that’s you?”
“Exactly,” Rodolphus confirmed, with a bit of swagger in his step. “For the past year. At first I wanted to be a Beater right out, but they explained the idea and used me at Chaser, until I grew up a bit. And with Roderick Burke out of school, I'll been asked to be Captain, too.”
“Neat! Will you knock out people’s teeth?” Darren leaned in, hoping to receive some tips on paths to teeth removal.
“Ha! Maybe. Whatever it takes.”
“I’m going to be a Beater too,” Rabastan declared. “Just like you.”
“Oh, can I too?” Darren asked. “We could be a team!”
Rodolphus hesitated. “Well. I don’t know. It’ll depend on how you grow up. Avery, you may be, looking at your father. Rabbit…” he grimaced.
“What?” Rabastan’s face scrunched up in defense.
“It’s too early to say. Don’t worry. You could be a Beater too.”
“But?”
“But it depends. Beaters need weight, and strong arms and shoulders. Small boys who are top-class flyers try to be Seekers. The fastest flyers, who like working as a team, those are Chaser material. Someone with a lot of focus, and especially if he’s tall, that’s a good Keeper.”
Rabastan bit his lip. “What about Lucius?”
“He’s not on the team. But maybe Chaser. Depending on his attitude.”
“What about Bella?”
“Girls don’t play Quidditch. At least not for Slytherin.”
“What about Sirius?”
“Again, you have to see how he grows up! I could see him Chasing. Maybe, if he put the effort into it, he could be a Beater. He’d make a lousy Keeper.”
“What about me?”
Rodolphus lifted his canteen of water and squinted one eye at his brother while he drank. “If you end up looking like me, then a Beater. If you end up looking like Father--”
“Which everyone says.”
“Yes, then you’d be a better Keeper. Or Chaser. But you both have the right focus for Keeping.”
Rabastan hung his head and sighed loudly.
“Buck up, Rabbit. Don’t you want to be like Father?”
The boy shrugged lamely. “I suppose. ‘d rather be like you.”
Darren pressed on, “Wait, what about Evan?”
Rodolphus squinted. “Evan Rosier?”
“Yes, Evan Rosier!”
“That’s tough." As far as Rodolphus could tell, all the little boys were, at this point, just little boys. "Seeker, maybe. Maybe.”
Darren sighed. “It’s all right, his father wouldn’t ever let him play, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Evan isn’t allowed to do anything. Especially anything that his father didn’t do. And Mr. Rosier definitely did not play Quidditch.” Darren scuffed the rough, thirsty grass in front of him. “Stupid Mr. Rosier.”
“Don’t insult your elders, Darren,” Rabastan spat, in a nasty tone indeed, “just because they don’t play a stupid sport.”
Rodolphus stopped and spun toward his little brothers. “Rabastan, quit that. Are you Darren’s father?”
“No,” Rabastan responded with the surliest face he could muster. He had thought Rodolphus would be proud that he knew his manners.
“His tutor? Governess?”
“No,” Rabastan rolled his eyes.
“Prefect? Professor?”
“No,” he repeated.
“Elder brother?”
“No,” he snarled.
“Elf?”
He just glared.
“Then don’t act like one. And don’t call Quidditch stupid.”
Rabastan remained silent. Darren shuffled along, either undisturbed by the squabble or deliberately willing it into nonexistence.
Rodolphus halted. “If you think it’s such a waste, you needn’t come with me, then.”
That did it. Rabastan’s eyes widened and began to collect two small ponds of tears.
“Um. May I still come, Rodolphus?” Darren checked, hardly giving his friend time to sulk. Rodolphus shrugged and nodded once.
“I’m sorry!” Rabastan burst. Rodolphus ignoring him, letting Darren come along but not his own brother, and with only a couple days left before school started back . . . it was more than he could bear. “I’m sorry for acting like a … for scolding Darren, and I’m sorry for calling Quidditch anything but wonderful. You know I love flying and I love Quidditch, you do!”
“All right then.” Rodolphus took a slight turn and walked toward the little stone shed that held the extra brooms and Quidditch supplies.
But as the schoolboy vanished into the shed, Rabastan took a step in toward Darren and narrowed his eyes. “You’re going down, Avery.”
“Not if you do first, Babbity Rabbity!” Without letting the slightest pause, Darren kicked Rabastan’s feet out from under him. The two boys tumbled down together, forgetting about their efforts to win over Rodolphus. Elbows and little knobby fingers jammed into each other and the two tousled until Rodolphus emerged with three brooms and a case to find Darren sitting atop Rabastan.
Two child-size brooms landed with a clamor at the boys’ side, and Rodolphus walked on. The two sets of small blue eyes met, blinked away the sweat and tears, the scuffle ended. Leaving a cloud of dusty earth, Darren and Rabastan ran forward, brooms in hand, once again vying for the attention of the real-life-actual Slytherin Quidditch player in their midst.
Chapter Number/Title: August 1969: Summer (30/100) [[ Previous | Next]]
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1658
Workshop?: Suggestions always welcome. Need to work on having clearer arcs/conflicts, I think.
