Home | Members | Help | Submission Rules | Log In |
Recently Added | Categories | Titles | Completed Fics | Random Fic | Search | Top Fictions
Challenge fics > Potter Place Challenges

Back in Black by ubiquirk [Reviews - 19]

>>

Would you like to submit a review?

Potter Place Prompt: The Dark Lord has fallen, but the Ministry of Magic runs Britain like a Stalinistic country. Freedoms are taken; people are killed. Hermione, the last of the trio, joins a resistance group … by accident. Who should she find but …

Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.

This story has won multiple awards (thanks everyone!). They can be seen on this page: http://ubiquirk.livejournal.com/124883.html

Thanks go to my beta, Southern Witch 69.





Pale-Pink #1

April 1st, 2:37 pm


“Oh, bugger,” I murmur under my breath as the Seriously Serious Siren wails.

If hot pink made a sound, it would be this – an irritatingly high-pitched squeal that permeates every crevice, leaving ears ringing and mind numb.

The obnoxious, and obnoxiously loud, noise cuts off to be replaced by the Announcement Witch’s sickeningly-sweet voice. “This is a Serious Warning. All citizens are to remain where you are. Anti-Apparition Charms have been raised over the entire of London. Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to Apparate, as splinching is guaranteed.” She clears her throat, and the amplified Sonorous Charm sends a deafening “hem, hem” crashing over all of magical London, quickly followed once more by the siren.

A flurry of pastel-clad bodies rushes past in every direction – no one wants to be caught on Knockturn Alley during a Ministry crackdown. A tall man in a light-green cloak almost knocks me over when he hits my left shoulder from behind, sending me spinning. He doesn’t even turn his head to see if I remained upright instead of being trampled.

Another person, a sweet-looking old lady in Pink #2, elbows me hard in the ribs, her Proper Smile never lapsing all the while.

A small child screams while struggling in its mother’s arms as she pushes past me on the right – a swirling mass of Pale Pink #1 able to mimic the Seriously Serious Siren’s pitch effortlessly.

Everyone’s face is frozen into a rictus of the Proper Smile – lips drawn back maniacally in fear.

Calm, calm, calm, Granger. Keep Smiling – you don’t want to be picked up for Mis-Behavior. You can do this.

I fight my way across the pavement to take shelter in a doorway. Dinger’s Dinnerware, the door reads. Dinger himself appears in the window and starts yelling, “Shoo, shoo,” while emphatically gesturing me away. He looks as though he would be someone’s dear grandfather if it weren’t for the fact that his face is distorted by rage thinly covering fear – his Proper Smile twisted into a death’s head grimace.

As soon as the crowd thins a bit, I’m able to take a better look around to see what options there are for a hiding place. Strangely, yet fortunately, there don’t appear to be any Watch Witch poster-portraits in the vicinity. Every other part of magical London is covered with the things – all showing the Proper Witch – she’s pretty, she’s blond, and she’s wearing nothing but pink – and not just pink, but pink with lace, ruffles, and flowers on every available surface.

And she Watches constantly, only turning away briefly to report to someone just out of frame every few minutes or so. Even then, her Proper Smile never wavers by a millimeter.

Even without a Watch Witch poster around, I still feel anxious. I really don’t want to be caught with the powdered asphodel I have hidden in an inner pocket. Contraceptive Potion ingredients are a life sentence. On the other hand, I’m reluctant to Evanesco it out of existence – it’s taken three months to arrange today’s purchase.

I’ll do anything to be able to make that potion.

Yet none of the shops will let me in – like Dinger, they’re too scared of the possibility of being arrested for such. I’m at a loss until, in a dark side alley across the way, a small yellow sign with black lettering seems to wink into existence. Libre Libri. A book shop? Public records?

How did I never notice it before?

The shopkeeper behind me taps the glass, and I turn to see him brandishing his now-to-hand wand. “Off with you – shoo!” he yells.

I give him a sarcastic little wave complete with saccharine-sweet Smile before plunging across the street. There are fewer people about, so I’m only jostled three times – and each of them is rather mild, as this set of people move with speedy determination instead of the blind panic of the earlier lot.

