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Monday 12 October – Beauxbatons
I can fly. I can fly. I can fly! Blimey, circling over Europe high in the air makes it look like toytown below. England is at least symmetrical; France is like some strange amoeba organized the layout.
Suddenly I fell fast towards the ground, so I did what any sensible person does when experiencing gravity – scream like a maniac and pray I don't land on my charming face. –insert snort-
The show ended with a special grand finale – I was sucked into a chimney where I landed face first in a sooty fireplace.
Lovely. I have soot up my schnoz.
I clamored out of the fireplace very gracefully (not) and into the palace proper common room. A lounge. Only girls of 'Le Dame' status use this room. How ritzy. The room included high roofs, ornate tapestries, coloured glass, and white limestone walls that coincided with the rest of the cold yet fresh palace décor.
I inhaled deeply. Smells like girls. (as opposed to rotting boys)
And it's impeccably clean which is an indescribably large plus.
"Iz everyte'en alright een dere? I heard noises." A stuffy French voice echoed from the chamber door.
Donner and Blitzen!
And fiddlesticks!
And also DARN!
"I…uh..erm…why yes Madame. I mean oui! OUI MADAME!" I shouted, stupidly might I add, as I scrambled to sweep up the soot back into the fire with hearth paraphernalia.
"'re you certain? Your voice seems strained."
KRAPFEN! My voice! Sounding like a man has become habit. Not to mention I'm still Lee.
I need a plan. Quick!
I searched the room. No escape. There are no dorms in the lounges and no time for clothing change for Lee to Lily. I fumbled for my wand in my pocket and smartly dropped and rolled it under a couch once I'd untangled it from my robes. Oh hell's teeth.
I dropped down to dig out my wand, and simultaneously prayed for a miracle. Normally I don't get down on all fours to beg for mercy, but I will make an exception this time seeing as saving me right now is asking for a phenomenal cosmic favor. I believe I could perhaps this once get on my knees for the powers that be.
I heard the unmistakable "Alohomora" and the whining hinges of an opening door.
Rave on! My fingers curled around my wand and I muttered the first spell that came to mind.
Thursday 15 October – Hospital Wing
There you have it – the quotient of my transfiguration skills. I am exhausted trying to master the art of one of the most impossible skills on Earth. I have single-handedly landed myself in the hospital wing. Again.
Want to know why?
I bet you do.
I, Lily Anna Evans, had transfigured myself in to –
A carrot.
A blasted carrot.
I really meant to go for a chair, honestly I did.
I wasn't even discovered until the Head Girl found me in all carrot glory on the floor (a day later), and tried to take a bite of me. She figured something was wrong when the 'carrot' wiggled in her hand, leapt off her palm and began rolling away on the floor.
Anyone with a brain (or anyone who has lived with boys for over a month) knows that you do not eat random food off the floor. You simply do not know where it's been.
Or if it's even food.
In fact, it's better if you don't touch it at all.
Especially if the carrot is me.
My carrot self was eventually put back together and transfigured back to Lily; an orange Lily.
My skin is still carrot coloured.
It matches my hair.
Perfectly.
I am the human carrot. Because of this, I have not been allowed to leave the hospital wing due to frightened first formers and a flock of birds that follows me believing I am a pumpkin.
Or a large orange worm.
Outstanding.
As I was laying in the hospital wing on my own with no human comfort and life ebbing away, Alice came to visit me. She pointed and laughed immediately
"I never believed you are what eat until now." She giggled.
"I hate carrots Alice."
She snorted.
Oh Merlin and your cohorts, please bless my friend with some sanity.
"Is there anything in particular you wanted Alice? It's almost time for my de-carrotizing potion. Perhaps I will work on embroidering some toilet paper as I am so entertained here." I sniggered.
"It's not my fault, Ms. Cranky Knickers, that you're single-handedly running the biggest scandal England has ever seen. Suffering is required." Alice mused.
"I will suffer if it makes me more like Jackie Onassis." I pretended to puff up my hair.
"Oh please."
