Go to tabaqui's journal and catch up on The Song Of The Treadmill. It continually breaks my heart and makes me laugh, often within the same paragraph. An emotional roller coaster? You bet, but a subtle one. You don't even realize you've how intense the ride is till it's over, and you're going back for a second read, because no way one story could jangle up your inner landscape so mightily.

I'm still trying to comment on five and six, but all I wind up doing is rereading them, giggling and weeping.

I'm ragingly unstable.


Meh . . . some ramble:

The fire_fic fic is coming along--well, not nicely. But along. It's one of those things you start, expecting it to be a certain, non-insane length. It's like expecting something Salinger-length, and getting Chaucer-length, instead. But maybe I'm just lazy.

The dentist messed up one of my bottom fillings. Any liquid that isn't 98.6 degrees exactly makes the right side of my face ache. My mother said there's probably an air pocket under the filling, that it might not have been pressed in properly and a nerve is exposed, or something. All I know is, Dr Demento, DDS, fucked up, since the top right filling hasn't hurt since Monday, and the bottom one hasn't really stopped hurting. Seems to be getting worse.

If that air pocket thing is true, that means they'd have to drill the filling out.

I see now why people hate dentists. Not so much all the pain, but that when they do fuck up, they cause even more pain, and quite unnecessarily. She'd damn well better fix this, and for free, or I'm calling the BBB. If I wanted to put useless, painful holes in my teeth, I could've done it myself for a hell of a lot cheaper.

Got invited to a party, probably not gonna go. My head aches constantly--not horribly, but still--from my tooth and me not wearing my glasses as often as I should. Astonishing that someone would make a point of inviting me to a party I wouldn't have known about, anyway, if they hadn't told me. I can be funny and charming when I put my mind to it, but I haven't really bothered to in a long time.

But I intimated that I'd go. I'm not much of a promise-keeper, but I feel I should make the effort. Not like there's anything else to do in this town. Not going would do nothing but help alienate one of the few interesting people I've met since moving here.

I've started playing online chess at work. I'm even worse at chess than I am at poker. I've currently got three games going--and all waiting for me to make the next move. These games have a maximum of three days to make your move. I think I should've chosen a faster format. I lost interest five moves in. I'm not known for either my long attention span or my ability to think five and six moves ahead. As in real life, losing always comes as an unpleasant shock when I should have spotted it right off the bat.

One of my favorite supervisors is no longer employed at my workplace. Which sucks, since he had unparalleled knowledge of procedure and even the machines we sell parts for. Plus, he was a Star Trek geek, like me.

=/

I hope he finds a better job. He deserves it.

Why does being--somewhat--an adult entail so much fucking lethargy? If I'd known I'd be this bored and listless, that the highlight of my RL would be a vague and passing excitement over online chess, I'd have topped myself at eleven. All I ever want to do anymore is read and sleep. Especially the latter.

Speaking of the former, "Motel Life" by Willy Vlautin? Good book. It's being compared to "Of Mice and Men", and I guess the plain-spoken style of the prose is kinda OMaM-ish. . . but OMaM was a godawful read. "Motel Life" is grimy and tragic and addictive. It's two brothers living on the skids, too defeated to try and claw their way out because every time they try, life kicks them in the face and sends them back into the shitter.

Powerful, hurty stuff.

And this . . . just wanted to be written. I obliged.


Proactive Measures
Author: _beetle_
Pairing: Draco,Harry. Implied slash pairing.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Eeek! Copyright laws!
Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: A vignette-y little thing in the Prisoner!verse. Set two years after the "The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter".
Summary: The myriad indignities heaped upon a professor of potions.



"Miss Weasley. Mister Wood. If you're quite done flirting. . . ."


One flat gray glare from Draco and the two third years stop their whispering. The Weasley girl--her mother's beauty, but her father's awful fiery tangle--colors, but the Wood boy scowls back, every inch the maligned Gryffindor.


To be far more fair than the lout deserves, he's learned not to splutter whenever Draco takes points, merely do as he's told with that perfectly murderous scowl on his face.


But insubordination is insubordination, silent or not. "Ten points from Gryffindor, Mr. Wood, for not courting Veelas on your own time, and thus causing me to waste mine. Now." Draco shifts his glare to include class at large. "Turn to page 167 of your textbooks. When you've completed the chapter, do feel free to start on your revision work for the weekend: twenty inches on the effects of pulped, versus dried and ground dittany in one of the three potions covered in today's reading."


