Johanna Potter and the Whole of the Moon In Which We Surprise Ourselves, a harry potter fanfic

Chapter Two: In Which We Surprise Ourselves

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RandomFandom: *whispers* She's in a good mood today...

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Di Al rules. Di Al is our slang for Diagon Alley. And yes, it does rule. That's why we high-fived when Mrs. Weasley said we were going for our school supplies.

When we got there, we all split up. Percy and Mrs. Weasley made a beeline for Flourish and Blotts. Mr. Weasley, Ron, and Ginny headed for Gringotts (Ron and Ginny think riding the cart is like a Muggle roller-coaster), Charlie went to Magical Menagerie. As for us? We made our way to Gambol and Japes, of course.

I don't know about the twins, but I kinda felt sorry. I mean, for us inevitably putting Gambol and Japes out of business. The first time we went to Di Al was also the first time we ever went inside a joke shop. We knew from the first instant that we had struck gold.

We stepped inside. We browsed the shelves. It was familiar to us by now. Dungbombs, Filibuster Fireworks, and everything else. Despite that, we never tired of it.

Once Charlie dragged us out, we were less enthusiastic about Di Al. That isn't to say we weren't enthusiastic. We followed Percy around and asked "Whatcha readin'?" every twenty-nine seconds. Literally. We actually counted. We were that crazy.

"All right, kids, settle down," said Mrs. Weasley sternly. We groaned in unison. When she said that, it meant we were going home.

We came home and were bored for the rest of the day. Well, I was only slightly bored. I had my drawing.

It's not that I'm a good artist. I'm not. I just like to draw. Painting, too, but that always ends up as what we call "abstract" because we think it sounds cool, (what everyone else calls "random splatters of color," because that's what it is).

I like to draw because I can draw anything. Well, technically, it's because the drawings are mine. There are some things that I'm dying to say, but can't, not out loud. So I draw them. Once I drew a cobra reared up with red eyes and a very Voldemort-esque face.

I also like to draw things that I can say out loud, but would get laughed at if I did. That's what I draw normally. Like once I randomly drew a girl barfing into a cauldron. I also once drew a chicken going "moooo."

What was I drawing then?

Fireworks.

We waved frantically out the window of the Hogwarts Express. We were on our way to our second year.

"Compartment?" I said to the twins.

"Yerp," they responded in perfect unison.

We scanned the train. We couldn't find any empty ones. But just when we were about to give up and beg the nearby fifth year Hufflepuffs—

"Over here!"

We looked over and our faces split into grins. There sat the three other members of our group. Nearest to the window was a pale girl with a silver coloured pencil stuck through the base of her short dark ponytail and who tipped the scales at eighty-five pounds soaking wet. This was Charli the Slytherin. Next to her was a tall black girl with even darker, long, straight hair. She was Angelina Johnson. Finally there was a boy with dreadlocks and a large box in his hand. That was Lee Jordan.

We walked over and sat across from them (me across from Charli, Fred across from Angelina, and George across from Lee). "Hi," said Fred.

"What's in the box, Lee?" asked George curiously.

Lee grinned. "A turtle."

"Huh?" we said in unison.

"That's right, a turtle," said Charli in her high, sar-castic voice.

"He named it Foofy," added Angelina, rolling her gray-blue eyes.

"Foofy?" I repeated incredulously. "For a turtle?"

"Yeah," said Lee. "I named her Foofy because she's not foofy at all. It's funny."

"How do you know it's a girl?" questioned George.

He leaned over to whisper it. "Isn't that under its shell?" Fred inquired confusedly.

"Don't ask," Lee advised him simply.

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The rest of the journey was pretty mellow, except for when George gagged on an Every Flavour Bean ("I swear, it was booger!") and when the ends of Angelina's hair got singed off when we were playing Exploding Snap (that's how I've gone most of my life without getting a haircut, kids). Until...

"I heard what we're doing in Hogwarts this year," said Charli slyly.

"What? Is it a project?"

"Sort of, but not really."

"Are our lessons getting changed somehow?"

"Nope."

"Then what?"

"You think I'm gonna tell?"

This infuriated us. She always does stuff like that. She's like the most devious person ever. "ARGH! You are such a SLYTHERIN!" howled Fred.

She smiled sweetly. "Thank you."

We made speculations about what it could be. Some of our guesses were we were going to switch Houses for the year ("Eww!" we exclaimed), there would be a year without any rules (we hoped it was that one), and even that we would be turned into Muggles (Charli and Angelina, being Muggleborn, just shrugged, but the rest of us panicked slightly).

Looking back, I can't believe we didn't guess what it was. Charli gave us a hint that it had to do with music. It actually was a project, sort of. It was a project the way being on the Quidditch team is a project.

