It's that time of year again! (original) (raw)

Welcome to the 9th year running of NaNoWriMo. Since that first year, I think I've only really completed it twice, but boy howdy have I given it a good go every year.

And this year is no exception.

Instead of the usual amount of fanfic I try to cram into the month, I'm actually writing my own original content for once. It's based on one of the D&D campaigns I never got to finish. I had an idea for two different characters in the setting - one, a healer, and the other, an information broker. The healer ran the local clinic and was hiding the secret of necromancy. The information broker on the other hand was seemingly invincible: a powerful and stealthy rogue, all hard lines and clean shaven. His secret? He just so happens to be in love with the local healer.

Things kind of spiraled from there and I now have 1/3 of a fully plotted out book series about them. Because really, M/M fantasy needs to be more of a thing in my life. And if you can't find it out there in the world, sometimes it's just up to you to write it yourself.

It seems that it's the only time of year when I use livejournal, too. It's actually been kind of fun going back and reading all of the fic I used to write on here.

So, to celebrate, I thought I'd copy over some of the fic I thought I'd lost when my macbook died in 2016:

Zonko’s Joke Shop might call them dungbombs, but as Sirius Black watches on while a thick, putrid-green gas cloud unfurls like tendrils throughout the Entrance Hall, he can only think to call them surprisingly effective.

However, to nobody else’s surprise, Argus Filch shows up seconds later with broom in hand, yelling bloody murder as to his revenge upon whoever bloody gave him even more bloody work to do.

Thank Merlin for the invisibility cloak.

“I don’t think I’ll ever not find that funny,” Sirius whispers to Remus, who stands underneath the cloak beside him with pursed lips, as if he were fighting off a smile of his very own.

“It is quite comedic,” Remus replies quietly, agreeing.

“I think it’s the broom that really does it,” Peter chimes in softly, standing on Sirius’ other side. “Adds that extra…” he trails off, unable to find a word to complete his train of thought.

“Level of hilarity?” Sirius supplies helpfully, half laughing.

A horde of students with hands pressed tightly to their noses rush by the three boys, who stand by the door cloaked by their invisibility, the sounds of gagging following their departure as they eagerly rush away from the ungodly smell of rotting manure.

“Yeah,” Sirius says as Argus Filch picks up the exploded casing of the dungbomb and glares at it with such contempt it looks as though he may burst into tears.

“Never not gonna be funny.”

–

James can only laugh at how excellent Argus Filch must think he is, for the four detention files that are spread out across the caretaker’s desk have been charmed with so many different kinds of anti-duplicating and anti-editing spells that the whole situation is, simply put, ridiculous.

Okay, so it might be a yearly tradition where the Marauders attempt to steal and make copies of their detention files (purely for scientific reasons, of course), but the continued desperate attempts by the caretaker to thwart their efforts make all the planning and struggle worth it. And besides, it’s almost like the grumpy old man has forgotten the age-old art of handwriting.

Chuckling, James pulls out a spare bit of parchment from his pocket and dips one of Filch’s quills in ink, and begins copying the detention details from each file, starting with his own.

–

“Reckon that’s enough time?” Remus asks Sirius, the latter peeling his eyes away from the distraught caretaker to look his friend in the eye.

He considers this for a moment, briefly looking back toward Filch, who has gotten down onto his knees and starting to bang his broom loudly against the ground amidst his banshee-like wailing.

“Nah.”

They watch on as a blubbering, howling Filch curses the day Zonko’s Joke Shop was ever opened.