2. Am I too outspoken?/ I take it like a man
Angelina.
Six years in Hogwarts had taught her that it was foolish to hope for a day that bore some semblance of normalcy. In a school where brooms replaced hockey sticks, cauldrons replaced test tubes and owls replaced a postage stamp, normal just did not cut it. Heck, the entire school population was anything but normal. So Angelina was not in the least bewildered when she found herself staring at two old men sporting long white hair, beards and moustaches long enough to rival Dumbledore's, moments after she had placed a piece of parchment bearing her name into a fire-spewing cup.
Smirking and shaking her head at their audacity, she walked past the two almost-17-year-old septuagenarians, who were now drawing all the attention in the Great Hall, even more so now with their nondescript white hair instead of the usual fiery red. She caught one of their eyes, realised with a start that it was -him, although how she could tell through the Dumbledore-esque beard she did not know- and gave him her best 'I-told-you-so' look, as she -or so she hoped- coolly and calmly walked towards her waiting, and now laughing, friends. As they walked out of the Great Hall, she could not help but turn to look and smile at him again, thinking that despite the ridiculous facial hair, if that was how he would look like at 70, it was a face she would gladly wake up to every morning - dentures and all. But the smile died on her lips, just when she saw an enamoured and rather beautiful fifth-year finger with his newfound beard playfully, flirtatiously..that same ridiculous beard that she would force him to shave should he want to keep it at 70. She knew that feeling in her stomach this morning was because of her nervousness in entering her name for the tournament, it was the same feeling she got before every Quidditch match. But this feeling now was new to her. Cold. Bitter. Nauseating. It was something she kept feeling lately, especially when the attentions of a certain redhead was focused on someone young and female, who was never her. Whipping her head back, she mustered all the pride in her and walked out briskly, never aware of the same pair of eyes that was now watching her, have always been watching her.
As she closed the hangings of her four-poster bed -and in which universe other than this would a boarding school come with such lavish sleeping options, she mused- her mind wondered to the events of the day. In all her six years in this fantastical place, today's announcement at dinner had to be the most 'normal' of all that she's heard coming from the Great Hall, and yet also the most sensational. She smiled dreamily as she tried to picture that elusive dream dress that would make him realise that she is a girl, that she is capable of beauty too, despite her athleticism and her brashness. Her girlish daydreams came to a crash as a picture of her in that as-yet-to-be-found, but gorgeous nonetheless, dress, was joined by him looking dapper in formalwear. Even in her mind's eye, it looked impossible, like the fairy tale her mother used to tell her, about the beauty falling in love with the beast. She never believed that story, even as a child. She learned at an early age to not side with the princess, she knew even then that she was never going to be the princess who the prince will fall for - she always took the side of the trusty sidekick to the prince. His best mate. The goofy one who makes everyone laugh, the tomboy who the boys turn to for 'inside infortmation'.
The best mate never gets the prince, was her last thought before she fell asleep.
When the prince asked his best mate the next day to be his princess, she wondered if she really had woken up from her sleep and brushed her teeth that morning.