August 28, 1969
Summer
“But you promised!”
“Yeah, you promised!”
“I did?” Rodolphus smiled without looking back, and walked on. His swift but easy strides outstripped the hurried steps of Rabastan and the other young boy. He did not altogether mind having them around - at least, it was all right when his own friends were away. All the same, he would rather spend his time in the air and not lagging behind because of little boys' questions. Every minute not in the air and training was a minute wasted.
“Yes,” Rabastan responded. “Last time you went out, you said that next time you went flying when Darren was here, you’d take us along.”
“That next time is now,” Darren noted, just in case that part was unclear.
Rodolphus chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, all right then.”
“Yessssss!” the two boys hissed in unison and celebrated: Darren by jumping and punching the air in celebration, Rabbit by closing his eyes and scrunching his face. As the triumph faded, they noticed that they had fallen a way behind the older boy, and ran ahead to catch up. Rabastan felt the beads of sweat on his face turn into little streams in the summer sun.
“Rodolphus, Rabbit says you have loads of great new stories about Hogwarts,” Darren offered.
“Oh, hullo again,” Rodolphus looked down at the eager-faced boy. “I guess there are plenty of stories. What sort were you looking for?”
Darren stopped walking to think, and then rushed to catch up once more. “Anything! Father’s stories are all a little old. Because, you know, he’s old. But you’re still there, and soon we’ll be there too! Are there lots of pretty witches at Hogwarts? Oh, and how many people come to the Quidditch matches? Has anyone ever got smashed into bits, or lost an arm? Is it truly true that there are half-breeds in your classes?”
Rodolphus gave a weak attempt to hide his laughter, managing to direct it toward the vast fields before him, instead of to the small inquisitor.
“Half-bloods, Avery. Not half-breeds. I suppose Hogwarts still has a few standards.”
“Father says it’s just a matter of time, though!” Rabastan countered. “Doesn’t he, Dolphin?”
Darren Avery’s eyes gleamed. “Whoa, do you think maybe if there are half-bloods now, and things keep getting worse, that they'll have half-breeds by the time we’re there? I’d like to clobber a centaur at Quidditch. HA! Can you picture that, Rodolphus, a horse on a broomstick? I’d go, BAM WHAM and he’d fall OH NO MY FREAKISH HORSEY FACE.”
“Blech!” Rabastan retorted. “Better than Muggles, though. What do you think, Dolph, what’s worse? If they let in Muggles, or half-breeds?”
Rodolphus sighed and continued ahead. “Rabbit, that question is beyond ridiculous. It’s a school for wizards, remember? Even Hufflepuffs agree on that, as far as I know. No Muggles, no animals, no half-breeds, no squibs.”
“Ewwww, squibs.” Rabbit crinkled his nose and shuddered.
“Still,” Darren picked up. “There are almost practically Muggles there already, right?”
“Unfortunately,” Rodolphus confirmed.
“So it could happen!”
"No." Rodolphus halted for a second, glanced at them each, and resumed walking. “The line between filthy Muggle-born so-called wizards and their rubbish Muggle parents is very thin, and not nearly as important as the one between us and them. But it's a line. I assure you both, if Hogwarts allows any such thing as Muggle students, it will lose all its funding and support, and you’ll both be off to Durmstrang instead, and I wouldn’t give a fig if the castle collapsed.”
“We could collapse it! Bambly bambly crumble bambrmbrammmm!”
Rabastan joined in. “Trambly crambly bam! WITH DRAGONS roooaaawwwr!”
Darren swooped by like a dragon, circling around the Lestrange brothers and coming back to his place. “OH NO IT’S ON FIRE NOW.”
Whether from boredom or some discomfort at the small children happily planning the arson of his school, Rodolphus cleared his throat loudly. “Once, I played in a match where the Gryffindor captain lost all his teeth.”
That did it: the boys were enchanted once more.
“Did he get them back in?”
“Well, naturally.”
“That’s too bad,” Darren concluded. “Otherwise he’d have to go on with no teeth, like an eerie hag.” Naturally, he stretched his lips over his teeth to demonstrate. “Hab you lost any teef, Rodolpus?”
“No, not playing Quidditch.”
“Oh.”
“Rodolphus is too fast for that!” lauded Rabastan. “You’ll see, on his broom, he goes, ‘whiisshhhh.’”
“Bludgers’ll get you, though. I’ve been hit in the leg, but it was nothing. Slytherin has the best Beaters, and we have the bats. So I’m rather safe, all in all.”
“Slytherin has the best everything.” Rabastan nodded his head, confirming this great truth.
“Why the best Beaters, though?” Darren asked, face back to normal.
“Cleverness. The other houses try to put younger types in the position, when they’re too small to be strong. So after three years, there’s a good Beater, but it takes too long to be worth it. Slytherin, though, waits until you’re bigger, and stronger, and then puts the bat in your hand. And in the meantime, the ones they know will make good Beaters, they use them as they can and train them extra on the side.”
