Mission: MSC, aka the Marry Sue Challenge

Objective: a challenge for me as a writer; infiltrate the Mary Sue's territory, but resist conversion

MSC1: initiate a romance between an OOC and an existing character

Difficultly: low

Universe: Harry Potter

OOC Agent: Philomene Bagley

Philomene was a rather unremarkable girl. She was a Hufflepuff for starters, and not one of the interesting ones. Her grades were average enough, though she had never been very outgoing, and she was pretty in a plain sort of way. She had a couple flaws, but none of them were too bad. She had a couple talents, but none of those were too bad either. Her biggest talent was being able to blend in, which she normally found quite useful. Unfortunately, that talent seemed to be on the fritz today.

"So do you see him often?"

"I guess so. I mean, our house is only a few away so…"

"So did you see him on the night when he escaped by flying car?" Estelle asked.

One of the others squealed "Ooooh! Yeah, that's one of my favorites! My brother's friend's cousin heard about it from one of the Weasley's!"

Philomene shook her head apologetically "I was sleeping. Most people do sleep at night, you know? It's the only reason it wasn't all over the news."

"But the racket must have woken you!"

A chorus of agreement rose up from the others. Philomene shook her head.

"Not really. I mean, I did wake up, but only in time to see the taillights."

An equal chorus of disappointment followed, but didn't last for long.

You see, Philomene did have one rather interesting trait, though not through any fault of her own. Her address just happened to be Number 2 Privet Drive. In other words, a couple houses down from Harry Potter.

The girls, all prim and pretty and interested, were gathered around her, in a gaggle of giggles. Really more of a prison of giggles; she couldn't seem to find her way out. A girl named Estelle was the leader. She was pretty in the look-at-me-now kind of way. Her eyes were bright green, while her hair was brunette, and flowed around her shoulders. Her nails were long and painted, possibly press on, and her face was covered with freckles.

"Have you ever talked to him?" Estelle asked intently.

"N-no. His family seems really mean, you know?"

"I wouldn't let that stop me. I mean, they're muggles, right? Not like they can do much to you."

"But- we still aren't allowed to use magic."

No one seemed to hear this, and in all fairness she had said it very quietly.

"Lucky you," one of them exclaimed "You get to see him all year. I don't even get to see my boyfriend that often!"

"I would ask him out if I lived that close! You'd be way closer than anyone else."

"Oh yeah, that would be so great!"

Philomene thought this was a good time to make her exit, before the conversation took any sort of unfortunate, possibly even creepy, turn. They were distracted chattering among each other again, so she to slip between a couple and out the door.

The hallways were pretty busy, as the last of the final exams had just rounded up, but she managed to find a quiet corner to hide away in. Then she proceeded to be unnoticeable and boring, in the hopes that there would be no more ambushes by fangirls.

It wasn't her fault she happened to live near the famous Harry Potter; her parents had moved without particularly asking her. In fact, she was pretty sure they didn't know Harry was there, even now. Her mum was almost always away on business, so she never saw Harry or the Dursleys, and her dad was a muggle. They vaguely knew that there was a kid named Harry, but they mostly kept away because he was known to be trouble on their street.

Philomene was not as fortunate. She had seen Harry enough to recognize him, and she knew what he looked like because of course she did. She had managed not to mention it for several years now, but eventually it had slipped out and the fangirls had come for all the juicy gossip.

Maybe she would set up a video camera at home or something; if they were going to be voyeurs, they might as well do it directly an honestly.

Not that she would ever actually do that, of course. That would be creepy and horrid, and she was pretty sure most witches didn't even know what a video camera was, much less how to watch a tape.

She settled down in one of the corners of the hall, and waited for the crows to clear a little, running the day's plans through her head while she did so. She still had to finish packing for the train, and tidy up her space. She needed to send an owl ahead to remind her dad she was coming home; sometimes he forgot.

Not to mention, her little sister Jenny loved getting owls. She had always been looking forward to getting one of her own. Jenny was ten now, and hadn't shown any sign of magic. It was unlikely that she would get a letter, but Philomene had decided there would be the biggest, grandest, prettiest owl you had ever seen for Jenny, whether she was a witch or not. Sure they were a bit odd for a muggle, but Philomene didn't care.

"Excuse me?"

Philomene looked up, and turned bright red. Harry Potter was there. The Harry Potter; with Weasley at his right shoulder and Granger at his left. He was holding out some paper; it looked like some old homework she had dropped.

"Is this yours?"

"Yesthankyou" she snatched it back as if afraid it was going to run off, and turned an even brighter shade of red.

Potter gave her an odd look, and walked off, friends in tow. Philomene buried he head in her hands, groaning. She wasn't sure what embarrassed her more; looking like an idiot, or being flushed enough to even act like an idiot. She thought all that fangirl mess was below her.

She rushed off into the crowd, not caring anymore about how busy it was, and off to her room to finish packing. She tried to think about owls, big magnificent owls for Jenny, rather than the heat on her face.