All right, this is the final story off of my inspiration burst. I have two continuing stories, which I haven't updated in like months! And I don't think I need to add to my workload. Anyway, I just have to put this story out coz I think its really cute. Its totally AU staring the Marauders and Lily and a few other characters. Its AU coz its set in modern times. Some characters are also a bit off character (i.e. obsessive Lily and a very cynical Remus), but the rest are probably close to what they are supposed to be. Imagine it like a teen movie if you please. I do not own anything! This is my first try on creating a romantic fic. Please read and review.
Chapter 1: Bitter Old Hags
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Bettina Willoughby moaned as the sun's light hit her eyes, urging her to wake up. She reached out and grabbed her bed hangings and swung it to cover the sunlight. She tried as she may to go back to sleep when two girls came into their dormitory, chattering and giggling away.
"Then he said to meet him in front of the school tonight!" one of them giggled, as the other squealed like a baby pig. About this time, Bettina had had enough. She threw her scarlet red hangings aside and cleared her throat out loud. The girls stopped and looked at her, both completely indignant.
"Do you mind," she said, trying to conceal her grogginess, "but some people prefer not to hear the babbles of shallow airheads this early in the morning. If you like squawking, then go to the Owlery where most birds like your species prefer to squawk."
She swung her hangings to cover herself again and waited as the two girls went out mumbling furiously. Miserable gits, she thought as she slowly got up from her bed. She robbed her eyes and noticed that she was the only one still asleep in the dormitory again. Yawning, she got up and walked over to her drawer to take out a towel. As a seventh year in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one knows the castle-school very well. At the far right of the room, there was a painting of an old Victorian lady knitting a shawl. She walked over there and pulled on the thread the lady was knitting with. The painting slowly creaked open and revealed a descending staircase. She climbed down the spiral staircase and arrived at a door that had a gold letter "P" on it.
"Password," a voice within the door asked.
"Bubbly toes," said Bettina. The door swung open revealing a magnificently large bathroom. It was the prefects' bathroom of Hogwarts, and Bettina had entered one of its secret passages coming from the four houses. To Bettina's relief, no one at the moment was using it. She hopped in one of the showers and turned on the water.
After a quick shower and toothbrush, she got back to her dormitory using the same passage she had used to enter the bathroom. When she got there, she quickly got dressed into her Hogwarts uniform and gathered her things and put them into her messenger bag. She brushed her long, wavy raven-colored hair and put it up in a pigtail. Casting one more look at her reflection in the mirror, she went down the dormitory staircase, to the busy common room, and out the portrait hole without even saying hello or good morning to anyone she came across. She pushed the portrait opened and climbed out of it.
"Well, good morning to you!" greeted the Fat Lady. "My, my, aren't we late again this morning!"
Bettina shot her a cold glance with her stony-gray eyes and scowled. She then continued to walk down the stairs.
"Woke up on the wrong side of the bed again, eh?" the Fat Lady called after her.
"Fat bitch," she mumbled, trying to ignore her laughs echoing throughout the corridor.
As she made her way down the corridors to the Great Hall, she had her eyes straight ahead and ignored the stares and whispers from groups of people about her as she passed by. As far as she can remember, kids have always feared her, but she didn't care. She didn't want to waste her time with people who only cared about how they looked and what are the best parties to go to. At last, she had arrived at the entrance hall. She passed crowds and saw a glint of shiny red hair sitting alone at the Gryffindor table. She made her way to this red head.
"Hey," she greeted her best friend, Lily Evans, and helped herself with some bacon, eggs, and toasts.
"Hey," Lily answered without looking up. She was busy writing on a parchment to pay attention to her best friend.
Bettina raised one eyebrow and stretched her neck a bit to see what her friend was doing. Then she reached out and grabbed Lily's parchment. She slightly frowned at picture she was staring at. It was a picture of the celebrity Lily admired-nay, obsessed with-and had hearts, flowers, smiley faces, etc. around him.
"Orlando Bloom?" Bettina asked Lily. "'To love is not just to grant physical contact but a deep spiritual connection as well'?"
"Very cool, right?" grinned Lily. "I made up the quote myself."
