The HPFC forum-wide competition has officially begun! :D
I'm batting for Gryffindor ;) Good luck to everyone else too, though - I look forward to reading as many entries as I can! :)
My prompt was scale, and without further ado, I give you the result...
On a scale of one to ten...
Ever since she could remember, Lily Evans had judged things using scales. Lots of scales. No matter what the situation was, Lily had a scale for it.
"On a scale of one to ten, mummy, how hard do you think the work at Hogwarts..."
"On a scale of one to five, I'd only give it around a two...Amos just wasn't that interesting, Ali..."
"Yes, I know I don't have to be perfect at Charms, Professor Flitwick, but I just thought some extra practice might help...I mean, if you look at my abilities just now, on a scale of one to ten, I'm only around a seven..."
You see, scales worked for Lily. They were consistent, they were clear. Scales let Lily know exactly where she stood in life - there was no nonsense, no confusion, just the facts. Plain and simple.
Which was exactly how she liked things.
And then - of course - she met James Potter.
Someone whose attitude and way of life was so completely alien to Lily that he might as well have been covered in scales, for all she cared!
Consistently annoying and so clearly insane, James couldn't have been more different from his red-headed rival. He lived for the nonsense he caused on a daily basis, thrived on the confusion and awe he left in his wake. In James Potter's life, nobody was plain. And nothing - absolutely nothing - was simple.
So naturally, he took great pride and pleasure sending Lily's perfectly scaled world shattering into oblivion.
Toerag.
Because, you see, the problem with Potter was that he just wouldn't fit on her scales, would he?
On a scale of one to ten of how annoying she found him, she just couldn't help it - she had to say eleven.
On a scale of one to five, five being the most infuriating a person could be, James Potter was a definite six.
And on a scale of one to...two...of how attractive she found him, he was...three. Three and a half, maximum.
And 3.5 wasn't really that high a number, was it? Of course not!
Well, at least, not if you looked at things on a grander scale...