If Normalcy is for Squares, Then I'm a Circle

-J.R. Chandler

Disclaimer: Dude, seriously, I wish I was J.K. Rowling. But I'm not. So Obviously I don't own anything that she's already made up. And all of the chappie titles are credited to Panic at the Disco's lyracist, Ryan Ross. The OC's, however, are mine.

Warnings: (I'll only post these ONCE.) Hairy cows (aka sexual situations-I never understood lemons) in later Parts, language, a bit of violence, and a whole lot of my kind of slang (ie: funkadellic, heeby-jeeby, coinage, etc.). If you can't understand, look them up online.

Pairings: A bunch, but mostly OC/SB, OC/RL, LE/JP, OC/PP, and OC/OC. Dig those OC's.


Greg: Darling, I believe this may call for a proper introduction.

Jamie: Well, don't you see? I'm the narrorator, and this is just the prologue.

Greg: Swear to shake it up?

Jamie: If you swear to listen. Hehe, Sorry, Panic was playing...


Jamie: Hello all! I'm the author, Jamie All Over. This is my first fic, so please reveiw and let me know if I suck or not! This is my -cough- friend, Greg, who writes with me.

Greg: I heard that cough, what was that supposed to mean?

Jamie: Nothing, dearest. Shoo.

Greg: -grumbles- See if I help you again...

Jamie: And this is my beta, FallenPooka, or Fallen as I call her. Say hi, Fallen!

Fallen: I just made a new trend in fashion. Ain't I a sex bomb? YESH! I is. -teehee-

Jamie: Okay... Well, here it is!


Part One: Prologue

Chapter One: Still So Young

Finally. After waiting for two months, it was here. Spinning in front of the hotel bathroom mirror, I carefully pulled a grey-and-yellow feather from my left shoulder. (Mother had bought me a cockatiel for my tenth birthday, named Fawkes. Not sure where she got the name, but it's pretty cool anyway.) I turned and shook my butt at the mirrow, and my hand-made puplre-and-orange-plaid pleated skirt shook with it. Not a bad looking butt either, considering I was just nearing eleven.

You see, today is the first day of school for us. By "us," I mean Melissa Lynn Rowan, and myself, Jamie Renee Rowan. And by "school,' I mean this wonky boarding school where adolescents go to learn magic. Yeah, magic. Just when you start to think that it's all kiddie-stuff, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry sends you a letter saying that because you're about to turn eleven, you need to begin your magical education.
Even more unbelievable-it's actually a real place. Honest. My mum, apparently, is a witch, and not only in the mean, "I'm watching you out of the back of my head," creepy mum way. Not even dear old Dad knew until Melly and I got our letters. Evidently, she works "undercover" for some far-out "Ministry of Magic," and in addition to working at the gas company, she was also reporting "unexplainable gas explosions" to them, therefore living like a "Muggle" for the last fifteen years.

So, now, three months before we're set to be eleven, we're staying in this sweet pub/hotel combo called The Leaky Cauldron in London, while Madre y Padre are taking a very relaxing cruise to Spain. Dad needed to get over the whole "my-wife-of-thirteen-years-is-a-witch" thing.

Tom, the groovy barkeep, had actually known my mum while they themselves had attended Hogwarts, and had offered to look after us for the last month of summer break. Isn't he such a sweetheart? He even closed the pub down for an hour to show us how to get into Diagon Alley, or wizard's London, and take us to the heeby-jeeby goblin-run wizard's bank known as Gringot's to help us get out a bundle of funkadellic coinage. He took us over for ice cream afterwords, and gave us our school lists, telling us to have fun, get our stuff, and explained the value of aforementioned funkadellic coinage. Before leaving, he told us to stay in either the Cauldron or Diagon Alley, and not to wander to muggle London.

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Being the animal lovers that we are, we headed straight to the Magical Menagerie, a pet shop we had passed on the way back from the bank. I had received Fawkes for our birthday, and Melissa had gotten a little brown gerbil, but the idiot had snuck out of it's cage a few months ago and chewed through the cords to my record player. Which I got blamed for, of course. So, naturally, she was looking for a new pet. We had been the average middle-class family back in reality, but apparently the Ministry had been depositing large sums of money into our account in this world for the last fifteen years, so new pets were definitely a must in our adolescent minds.