"You do know that stalking is illegal in Britain, right?" Bettina remarked, handing the parchment back to Lily.
"It's not stalking. It's admiring," she retorted. "Besides, it's not my fault nobody in this school is as mysterious, handsome, and wonderful as him," she added, stroking the picture of the half-smiling actor. (A/n: so true…in my case anyway)
"Please, Lily, you're scaring me," she said, taking a large gulp of her orange juice. "On the other hand, you do have a point. Boys here are so immature. Not to mention sweaty and puerile gender incapable of showing emotions of love and compassion to the opposite sex."
Lily stared at her best friend with slight amazement. "You know, Bee, you are the only one I know in Hogwarts that can give good synonyms for jerkface and butthole. I know two boys who are the exact opposite of what you described. The only thing is that they are dating each other." She looked at the Hufflepuff table and shuddered.
At that moment, silence came over them as Lily went on to decorate her parchment, and Bettina sat eating her food quietly. Her eyes traveled around the Great Hall to the Slytherin table. She caught sight of Evan Rosier and his new girlfriend, the queen of all things superficial, Prudence Curtis. Your basic most popular girl in the entire school with curly light brown hair and big blue eyes, Prudence is that girl who every girl wants to be and every boy wants to screw. She was giggling a high pitch giggle as she fed Evan some orange slices. Bettina looked disgusted as she watched they exchanged spit as they kissed each other. Lily saw her staring and followed her gaze.
"Ah, public display of affection. Someone should make it illegal. I mean that's how millions of teenage girls get pregnant every year."
Bettina remained silence as she looked away from the couple. Somehow, for some strange reason, everywhere she looked she would see a couple being cuddly and romantic. Her heart cringed at the very sight, which made her scowl. She turned to her best friend and said,
"We're bitter old hags, aren't we?"
"Nah-uh, us? No way. We're young. Bitter young hags," Lily answered as she put her parchment away (not without kissing it, of course). "Better yet," she added thoughtfully, "we're more beautiful than hags. I mean they're very ugly, aren't they? So we're bitter young and pretty hags."
Bettina furrowed her brows. "Is there such a thing?"
Lily nodded. "Yeah, us."
Bettina smiled slightly at her friend and finished her toast. "Better to be bitter than obsessed with a boy who would never share the same feelings as me in a million years. No offense," she added to her friend.
"None taken. So did you study for the Charms test?"
"All night, that's why I slept in again. I don't know you could ever like it. It's a terrible subject."
The bell rang as the signal for the start of morning lessons. Lily and Bettina got up of the table, gathered their things, and filed out of the Great Hall towards the dungeons for the lesson of the day-Potions.
"I don't know how you could like Potions. It's a horrid subject. Charms is so much easier than Potions."
"It is not about the level of difficulty, Lily, it's learning about why people are they way they are-desperate, scheming, and neurotic. It's humanity at its finest."
"Ah, humanity," remarked Lily dryly. They descended down the stairs to the Potions dungeon, where many of the Gryffindors are already standing, waiting for the Potions Mistress, Professor Bennett. Since it was Double Potions, the Gryffinors would be having their lessons with the Slytherins. Lily and Bettina spotted their two other friends, Frank Longbottom and Lorelai McAllister. Frank was a stout boy with brown hair, and Lorelai was a tall, beautiful girl with long, golden curls. The two were both waiting outside with the rest of the Gryffindors.
Frank saw them coming and said, "Hey, just a reminder, we have a gig tonight. It's Tom Macmillan's Hufflepuff party. It starts 7:30, but we have a sound check an hour before the party starts so you might want to be there at 6:30."
"6:30? Got it," said Lily. The four of them had a band called "The Shrunken Heads." They were Hogwart's only rock band. Frank played the drums, Lorelai played the bass, Lily played the lead guitar, and Bettina was vocals and played the back-up guitar.
"I might be late. Voice of Hogwarts kind of thing," said Bettina.
"Right, you three do know where it is right?" asked Frank.
"Yeah, it is at that empty hall next to the kitchens," replied Lorelai.
"And the password?"
"Of, course."
