blamebrampton: 15th century woodcut of a hound (Default)
blamebrampton ([personal profile] blamebrampton) wrote2008-06-22 01:45 pm
Entry tags:

Serpentinelion drabble mini-fest

I think this is probably the first short short story I have written since I was about ten ... For [community profile] serpentinelion's mini-fest, and do check out other entries from pushdragon, sansa1970, lillithium, liriaen, potteresque_ire and rickey_a. They are all brilliant!




Title:
Decline and Fall
Author: blamebrampton
Rating: Soft R
Words: 500
Summary: The inside of her head was not where they ought to be.
A/N: Thanks [community profile] legomymalfoy, and [personal profile] pushdragon and the fiendfyre girls for the idea, encouragement and help.
Warnings: Ginny POV.



“Where is it this time?”

“Rome, but I’m not going.”

Harry kissed the top of Ginny’s head as he walked past her chair. “It’s too much fuss.”

“But all the others will be there.”

“S’pose. I’m off to shower. Coming to bed?”

“In a minute.”

Ginny watched him walk away. She glanced back down at the table, where the Prophet’s front page was dominated by news of the upcoming conference. Hermione smiled shyly out of a photograph. Behind her Draco Malfoy walked purposefully across the frame. He glanced towards the camera, august and imperial, then stalked away. She watched it three times.

She turned the paper over, and walked to their bedroom, where the rest of this conversation always happened.

The first line was hers. “Are you sure?”

Harry’s damp head poked out of the bathroom. “Sure of what?”

“Missing the Senate, it’s a chance to network.”

Look down from the Palantine hill for him.

“You know I don’t care about that.”

There was the smile, and those honest eyes. He tucked his towel around his hips as she slid past him, reaching for her toothbrush.

“But you can talk to other Aurors about your reforms.”

Walk down narrow streets, following a fair head.

“Kingsley can do it.”

“Harry, you know you’re the one they want to meet.”

Meet with that other in an ancient hotel.

“That’s just fame.”

“It’s your triumph.”

Over her, over him.

She put her toothbrush down and smiled at him in the mirror.

“You want to, admit it.”

“I want to stay here, with you.” He stood close behind her and nuzzled her hair.

She only knew about the once. Before he had come to find her, in the weeks after the war ended. When everything was insane. When people turned to each other blindly. Neville had let it slip over too much drink, a secret so incomprehensible it couldn’t be kept.

“You should go.”

There were many times she didn’t know about, could not be sure of. Every time she let him leave, she imagined him wrapped around that pale, straight form.

“You should come to bed.” He dropped the towel, and she felt his cock begin to rouse, nudging her from behind as his hands slipped the sundress from her shoulders.

She went. And while he murmured gentle words and made soft movements, she pictured him hard and desperate, bruising cool whiteness beneath hands he never let be strong with her. Saying cruel things, and being loathed in return. An eternal contest, dictated by need. Not the peaceful concord of their home.

The pictures in her mind played their part. She pulled him tight, and wondered if he would notice if she tilted her hips too far, moved him to that place strange for her, perhaps familiar to him.

And tomorrow, when he would go, but with her scent on him, she wondered if the other would know it. And whether she would haunt his bed as surely as he haunted hers.
ext_14590: (Veela Draco)

[identity profile] meredyth-13.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 11:06 am (UTC)(link)
Definitely thin and soprano... when it stays in the one register. What she lacks in actual musical ability I like to think she makes up for with sheer volume.

Well, you did dare me. :P

Your laugh is spontaneous and natural and like a good class of champagne. ;)

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 11:39 am (UTC)(link)
Mammoth comment has now been turned into email!

[identity profile] libby-drew.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 12:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Still love it. ;) The part you added -- where I'd had a question before -- is perfect. Now I feel her desperation and bitter arousal. A wonderful contribution to the fest.

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 12:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks, dear. And also, penis.

[identity profile] libby-drew.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 12:40 pm (UTC)(link)
It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Admit it, you're addicted.

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 12:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh now you sound like my mother ... ("Darling, are you sure? I know plenty of lovely girls if you can wean yourself off cock.")

[identity profile] libby-drew.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 12:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, but did she announce it over dinner with a dozen of her friends in attendance? "I never doubted Sharon would marry a man, despite how she's 'straddled the fence' in the past. She's way too fond of cock."





[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 01:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I love your mother.

