Katherine Frances's Blog, page 226
June 4, 2016
"I’m not falling for you. My heart is fuel and yours is fire and with one kiss you turned it into a..."
- quietous
(via wnq-writers)
writing tip #1517:
every story that takes place in london is happening at the same time and that’s why the traffic is so bad
Kim Shimmers and the Black Prophecy
A Harry Potter Fanfic by me (and the 3rd installment of the Kim Shimmers series)
This Harry Potter fan fiction (as long as all goes according to plan) will be posted at the beginning of every week. The pictures above are not mine, though I edited some.
Sorry I haven’t been posting these lately, but I’m trying to get back into the weekly habit now that life is calming down!
Chapter 6
New and Exciting
The next day, Sunday, Kim along with Harry, Ron, and Hermione were recruited to clean the second floor bathroom. It had been locked off since the Order had been established, labeled as unusable due to the uncleanly state as well as the infestation of beardabillies, a small bug-like magical creature that reminded Kim of lice. They loved to find their way into human hair, only instead of feeding on human flesh, they would lay their eggs there. The eggs secrete a toxin potent enough to make a full grown wizard feel ill with flu-like symptoms until the eggs hatch and leave.
The group was first fortified with a charm that would deflect the beardabillies from latching into hair, and then they were armed with spray bottles to coat the bathroom. The bugs were barely large enough to see, so it was difficult to know if all the beardabillies had been killed. As a result, the four of them spent the entire day getting the bathroom spotless as to be 100 percent certain there were no remaining bugs. Normally Kim would have found such work to be grueling, but it made it quite easy to avoid Fred, and it also gave her time to catch up with her friends, both things she appreciated.
After dinner she wrote to her mother and borrowed an owl, telling her she wouldn’t be returning home the next day after all. Kim was sure this message would be met with outrage, but she didn’t much care. Dumbledore had asked her to stay put in this house, granted, for reasons Kim might not fully understand, but all the same. She intended to follow through with her orders.
Monday, at breakfast, Mr. Weasley came and sat down beside Kim.
“Now, it’s not very orthodox, but Dumbledore said he’s got work for you. And we’ve just got it all set up,” he said under his breath.
“Is this about the ministry and Sirius?”
He nodded. “Sirius and Tonks will walk you through it after breakfast.”
“Tonks?” Kim asked.
“Yeah,” responded a woman with vibrant purple hair and a leather jacket. She had just come through the door of the kitchen. “Oh, you must be the new girl. Shimmers, is it?”
Kim nodded as Mr. Weasley got up. “I’m off to work. Just go along with what they say,” he encouraged. Kim nodded at him. For all his encouragement, it only made whatever task she’d have to do seem more foreboding.
“Oh, and it’s probably best you keep it between us,” Tonks said, leaning in to speak very low as she glanced down the table to where Harry was eyeing them suspiciously. “The fewer who know, the safer.”
“Oh. Right,” Kim agreed, though she felt bad about it. She’d get no pleasure out of telling Harry whatever the secret was, not really. But when she thought of how angry he’d been about her being in the Order as he’d seemed to think she was, all this secrecy made her feel guilty. As soon as they had finished eating, Tonks was leading Kim up to the second floor. They went into a room Kim had yet to enter. The first thing Kim noticed was that the room was mostly in complete disarray, with a few pieces of furniture over turned, and otherwise very baron. The second thing she noticed was Buckbeak.
“What are you doing here!” she exclaimed excitedly, going to him and patting him on the neck. He nuzzled her forcefully, making her laugh. Once she’d given it a second of thought she supposed Buckbeak would have to be here, since Sirius was.
“I see you two’ve met- woops,” Tonks said, stumbling on an over turned chair.
“Yes, another happy reunion,” Sirius said from where he stood in the corner of the room, not managing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He pushed off the wall and approached them. “But I’d like to get this over with. If Molly finds out you’re involved with something like this she’ll have my ass on a plank next to Reched.”
Kim didn’t know who Reched was, though she could assume it was probably one of the dead house elves that had their heads mounted in the hall downstairs.
“Really not a pleasant image,” Kim muttered with a grimace. To her satisfaction, this made Sirius crack a smile. He then looked to Tonks.
“Let’s have at it then?” he said.
“Right. You got the terrain. I don’t know if I’d do it justice really.”
“I’ve been practicing,” he said grimly. Kim frowned at them both. She had no clue what they were talking about. Tokes waved her wand at the wall before them, and a roll of parchment that Kim hadn’t noticed before unfurled. It was a wide landscape painting with arching mountains in the background and distant snowy caps. There was a herd of cows grazing along the nearest slope and extraordinarily realistic clouds rolled lazily in the sky.
Meanwhile, Sirius was muttering and pointing his wand at the ground, frowning deeply. Building up from the floorboards was first layers of what Kim thought must be dirt, and then little sprouts of grass. Soon there was what appeared to be a full set before her, with the side of a mountain cut out and placed in the room, and the backdrop of the rest of the mountainside placed behind it. Tonks then flicked her wand at the ceiling, making a black veil unfurl to block off the rest of the room. Now all that was visible before Kim was the make-shift set.
“What is all this?” she asked in wonderment.
“Tibet,” Sirius said blankly.
“Or what the Ministry will think is Tibet,” Tonks added. Kim raised a brow, still not understanding. “Here’s the plan. You are going to watch Sirius walk across this landscape. Sitting at the right angle, it’ll look fully real.” Kim could believe that. It already did look fully real, if she didn’t know otherwise. “Then, when the Department of Mysteries asks you about your visions, you’ll describe this one, telling them that you saw who you think might be Sirius Black, the deranged killer. Then they will want to see the vision. You can pull this memory from your mind, careful to only pull out the sections with Sirius walking up the hill, not catching any bits before and after. That part is very important.” Kim nodded in understanding. “They’ll see it, believe it’s real, and report to the Auror’s Office what you saw, corroborating other false leads we’ve given.”
“Hu… Good plan. But how are they going to know this is Tibet just by looking at it?” Kim asked, looking at the fairly nondescript hillside and grazing cows. One of them looked up at her and flicked its ears, as if indignantly.
“Well, we were hoping you could fill in the blanks,” Sirius said, coming back into the veiled off area. He’d stepped out while Tonks had been talking and now had a very distressed and full looking backpack slung over his shoulder. “Is there any way you can hint to them this is Tibet? Or in the region?”
“Hmm… not usually. I sometimes get feelings with visions, but I don’t know how I would know this was a certain place… Ah! I’ve got it! Normally my visions are through the eyes of a person or animal. Sometimes I get feelings or ideas from the person I see the vision through. I can tell them that the person I saw the vision through was thinking about… running back to a city in Tibet? Their home? They could believe that, I think.”
Sirius looked at Tonks and tilted his head to the side.
“That could work,” Tonks said.
“We’ll get you the city name. For now, let’s just do this,” Sirius said, heaving the backpack to shift the weight and coming to stand on the side of the mountain. Kim leaned down onto her knees, positioning herself at the best angle so the scene looked real. She focused strait ahead, making it difficult to see the black veil on either side of her vision. It was barely in her peripheral at all. Sirius walked, looking lost and forlorn, or perhaps just bored, across the scene.
“Got it?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Well, with any luck, Dumbledore will review it before the Ministry get’s to you.”
“Merlin’s pants, don’t make it sound so intimidating,” Tonks said, magicing away the veil.
"Your intuition knows what to write. So get out of the way."
- Ray Bradbury (via journaling-junkie)
