+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Slashy, as usual. JK's, as usual. What else could it possibly be?
Also, I've decided I should say when my stories are happening. This chapter begins around 12/20, Harry's 5th year.
Thank you to various people at FictionAlleyPark for helping me figure out what religion Padma was and how it worked and stuff. Especially Madhuri.
And the line "Why am I surrounded by incompetent fools?" is from the movie /Merlin/. It's probably my favorite movie line ever, with the possible exception of "It's not that I'm a lesbian... it's just that all of the people I've been attracted to have been girls" in my beloved /Election/. Oooh, yeah, and "I'm big, you're small, I'm right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it" in /Matilda/. And Ron's "brilliant, but scary line" which shone like the moon in a movie with /way/ too much H/H subtext. And-
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Padma got a letter the next morning at breakfast. After skimming it over, she cried out and let her head fall onto the table, making a loud thump. Taking this as a sign of self-destructive tendencies, Morag hugged her and said
"It's okay, sweet, it's okay."
Padma, who would have enjoyed it had Morag been her type, jerked away and said "No, it's *not*. My parents actually said that... Lavendar... could come to our house for the winter holidays. They just wrote to tell me."
"And how do you feel about that?" Terry said soothingly, as Lisa muttered "Imagine sharing your *house* with a Mudblood! I'd just *die*!"
"Look!" Padma pointed over to the Gryffindor tables, where Parvati and Lavendar were enchanting their lip gloss to flash different colors. "Look at them, Lisa. Would you want *them* to come to your house? Both of them? At the same time?"
Lisa examined Parvati and Lavendar seriously.
"You don't know what it's like, Lisa. Eventually you don't even remember your name- just the first syllable. You might even put blond highlights in your hair. That's what Parvati and Lavendar can do to you- in *small* doses."
Lisa stuffed an omelet in her mouth so as not to be caught laughing at "the full-blood."
Terry patted her arm reassuringly. "Don't worry, maybe you can stay at Hogwarts."
"But my mother says it's ethnocentric and prejudiced to make everyone celebrate Christmas and we should all stay home and teach them the error of their ways. She's quite sensitive about that sort of thing, you know."
"You said there weren't any Hindu holidays around Christmas. At least not that you celebrate."
"She says that's not the point. She thinks it's ethnocentric and prejudiced to make everyone celebrate Christmas and we should all stay home and teach them the error of their ways. She's quite sensitive about that sort of thing, you know."
From out of the corner of her eye, Padma thought she saw Lisa look vaguely impressed.
"What I really need," she mused out loud, "is an excuse. Lisa, are you staying for the holidays?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Padma was sitting by the lake (an immunity to cold had always seemed a useful thing to develop) when a first-year bounced up and cried "'Lo, Patil! I hope you're grateful."
She squinted up at the boy, who was clothed in a robe so old he had to wear Muggle jeans under it to keep from being indecent. "I think you've got the wrong Patil," she said. "Did Parvati give you some of her infamous advice on girls?"
"Thank the Lord, no," he said, sounding much too confident for a first-year. "Isn't she the one who says you're supposed to tell the girl how you *feel* about her? And ask her before you kiss her?"
Padma shuddered. "Yes."
"I have enough sense not to try that. Anyway, I'm referring to the fact that I've taken pity on you and decided to spend Christmas here, which, when one is blessed with an obsessively overprotective older sibling, may result in said older sibling spending Christmas here as well, which, to those whose mere sanity depends on this-" he pointed at Padma- "may be a beneficial occasion indeed."
Padma blinked. Then she smiled. Then she hugged the first-year and almost pushed him into the lake.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ /I might not have minded staying for the holidays so much/, Padma thought on the first day of vacation, alone in the common room, /if I'd still been friends with Mandy./ They would have relished the time without work, explored forgotten corridors, looked for secret rooms. That was the kind of thing they'd done all the time, before. Although, she had to admit, their friendship hadn't been as fun in the last year or so. It had been much easier when they were just little girls, free from any of the complications of hormones and puberty.
But there was no use crying over spilt milk, really. Who cared that Padma had to share the dormitory with two people who couldn't bear her? Who cared that she didn't have anyone to talk to anymore? Who cared that-
Now that she thought about it, it was quite horrible when you spilled milk. Sometimes it went down your robes, staining them and making them horribly smelly. Padma started to cry.
"Patil?"
Padma willed herself to stop crying, but it didn't work. She looked up at Lisa Turpin who, through a haze of salt water, appeared almost ethereal, which of course she was anything but. Padma tried not to notice this, while Lisa tried equally hard not to notice that Padma really looked quite ethereal herself, all those unheeded tears running down her face. She never /had/ been one to wipe them off.
"You okay?" Lisa looked very uncomfortable, as if she might be carted off to Azkaban for displaying pity towards Patil.
"Yes," Padma said, lying very obviously. They were still flowing.
