Hello again! June? Already? Geez. I didn’t think we were here already.

If you have read my previous blogs, you would know that I go to Writers Group meeting occasionally. Each time, we have a prompt that we have to follow and we have 20-25 minutes to write out our stories. This time, we had 2 prompts. One, we had a location and a character and we had to have the character in the location. The second one, we were given the first line of the story. Now, it could either be in the dialogue or just to explain something in the description.

For the first prompt, I got the Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter (yay!) and Smaug from The Hobbit (double yay!). Here we go!

*Squish, squish* The feet in the mud was not a pleasant sound. Especially in the Forbidden Forest. Professor Grubbly-Plank walked alongside a seventh year Hogwarts student who was participating in this years Tri-Wizard Tournament.

“Professor?” Tom asked. “Why are you showing these to me?”

“Because anyone else would do the same, my dear boy.” The Professor stated. She walked closer to the dragons that were before her, leaving Tom behind.

Tom stared at the big metal cages in the distance and watched the fire escape their mouths and shoot into the air. He stumbled around sticks and mounds and rocks before he tripped and grabbed onto the iron bars of a cage that held a magnificent dragon. The dragon looked down and opened his mouth.

“Why are you here?”

Tom looked around. There was no way that this dragon could possibly be talking to him, could it? “I…uhh. I mean…..uh.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tom.” He managed to get out. “Tom Riddle.”

“My name is Smaug. And I’m getting out of here.” The mighty dragon bellowed. “They want me here to fight, but I have a treasure to protect.”

“Treasure? Like money?”

“You could call it that. But somebody has stolen something of mine. A burglar, if you will.”

Tom stopped and thought for a minute. If he wanted to get something back that was his, he wouldn’t want to be locked up either. He ran around the cage to the door where the lock was. “Alohomora.” He whispered. There was a small click. Too small for this big cage. “ALOHOMORA!” Tom yelled. The door shifted and the big clang echoed throughout the forest. There were screams from the dragon keepers and, distantly, the Professor.

Smaug opened the door with his head. “Thank you, Tom.” He muttered. “No, something tells me you don’t like that name very much.”

Tom shrugged. “It was my fathers name as well.”

“Hmm.” Smaug pondered. “Goodbye, Voldemort.”

Tom smiled as the dragon leapt into the air and flew away into the stars.

There’s that one. Like I said, only about 20 minutes or I would’ve gotten further or described more.

Now, for the second prompt. The one were they give us the first line of the story. In this case, it was ‘There were three of them’.

“There were three of them!” Joanie shouted. My youngest, a daughter, was so protective over her things. She was only nine years old. My two sons were older than her at 15 and 13. Joanie was my final and miracle baby.

“No, there weren’t.” Peter, my eldest, shouted back.

Laughter erupted from my middle child, Alex. “Come on, Pete. Just admit you took them.”

“No, because you took them!” Peter shouted across the house.

I was doing the dishes, minding my own business before the screaming match occurred. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as everything started unraveling.

“I didn’t do it!” Alex shouted from the living room where he was watching TV.

Joanie was in the kitchen with me, on the verge of tears.

I had finally lost it. The screams were too much. “Peter Samuel, Alexander John, in here! NOW!” I yelled. More screaming. Lord, help us all. “One!” Footsteps. “TWO!” I dried my hands and turned around to face my three children. “Three.” They were silent, thank God. “Joanie, what happened?”

“One of them took my oreos and ate them!” She pointed to them.

“I di…”Alex started before I interrupted him.

“Ah, ah, ah!” I put a finger in the air. “Oreos? This is what this is about?” Joanie nodded her head. I looked at my boys. “Okay, who took them?”

Both of them, in unison. “Not me!”

“I didn’t ask who didn’t take them.” Peter and Alex stood in silence. “Fine. If no one wants to admit to it, you both have to give me two dollars each.”

“What?! Why?” Peter asked.

“Because no one will admit to taking her oreos, you both will buy her a new pack together. Now go.”

Peter slumped his shoulders and stomped away. Alex stood there in complete shock as to what just happened and then walked away.

“We’ll go to the store when they get back in here, okay?” I hugged Joanie close. My girl, the little drama queen.

Aaaaaaaaaand there’s that. My goodness. Honestly, I didn’t think I had it in me. The second one was meant to make you laugh, and I’m sorry, mom, for using your words that you’ve said my entire life into the dialogue. I love you.

Until next time,

Lydia