Of course I just glared at her and pretended to pay attention like a good friend would when his or her friend gave advice- with glazed eyes and a look that said 'the lights are on but nobody's home'. I stared blankly out the window.
Mmm clouds are nice. All puffy and cute….
Lordy, my brain is mush.
"Fine! Brood all day. It's not my fault you're a party pooper! I just wanted to have some good old times with my best friend. My best GIRL friend." Alice exclaimed as she stomped out of the room in rage.
She seems to have gotten the point that whilst I am orange, I am not in my right mind and should be avoided.
Where are boys when you need them! A simple hex in the face would have cured all bad feelings and we'd be playing polo like right good chums.
But noooooo. Girls have to be so much more complicated.
I believe I've just started a bloody catfight.
Later –
I had forgotten what it was like to be a girl.
After I was released from the hospital wing, I had to make myself presentable – to avoid torture from the female population, and to please my mother. I was au natural for so long at Hogwarts, every inch of me had to be moisturized, painted, trimmed, bronzed, and decorated. To top it off I was forced into a matching designer dress, blazer, shoes and handbag.
I gathered my parchments in my hands. (It is unladylike for a woman to be burdened with a backpack.)
I stumbled from the common room into the corridor. Stupid shoes. Immediately my red hair drew attention – as I was the only resident red-head of Beauxbatons at the time.
Groovy.
Now we award prizes for placement on the Disgracefully Sickening Scale of Fake. Enter a contest whose participants range from misdemeanors like nasal laughter, painfully whitened smiles, fake smiles, botox, and fake nails all the way up to lavish tales of expensive holidays, cars, brooms, homes, presents, clothes, and shallow achievements.
I could use a good shot of firewhiskey about now.
Upon my arrival, I was hunted by the most terrifying of predators: Emma LeRouge. Her perfect blonde ringlets were more of a warning than a nuclear missile 10 metres from your face. She has a mouth for gossip, which will now be demonstrated.
"Oh bonjour Lily!"
I don't know a Lily
"How marvelous to see you!" (giggle giggle, hug hug)
Gag me with a spoon you plastic doll.
"Where have you been for so long?"
Two faced wench. I'm getting out of this conversation as quickly as possible.
"I was naturally terrified about being home for the last time, seeing as we graduate this year. I had so much to learn from my mother, and we were always very close. I was just not ready to part. I did not want to become detached from my role as faithful daughter." I gritted out with a bright, fake smile.
"That's WONDERFUL to hear!" Emma gasped exaggeratedly, then learned in conspiratorially, "There were whispers that you'd run off with a boy after you two….." then she made obnoxious inappropriate hand gestures.
C.R.I.K.E.Y.
Everyone, meet the true face of Emma LeRouge: gossip queen.
Yet I will play her game.
"Emma!" I giggled and then checked over my shoulder conspiratorially, "you know that's foolish."
Of course it is. I ran off with a whole school of them.
"Then what happened!" She exclaimed with a perky chirp.
"You see, I didn't run off because of that. We're engaged. But it's a big shush shush so don't tell any one!" I spoke as if I was speaking to a four year old who I'd just helped sneak into the cookie jar.
"Oh scandalous! Who is it?"
Good question. Uh oh.
I raised my eyebrows.
"You mean you don't know!"
She shook her head.
"Surely you of all people has heard"
She nodded no.
"It's super secret insider information."
She looked as if I was subjecting her to tickle-torture, you know that awful feeling that wells up in your stomach but you can't stop giggling and smiling? Keeping "top-secret" information from Emma LeRouge was like tickling her.
She wasn't taking the hint and going away.
I'm sure what I'm about to do is a sin, and karma will catch up with me and punish me severely, but live for the moment.
"I'm engaged to…"
At that moment something possessed my mouth and spouted the vilest of names.
"James Potter."
Emma let out a blood curdling shriek and fainted. Everyone stared.
At that moment I felt like playing monkey-see-monkey-do, but it would be girly to shriek and faint and I'd be called a wimp.
Actually I probably wouldn't.
