Story Title/Link: The Common Room notice said this was a Pride.. Oh, wrong sort of Pride event.
School and Theme: Mahoutokoro/Hiding
Special Rule: Muggle-born perspective
Mandatory Prompt: [Character] Original Character
Additional Prompt(s):
[First/last line] Once upon a time, the world ended.
Year: 4
Word count: 1631
Once upon a time, the world ended. Not literally, but for Kyle Brody, it may as well have. He could have blamed it on the fact he was half-American, in addition to being a Muggle-born. Being blonde-haired and blue-green-eyed like his bastard father and sounding every bit the American he was only added to the hardship.
"Oi, Liberty Bell, you owe us money for all that tea you stupid Americans wasted!"
Kyle bristled at the jab while the idiots around him cackled at his expense.
"When you idiots repay the value of all the innocent lives you British berks murdered, I'll consider it," he snapped while flashing the middle finger at the group of Slytherins. The satisfaction at seeing them take so long to figure out what he had meant raced through his veins as he walked away. How any of the Purebloods could muster the ten brain cells to make a jab at him about the Boston Tea Party, he would ponder for eternity, considering it was a mundane war event and the Purebloods sneered at everything 'beneath' them anyway.
"What did he... Get back here and show us the respect we deserve as your betters!"
Kyle turned with a smirk that could only be described as a cruel sort of lecherous and met the fuming Pureblood ponces' gaze head on with a defiant stance.
"Why don't you ask your mother, Heir Blake? I think she understands the concept of respecting her betters a lot more thoroughly than you do. I did have her moaning my name all night last night, after all. For such a frigid witch, I'm really surprised she's so flexible. Polishing your father's ego must have been pretty good training, considering the things she did for me," he said with a tone as toxic and arrogant as the Pureblood Slytherin in question.
The hallway was dead silent for a minute before pandemonium broke loose. Half the Slytherins drew their wands threateningly, while the other half was holding the raging black-haired boy that Kyle had called Blake back as he spouted obscenities and threats at the top of his lungs. Kyle's fellow Gryffindor housemates were cackling while having their own wands raised in defense of their kin.
A faculty member was there to break up the scene and send the students on their way.
"Ballsy move, pulling a card like that on a Pureblood. Definitely an American move. Not that I blame you, Blake's mother is pretty hot for her age," one of the many faceless housemates said while the fifth year group headed to Herbology with Professor Longbottom.
Kyle scowled at the joke before disgust crawled onto his face. "I wouldn't touch his mother or his sister with a ten thousand kilometer pole. I said it because I knew it would get under his skin." The chatter around him was ignored as the group entered Greenhouse Five. He wasn't sure how none of the other guys had noticed it yet, despite having spent five years in the same dorm. Yeah, on the one hand, the views of Muggle-borns and other minority groups were being given more voice in the law, but only marginally so. He attributed the fact that he had noticed to being foreign-born, despite his father being a right arsehole and one-night-standing his mother when she was touring Europe in her twenties. On the other hand, perhaps it was the fact he was American-born and attending Hogwarts that made it all the more obvious to him.
The numbers actually astounded him, considering the ideology and mental circus that seemed to pollute the British magical community. The only thing more astounding was just who made up the numbers of included individuals. As far as he could tell, there was at least a smattering from every blood status group, with a bigger portion being in the Pureblood camp.
"Today, students, we will be going over the…"
Kyle shook his head, focusing on what Professor Longbottom was saying. His observations could wait for later on to be reviewed; right now, he needed all his attention to be on the Herbology lesson. Herbology was his worst subject, and if his mother thought him to be slacking off, he'd be given a Texas-sized grounding come the Christmas break.
Later on that evening as he was doing his homework he thought he heard an incredulous sneer of a question.
"Hogwarts Pride?"