Well, what was it? You'll have to wait and find out for yourselves, just like we did. Don't worry, I will tell you. Just not right this moment.

Who's devious now?

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Well, we finally got to Hogwarts. We were inexplicably excited about riding the carriages for the first time.

Now, this is a pretty key part in this story. You might not think sauntering up to an empty carriage is key, but it wasn't what I did. It's what I saw.

My eyes swept over the carriage as I pushed myself up into it with my foot. Then I did a double-take. Pulling the carriage was a weird lizard dragon horse thing. It had huge wings and it was black and scaly. Its eyes were blank and white with no pupils. Needless to say, it really creeped me out.

I looked over at the others. "What do you think that thing is?" I asked.

They looked back at me. "What thing?" asked Lee.

My eyes widened so that they were even rounder than normal. "You can't see it?" I said. "It's right there."

They stared at me like I was mad. I did what I do every time I get really frustrated: scrunched up my face, rolled my eyes, and smacked the side of my forehead with the palm of my hand. This is just like when we found out I was a Parselmouth, I thought angrily. They thought I was mad then too.

I just slumped in my seat and didn't say anything. If I did, I would probably just confirm their suspicions about my mental health.

We got in and settled down for the Sorting. "Ardin, Michelle!"

A tall girl with hair in a long ginger ponytail and a face like a fox stepped up and sat primly on the stool.

"SLYTHERIN!"

Obviously, I thought.

The Sorting continued without us paying much attention, except for cheering for the Gryffindors (Katherine Bell, Alexander Cricket, Benjamin Grey, Tyler Kinbury, Lucille Lunerre, Cormac McLaggen, and Naomi Wentser). It was what came after the Sorting that made our heads snap up. Well, technically, it was after the feast. Dumbledore was making his announcements. We only paid attention to when Quidditch tryouts were.

"...and, finally, I have one very, very important announcement, even more important than Fanged Frisbees being banned."

He was going to say what the thing that Charli was talking about on the train was!

"Many of you," Dumbledore continued. "Are Muggleborn, so you have heard of several different kinds of media. However, there is one that has been around, for both wizards and Muggles, almost since the beginning of time—acting. Which is why we will be performing a Muggle musical this year!"

"Why would we do that?" a voice from the Slytherin table called rudely. I could almost hear Charli snarling, "Shut it, dalmation." That was her Muggleborn version of the M-word.

Dumbledore ignored him and said that tryouts were on Tuesday and we would be watching the musical on DVD on Saturday in the Great Hall.

Angelina twisted in her seat to face the twins and me. "You think you're gonna try out?" she whispered to us.

"Nah," we all replied at the same time.

"Do you?" I asked Angelina. She gave the same answer as us.

So what if there was a musical at school? That was more of a Charli thing. Us, we liked to display our skills on the Quidditch pitch or to Percy, soaking wet with water balloons. Not on a stage. No, it just wasn't us.

Or so we thought.

On Saturday, we flocked with everyone else down to the Great Hall. When we entered, we were impressed. A long, large stage had been conjured up behind the staff table. The tables were gone, replaced by theater-style sloping seats. We decided to sit in the back with our popcorn (they were selling some, we were peckish, and I had some extra gold on me).

The musical was called "Cats." It was projected onto the curtain, which was midnight black. It started with a bunch of cat eyes appearing on a black backdrop, set to mysterious music. Then the actual musical started. The first song was pretty catchy, although it said this made-up word, "jellicle," about a thousand times. Then there was this really mysterious one that was just slow, rhythmic talking. Then there was one that I had to admit was very pretty. It talked about the Jellicle Ball. But even when we jumped up and started dancing to the fifth one, we still didn't want to be in the musical.

That is, we didn't until the eighth song.

It was after this really, really dumb song about a really, really fat cat called Bustopher Jones and some random cat hollering "MACAVITY!" and everyone freaking out. We weren't really paying attention until the song started. It started with a very high-pitched laugh, then someone going "shhh!" Then two cats popped up, a guy and a girl. They were holding bags. They backed up and bumped into each other, then they started singing. It turned out the song was about two cats named Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (Mungojerrie was the guy and Rumpleteazer was the girl) who were always where they weren't supposed to be. They went into people's houses, swiped random stuff, and ran off. When something went wrong, it was always their fault.

When the song was over, it went into a really quiet song about a cat called Old Deuteronomy. We looked at Charli.

"When did Dumbledore say tryouts were, again?

RandomFandom recommends looking up "Cats musical" on YouTube. She says it'll be worth it. And trust me it will be. That musical is awesome. Oh yeah, and review. Please.