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shallownessTitle: the safest hand is the one that lets go
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Rating: Universal
Characters/Pairing: Elsie Hughes
Summary: Written for the prompt ‘Any, any non-wizard fandom, AU where someone gets a magic wand’ at comment_fic
Disclaimer: Not mine, don’t profit.
Author's Note: 393 words.
the safest hand is the one that lets go: shallowness
It lay under the mirror in the north-west corridor on the first floor. Mrs Hughes noticed it immediately, any foreign object would have caught her attention, lying on the coral-coloured carpet. She didn’t recognise it for what it was, all she saw was a twig indoors where it didn’t belong. It didn’t matter if young Lady Sybbie or one of the maids carrying kindling had dropped it, it simply shouldn’t be lying there on the carpet in Downton Abbey where she held sway.
It was only when she picked it up and felt the weight of it and something more that she realised it was no ordinary twig. For the wand felt warm to her touch, both utterly wrong and utterly right.
"What on earth?” Elsie Hughes muttered, looking up into the glass of the mirror, framed by walnut of the same colour as the wood she held in her hand. Her own face looked back at her, more puzzled than it had this morning when she had checked her hair was neat and tidy as it should be.
But she knew what it was, right enough. She recognised power, wielding so much herself and negotiating it in her dealings with Carson and the Countess. The tales she’d heard when she was a wee girl were not forgotten.
The wand could have been found by any other servant in the household. But Carson would have used it to give Lady Mary her dearest wish, and indeed, many others under the Abbey’s roof might also have tried to bring back someone beloved, but departed. Ivy or even Daisy might still have used it to find a lover and Lady Rose, adventure. Mrs Pattmore might perhaps have resisted using it, but equally she might have thrown the wand into a fireplace and let it burn. The wand had a stronger sense of self-preservation than that, and so it had chosen its time and come through the portal just before Mrs Hughes made her daily check down this corridor.
Elsie Hughes was a busy woman, but she made time to climb to the attics and put the wand away, firmly deciding to forget where that was exactly. The attics were very big, after all. Either she would remember if needs be, or someone else would find the wand.
As it turned out, the wand found them.
Feedback is most welcome!
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Rating: Universal
Characters/Pairing: Elsie Hughes
Summary: Written for the prompt ‘Any, any non-wizard fandom, AU where someone gets a magic wand’ at comment_fic
Disclaimer: Not mine, don’t profit.
Author's Note: 393 words.
It lay under the mirror in the north-west corridor on the first floor. Mrs Hughes noticed it immediately, any foreign object would have caught her attention, lying on the coral-coloured carpet. She didn’t recognise it for what it was, all she saw was a twig indoors where it didn’t belong. It didn’t matter if young Lady Sybbie or one of the maids carrying kindling had dropped it, it simply shouldn’t be lying there on the carpet in Downton Abbey where she held sway.
It was only when she picked it up and felt the weight of it and something more that she realised it was no ordinary twig. For the wand felt warm to her touch, both utterly wrong and utterly right.
"What on earth?” Elsie Hughes muttered, looking up into the glass of the mirror, framed by walnut of the same colour as the wood she held in her hand. Her own face looked back at her, more puzzled than it had this morning when she had checked her hair was neat and tidy as it should be.
But she knew what it was, right enough. She recognised power, wielding so much herself and negotiating it in her dealings with Carson and the Countess. The tales she’d heard when she was a wee girl were not forgotten.
The wand could have been found by any other servant in the household. But Carson would have used it to give Lady Mary her dearest wish, and indeed, many others under the Abbey’s roof might also have tried to bring back someone beloved, but departed. Ivy or even Daisy might still have used it to find a lover and Lady Rose, adventure. Mrs Pattmore might perhaps have resisted using it, but equally she might have thrown the wand into a fireplace and let it burn. The wand had a stronger sense of self-preservation than that, and so it had chosen its time and come through the portal just before Mrs Hughes made her daily check down this corridor.
Elsie Hughes was a busy woman, but she made time to climb to the attics and put the wand away, firmly deciding to forget where that was exactly. The attics were very big, after all. Either she would remember if needs be, or someone else would find the wand.
As it turned out, the wand found them.
Feedback is most welcome!
