34. Parseltongue

Fletcher once fell asleep reading his History of Magic textbook. He woke up convinced that he was a Parseltongue and could speak to snakes.

Naturally, he had to go test out this theory. He drew a snake on a piece of parchment and started a staring contest with it, convinced that the hissing sounds he was making would cause the snake to come to life.

All his housemates thought he was either insane or speaking French. Although the boy knew neither language, he remained convinced of his power until a garter snake he was talking to bit him.

Stupid snakes.

80. Author's Choice - Challenge #13: Breezy
http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/a...ers/breezy.jpg

Fletcher had no idea how to pose for a magazine photoshoot, but as THE Triwizard Tournament Champion, he was trying to learn.

When the photographer chick turned on the fans in the middle of the Amazon clearing, Fletcher felt like he was being blown away. Just his hair was catching the breeze, but now his eyes were seemingly welling up…

“Are you crying?” Lacey lowered her camera just a fraction.

“Nnnnnnonono,” Fletcher stammered, blinking his watering eyes. “But could you just turn that thing off please?”

“Sure sure… Cover Girl.” Snicker. Oh this was going in the article for sure.

76. Zap!

“DADDYYYYYYYYYY‼‼‼‼‼‼!” Mallory stood on top of her bed, clutching her teddy and pointing something Fletcher couldn’t see on the floor. “DADDDDDDDDDY‼! IT’S COMING CLOSER‼‼‼!”

Fletcher squinted at the invisible bug and whipped out his wand. “Where is he?! JUST LEMME AT ‘EM!”

She pouted at him with her big blue eyes. “KILL IT DADDDDDDDDDDDY!”

Fletcher sighed and lazily flicked his wand in the bug’s direction. Surprisingly, there was a little ZAP! sound and then the stench of singed bug filled the room. Well. Looked like Mal had eagle eyes… but she was gonna be a Hufflepuff.

Only Puffs hated bugs.

77. Cheerful
http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/a...hristmas-1.jpg

Fletcher was SO CHEERFUL today. It was Mallory’s first Christmas and he’d done a darn good job playing Santa. Fletcher crossed his arms and stood back from the tree, adorned by bulbs and lights with a mountain of presents.

Of course, most of them were things he and Rae would be using to keep Mallory clothed and fed and clean, but some of them were toys and books she could play with too. And next year, when she was almost two, Christmas would be even FUNNER!

Beaming, the Cursebreaker skipped off upstairs to spread the Christmas cheer to his family.

48. Leprechaun

As an Irishman, Fletcher had anticipated this latest Gringotts mission to be a pot of gold. When he was sent to find the lair of a leprechaun hoarding real wizard gold, however, he instead found a rather unpleasant surprise.

Every time the cursebreaker reached a hand out to seize a fistful of coins, he would hear a giggling sound nearby and would find that his treasure had disappeared right out of his hand. This went on for quite some time until Fletcher lost it and sent out a general stunner around the cave.

Who was the one laughing now, leprechaun?!

2. Muggle Studies

Fletcher hadn’t taken Muggle Studies at Hogwarts for good reasons. Why did he need to study Muggles when he was half Muggle? Probably? The life of a pickpocket was the same for either; the only difference was the type of coin you stole.

When Fletcher decided to look into buying a car, however, he had to do some Muggle studying. He went to the London library and even acquired a library card before he was officially lost.

How --- and WHERE --- did Muggles get all these BOOKS? Maybe he’d needed to take a reading class instead of Muggle Studies…

5. Astronomy

Now if there were one class Fletcher should have taken, but didn’t take because he was lazy, it was Astronomy. Nights like this were his reason for wanting to take Astronomy. There was nothing better than laying outside on a plaid blanket with one arm around his wife, a light breeze ruffling his hair, and his eyes on the sky…

“I think that one’s called the Big Pickle,” Fletch pointed out a constellation for Rae. “And there’s the Onion.”

He could tell from her snickering that he wasn’t even CLOSE to being an Astronomer, but at least he was fun.

