lobelia321: (draco)
[personal profile] lobelia321
Are these the after-effects of having seen an episode of 'The Office' at lunchtime??



And when the day is done, it's done.

And then comes the night. The night is always long, too long, longer than the earth takes to turn on its axis just once, longer than death.

The only way to get through the night is the screaming, dreaming banshee lady. Oh yeah. She's good. Draco spends all afternoon priming her. He's set up a bench at the back of the room, under the attic window, where he has to stand hunchbacked or else he will bang his head on the sloped ceiling. His fingers move as if sleepwalking, he is so used to doing this by now. Parcelling out the portions, then chopping the herbs, fine, so fine, the finer the better, she likes it fine. Then the root of Ebenezer which takes ages to boil down into a papery pulp, and stinks, too.

At this point, Draco opens the attic window and lets the thin strand of purple-sick fume twirl through the dusk.

Into the alembic it all goes. It's necessary to hover at this stage, like a loving chef, and to calibrate the flame just so, to stir when a skin forms, to douse when bubbles simmer.

By the time the sun has fully set, Draco has three glass vials full, one for every watch. He sets them into their wooden stands to cool. He peers at the opalescent demon at the centre of each concoction.

Oh, what a drug is the bansh. None like it.

By April, though, Draco has run out of ingredients. He has no licence to buy any straight, and he has no money to buy any the crooked way.

He can stand it for precisely two and a half nights. At three in the morning, he lets himself fall out of his bed. The things on the floor dig into his back. Something is screaming in a bored monotone -- a dying swan? a Muggle traption? the turkey torment of his brainstems?

No, it's something else.

He really is awake now. Fully. He swivels his eyes back and forth.

It's coming from the flat beneath him. The Muggle flat.

And it's not screaming. It's whining. High-pitched whining.

Draco turns his head until his left ear is pressed to a bit of uncluttered floorboard.

It's the sound of someone having an orgasm.

It's a man's sound.

Stars burst into shape, just above Draco's raised right ear.

Then there's another sound, another voice, a deeper voice, a groaning voice, a duet of voices.

How long has Draco lived in this forsaken attic? Eight months? Fourteen months? Two years and a half? Time is so viscous these days, it's hard to tell, but how come he's never heard these voices before?

Stars are all around now. They flit like insects.

When Draco has his own sad orgasm, they all turn purple. Like banshee smoke.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 12:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yellow-oranges.livejournal.com
Wow creepy. Yet Draco was completely identifiable. I mean...er....yes. he was.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 12:57 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Snippets are odd because they're slice of something larger. Thanks for reading it! Maybe one day I can reward you with the finished opus... *crosses fingers*

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 12:27 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] piran.livejournal.com
wow. even though i have no idea what's going on in the hp-fandom (as you know) - i find this really interesting and i'm anxious to read how the story continues. also: is this the first snippet you posted or did i miss some? *is hooked*

keep writing! <3

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 12:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I posted a snippet some months ago, before I fell into writer's block hole, but it was quite violent and a lot of readers were put off. So I decided to private-lock it for now. This one I just typed straight into the LJ box, for writer's block therapy. Thanks for reading it and commenting! I like it if non-HP fans read, because, deep down, I, too, am a non-HP fan.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 01:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ios-pillow-book.livejournal.com
I don't read HP fic. It was bad enough having to read the originals. But out of curiosity I clicked and oooooooooooh! Magnificient, dark and entrancing.

Stars are all around now. They flit like insects.

When Draco has his own sad orgasm, they all turn purple. Like banshee smoke.


I could eat that up with a spoon.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-03 01:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
I love you! How can a little snippet, typed straight into LJ, bring so much joy? Maybe the opus has now stewed in my head for such a long time, that when it finally sees the light of a keyboard, it can just sort of germinate. And from a non-HP lover, too -- because actually, deep down (or not even that deep down) I am myself a non-HP lover.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-04 10:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] childeproof.livejournal.com
turkey torment of his brainstems?

I love that.

Not sure I see the Office connection, though, or only that your Draco is a certain M. Crook?

Wizard drug addicts are cool.

*hides the above comment from the young and impressionable, but really, alembics and Root of Ebenezer much more aesthetically pleasing than trackmarks, call me superficial - or does he inject?*

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-04 11:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
You love the brainstems? That strange wizarding anatomy just popped into my own brainstem as I was typing...

The Office connection is Mackenzie Crook! I watched that episode picturing Draco all the way! Oh, Mackenzie and those cherub-like lips!!!! And those fingers ...as he was sitting at his desk and doing things to staplers, I kept imagining those fingers chopping herbs!

What's a trackmark?

Hm, no, he doesn't inject. I hadn't pictured him injecting. I was thinking more that this is smoked via one of those Oriental hookah things, a la caterpillar in Wonderland. I'm glad you reminded me! This has to crop up earlier in the opus! (Snippet is from about 1/4 of the way in.)

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-04 12:19 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] childeproof.livejournal.com
Trackmarks as in the marks on skin where someone's been injecting themselves because they're on heroin, or, as in the cse of my sweet, blameless father, insulin.

But the hookah is a much better idea.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-02-04 12:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lobelia321.livejournal.com
Trackmarks. Right.

You see, this is why I must only ever be allowed to write about drug addicts who're wizards. Because my life is clearly too sheltered ever to manage anything vaguely convincing in non-AU.

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Lobelia the adverbially eclectic

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