Just then the Potions Mistress, Professor Alice Bennett came and let them in the dungeons. She was a woman with dark hair, which was always in a bun, and a kind personality. Professor Bennett was somebody who Bettina admired, because of their shared passion for Potions.
"Come in, come in, we have a lot of things to cover today," the Professor said, as the 7th year students filed in. "Get into groups of two and I will explain what we will do today."
* * *
"Am I doing this right?" asked a very nervous Lily, as she poured armadillo bile in a boiling cauldron.
"Yeah, just pour that in and let it simmer, then take it out of the fire," answered Bettina, who was finishing up her potion. They were busy working on their Creature-Altering Potion for about an hour now. They were to test it with each other after they had finished to see what kind of animal each would turn into. The Professor had provided an antidote to switch the student back into a human. After they had performed their experiment, they would have to gather their observations and conclude the experiment in a lengthy essay.
Thomas Wilkes, a Slytherin who thinks that every girl in the school wants him, walked past the two. "Hey, Lily, look it's your boyfriend. Why don't you give him a kiss?" he said as he held up a piece of parchment with a stick boy drawn on it. Lily's lips quivered but she held her tears back. She wasn't about to let someone like Wilkes torment her.
"Can I ask you a question, Lily," he continued. "Does it require an Head Girl to be mental challenged?" He laughed a boisterous laugh.
"Why don't you back off, Wilkes," said Frank stepping right in front of him. Frank was about a foot smaller than him, nonetheless, he stood up confidently against him to defend Lily.
"And what are you going to do, you pudgy git?" sneered Wilkes. "Are you going to punch me?" He stepped forward so that he was an inch close to Frank.
"Well, I-I thought about it but why do we need all these violence anyway, right?" he said nervously. "In fact, I'm going now in-in peace." He walked quickly behind Lorelai, who was in the next table, and hid behind her.
Bettina stood watching all of this and had enough. As Wilkes turned to her, she cast him a dark look. Wilkes smiled his toothy smile at her. "Bettina, love, why don't you come over to our table sometimes. Maybe we could-you know-do something more personal?" He moved closer to her so that she can smell his breath that still smelt like breakfast. It made her feel like vomiting.
"Yes, Wilkes, why don't we do something more personal," she said, as she grabbed her bottle of potion. "In fact, why don't we do it now?" She splashed her potion on his face and watched him shrink to about a half foot and turned green to turn into a… "Oh, look, Slytherin's horny horned toad," she remarked as she looked down at the pile of clothes that used to be Wilkes. He hopped out of the pile and croaked. He hopped towards his Slytherin friends. Bettina, Lily, Frank, and Lorelai watched as Prudence turned around and saw Wilkes the toad hopping towards her. She shrieked loudly and pulled Evan in front of her to shield her from the toad. Severus Snape, an oily haired Slytherin, tried to catch Wilkes but he hopped away from him. The dungeon rang with noise as the Gryffindors and Slytherins were in a frenzy trying to catch the toad.
"Everyone, please calm down…Ms. Curtis, please calm yourself…somebody please get that toad!" shouted Professor Bennett, trying to subdue the class. She finally got the class to be quiet by a loud bang from her wand. "Thank you, now, please hand over that toad, Mr. Snape."
Severus came to the front of the room and handed the quivering toad to the Professor. "Who is this toad?"
"Thomas Wilkes, Professor," he answered. Professor Bennett looked around the dungeon with her eyes narrowed.
"All right, who is responsible for this act?"
Everyone looked at Bettina. "What? Well, I didn't do anything that hasn't already been done. I just merely returned him back to his normal state. You know, like back to his species?" The Gryffindors sniggered as she said this.
"All right, all right, be quiet. Ms. Willoughby, you have no right to perform that experiment on another student who is not your partner. For your act of insubordination and lack of self-control, fifteen points off from the Gryffindors and a detention to be served with me tomorrow night." She turned to Snape and handed him a glass vile, "Take this and go get his clothes. Just one drop on his head and he will back to normal. Go to my office and do it there."