"Look, why don't I- do you want a Chocolate Frog or something?"
"Hate them," Padma sniffed.
"Yeah, me too. My dad's always sending them to me though. I thought I might as well put them to good use- Patil, /what's the matter/?"
"I'm /fine/," Padma insisted, crying some more.
"You don't look it. Anyway, I was thinking we could just do the tutoring /now/ and get it over with. At least most of it. So it doesn't cast a shadow over the holidays and you can evade and disregard your ethnicity in peace."
Padma stopped crying. "Really?"
"Yes. One one condition."
"What?"
"I get to bring my brother."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Overprotective was right. Lisa seemed more interested in talking to Jack than in quizzing Padma on Romanian Longhorns.
"Jack, are you thirsty?"
"No."
"Do you need to go to the loo?"
"No."
"Patil, why are Longhorns an endangered species?"
"Er... I don't know?"
"I'm not surprised. D'/you/ want a Chocolate Frog, Jack?"
"No!" Jack sighed adorably and gave Padma a /why-am-I-surrounded-by-incompetent-fools/ look. She returned it.
Lisa glared at them. "It's not /my/ fault he's helpless," she snapped. "And stop doing that to your hair, Patil."
"What am I doing to my hair?"
"Twisting it like that. It's very distracting."
"Well, it's distracting when /you/ push your hair back too, you know," Padma said, and immediately realized that this was true.
Jack burst out laughing, and then started to sing a song about Padma and Lisa sitting in a tree, at which point Lisa turned very red and rushed him off to the loo. Padma supposed that was a Muggle thing, and wondered what on earth it was about.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ::shivers:: Ooh, dear, I've commited OC. Please don't hurt me... unless you're going to flame me! ::hugs Jack for possibly causing flames:: :) ::has grown addicted to smileys::
Right. And now to answer reviews.
Kimagure- You should have flamed me. But if Padma and Mandy make up, then Padma The Seething Mass Of Hormones (TM) won't pay any attention to Lisa The Other Seething Mass Of Hormones (also TM). And Lisa shouldn't be punished just because she has a roundabout way of showing her affections, should she?
Normandie M- You should have flamed me. Don't ask me why, it's an obsession of mine. Sorting Hat tests drive me rather insane- first I got Slytherin and was horrified, then I purposely answered differently and got
Ravenclaw, then I tried again because I felt bad for cheating and got Slytherin, then, after I finally got used to being in Slytherin, I got Gryffindor. Ugh.
Tess- You should have flamed me. (I am getting tiresome, I suppose.) But your review is all, um, nice and fuzzy and stuff. So thank you.
Chinsei- Yes, please /do/ flame me! I'm really looking for something of the "U Sicko Padma Doesnt Play 4 That Team Y Do U Think She Went W/ Roon" variety,which I could reply to with an amused "Parvati /made/ her go with Ron, you git. And don't you /dare/ tell me they belong together, just look at Hermione. And it's Ron, not 'Roon.'" But I suppose it would be funnier if it was an actual flamer, because then I wouldn't be making fun of someone who /pretended/ to be a flamer.
Bec- As I said to Kimagure in the last chapter, you ought to flame me because of my not being worthy of your greatness. What does 'w00tA_" mean?
Another Rowan- Same as I said to Bec and Kimagure. But thanks a lot. (Not sarcastically, although people tend to use it that way.
Silverdrag- ::jumps up and down:: Thank you, thank you, thank you! ::hugs you and deposits a cookie on your outstretched palm:: Sorry I was writing slow- it was because I couldn't figure out if there were any Hindu holidays around Christmastime.
Also, I've decided I should say when my stories are happening. This chapter begins around 12/20, Harry's 5th year.
Thank you to various people at FictionAlleyPark for helping me figure out what religion Padma was and how it worked and stuff. Especially Madhuri.
And the line "Why am I surrounded by incompetent fools?" is from the movie /Merlin/. It's probably my favorite movie line ever, with the possible exception of "It's not that I'm a lesbian... it's just that all of the people I've been attracted to have been girls" in my beloved /Election/. Oooh, yeah, and "I'm big, you're small, I'm right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it" in /Matilda/. And Ron's "brilliant, but scary line" which shone like the moon in a movie with /way/ too much H/H subtext. And-
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Padma got a letter the next morning at breakfast. After skimming it over, she cried out and let her head fall onto the table, making a loud thump. Taking this as a sign of self-destructive tendencies, Morag hugged her and said
"It's okay, sweet, it's okay."
Padma, who would have enjoyed it had Morag been her type, jerked away and said "No, it's *not*. My parents actually said that... Lavendar... could come to our house for the winter holidays. They just wrote to tell me."
"And how do you feel about that?" Terry said soothingly, as Lisa muttered "Imagine sharing your *house* with a Mudblood! I'd just *die*!"