“What are you, then?” Darren tried to size up the older boy, who seemed to him to be big and strong enough for anything.
“He’s a Beater,” Rabastan praised. “Right, that’s you?”
“Exactly,” Rodolphus confirmed, with a bit of swagger in his step. “For the past year. At first I wanted to be a Beater right out, but they explained the idea and used me at Chaser, until I grew up a bit. And with Roderick Burke out of school, I'll been asked to be Captain, too.”
“Neat! Will you knock out people’s teeth?” Darren leaned in, hoping to receive some tips on paths to teeth removal.
“Ha! Maybe. Whatever it takes.”
“I’m going to be a Beater too,” Rabastan declared. “Just like you.”
“Oh, can I too?” Darren asked. “We could be a team!”
Rodolphus hesitated. “Well. I don’t know. It’ll depend on how you grow up. Avery, you may be, looking at your father. Rabbit…” he grimaced.
“What?” Rabastan’s face scrunched up in defense.
“It’s too early to say. Don’t worry. You could be a Beater too.”
“But?”
“But it depends. Beaters need weight, and strong arms and shoulders. Small boys who are top-class flyers try to be Seekers. The fastest flyers, who like working as a team, those are Chaser material. Someone with a lot of focus, and especially if he’s tall, that’s a good Keeper.”
Rabastan bit his lip. “What about Lucius?”
“He’s not on the team. But maybe Chaser. Depending on his attitude.”
“What about Bella?”
“Girls don’t play Quidditch. At least not for Slytherin.”
“What about Sirius?”
“Again, you have to see how he grows up! I could see him Chasing. Maybe, if he put the effort into it, he could be a Beater. He’d make a lousy Keeper.”
“What about me?”
Rodolphus lifted his canteen of water and squinted one eye at his brother while he drank. “If you end up looking like me, then a Beater. If you end up looking like Father--”
“Which everyone says.”
“Yes, then you’d be a better Keeper. Or Chaser. But you both have the right focus for Keeping.”
Rabastan hung his head and sighed loudly.
“Buck up, Rabbit. Don’t you want to be like Father?”
The boy shrugged lamely. “I suppose. ‘d rather be like you.”
Darren pressed on, “Wait, what about Evan?”
Rodolphus squinted. “Evan Rosier?”
“Yes, Evan Rosier!”
“That’s tough." As far as Rodolphus could tell, all the little boys were, at this point, just little boys. "Seeker, maybe. Maybe.”
Darren sighed. “It’s all right, his father wouldn’t ever let him play, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Evan isn’t allowed to do anything. Especially anything that his father didn’t do. And Mr. Rosier definitely did not play Quidditch.” Darren scuffed the rough, thirsty grass in front of him. “Stupid Mr. Rosier.”
“Don’t insult your elders, Darren,” Rabastan spat, in a nasty tone indeed, “just because they don’t play a stupid sport.”
Rodolphus stopped and spun toward his little brothers. “Rabastan, quit that. Are you Darren’s father?”
“No,” Rabastan responded with the surliest face he could muster. He had thought Rodolphus would be proud that he knew his manners.
“His tutor? Governess?”
“No,” Rabastan rolled his eyes.
“Prefect? Professor?”
“No,” he repeated.
“Elder brother?”
“No,” he snarled.
“Elf?”
He just glared.
“Then don’t act like one. And don’t call Quidditch stupid.”
Rabastan remained silent. Darren shuffled along, either undisturbed by the squabble or deliberately willing it into nonexistence.
Rodolphus halted. “If you think it’s such a waste, you needn’t come with me, then.”
That did it. Rabastan’s eyes widened and began to collect two small ponds of tears.
“Um. May I still come, Rodolphus?” Darren checked, hardly giving his friend time to sulk. Rodolphus shrugged and nodded once.
“I’m sorry!” Rabastan burst. Rodolphus ignoring him, letting Darren come along but not his own brother, and with only a couple days left before school started back . . . it was more than he could bear. “I’m sorry for acting like a … for scolding Darren, and I’m sorry for calling Quidditch anything but wonderful. You know I love flying and I love Quidditch, you do!”
“All right then.” Rodolphus took a slight turn and walked toward the little stone shed that held the extra brooms and Quidditch supplies.
But as the schoolboy vanished into the shed, Rabastan took a step in toward Darren and narrowed his eyes. “You’re going down, Avery.”
“Not if you do first, Babbity Rabbity!” Without letting the slightest pause, Darren kicked Rabastan’s feet out from under him. The two boys tumbled down together, forgetting about their efforts to win over Rodolphus. Elbows and little knobby fingers jammed into each other and the two tousled until Rodolphus emerged with three brooms and a case to find Darren sitting atop Rabastan.
Two child-size brooms landed with a clamor at the boys’ side, and Rodolphus walked on. The two sets of small blue eyes met, blinked away the sweat and tears, the scuffle ended. Leaving a cloud of dusty earth, Darren and Rabastan ran forward, brooms in hand, once again vying for the attention of the real-life-actual Slytherin Quidditch player in their midst.