6. Divination

“So you’re like a Seer, right?” Fletcher was sitting at a cramped little table inside a dinky little… wagon, staring into the face of what had to be the ugliest liitle hag EVER. “Do you have a license or something? Or am I gonna get mugged when I walk outta here?”

He tried to ignore her creepy leering and sighed, forking over the two galleons her palm reading called for. Fletcher obediently raised his arm to the table and flipped it over so his wrist was up, feeling very vulnerable now…

“I… maybe this was a bad idea…”

He bolted.

63. Mooch

"Whups," Fletcher muttered as WWW merchandise spilled from his pockets, "I was gonna pay for that."

"Darn TOOTIN', you were!" shouted the outraged shopkeeper. Fletcher just snickered and bent down to pick up the spilled pranks, while Mallory ‘helped’ throw things around.

The shopkeeper ended up so irritated with both Fletchers that he picked up the rest of the items for them. While he was distracted, Fletcher tossed Peruvian Instant Darkness powder into the air and quickly stole out the door… with some merchandise still in his hands.

“That, my dear,” he informed his giggling toddler, “is how we mooch!”

100. Homework

Fletcher couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent five consecutive days surrounded by books. He hadn’t even done this much research when he had been a Triwizard Champion.

He idly scratched the tattoo on his forearm, which sent it scuttling to Merlin knew where, and laid down his quill. The books said he could and should open another tattoo parlor. His homework was complete, save for one question: Who was going to run the original Paradise?

As if on cue, his assistant Nolan Park walked in to grab some ink. Huh. Maybe this homework thing was easier than he’d thought.

93. Chicken

“Merlin’s great big bushy beard --- THAT’S DELICIOUS!” Fletcher declared, smacking his lips as he discarded another chicken bone onto the growing mountain. “How do you MAKE these, Louie? So tangy! So--- SWEET CIRCE, IS HIS HEAD ON FIRE?!”

He jumped up from the bar and pointed at the customer beside him. Louie, the guy behind the bar (and the chicken), chuckled and used Augamenti to put out his customer’s hair.

“N’aww,” he explained, “tha’s jist a normal side effect of mah Rajin’ Cajun’ Wings. I told ya they’ll set ya on fire!”

Fletcher immediately ordered a dozen of them.

14. Hogwarts, a History

“…and that is how I, the reigning Triwizard Tournament Champion, destroyed the man-eating cockatrice of 2073. And it’s why you should give me a discount here.” Fletcher finished with a charming grin.

“A raining what?”

“THE reigning Triwizard Tournament Champion!” Fletcher repeated emphatically. “Haven’t you heard of the TWT?”

The shopkeeper shook her head. “I’ll be right back,” Fletcher sighed. He raced out of the wand shop and returned shortly with a thick tome.

“Here,” he announced, plopping the heavy book before her. “Hogwarts, a History. I’m in it, so you should read it… and then give me that discount.”

Fletcher had always wanted to get in a tussle with Hogwarts’ infamous Whomping Willow back when he had been at school. He had never managed to get close enough to give it a proper go, though, in his three years there.

But nothing was stopping him now, as an adult.

Despite being awful at Herbology, Fletcher had bought his family a Whomping Willow sapling and was now, at present, attempting to plant the stubborn thing in his front yard. “How do you--- URGH!” Fletcher shouted, as yet another little branch smacked him in the face. “WHERE’S THE DAMN ESCAPE BUTTON?”

“Whoaaaaaa, a timeturner!” Fletcher breathed to himself, staring with awe at the fragile figure-eight necklace resting in the palm of his hand. What a find in a dumpy little shop on Tottenham Court Road! He looked around to see if anyone nearby might have heard him.

No? Good. Fletcher hurriedly stuffed the necklace into one of the pockets of his big coat and slipped out of the shop.

It was only hours later, when he was sitting at home, prepared to go back in time an hour to eat dinner again, that Fletcher realized his timeturner… was an ordinary hourglass.

"Daddy, how do you spell crumple-horn snorlacky?" Mallory crawled up her father's chair into his lap. She had a big pad of lined paper, a little pencil, and a curious expression.