The sign hangs above a dark wooden door sunk deeply into the wall of the alley. There are no windows gracing the dirty brick, and the small one set into the door is so dust covered that I can’t even see if there’s light within.

How in the world has the proprietor evaded arrest for Improper Cleanliness?

Silence suddenly reigns, the siren fallen quiet. Yet the sound that takes its place is all the more terrifying – the sound of a multitude of boots stamping in unison.

The high-heeled, patent-leather sound of Umbridge’s Think Pink Brigade.

Circe!

Heart pounding, I fumble at the door handle, which doesn’t turn at first, so I give it a vicious twist. When it gives suddenly, I stumble into the shop, righting myself against the bookcase that stands only three feet from the doorway.

The door slams shut behind me, and turning to see who closed it, I find it gone.

The scuff of a footstep to my left – I spin quickly, wand in hand, the first syllable of a Shielding Spell just passing my lips. “Pro–

A shout of “Stupefy” rings in the air as I’m hit in the back. Every sense rips to black.

~~~

I swim back into consciousness on a stream of garbled speech. Keeping my eyes closed, I attempt to maintain lax muscles and slow breathing. I’m lying on my back on a hard surface – the feel the grain of wood beneath slightly flexed fingertips – a table.

The voices slowly grow clear – two men standing behind me on either side.

“… how the bloody hell do you explain it, then? It’s not as if –”

“– we’ve ever seen this effing happen before. And you can’t say –”

“– that we did it on purpose, if we don’t even know how it was done.”

I know those voices!

A rustle of cloth sounds from below my feet – there’s at least a third person in the room.

“Really, we promise –”

“– we haven’t told anyone, you wanker, not even –”

“– our mum. It’s like we said: the door materialized –”

“– and we waited, thinking Lee was going to come through –”

Fred and George! And they’re swearing – lots!

“– when she showed instead. All right, so we had hid –”

“– thinking we’d get the tosser with a Tarantallegra –”

“– to keep him on his toes, as it were –”

The sound of snickering in stereo.

“– and then –”

“Silence!” The deep voice emanates from the bottom of the table, resounding in what sounds like a small space.

I was able to keep my eyes closed, but I’m fairly sure I just flinched a bit. What I’m not so sure of is whether anyone saw me do so.

“I was not enquiring as to whether you two chose to waste your time and energy playing juvenile pranks on your comrades. I instead had a desire to learn exactly what spell you incapacitated Ms. Granger with so that I would have some idea as to how long she would be indisposed.”

Snape!

“But I see that your blathering has served a purpose, nonetheless.” His voice grows closer on my left. “For my interruption of said blathering has proven to me that Ms. Granger has already joined us.

“Is that not so?” This last was said in a quieter voice – a quieter voice I hear very clearly because its source has grown close.

When I open my eyes, I’m gazing directly into those of Severus Snape.

Struggling upwards, my stunned limbs heavy and recalcitrant, I wet overly dry lips with an only slightly moister tongue before rasping, “The Think Pink Brigade is –”

With left hand pressing me to the table, he replies, “Relax, Ms. Granger, you are safe here.”

I look around the small, softly lit room. Heavy, dark wood furniture fills the shadows, and the walls are a forbidden deep wine color. There are no decorations anywhere, and this is shockingly beautiful. “Here being?”

“The headquarters of the resistance.” He pauses to smirk. “Congratulations, Ms. Granger. You’ve just joined Back in Black.”



AN: In canon, it’s Anti-Apparition Jinx, but propaganda specialists have determined that jinx sounds too negative for something the Pink Party applies to its own populace with regularity.

Please review – it’ll save me from Thinking Pink!




Back in Black by ubiquirk [Reviews - 19]

>>

Disclaimers
Terms of Use
Credits

Ashwinder
A Severus Snape/Hermione Granger archive in the Harry Potter universe

Copyright © 2003-2019 Sycophant Hex
All rights reserved