An Exploding Traffic Cone and a Poltergeist or Two
"'With Mars rising this is a good month for you to attempt some of the riskier spells you've been shying away from.' That's insightful, that is. Although if the spell damage ward at St'Mungo's reaches full capacity it'll be all your fault."
"Angelina, will you please not read over my shoulder," Parvati made a mental note to be in the flat making a ruckus the next time Angelina was trying to work. If you could call pushing little figures around a model Quidditch pitch and looking intense work.
"Fine, I'll just take this cup of tea I've loving made for you back into the kitchen and pour it down the sink."
"Fine, Fine," Parvati shifted her charts and diagrams and books out of the way so that the tall girl could sit next to her. Angelina stretched her long legs out under the coffee table, her robes were open and Parvati could see her worn jeans and her Appleby Arrows t-shirt. That was a secret known only to Parvati and Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, Angelina didn't support the team she played for. Parvati liked to tease Angelina that she might let it slip one day when she was at the office, 'Wigtown Wanderers Star Chaser Supports Opposition' would make quite a fetching headline for the Sports Pages.
"Are you almost finished?" Angelina asked, using the mug of tea to nudge away a star chart.
"I've still got Capricorn, Aquarius and Scorpio to do and my editor wants an extended version of each sign for the new years edition. I'll be at this for hours yet."
Angelina sidled across the couch until her thigh was pressed up against Parvati's, "just make it up, that's what I used to do, no one pays attention to the horoscopes anyway."
"I'll have you know I get tons of letters from people every week saying how my predictions have changed their lives. How on earth did you get a Divination OWL anyway, if you never did your homework properly?"
"It was easy. 'Spooky things will happen at Hogwarts, Harry Potter's life will be in danger, the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match will be close.' C'mon, leave the work for a minute, we've got a party to plan." Angelina turned her almond eyes on Parvati in a puppy dog expression.
Parvati looked down at the pile of work she had to do before she could turn the finished article into the prophet and then turned to look into her girlfriends teasing eyes. There were a couple of equations she was going to need a calculator to work out and she was going to need a compass to calculate the angle from Mars. "Fine," she shoved the papers across the coffee table, "party planning it is." She looked at the piece of parchment that Angelina had brought along with the tea, "is that the list of people we're inviting."
"Yeah, awaiting your approval of course."
Parvati scanned the list 'Lavender Brown, Katie Bell, Alicia Spinnet, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lee Jordan, Cho Chang, Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter, Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger...
"Remind me why we're having the christmas party here again?" Parvati asked, continuing to scan the list.
"Fred and George asked if we could have it here this year because they still haven't got the worst of the hexes from the Death Eater raid out of their flat."
Parvati remembered that raid. The lights had gone out and there had been complete darkness and complete silence until the tiny cramped hallway she had been hiding in exploded with sparks and shouting. She remembered curses being shouted, unforgivable curses i 'Imperio, Crucio, Avada Kedavra.' /i The thing that still sometimes keeps Parvati awake at nights is that she was never sure which side it was using the unforgivables.
Parvati closed her eyes, forcing the vivid flashback out of her mind. Turning her attention back to the list she saw the names Fred and George Weasley written half way down the page, "The Weasley twins in our flat for an entire night with alcohol, mistletoe and wands, I dread to think what it'll be like in the morning."
"Parvati, it wouldn't be a good night without a exploding traffic cone and a poltergeist or two the next morning. Plus, we do owe them," Angelina reasoned.
As much as Parvati liked to feign annoyance with the Weasley twins and their propensity for chaos she's aware that she probably wouldn't be alive today without them. When the resurrected He Who Must Not Be Named had obtained a copy of the list of members of Dumbledore's Army (and didn't Marietta Edgecombe just deserve to burn in Azkaban for that one) he had put a bounty on all of their heads. The Order of the Phoenix found itself having to hide the former students from marauding Death Eaters who wanted to use their heads to gain favour with You Know Who. Parvati herself had spent a memorable eighteen months living in the stockroom of Weasley Wizard Wheezes.
"Give me the list over, I want to add a few names," Parvati picked up her discarded quill, scrawled a few more names at the bottom of the page and handed the parchment back for Angelina to examine.
"Padma hates me, anyway we're already spending Christmas day with your family." Angelina whined, slipping her arm around Parvati's shoulder and pushing up against the other girl.
"Uh huh, don't use your feminine wiles on me. She's my twin sister and you promised me you'd make an effort with her. And it isn't my fault about Christmas, I thought my parents would say no when I asked if I could bring you."
"Why?" Angelina asked out of morbid curiosity.
"They hate you too."
"Great, just great. What did I ever do to them?" That morbid curiosity of Angelina's was persistent.
"You're female, which means we won't be getting married and giving my parents grandchildren anytime soon. You're a Quidditch player and my Mother would like me to live with someone with a more respectable career. You're muggle born-"
"Okay, Okay, stop quoting your mother, you're starting to scare me." Angelina looked back at Parvati's addition's to the invite list, "Pansy Parkinson? Parvati, please?"
"She's my friend."
"She's a Slytherin."
Parvati pushed Angelina's arm off her shoulder, "Angelina, how many years ago did we leave school?"
"Well I left five years ago, technically you're still a student."
"For the five millionth time, just because the building blew up before I could sit my NEWTs doesn't mean I didn't finish."
"Sorry," Angelina brushed her lips against Parvati's in apology, Parvati leaned into the kiss, she wasn't really annoyed by Angelina's running joke but she enjoyed her way of apology, Angelina was a great kisser.
Parvati pulled back, moving her hands away from where they'd been resting against Angelina's waist. "I'll take it there's no problem with the guest list then?"
Angelina scanned down the list, catching the last two names at the bottom that she'd fail to notice because of all the kissing, "Zacharias Smith and Ernie Macmillan, seriously?"
"It's only polite, we did live with them for eighteen months," Angelina couldn't argue with that logic. They had lived with Ernie and Zacharias, even if it was in the Weasley twins stockroom while they were in hiding from the Death Eaters. Even transfigured into a two bedroom flat the stockroom had been close quarters to live with those two. Zacharias seemed to know most of the Death Eaters that were hunting them by first name, and even though he swore that if he were with You Know Who they wouldn't be hunting him down, there was something about him that neither Angelina or Parvati would ever trust. Ernie was just as bad, constantly complaining that it was unfair that they were being punished for joining a homework club while they were still in school. Parvati ignored him and Angelina told him to shut it, but privately they had both agreed with him.
"I suppose, they probably won't come anyway. Zacharias was never all that social and Ernie'll be busy trying to take over the world, or a least the ministry of magic."
"So you'll write the invites?" Parvati asked.
"I'll send Helga with them," Angelina promised, referring to their barn owl who couldn't look less like she should be named Helga if she tried. "So now that we've sorted that..." Angelina ran her hand over Parvati's knee.
"I have to finish this work for tomorrow," Parvati took in Angelina's overdramatic pout. "Then we'll see."