We had walked around the little shop together for a minute, but then Melissa went wandering off on her own while I perused the double-ended newts and the (completely groovy) poisonous orange snails.

When I went over to Melissa, she was stroking a pretty white bunny on it's velveteen ears. As soon as I was within a few feet of Melissa, though, the rabbit popped and became a black silk top hat.

Melissa turned and shot daggers at me, so I took a few steps back. The bunny had popped back into one and was rubbing against her hand again.

Needless to say, I couldn't stop her from buying him. Not a bad price, either-only ten galleons for a funky bunny-it's a bargain for you.

So while Melissa had been buying supplies for Houdini, as she had begun calling him, I decided to figure out what was causing the humming noise that had been resonating throughout the shop.

What I found were these (absolutely adorable) custard-coloured fluffballs in a cage.

The sticker on the cage said that they were a sub-breed of puffskeins (what the...?), and they were called Humpuffs. Really, you'd think that they could come up with a more creative name. It also said that, while they were very friendly and would become close to a good owner, they needed another of their kind to, you know, keep them company and talk, or hum, with them. They were compatible with all sorts of birds, but not mammals, as they were very low on the food chain.

Hey, they liked birds, Fawkes would need company while I was in class, and they were real cute.

So, I obtained gniP and gnoP, my male and female humpuffs, respectively. The shopkeep had told me that they could live in Fawkes' cage, sold me a bag of food, and threw in a complementary paphlette about them.

After our expedition in the Menagerie, we decided that we needed to go school shopping. We picked up our cauldrons first, as our bags were full (gniP and gnoP were in a box tucked inside my messeger bag, and Houdini was tied to Melissa's backpack and was presently poking his head out).

The robe shop was definitely interesting. While I was being fitted for my (boring) black school robes, Melissa had wandered around the shop and found a gorgeous sapphire winter cloak. I told her that it was quite obviously begging for her to buy it, and it wasn't as if she was going to be in serious trouble for have a blue winter cloak instead of a black one, right?

So, while Melly was being fitted, I decided to try my luck. There was a really awesome turquiouse cloak, but it didn't come in midget sizes. It wasn't until I went to the back of the shop and looked in a clearance rack that I found it.

Left over from '67, if Madam Malkin was right, was a rainbow tie-dyed winter cloak with (squee) aubergine fastenings in (almost) my size. It was just a tad bit too long, so Madam Malkin took up the hem a little. She actually had laughed when I showed Melissa, saying that she had tried to sell that for years, but the wizarding world had never caught on to the tie-dye craze, which only made me need it more.

At Flourish & Blotts, we were lost. Not that we didn't know our way around every bookstore in England, but that was in the muggle world, and this store was wonked out. After picking up our schoolbooks, Melly purchased a book (with moving, talking pictures!) that instructed you on how to "Draw and Paint the Muggle Way." As for myself, I found a fictional series on a "squib" who had to go to a muggle boarding school school for seven years and defeat the evil Prime Minister. Intriguing, no?

After collecting all of our ingriediants from the Apothecary (which was a kind of creepy place), we only needed wands.

Before stopping at the (evidently) famous Ollivander's, we dropped off our things at the Cauldron and made sure that our new pets were happy.

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At Ollivander's, well, the vibes border-lined somewhere between cozy library and creepy stalker's bedroom. But Mr. Ollivander was pretty cool. Apparently, he rembered Mum, and told us all about her wand while measuring between our noses and down our arms.

Asking for my "wand arm," I gave him my left hand, as I figured "wand arm/ dominant arm, same/diff. He handed me a stick from a thin box and told me to give it a wave. I did as told, and Melissa's knees buckled and she fell down. I dropped the wand and helped her up, not even attampting to contain the random spurts of laughter as I apologized profusely.

The it was Melly's turn to try a wand. Waving her right arm, she managed to give me a (rather impressive) black eye. Going back and forth, we each tried wands and each gave the other a (usually) minor injury before having the wand snatched away.

After receiving a lovely nosebleed from yours truly, Melissa dearest took another from Mr. Ollivander and waved it, and a fountain of flower petals fell from the tip of her wand to the floor.

So, Melissa acquired an eight-and-a-half incher, made of rowan-wood, containing one silvery unicorn hair.