She must never be allowed to meet mine, they would take over the world and then worry that we weren't getting enough sleep.
potteresque_ire: (Default)

[personal profile] potteresque_ire 2008-06-22 03:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, this is perfect! Razor sharp at 500 words, and the interplay between Harry and Draco are so real, and so haunting - they show how complex the human psyche can be, how can twist and ensare what it desires without betraying a single clue. And I also love that you place in the issue with cheating and / or past relationship ... few people are truly able to let go; if it has happened once, then it will forever be suspected.

This... and the other piece I've read of yours recently... I am completely floored with the way you capture the way our mind works. *fangirls*

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you so much, though there is a certain irony in that last statement since mine seems to act more like sago pudding most days ... but well-intentioned sago pudding with nice spheres of sago, not the gloopy sort they served at school.
potteresque_ire: (Default)

[personal profile] potteresque_ire 2008-06-22 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Mmmmmm. Sago pudding. If sago implants can have such effect on writing, I want my sagoed brain too! I wonder whether any plastic surgeons would do an injection of SaPud

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 03:29 pm (UTC)(link)
I think it's better for eating. As a brain it often leads to moments of "have you seen my sunglasses?" "Yes, on your head."

[identity profile] vaysh11.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 03:45 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow! This is a hard scenario to pull off (would be for me, anyways) but you do it so well. I love how you interweave Ginny's suspicions, half-knowledge, her subtle temptations, her fantasising about the possible nature of a sexual relationship between Harry and Draco. And of course - that dream of Imperial Rome. I love how you use the imagery of white aristocratic marble to emphasise the difference between the two worlds that Ginny, and Draco represent for Harry (in this Ginny's mind at least).

[identity profile] romaine24.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 04:02 pm (UTC)(link)
I think you captured the side of 'wondering if your partner is having an affair or not' very well. Painfully well (but a good kind of pain *g*).

The wanting to leave a scent and mark him in some way letting the other know that she was still part of the picture was perfect.

[identity profile] beatnikspinster.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
This was haunting. I feel her pain as she destroys her own relationship. Very human rendering of Ginny and her faults. *applauds you*

Harry is sexy here. Towel. Removing towel. No more towel. Just stiffee, stiffee, stiffee!!!! *pant*

[identity profile] mahaliem.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)
This was a lovely piece of writing. Ginny's knowing and suspecting more, of imagining Harry and Draco together, was exquisitely painful.

[identity profile] jadzialove.livejournal.com 2008-06-22 07:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I just read this again, while more awake. I've decided that I feel very sorry for Ginny. Because either way she's sort of screwed, isn't she?

Even if Harry isn't having it off with Draco on the sly, she's created this sort of horrible mental cage for herself.

Nicely done in so few words.

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
Excellent, my nefarious plan of making people care for the Weaselette's mental health is working! Next stop, peace in Zimbabwe!

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 02:54 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you very much; compliments from you are treasures, as you know how much I admire your writing!

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
I love how you read everything so perfectly!! Thank you so much for your kind words, and I have no doubt that you could pull of any scenario you set your mind to.

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:06 am (UTC)(link)
I'm not even sure if he is, so it was easy to be uncertain. Poor old Ginny; I have to be nice to her in the next thing I write, she's had a rough trot lately!

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:08 am (UTC)(link)
Thank you, and also: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! yes, because this whole fic is really just an excuse to use the word cock to describe a penis. (No, really, Calanthe and Sansa were beginning to mock me.)

[identity profile] beatnikspinster.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:22 am (UTC)(link)
Haha! Everyone has their own preferences. Slang terms for sexual organs is a very personal exploration that every person must make at their own pace.

For me, "cock" sounds better than "penis". It's the EE with the SS sounds. Used together, they sound whiny/whinge-y. Cock is lovely, just enough gutteral to imitate sexual verbalizations. Stiffee and wood are funny and playful. Dick is not my favorite. It's the term boys use before they get sexy. Penis is better than dick. Still a bit clinical to me. Cock rules. *pumps fist in air like idiot*

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2008-06-23 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
Cock rules. *pumps fist in air like idiot*

I see T-shirts are in order for Christmas gifts ...

I have to admit that I love the word, it just seems only to be used in colloquialisms in my fic. It's definitely better than man meat and love truncheon, too.
who_la_hoop: (Default)

[personal profile] who_la_hoop 2008-06-23 01:17 pm (UTC)(link)
Poor Ginny! She'll drive herself mad thinking like that. I bet Harry isn't cheating on her.

(Waugh's Decline and Fall, by the by, often wars with Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm for the dubious honour of being crowned My Favourite Book Ever. I love it so so much.)

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