* * *
Remus Lupin walked quickly past the library and to a classroom. He glanced at his watch before entering the room. It was half past one in the afternoon. He turned the knob and entered a room that seemed to be a news-writing classroom. There were three rows of table lined in the middle of the classroom, and on these tables were several wooden boards with layouts taped on them. Several desks were lined up against the walls with old-fashioned typewriters and rolls of parchments. Many students were busy working on the tables and desks. This room was where Hogwarts's newspaper, The Voice of Hogwarts, was made. The newspaper came out every Friday, which was the reason for the bustling of the newspaper staff. Remus made his way towards his desk and put his bag on it.
"You're late, Remus," said a voice behind him. It was Bettina, his co-editor in chief.
"Hello to you too, Bettina," he sighed, as he handed her a piece of note. She took it and read the note.
"In the hospital again? That is the second time this week. Did you get your head stuck up your ass again?"
"Pretty hilarious. Actually, I'm doing great thank you for asking, and you?"
Bettina gave him a repressive look. "If you come late again, I will be forced to inform Professor Mcgonagall of your incapability to be a co-editor in chief in this newspaper."
Forced? He thought. "I'm really glad you care so much for me, Bettina, but, honestly, I would have preferred for you to just give me flowers or sweets, perhaps even a get-well card," he said wryly.
"Don't patronize me." She turned on her heels and walked to the front of the room.
"You know, Bettina, I am just wondering, but have you taken an extra dose of bitchiness today?" Remus asked as he walked after her.
"I've taken extra just for you, Remus," she answered, as she halted and clear her throat out loud. "All right, since Remus was kind enough to come thirty minutes late, I can finally make my announcement. As you all know, it is Friday, and we will be distributing newspaper throughout the school. So I will be needing ten volunteers, four from the four different houses and the rest to help in distributing newspapers to teachers. As it is Friday, we will be working on a new layout for the next issue. Remus here will be showing and teaching you all how to do it. Lastly, I need your articles to be turned in here on Wednesday, and no later. Is that all clear? Now, get back to work."
Before Remus could turn around and walk away, Bettina held him back. "I haven't gotten any article from you for two months. Why is that?"
Remus looked at her for a moment, trying to quickly think of an excuse. "Bettina, sweetie, sweetheart, honey, dear, love, I have not turned in an article for a month. And there is a pretty good reason for that, I just don't find anything interesting in this school. People are all mostly too focused on quidditch, but Jonathan and Alex already covering the games. Other than that, I just don't find anything else to write. Unless people are interesting in ways to harass Slytherins, you know, burn all their clothes, and use Snape's underwear as the Slytherin banner, then by all means, I will write about that."
"Remus, cupcake, honey, baby, my one and only, you do know that we can't have biased views in our newspaper. You have until next Tuesday to give me all your articles, and no later than that, okay?" she said to him, fixing his shirt collar before turning around to leave.
Remus stared after to her with mixed feelings of anger and annoyance. How he hated her so much. From her square-rimmed glasses to her scowling face, you know, the type of expression that always seemed to hate the world. Not that Remus is any different, hell, in fact, he's almost the same. He has been like this since well, since a werewolf bit him ten years ago. Ever since then, he had lost all his hope in the world. It turned its back on me, but not before throwing me several shits along the way. It was not that he hated her because of her hate for the world, no, he hated her for her extremely bossiness and superior attitude. He was so deep in thought that he didn't notice that a 5th year Ravenclaw, Monica, came up to him.
"Why do you let her boss you around like that? I mean you two are both editors in chief, yet you let her dictate us around like a general to an army."
Remus looked at her and explained, "Well, you see, Bettina has this illness, a rare and dangerous one, mind you, and that is when she doesn't get her required amount of bossing around, she turns into this hideous monster-big, green, toothy-"
"You mean, even more than what she is now?" grinned Monica.
Remus smiled slightly. "Yeah, even more than now. So to balance things out, I let her boss me around," he said, "you know, just doing my part to society," he added, as he watched Bettina scold a 4th year boy, who is about to cry, and, by the looks of it, is about to wet his pants.
Disclaimers are as follows: title from Michelle Branch, HP characters are from J.K. Rowling, Bettina most certainly owns herself, however, her last name is owned by Jane Austen from Sense and Sensibility, and lastly and sadly, Orlando Bloom is not mine, but a girl can dream!