AU meme, out of schedule

[madam_rosmerta]

HARRY POTTER AU MEME You're a wizard! Or perhaps you're a magical creature or a ghost. More importantly, where do your loyalties lie? Are you the Dark Lord or one of the Death Eaters? Perhaps you teach at Hogwarts or work at the ministry. Are you a member of the Order of Phoenix? Are you a student in Hogwarts? In which house did the Sorting Hat place you? Leave a comment with your character's name and canon and your preferences in the title line. Then put down a few ideas about your character in your top level. Both AU characters and canon characters are welcome. List of prompts: (Choose from these or make up your own.) 1. HOGWARTS Are you a teacher or a student? Which house are you in? What subjects do you teach? Next week might be the most important quidditch match of the year and you're the team captain! Maybe you're the potions professor and someone just blew up their cauldron. 2. AURORS Are you a trainee? The head Auror who has been dueling with dark wizards all your adult life? A dark wizard? Catch you if we can! Or maybe you're an auror breaking curses in a Death Eater safehouse. 3. DIAGON ALLEY A bustling locale filled to the brim with wizarding shops and taverns. Are you a business owner? Perhaps you're a wand maker or a student buying your books for the next year in Hogwarts. Maybe you just want to get a shot of firewhiskey in the Three Broomsticks. 4. MINISTRY OF MAGIC Do you work here? You could be in the Department of Mysteries, handling a new case about vanishing cabinets. Or maybe you work in the misuse of muggle artifacts office, dispelling singing teacups or flying cars. Is it a busy day, a slow week, or just another day in the office? Maybe you're one of the gossips who just heard of the newest bit of juicy gossip. 5. THE OLDEST AND PUREST BLOOD Were you born to a pureblood family? Perhaps you're an heir of great, questionable fortune. Maybe you'd like nothing to do with your family who supports the Dark Lord. What if you fell in love with someone your family doesn't approve of? Or maybe both of your parents are muggle born and this is still all new to you. 6. FLYING There are great many ways to fly: broomsticks, hippogriffs, dragons. Take your pick and soar through the skies! 7. DUELING/SPELL CASTING What's the fun in being a wizard if you can't cast spells? Are you good at something specific? Do you use silent spells a lot? Perhaps you're the best dueler with a wand that's been seen for ages. Or maybe you're just starting out, and a spell just backfired in your face. 8. ST. MUNGO'S HOSPITAL FOR MAGICAL MALADIES AND INJURIES Did your spell go haywire? Did you stick a satsuma up your nostril? It happens. Happily there's a hospital for your needs. Or maybe you work there, healing all those poor and silly wizards who turn up in desperate need of your care. 9. AZKABAN A fortress island in the middle of the Northern sea, full of the most dangerous dark wizards. Are you a resident, or visiting? Watch out for those dementors! 10. POTIONS You brewed the best pick-me-up potion but something went wrong? Maybe you ended up purple in the face. Or you gave a love potion to the wrong person. Maybe you mixed your hangover potion with magical viagra? It happens. But now you have to deal with it. 11. MAGICAL CREATURES Do you work with dragons? Perhaps you have some giant blood in you. Or maybe you were bit by a werewolf and your first full moon is nearing. Maybe you found an injured unicorn. Or your house has become infested with boggarts. 12. WILD CARD Come up your own scenario.

Comments

[midship]

On the pitch, Horatio notices everything. On tests and essays, he maps every minute detail out immaculately. Here, he barely notices the blip of silence betraying emotion.

Here, the obvious isn't quite filtering in, clearly.

"Just using a lot of soap, then?" His index finger scans quickly along the lines of his own notes, head still bowed. "Not that I'm complaining. It's nice."

[betteralready]

He can't help the quietly amused smile that touches his lips at the comment. He decides not to point it out-- better, likely, if Horatio grows into it in his own time.

"I'm glad y'think so." Which possibly isn't casual enough, "Since we've still got-- three years or so of living together ahead of us."

[midship]

That gets him glancing up again, a soft snort on his lips.

"'Or so,' Archie?" His amusement is entirely gentle, affectionate entirely in spite of himself. "Are you planning on skipping out early?"

[betteralready]

A quiet laugh.

"Not me. I'm more worried about you leaving us all behind in the dust."

