Written for The Original Horcrux's Innuendo Competition on the HPFC Forum. I hope I've honoured the fun of the challenge because this was such fun ((I was trying to write it and watch Miranda at the same time and it proved quite difficult)). ^u^
Lily Evans wasn't sure whether it was appropriate to arrive early to a date with the boy you'd spent the last six years of your life religiously trying to turn into an elephant shrew, but her body clock was, as ever, running five minutes fast, so she was going to have to deal with it.
She made her way down the lawn to the Quidditch changing rooms, a location neither dignified nor romantic, but the allotted place for her to meet her beau none the less. Not wanting to go in, she made to sit down on the grass and wait, but voices caught her attention and she wandered closer to the door in view of understanding them more clearly.
"James, chuck me that towel," a member of the Quidditch team was saying, and Lily understood that. But then screams erupted.
"Take cover!"
"Mayday!"
"Goodbye, cruel world!"
"Go long, Humphrey!" James cried, and he (presumably) released a towel into the middle of the changing room.
"More like 'so long, Humphrey'!" an apparently very supportive teammate, best friend and heir of the Noble and Moste Ancient House of Black called, almost in echo.
"I don't think the Vikander worked," said the one Lily thought was the keeper.
Lily blinked. She wanted to know whether Humphrey obtained the towel. Then she blinked again. What was a Vikander?
"Point taken," James confirmed. "I think we'll try the Nipe-Weevel next week."
But seriously, what could a 'Nipe-Weevel' be if not a toy hammer for hitting toy ferrets?
"No, I was reading about this thing called the Raftat Attack – I'll bring the article next week."
To say Lily was slightly behind was possibly a bit of an understatement.
"Good work, Humphrey. We need more examples of that sort of extra-curricular interest to be shown if we really want to win the cup this year," James declared. "Damian, in a second, you'll be given half a rhyming couplet ad I'd like you to come up with the other half. How sad a thing to lose your head…"
What the hell was a Vikander?
"You'll end up dead?"
"Good try, but your line didn't have enough syllables."
Why on earth Lily had thought standing nearer to the door would aid her understanding of the conversation was beyond her. But, unfortunately, her interest was piqued and she was now doomed to stay there for as long as she took to get a handle on what was going on.
Merlin, she would be staying here until the Christmas after next.
"Well, you didn't give me much warning."
"Of course I didn't! It's a new team building exercise I've come up: improv poetry."
Lily really hoped it wasn't just her who failed to spot a link between improvised poetry and team-building.
"James, that's the stupidest idea you've ever had." Sirius demonstrated his supportiveness again.
"I concur," Humphrey concurred. (Lily had managed to work that out, although that was pretty much the sum total of her comprehension) "Actually what is going on up there, James?"
"My thoughts are stars that I cannot fathom into constellations."
I can't even fathom anything going on right now, let constellations alone, Lily thought. She admired the expression though.
"Your thoughts are stars that you cannot fathom into constellations?"
Lily was obviously improving, because she understood the ridicule dripping from every word of Sirius' dig.
"Wait, let me touch that before you put it away, please," said Damian (probably).
Lily shook her head. It was literally like watching a family of squirrels overdose on caffeine and then be offered a forest of trees to have free reign over. The boys of the Gryffindor Quidditch team moved too fast for Lily to keep track of and all looked better with bushy tails.
Pardon?
"Wow, it's so smooth-"
"So light-"
"So shiny-"
"So firm-"
"And it went so fast-"
Wait-
What were they talking about? Lily had sort of lost track for the 417th time somewhere around firm.
"I wish I had a Comet 75."
Lily mentally slapped herself. They were Quidditch players. Of course they were talking about a broomstick. Be still my beating heart.
"Oh, looks like today I'm nursing a semi," Lily heard someone say (possibly Oswald of fifth year?).
A semi? A semi-what? What could possibly-Oswald-of-fifth-year possibly mean by 'a semi'? What kind of crude lingo that Lily hadn't picked up could he possibly be using?
Ok, there were probably several answers to that. Several million answers.
"A semi?!" That was blatantly Sirius. Lily breathed a sigh of relief. Possibly-Oswald-of-fifth-year was definitely talking nonsense if Siriuscouldn't understand him. "That's massive!"
WHAT?!
"More like a mega-"
"Bonus points-"
Lily's blood suddenly felt more like an ice-cold slush-puppy than it was accustomed to. Her boyfriend had just uttered that fragment of a sentence. Her boyfriendhad been looking at possibly-Oswald-of-fifth-year's 'semi' and found it impressive enough to bother describing. And, apparently, continue to describe:
"Elephant-"
"Triple-jumping-"
"Too hot to trot-"
"Lesser-spotted-"
"McGonagall flavoured-"
Lily shuddered. Trust Blackto come up with that one. Whatever one of those was.
"Blancmange-scoffing-"
There was a pause during which Lily had time to collect her thoughts and rearrange them so that they...so that they still made no sense whatsoever. Lily sighed, but her ears pricked up at possibly-Oswald-of-fifth-year's voice as she strained to catch any word or phrase that could enlighten her.
"C'mon, it's not that bad. It's not even bleeding."
Well, thank you possibly-Oswald-of-fifth-year for that revealing nugget!Lily thought. She had thrown herself at the wall, mad with confusion and disgust and anxiety and amusement and there was probably a kitchen sink in there too, come to think of it. Dear Merlin, bleeding?!
"It's your balls, James. They're too hard. The ones I'm used to playing with are much softer."
The sky crashed onto Lily's head.
"Well, sucks to be you because I'm not changing them for you or anyone else."
Was that a dolphin in that tree? It was hard to tell when your mind was functioning so badly.
"Do you have any blancmange?" Sirius asked.
"Even if I did, Oswald's bruise would have scoffed it all."
A bruise. A BRUISE. It was a bruise. Bruise. Definitely-Oswald-of-fifth-year had a bruise.
Lily breathed. Trust the Quidditch team to have developed a language for classifying injuries.
"Lily!"
James had exited the changing rooms and his face had gone from playfully happy to light-house-level dazzling upon seeing the girl he'd been religiously trying not to be turned into an elephant shrew by for the last six years of his life. And the feel of his lips on her cheek in that moment was such that Lily was forgiven for completely forgetting anything she ever heard about Nipe-Weevels, impromptu rhyming couplets and semis.
Prompts: "Today I'm nursing a semi"; "My thoughts are stars that I cannot fathom into constellations"
Word Count: 1,123