Kyle's eyebrow arched as one of his housemates read off the notice from the Common Room message board. "What's it say, Draven? Surely, it's someone taking the mickey out of us? You know how it goes around here with the Slytherins and their stunts to try and make us look stupid. There's no way the staff would allow any kind of non-traditional holiday event celebration," he said, pushing himself to his feet and making his way over to the notice board. There was no way that this was what it made it sound like.
"Come on, come all, and let your hair down for a day! This Saturday, let your Pride show and partake in a fair the likes this school has not seen before! Flair, extravagance, creativity—we want it all! All students and faculty are encouraged to participate in the festivities!
Best and Proper behavior is expected, as there will be reporters from The Daily Prophet to take photos and conduct special interviews for the unveiling of a new column that is about to be serialized, focusing on the various institutions of our great homeland."
Kyle pinched himself to make sure he was actually awake and not in the middle of a dream. The staff was actually going to host a Pride event?
"Why in the name of Merlin would they put a capital P on a word like pride? Doesn't anyone understand anything about the English language? We invented the bloody language, after all."
Kyle glanced over to one of his Quidditch teammates, a lean young woman with black hair and startling blue eyes, as she gave a look of contempt towards the flyer. 'Oh, how small-minded of you, Jeannette,' he thought with an internal scowl. Was there a draw to the event beyond the obvious? Most certainly, but that was standard operating procedure, carried over from the Pureblood iron grip on the magical government. "Well, ladies and gents, it seems that the government and our leadership in the school has deemed it time to join the modern world. Show of hands on who is going to participate in this little image-boosting social experiment?" he asked, hints of mirth showing in his eyes as he raised two fingers.
No one else followed suit.
"Just me, then? My my, you lot lack school spirit and Hogwarts Pride, don't you. Well, I guess I have to pick up the slack," Kyle said with the hints of mirth turning into a rather large gleam of amusement that seemed to turn his eyes into a dark shade of blue instead of their regular blue-green color.
No one seemed to know quite what to make of the American muggle-born as he toddled off with his textbook. They knew he was going to do something that was either going to be entirely over the top or make an entire spectacle of himself and their House.
Little did they know, they would be right about that, but to an extent no one could have guessed.
Three days later saw the promised events and a distinct lack of the only American Muggle-born in all of Hogwarts. The festivities were rather grandiose and surprisingly not snobbish, considering the whole thing had to get rather extensive approval from the Board of Governors, which was still predominantly made up of Pureblood supremacists.
"Hello, Hogwarts, who's ready to get their Pride o...n... Oh, it's, uh.. It's not that kind of Pride, is it?"
Every eye in the Great Hall, the place where they had set up the booths and food, turned to see a rather shocking sight. Kyle Brody was your average bloke in terms of looks for an American, but the visual before them was the complete polar opposite. His long, blonde hair, reaching the bottom of his neck, was every color of the rainbow, and he had a rainbow flag painted on one cheek. For the occasion, his black coat was spelled to match his hair with a flirty face with a stuck-out tongue, while a hand to the side held up a sign that said, "Free kisses for the guys and gals brave enough to ask," and tie-dye ensemble underneath.
You could hear crickets chirping before a reporter from The Daily Prophet snapped a photo of him, dispelling the awkward silence. Then, as if on cue, pandemonium broke out amongst the student populace. Some of the kids looked on in horror and disgust, some laughed, and some, who seemed emboldened by Kyle's lack of fear to come dressed as such, did the impossible; they committed social suicide by kissing the person of the same sex nearest to them.
Kyle watched the chaos, and despite what was bound to follow, all he could do was curse. "Bugger my arse and call me a nancy boy… I owe my mother fifty quid!" he said as he stomped off to the nearest food table and snatched a biscuit from a tray. One irritated bite later, he looked up and glared at a Ravenclaw who was staring at him, jaw slacked. "What, you got a problem with a bisexual? Or, would you like to jump in a closet with a copy of Little Women?" he asked with a snarky scowl.
The Ravenclaw didn't answer.
"I'm surrounded by idiots!" Kyle groused as he left the Great Hall in a huff, his jacket fluttering like a flag in the wind.