kelly_chambliss

I'm a bit behind at reposting my fest entries this year. Here's my contribution to hp_halloween, the double-drabble fest that has been my Halloween tradition for quite a few years now. Written for my friend _hannelore, who asked for "fond childhood memories of holidays."

Title: Samhain's Child
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, OCs
Rating: G
Summary: Minerva and her grandmother always spend Samhain together.
Notes: My thanks to my always-excellent beta, therealsnape.

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( Samhain's Child )

Here's my drabble from this year's hp_halloween. My recipient, donnaimmaculata, listed Aberforth, Fleur, Bellatrix, Minerva, and/or Remus as her characters of choice, asked for either horror or drama as the genre, and offered "cats, haunted house, masks" as her prompts.

Well, of course I was going to write something with Minerva and flirted for a moment with the notion of a Minerva/Aberforth pairing. But then I thought, "come on, it's Halloween. And I'm being offered 'Bellatrix' and 'horror' as options. Why am I even thinking twice about what to write?"

So I came up with an over-the-top, Gothic scenario, gave Bella her mad head, and let her run with it.

Hope you enjoy it as much as she did.

(Many thanks to the excellent magnetic_pole for beta-reading.)

( To and Fro )

(Note -- It's official: pairing/characters make all the difference in terms of response. My drabble for last year, which featured Minerva/Septima Vector, got all of five comments at the comm. This year's mad Bella got 22. Of course, there could be other factors at work, too; last year's fest, iirc, was more subdued overall.)

I've had a successful weekend: 27 papers graded and 1200 snapelyholidays words written. Yes, I should have written more. But I didn't.

It's still Halloween for another 30 minutes (at least in my part of the world), so I thought I'd treat you to a couple of drabbles in honor of the day. (Or maybe it's actually a trick; you never know.)

I actually wrote them both for the one-day hp_halloween drabble fest; I thought a silly one and a serious one would make a be nice set of bookends.

But the trick was on me, because it turns out that we were allowed to submit only one drabble per person. So I submittted the serious one, and I was going to save the silly one until next year, when I remembered that last week's challenge for the snape100 drabble fest just happened to be. . . "Snape and Halloween."

What a treat! Now I could post both drabbles in different communities. So I did.

If you haven't had a chance to read any of the hp_halloween entries, nip on over there and enjoy yourself. They're all fun, but here are some of my favorites:

--At Home (Severus/Percy) by starstruck1986
--Darkness Chasing Darkness (Severus/Lucius) by snapelike
--and my own excellent gift, Don't Look Back (Minerva/Severus) by scribbulus_ink. (It's really interesting to see the similarities between the gift I wrote and the gift I received.)

And now that the HP Halloween fest is over, I can post both my drabbles here for you:

This one was written for nimrod_9 at hp_halloween

Title: With You Always
Author: kellychambliss
Characters: Minerva McGonagall
Rating: G
Summary: Minerva attends a Halloween Feast.
Notes: Nimrod_9 wanted Halloween traditions, pumpkins, graveyards, loneliness. Many thanks to my excellent beta, tetleythesecond.

Oidhche Shamhna = Scottish Gaelic for the Celtic Samhain/New Year's festival.

~*~*~*~

( With You Always )

And this one was posted at snape100

Title: Aaaaahhhhh
Author: kellychambliss
Challenge: #357 -- Snape's Halloween
Pairing: Snape/McGonagall
Length: 100 x 2
Rating: NC-17. Ish.
Warnings: Dialogue-only
Summary: Ever wonder what the teachers did to celebrate Halloween after they settled the business of the troll in the dungeon?
Notes: Written with much authorial snickering, lots of porn clichés, and no excuse. Many thanks to my excellent beta-reader tetleythesecond.

~*~*~*~

( Aaaaahhhhh )