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]

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.

[betteralready]

"Quite."

But he'll tug off his own robes a little carefully, trying not to hit Horatio when he steps forward.

"--See? Nothing there."

[midship]

It's oddly strong when they stand this close together. It's also oddly familiar, now that it's in context.

"Nothing."

There's nothing out of the ordinary. There's simply the same subtle scent in the air that usually lingers in the room when they're both in it.

"That's-- odd, isn't it."

[betteralready]

"A bit, I suppose."

Not for him, really. But he doesn't say as much, just yet.

[midship]

"A bit."

He can't quite cross the bridge. He can't put the comfortable warmth that keeps him stuck so close to his housemate into the right words to understand what it means.

"I do like the soap, by the way."

[betteralready]

"So you've said."

And there's utter fondness in his voice as he says it.

"Yours isn't-- so bad either."

Is that odd to say? Maybe not. Hopefully not.

[midship]

It's a normal enough thing to say. It brings a faint flush to his cheeks all the same; a sudden awareness that he can feel heat radiating off Archie when they stand this close together.

Stepping back is a jerky, awkward thing. The moment is largely shoved down deep in the recesses of his mind without examination.

"We'll be late for dinner."

[betteralready]

"Don't forget to put your robe back on."

He manages to hold is tongue from making any comments about rumors of makeouts, largely by focusing on slipping back on his own robe again.

It's still a rather near thing.

[midship]

There's something nervous about the way he fumbles back into his robes, cheeks still faintly pink without knowing why.

He hates feeling awkward around Archie. He hates not being able to unburden his thoughts at least in part to his dearest friend.

So he lets himself ignore the sensation. He focuses forward, as he always does, until the lingering confusion fades away. It only bubbles up again when he's home again and realizes he's missing something he's starting to have a name for.

[betteralready]

Archie misses him more, now that he knows for sure what he's feeling. Now that he suspects the same is of Horatio. It means that almost as soon as they're separated, he's sending a letter his best friend's way.

He'll keep writing him until they're together again; somehow, he'll manage not to be too obvious about his crush.

(Which isn't to say he isn't hinting. He can let Horatio grow into it while still laying the groundwork, right?)

[midship]

It's a little easier in writing. It always has been.

His own words come so much more eloquently when he can stop and think every few seconds. More than that, Archie's words can be properly dissected and sorted through. The subtle implications he's beginning to see peppered into their letters leave a whole new world of possibilities at his fingertips.

The letters have just the faintest hint of the scent he still remembered from the dark dungeon classroom.

His own letters get a little scant. His nerves need time to be steeled before they see each other face to face again.

[betteralready]

It worries him, just a little, when the letters don't come as frequently. He manages not to panic too much; manages to keep his own letters fairly bright.

It doesn't stop the nervous fidget in him, the next time he's waiting for Horatio at 9 3/4ths.

[midship]

He catches sight of Archie's hair from a distance. He's never noticed before how instantly he knows the colour of his friend's hair, the slope of his friend's shoulders. He's also never noticed before the happy tightness in his chest when he recognizes the other young man in the crowd.

He's also never noticed that he can actually catch a whiff of the now underlined scent when he gets close enough.

"--Kennedy."

He's not entirely sure what it means that he's noticing now. He doesn't quite mind the uncertainty.

[betteralready]

He knows Horatio's voice. He knows, apparently, the way Horatio smells. It has him smiling (just a touch nervously, for the last name) when he turns to face him.

"Hornblower," he greets, "How were your holidays?"

[midship]

"Not so bad."

Apparently, he also knows the shades of Archie's smile. He practically feels the flash of nerves. It's oddly comforting, given the flutter in his own stomach.

"Shall we?"