Current mood:	sleepy
Current music:	Spritz!! Spritz!! - Minus the Bear

TITLE: A Maid in the Malfoy Manor
PERPETRATOR: MyPhoenixLament
SUE-O-METER: (awful)

FULL NAME: Jacqueline Humblot
SPECIES: Human.
HAIR: Wavy auburn locks.
EYES: Hazel eyes.
MARKINGS: Chapped lips.
POSSESSIONS: Crystalline drops of moisture in her hair. Not even kidding.

ORIGIN: France, it seems.
CONNECTIONS TO CANON: She's a maid. Guess where?
SPECIAL ABILITIES: I bet she's an ace with a mop.

NOTES: My very first purple prose! Oh, the joy!

SAMPLE:
A resonating clap of thunder rolled from a mass of sinister ebony clouds, hinting at the might of the storm that was brewing overhead the desolate manor. Gusts of wind toiled and buffeted against its shadowed sides, yet only a splinter was upset from its hold, whisked roughly away into the darkened countryside. Still, the manor stood proud, protruding from a flawlessly landscaped garden.

A feeble leaf was torn from the branch of an ancient maple, only to be momentarily trapped upon the thin sections of an abandoned spider's web. It fluttered defenselessly, then was freed from its captor. It spiraled effortlessly in the violent gales until at last it came to rest on the front window of a lone taxi cab parked near the front walk.

A girl–though hardly a girl she was anymore–gazed at it pensively through the glass. She related the helpless leaf to her own life, reminded by the burst of green of her past and what it had held. Likewise to the leaf, she had been hurled from one place to another, never knowing where she would end up, or whether or not she wouldn't be dashed to bits by a greater force. Though, unlike the leaf, she had been torn apart emotionally.

The cab driver brushed it away impatiently with the irritated push of a button. The girl sullenly watched it crumble and disappear. "This yer stop, miss?" the driver asked in a heavy Scottish accent. He turned his balding head–though it was cleverly disguised by a grey cap–to look at her in the back seat.

"Oui, monsier," she replied quietly, her thoughts distant.

"Don' be usin' no fancy language with me, missy," he reprimanded scornfully.

She blinked at him in surprise. "M-my apologies, sir," she stuttered. Even if she had not offhandedly spoken in French, there would have been no thought put into placing where she was from. It was something she had never learned to cover. Though, at times, she was thankful for it.

The driver eyed her distrustfully. "Out yeh go, then," he said gruffly. "But ye'd best plan on payin'..."

She sighed and fished into the pocket of her worn jeans. "How much are you charging me?"

"As much as ye've got. From the looks of yeh, it ain't much."

She handed him a crisp note. He greedily stuffed it into a large and disheveled compartment that it would most likely be lost in. She didn't care. It would only be used for purchasing liquor and cigarettes the next day if he found it.

She quickly ran her tongue along her cracked lower lip before opening the door of the cab. She slid from the weathered seat and planted her feet firmly on the stone walkway. Her many hours inside of the cramped vehicle had left her legs stiff at the joints. It took all of her will and then some to force her tightened muscles to begin moving once more.

She watched in dismay as the careless man brought the trunk containing the only belongings she owned from the cab with a loud 'thud'. He seemed not to notice that one of the corners had chipped away from the impact, and he proceeded to shoving a small sack into the girl's arms. Without even a polite tip of his cap, he hastened into the driver's seat and pulled the door shut. The tires spun and spattered mud onto her clothing as he tried to find traction on the soggy ground. And then, he was off, leaving Jacqueline Humblot to cough in a cloud of exhaust.

The heavy wind pricked tears from her hazel eyes and slashed her wavy auburn locks across her face. She struggled to gather the handles of her trunk and pull it toward the ominously looming manor. The trunk, however, refused to budge, despite her efforts. She sank into a frustrated heap beside it just as she felt a drop of rain fall upon her hand.

Jacqueline moaned despairingly. If only her brittle wand had not been snapped in two, everything would have been painlessly less difficult. But she knew that it would be an impossible task to reacquire such a vital treasure. After all, she had been expelled the previous year–however wrongly–and no amount of idle wishing would bring her back to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic ever again.

She had almost forgotten what it was like to perform magic. In fact, so long ago it was that she had last uttered a simple incantation that she had begun to forget about the wizarding world entirely. Or at least, it had been pushed back to delve in one of the deepest, secluded corners of her mind. Yet it still remained there to remind and annoy her.

Her hair was damp now. It clung to her cheeks in curling tendrils. Shimmering crystalline droplets of moisture collected at the very tips of them, and when they grew too heavy, they fell. Her ragged shirt clung to the slender curves of her shapely figure, and she shivered. She was unaccustomed to such dispirited weather in late June.

Had she looked up to the topmost window of the manor, she would have noticed the pale, blonde-haired boy staring incredulously at her. But as it so happened, she did not pry her eyes from the moss that was growing in the thin gaps between the stones. She picked at it absent-mindedly with her nail, waiting for the inspiration to attempt to move her trunk. I cannot, she thought sadly as the rain beat rhythmically upon her.

She also thought back upon the previous week when she had first received the call.

"Allô?" she had asked hesitantly into the receiver. The voice that had answered was crisp and seemed to drip chillingly like a silent poison in her ear.

"My name is Narcissa Malfoy, may I speak with Miss Humblot?"

"C'est moi," she had replied, hope welling up inside of her.

"Ah, hello, dear!" the woman had cried in cheerfulness that could only have been forced. Jacqueline had nearly dropped the cord as she'd cleared her throat nervously. "Now, am I correct that you are in search of work?" . . . .

And that was how she had found herself outside of the Malfoy Manor on a gloomy Sunday morning with hardly a pound and an immensely heavy heart for company. Had she any choice, she would have chosen to be sitting in her parents' flat in Paris, chattering away with her mother or challenging her father to an invigorating game of chess. He would have won, of course, and her mother would have only turned their conversation to the dull subject of muggle gardening and how horribly primitive it was, but it wouldn't have bothered her. She felt as though she would have given anything at that moment to convince them to send for her and allow her to return home. She longed for them to have let her speak when they had received the disappointing letter that had informed them of her expulsion and crime. They'd had the right to be outraged and ashamed, of course; the parents in any respectable pureblooded wizarding family would have reacted in the same way. But they did not, however, have the right to take it as far as they had. For to them, their only daughter–and child–was dead. No amount of begging would persuade them otherwise. They simply refused to listen.

Jacqueline felt a warm wetness that was not from the spitting sky trail down her cheeks at the memory. Pourquoi, maman, pourquoi? she thought, and slowly began to drag her trunk to the place she would have to learn to think of as home.