"It's crumple-horned snorKACK," Fletcher answered, turning a page in his newspaper.

"SnoreKLACK," Mallory repeated, crossing something out on her paper. She blinked at him expectantly.

Fletcher sighed. "D-i-c-t-i-o-n-a-r-y."

"D-i-c-can you repeat that?"

"No, go look it up." Grinning, Fletcher tore his eyes away from the paper. "You won't learn it otherwise."

Moments later, a little voice called out from the bookshelf, "Daddy, what letter does crumple-horn snorklack start with?”

Every few weeks, Rae had the urge to dig into her chocolate stash under the seventh stair. Fletcher, wanting to know why she only ate chocolate every four weeks, decided to try her “diet.”

So he bought a chocolate bar on September first, bit off a square, wrapped it up, and stowed it under the floorboard. He did his best to forget the chocolate, and eventually made it to the end of the month.

Thirty days later, when Fletcher pried the floorboard back, all he found was a bar of mold. Some things, he learned, are just meant for women.

23. Telescope

“Looks like we’ve got a ways to go til land,” Fletcher announced, his eyeball pressed to the large lens of a telescope. “I’d estimate we’re… forty, forty-five knots away.”

“Knots measure speed, not distance, yeh idiot,” his sailing companion grumbled, grabbing the spyglass away from him. “And yer not even holdin’ this thing right. Th’ lil end goes ter yer eye, th’ big end points ter whatcha wanna see. Like this.” He demonstrated for Fletcher, taking a big step back. “LAND HO!”

Fletcher stole the spyglass back and peered through. “Oh yeah, wow, that’s close. WHAT HE SAID. TALLY HO!”

68. Roar

“And then the lion said…”

“ROAR ROAR, GRYFFINDOR!”

“Gooood,” Fletcher chuckled and peeked over the nighttime storybook he was reading his daughter. “What did the serpent say?”

“ROAR ROAR, GRYFFINDOR!”

Fletcher shook his head. “Noooooo…. think back in the story. What did the eagle say?”

“ROAR ROAR, GRYFFINDOR!”

Was it just him or were Mallory’s shouts getting louder the longer they ‘read’ this story? How was this book putting her to bed? He stifled a yawn of his own and looked at her with a pensive expression.

“I know what house you’re going to be in, hun…”

“ROAR ROAR… Gryffindor?”

45. Torch

“Ask him how much gold is supposed to be down here,” Fletcher ordered his translator, hiking the torch in his hand higher as they descended into a crypt. The translator, a fat goblin named ‘Mike,’ complied.

“He says enough riches to fill a river,” the translator replied with a grunt. “I bet he’s lying.”

“How much you wanna bet?” Fletcher asked, pausing as his foot touched something slick. He took a step back and dropped the torch. “Look.”

As fire took to oil, the torch hit the ‘river of riches’ and engufled the floor in flames. “Wrong sort of gold.”

15. Room
http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/a...ndperson-1.jpg

You walked into the treasure room like you were walking onto a yacht. Your hat strategically dipped below one eye, your scarf it was apricot. You had one eye on the gold as you watched your coworker shift some rocks. And all the cursebreakers dreamed that they'd be your partner, they'd be your partner, and...

You're so vain, you act surprised when no one knows your name. You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think the world revolves around you. Don't you? Don't you?

You're so vain, so vain! I’ll bet you think you own this room. Don't you? Don't you?

17. Cauldron
http://i969.photobucket.com/albums/a...challenge7.jpg

“Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and caldron bubble!”

“What do you know about cauldrons?” Fletcher asked his daughter, passing by her potions stand with a pumpkin of candy. It was October 31 and Mallory’s first Halloween that she would probably remember. It was also their first without Rae.

“I know that if you plop stuff in a cauldron, it’ll cook!” Mallory stirred her little pot stubbornly. “Seeeeeee dad, it’s smoking!”

Wait, why WAS it smoking? Fletcher peeked into the cauldron and hurriedly shot some water in with his wand. “That’s supposed to be a TOY cauldron set, kiddo!”