Draco glances meaningfully around the room. The groans are practically silent--no one, not even Wood is stupid enough to risk his temper the day before a Hogsmeade weekend--and he's in a fair enough mood, so he chooses to let the insolence slide.


Or was in a fair mood until the door to the classroom opens quietly and a dark, bespectacled head pokes in for a moment.


Frowning, Draco nods. When the head disappears back around the door--leaving it open, because Potter was born in a barn--looks around at the class. "Not a single word. I will return momentarily."


He strides to the back of the room, out the door, sweeping it firmly shut behind him and continuing down the corridor past the constant thorn in his side.


He can feel Potter at his heels, amused glances tickling him like butterflies brushing the nape of his neck.


"Professor Potter." He stops suddenly, but Potter doesn't so much as bump into him. Draco turns to face his erstwhile master and wonders if he's becoming predictable, or if Potter's just gotten complacent. Either is unacceptable. "How may I help you?"


Pointed, pointedly pained politeness because if there's one thing Draco can't abide, it's being interrupted during class.


Though Potter's eyes are gleaming with repressed laughter, his voice is steady enough. "Just wanted to let you know I've taken Hephzibah and Koriolanis Flint to see Poppy. Again."


"Merlin. Of all the days for that rotund reprobate to have taken his ridiculous little Slug Club on a field-trip--" not that Slughorn could or would have handled this. The first through third Slytherins are officially Draco's to teach and tend to. He is their head of House in all but name. Which makes the matter of the Feuding Flints well within his purview.


Draco catches himself before pinching the bridge of his nose. The gesture is far too plebeian, and does nothing to prevent imminent headaches. "What did the idiots hex each other with, this time?"


Potter's lips twitch. "You'll be delighted to know Kori is covered in purple boils and Hephzibah is belching up slugs."


"Is it too much to ask that you keep better control of that free-for-all you call a class, Professor?" Draco glares down his nose at Potter, who's still fighting laughter, his dark eyebrows writhing like agitated caterpillars.


"Those two were hexing each other in the womb, Professor Malfoy. I could no more stop them doing so than I could stop a runaway train!"


Draco eyes Potter's overdone attempt at innocent befuddlement quellingly. "You and I both know you could very well stop a runaway train, you--Potter. Why basic control over two unimaginative second years continues to elude you and the rest of the faculty remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma."


Now Potter laughs, loud and genuine. "I figured I'd inform you and Filius straight off, see if you two wanted to coordinate your detentions with mine."


"I hardly need your help straightening out young Miss Flint. Though Filius might need some assistance, considering how often young Mister Flint misbehaves."


Those caterpillars inch closer together, and that blasted smile on Potter's square ruddy face loses some ground. "Malfoy, even you can't be blind to the fact that Hephzibah is more often than not the instigator of these hexings."


Draco crosses his arms. "Really, Potter, Miss Flint is as savvy as she is subtle, which is to say not at all. Her father's child, in that respect. She's a common bully, one that her brother can and has deftly placated in the past, from what I've heard. If he's chosen to stop doing so, well, he's at least as much at fault."


"She goes out of her way goad him into wizards' duels!"


"Ever the voice of impartiality, eh, Potter?"


"Malfoy--"


"Surely any Ravenclaw worth his salt shouldn't be so easily provoked by that beastly girl. However--" Draco cuts Potter off before he can protest. "I can assure you, I'll take steps to make sure this nonsense doesn't continue. At least on Slytherin's end. I suppose it's too much to hope Professor Flitwick's response was the same. . . ?"


"I haven't spoken with him, yet. I thought I should see you first, as you'll be having more of a time with Hephzibah than Filius will with Kori." The fading grin has relaxed in to something wry, that invites the sort of easy comradeship Potter seems to have with the rest of the faculty. "Though they're both hot-tempered, you and I know that she got the serpents share of that infamous Flint aggression."


"Spare me Gryffindor insights into the Slytherin character." Draco waves his hand impatiently. "If Flitwick can keep a rein on that boy for the next few days, I foresee no future problems."


From the beginning of his probation, time and circumstance have forced him to develop a public mask, of sorts. One that he--fervently, but not quite consciously--is grateful has turned his students' fear of Draco Malfoy, merciless-taker-of-innocent-lives, to fear of Professor Malfoy, merciless-taker-of-House-points.