Why?
Because I am in a girls' school.
However the little imps working my mind would call me a wimp.
Then it dawned.
Sod sod sod! I just blurted Potter's name to Emma. Europe will know it all in a day or two.
What have I done?
I ran from the crime scene as fast as heels would allow. Parchment flew and quills dropped in my breakneck wake. I ran out of the school. On the last step, my heel caught between stones and I tripped.
Eggscellent. Karma has caught up in .04 seconds.
I've put a hole in my skirt and my mother will be arriving tonight. That hole definately means a hole my character.
More annoyingly, astonishingly dim Charlotte and Mischa had followed me out.
"James Potter? Really, why would he be with you? Honestly the whole school is in an uproar." Mischa baited.
Lovely, the whole school knows already. .06 seconds
"Why wouldn't he?" I retorted as I sulked on the ground.
"We dated him once." Charlotte added snobbishly.
"At the same time?" Eww.
"No you slag. I dated him. Then he cheated on me with Charlotte." Mischa said proudly.
Eww.
"Listen love, we're only concerned for your well being." Charlotte had crouched next to me on the ground. She tilted my chin up to her tiny face with her index finger as if she were a figure to admire.
Don't touch me you disease.
"That means stay away from him. He was bred for women of our stature, not yours." Her voice was poisoned honey.
See? Pure evil.
They make boy hunting sound like it's a sport. I felt sorry for Potter at that moment. To girls, he was like brontosaurus trying to hide behind a pebble.
"That's his decision, not yours, Charlotte Umbridge. Unless you're talking about slapper stature. No wonder you were a trade-off." I spat.
This may come as a shock to the world, but boys have feelings too. I've seen them.
"This is your warning." They both turned and left.
Darn.
I feel a whole lot smarter in their absence. Their stupidity is suffocating.
I decided to take a walk around the grounds to think.
Let's Review:
For the past month, I had been cringe crossdressing as a boy to attend and all boys school to further my education since all I ever learned was useless information. (Well there is a Dark Lord. Defense Against the Dark Arts might be a useful thing to know!)
I befriended a bushel of blokes who happened to be the dishiest, egotistical, groovy, fanciful, smartest, arrogant bachelors in all of Europe. None of them realized I was a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. (Yes, boys are that observant. They can't even distinguish their own kind)
We formed an international Quidditch team which I am now a part of and obligated to play upon. (Let's ignore that I learned Quidditch in a week)
When I did play Lily for a few hours, James Potter stalked me. I tried to give him the cold shoulder, but he insisted on being charming and lovely. He probably has cooties.
And now, I have returned to Beauxbatons for a day to cover-up what I have been doing for the past month while my mother visits. In the mean-time, I have engaged myself to that tosser James Potter without his knowledge and thus implied my undying love for him.
What I would do for an invisibility cloak right now.
Or a space ship to travel to Planet of the Apes.
It would be more civilized.
Dejectedly, I arrived at a grassy knoll with rocks and grass as far as the eyes could see.
No shimmering blue lake.
No giant squid.
No ideas.
Honestly, no one has ever written a story about how to get yourself out of a fake engagement because you wanted a little revenge on society's idiots.
Maybe I should apologize to Alice and ask for her advice.
Nah.
I'd rather recluse and go into mourning for my life once my mother finds out and kills me.
Perhaps I can take it a step further and become a nun.
The world can always use another nun.
Yes. Good Plan.
I debated the colour of my robes as I skipped back towards the school. As I entered the foyer, I heard an angry shrieking voice.
"LILY. ANNA. EVANS!"
Oh Merlin. It's her. This can't get any worse.
"ENGAGED?"
It did.
"WHERE IS HE? I WANT TO MEET HIM!"
Oh #$!
The ball is rolling now!
Hello Poppets! Since we've last met I've been through 3 countries, taken my AP exams, build a roller coaster, and produced this chapter for you! Why it's as if I've accomplished something.
I invite you comment on this chapter as much as you want. Be as picky as you want. In fact, I insist!
Until next time!