[midship]

The furrow of his brow is entirely unconscious. It takes half a second longer to focus as he peers through the spiraling steam at his oldest friend.

It isn't necessary to be overly serious in a moment like this, but Horatio has never been all that good at sussing out when seriousness wasn't required.

"I wouldn't leave you."

[betteralready]

He'd meant it at a joke. It still warms his heart, though, to have Horatio reply as though it's serious. It earns a soft, fond smile on his face.

"What, not even if you got some-- incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before school ended?"

[midship]

That's a nice smile. It feels oddly private, despite the bustle around them.

"Like what, exactly?"

He'd already been taking it seriously. Why not continue to?

[betteralready]

An absent shrug. He's fretted about this, yes, but there's no need for Horatio to know just how much.

"I don't know. An offer from the Ministry or a-- professional team to start early, perhaps. Something exciting."

[midship]

He considers it. His gaze flits absently over the surface of the potion between them, mapping out the hypothetical the way he maps out everything in his life.

It takes longer than usual as his mind trips over the fact that, even if they both make it all the way through school, there's still an end date to the pleasant certainty of spending nearly every waking minute together.

"...no. No, I imagine I'd stay."

[betteralready]

"--Really?"

There's a touch of genuine, pleased surprise on his lips for the fact.

[midship]

"Really." Even if they'd let him take his tests early. That doesn't bear actually saying out loud, he suspects. "Would you leave? For something like that?"

He has to actually look up for that, not so much nervous as incredibly intent for a moment.

[betteralready]

A snort of amusement.

"Are we presupposing that that's even a-- possibility for me?"

[midship]

"Of course it is."

He doesn't have a huge amount of faith in himself. He doesn't see where his talents are truly beginning to blossom here at school.

But having faith in Archie? That's the most natural thing in the world.

[betteralready]

A huff of a laugh as he shakes his head affectionately.

"On the-- off chance that that ever were to happen," he replies, "No, I wouldn't. If they want me that badly they can wait until I've graduated."

[midship]

He lets his gaze linger a moment longer before nodding and returning his attention to his notes.

"Suppose we've got a few more years together, then."

A few more years to set his mind to the task of figuring out how not to be parted from the other young man.

[betteralready]

"Brilliant."

Maybe by then Horatio will realize he loves him back. Archie will try to work on it.

[midship]

It isn't the sort of thing that would occur to him organically, alas. It isn't the sort of thing that bubbles up to the front of his mind, even when working on a potion like this--even with the hormones of everyone around them clearly beginning to go haywire.

His attention is too reserved for getting pointers from their professor on the quality of the potion. His mind is too full of the various future paths still under examination.

They're alone in the fourth year's room when he lets his mind wander back in the right direction. "--really clinging to you, isn't it."

[betteralready]

His mind has moved on to other things by the time they get back to the rooms. It means he's glancing up with some confusion when the question is posed.

"--Huh?"

[midship]

"The Amortentia."

He's a clever young man. Clearly, this lack of fully-developed emotional intelligence is what kept him out of Ravenclaw.

"I can still practically taste it."

[betteralready]

He manages to keep his smile brief and his blush briefer.

"It-- is pretty strong, yeah. I'm still-- smelling it."

But there's a good reason for that, really.

[midship]

"It didn't spill on you, did it?"

Because the scent is definitely stronger when he leans in his friend's direction. There, under the recognizable soap and linen, he's nearly certain he's catching a whiff of mist and salt.

[betteralready]

"No, not that I-- noticed."

His gaze drops briefly to his robes, to check idly, but he already knows the answer. He already knows the reason the smell of the love potion lingers in the air, for him.

Although that does have him a hint worried that perhaps his hope about Horatio is misguided.

"Maybe on you?"

[midship]

"I don't think so." He shrugs out of his robe all the same, shoulders giving an unconscious shiver in his threadbare sweater as he examines the fabric carefully. "It doesn't-- look like it."

But there's something undeniably there, in the room.

[betteralready]

He tries very hard not to stare at the other young man when he shrugs out of the robe. He thinks he possibly manages to succeed.

Unfortunately, his attempts at being calm about the possibility of their mutual attraction isn't going so well.

"--Interesting, that we can still smell it, then."

[midship]

"You're sure you didn't?"

They stand close together, sometimes. He doesn't hesitate to step closer, brow furrowed in consideration.