Nearly two years into this farcical redemption Draco's masks, new and old alike, are once again flawless. His own House, at least, fears the man he tries to be now, not the man he was and fears he still is.


In any case, a little judicious application of what would Snape do? and Miss Flint will be stepping smartly into line.


"Say, Malfoy, speaking of this weekend," Potter says, about as horrible a segue as Draco's ever heard. "Does Slughorn have you gofering for him again?"


"I'd hardly call procuring the ingredients for the next six classes gofering, Potter." No, he might not call it that, but that doesn't mean it isn't, damn Slughorn.


"Hmm." The caterpillars draw in again. "Who's your chaperone?"


Draco produces a thin smile at Potter's well-meaning little euphemism for 'armed minder'. "Auror Langley will be my escort for the day."


"Ah." Potter bites a lower lip that's chapped and indented with teeth marks, seemingly at a loss for words. "Well. I mean. If you'd like, that is, I could take you, instead. I'm a lot more likely to swing through Knockturn Alley on the way back, than Langley."


At Draco's narrowed eyes, Potter laughs a little. "Malfoy, you're apprenticed to a potions master. What are the odds you wouldn't, on occasion, need to go to Knockturn Alley for a supply run?"


Draco starts to run a hand over his hair, but nips that impulse in the bud, as well. "Shouldn't you have better things to do with your Saturday than chauffeur about a convicted murderer? The bloom is finally off the rose, is it? Creevey's clearly not as jealous of your time as he used to be." He tsks rather pitilessly, though the question shouldn't have been asked at all. Aside from the fact that Draco already knows why Potter won't be spending his Saturday with Creevey--when it comes to Potter's life, Draco shouldn't and doesn't give a Dementor's damn for any of the gory details.


Except when it comes to the plain, plain-spoken man who's made it very clear, on more than one occasion, that he considers himself Potter's . . . heart and soul.


Two years, and Draco has yet to outgrow this ridiculous and inexplicable fascination with Dennis Creevey. Has shown no sign of ever doing so.


Then again, neither has Potter, possibly to his own detriment. There's a flicker of something like pain, like worry always lingering in the normally opaque gaze. At any mention of Creevey, it intensifies, darkening the green of his eyes.


"Dennis is going to spend the day at St. Mungo's again, visiting Colin, and. . . ." Potter trails off quietly, then clears his throat, visibly switching gears. "Anyways, aside from supervising the Flints' detention tonight, I'm free all weekend, if you'd also like to get back to practicing your legilimency a bit. I know our last session ended on an . . . awkward note. But if nothing else, it outlined how much you're improving."


Yes, that's not all it outlined. Draco snorts. Leave it to Potter to put the best, most inane spin on even that disastrous evening. Three months, and neither of them have either alluded to even the existence of legilimency in the two dozen autonomic lessons since, focusing instead on fine-tuning locomotive charms.


Potter's smile turns a touch strained, and Draco wonders if three months is enough time for him to have put his more private thoughts and memories away where Draco's fledgling legilimency can't get at them.


Well, whether he has or hasn't isn't Draco's concern, is it? He's Potter's apprentice, not his bloody friend, or father-confessor. Isn't Potter's nursemaid or his paramour (certainly not that last, else he'd be spending all his free time at St Mungo's, chaffing the non-responsive hand of a repeatedly Obliviated brother . . . at the cost of his personal and professional life).


But left to brood and sulk on his own all day Saturday, Merlin only knows what Draco will inadvertently see in Potter's head during their next session. He shudders. "I'll leave working out the details with our beloved Ministry to you. I'll be at the Apparition point at 9am sharp."


Potter groans. "The Ministry, right. Apparition point, 9am. And legilimency practice after dinner tomorrow?" Draco nods once, grudgingly, and that silly grin flashes out like a lumos. "Brilliant. And thank you for taking such proactive measures in the Flint matter, Professor Malfoy."


Draco sniffs and turns back toward his class as Potter does the same. "Don't be fatuous, Professor Potter."


When he flings open the door of the potions classroom, quiet whispers and titters cut off suddenly. He smirks, already tabulating how many points Gryffindor will lose for chattering in his absence.

*


This 'verse marches on in Heavy Words, And Lightly Thrown