After that, the next two wands I waved didn't do a freaking thing. I was going to give up, telling Mr. Ollivander that, obviously, my magic was out. He put a bit of thought into it, and carefully chose another box. "Alright Jamie, try this one, and if it doesn't work, we'll stop. This is rowan-wood, seven-and-a-quarter inches long, and home to a heart-string collected from a dragon in Spain."

Cringing slightly at the thought of the poor Spanish dragon having his heartstring ripped out, I reluctantly took the wand. I gave the occasion my best let's-just-get-this-over-with sigh (I'd been working on that), and flicked my wrist.

For my angsty attitude, I was rewarded with a new wand and a shower of dark chocolate truffles. Man, if being a surly teenager meant getting little chunks of heaven, then I was in! Bending down, I picked up a truffle, unwrapped it, and proudly popped it into my mouth.

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"Jamie! Let me in the bathroom!" a voice shrieked, slightly muffled by the cheap faux-wood door that so kindly separated me from my spazzy twin-sister. Accompanying Melissa's sweet loving voice was a kind, gentle banging on the aforementioned door.

I blew a kiss to the me in the mirror and (reluctantly) opened to door, promptly startling my twin. She stared, frustrated, at my wardrobe for the day.

"Couldn't you at least pretend to be normal, at least for the day?" she pleaded, already slightly embarrassed. "Just for the day? Please?"

"Oh, pshaw!" I retorted, waving my hand. "Dear Melissa, normalcy is only for the squares who believe that normal is anything more than an OCD's happy place. But you and I, love, are not squares, nor delusional enough to believe in this whole normal thing. If anything, we are circles." I told her. With a grin and a wolfish wink (for good measure), I added, "Besides, I wouldn't want to give a bad first impression to the people who have to deal with me for seven years."

Melissa simply laughed and rolled her eyes, heading into the bathroom. She was used to me by now, and even had her own non-sensical ramblings on occasion.

Although, she might have had reason for the (admittedly bonkers) outburst of pretending to be normal. My outfit for the day was one that had been in the workshop (a.k.a. my sewing box) for a month. Hey, you couldn't;t find awesome clothes just anywhere!

I had discovered thigh-high stockings at Madam Malkin's, oddly enough. One was white with orange stripes, the other white with aubergine (single greatest colour known to man). I know, they don't match, but matching socks were for normalcy-believing squares. I think the last time I had worn them was when I was four and naive.

My shoes-Converse high-tops, one orange, one aubergine, were adorning the feet opposite their coordinating sock. Oh, how I love them, let me count the ways...

My glove had been acquired at a drugstore back near Sussex, and had originally come with fingers. But those were now decomposing in a landfill somewhere, as I had opted for awesomeness and created a bum glove of it. It was simply white, and covered from my left wrist to my elbow. My right wrist had basic aubergine bangles, and, on my ring-finger, a paperclip had been wound.

My shirt, at least, was almost not-crazy. It was a plain white tee when I bought it. I just took some extra plaid fabric from my skirt and cut out "The Beatles" to sew across the chest.

Okay, I know, call me a freak.Whatever. Like I haven't heard that a million times in my life.

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I walked over to my bed, fastened on my new cloak (it was chilly and overcast today), and rummaged through my trunk for cockatiel and humpuff treats. Upon finding them, I lured gniP and gnoP into my bird traveling case. Fawkes nibbled on a Biscuit-O while I fixed her yellow harness and leash on her before putting her in the case as well.

Melissa came out of the bathroom, and, I must say, I was proud. She had on her school unifor, yes, but instead of icky grey socks, she was wearing not only the matches to my stockings, but to my shoes as well. She held up her left fist, proudly displaying her paperclip ring, and lifted my right fist to meet hers. We had made those in primary school, and always wore them on special occasions.

"Ready to go?" she asked, smiling and fastening her sapphire cloak.

I grinned. "As ready as I'll ever be."

Grabbing our pets, we locked arms and went down to meet Tom.

"Are your trunks packed, girls?" he asked in a very parental tome.

"Oh, of course Tom!" we replied in unison.

"Well, I'll have Herbert load them up for us then," he said, nodding to a large man who headed upstairs. "While he's doing that, how about a coffee for each of the young ladies?"

"Yes, please!"


Greg: Well, that was...how shall I say it? Girly? Cliche?

Jamie: It was just fine, thank you. I'll leave it to any readers to decide if they liked it. You guys see that OK button down there? Click it, and all of my wildest dreams will come true...