"Look!" Padma pointed over to the Gryffindor tables, where Parvati and Lavendar were enchanting their lip gloss to flash different colors. "Look at them, Lisa. Would you want *them* to come to your house? Both of them? At the same time?"
Lisa examined Parvati and Lavendar seriously.
"You don't know what it's like, Lisa. Eventually you don't even remember your name- just the first syllable. You might even put blond highlights in your hair. That's what Parvati and Lavendar can do to you- in *small* doses."
Lisa stuffed an omelet in her mouth so as not to be caught laughing at "the full-blood."
Terry patted her arm reassuringly. "Don't worry, maybe you can stay at Hogwarts."
"But my mother says it's ethnocentric and prejudiced to make everyone celebrate Christmas and we should all stay home and teach them the error of their ways. She's quite sensitive about that sort of thing, you know."
"You said there weren't any Hindu holidays around Christmas. At least not that you celebrate."
"She says that's not the point. She thinks it's ethnocentric and prejudiced to make everyone celebrate Christmas and we should all stay home and teach them the error of their ways. She's quite sensitive about that sort of thing, you know."
From out of the corner of her eye, Padma thought she saw Lisa look vaguely impressed.
"What I really need," she mused out loud, "is an excuse. Lisa, are you staying for the holidays?"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Padma was sitting by the lake (an immunity to cold had always seemed a useful thing to develop) when a first-year bounced up and cried "'Lo, Patil! I hope you're grateful."
She squinted up at the boy, who was clothed in a robe so old he had to wear Muggle jeans under it to keep from being indecent. "I think you've got the wrong Patil," she said. "Did Parvati give you some of her infamous advice on girls?"
"Thank the Lord, no," he said, sounding much too confident for a first-year. "Isn't she the one who says you're supposed to tell the girl how you *feel* about her? And ask her before you kiss her?"
Padma shuddered. "Yes."
"I have enough sense not to try that. Anyway, I'm referring to the fact that I've taken pity on you and decided to spend Christmas here, which, when one is blessed with an obsessively overprotective older sibling, may result in said older sibling spending Christmas here as well, which, to those whose mere sanity depends on this-" he pointed at Padma- "may be a beneficial occasion indeed."
Padma blinked. Then she smiled. Then she hugged the first-year and almost pushed him into the lake.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ /I might not have minded staying for the holidays so much/, Padma thought on the first day of vacation, alone in the common room, /if I'd still been friends with Mandy./ They would have relished the time without work, explored forgotten corridors, looked for secret rooms. That was the kind of thing they'd done all the time, before. Although, she had to admit, their friendship hadn't been as fun in the last year or so. It had been much easier when they were just little girls, free from any of the complications of hormones and puberty.
But there was no use crying over spilt milk, really. Who cared that Padma had to share the dormitory with two people who couldn't bear her? Who cared that she didn't have anyone to talk to anymore? Who cared that-
Now that she thought about it, it was quite horrible when you spilled milk. Sometimes it went down your robes, staining them and making them horribly smelly. Padma started to cry.
"Patil?"
Padma willed herself to stop crying, but it didn't work. She looked up at Lisa Turpin who, through a haze of salt water, appeared almost ethereal, which of course she was anything but. Padma tried not to notice this, while Lisa tried equally hard not to notice that Padma really looked quite ethereal herself, all those unheeded tears running down her face. She never /had/ been one to wipe them off.
"You okay?" Lisa looked very uncomfortable, as if she might be carted off to Azkaban for displaying pity towards Patil.
"Yes," Padma said, lying very obviously. They were still flowing.
"Look, why don't I- do you want a Chocolate Frog or something?"
"Hate them," Padma sniffed.
"Yeah, me too. My dad's always sending them to me though. I thought I might as well put them to good use- Patil, /what's the matter/?"
"I'm /fine/," Padma insisted, crying some more.
"You don't look it. Anyway, I was thinking we could just do the tutoring /now/ and get it over with. At least most of it. So it doesn't cast a shadow over the holidays and you can evade and disregard your ethnicity in peace."
Padma stopped crying. "Really?"
"Yes. One one condition."
"What?"
"I get to bring my brother."
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Overprotective was right. Lisa seemed more interested in talking to Jack than in quizzing Padma on Romanian Longhorns.
"Jack, are you thirsty?"
"No."
"Do you need to go to the loo?"
"No."
"Patil, why are Longhorns an endangered species?"
"Er... I don't know?"
"I'm not surprised. D'/you/ want a Chocolate Frog, Jack?"
"No!" Jack sighed adorably and gave Padma a /why-am-I-surrounded-by-incompetent-fools/ look. She returned it.
Lisa glared at them. "It's not /my/ fault he's helpless," she snapped. "And stop doing that to your hair, Patil."
"What am I doing to my hair?"
"Twisting it like that. It's very distracting."
"Well, it's distracting when /you/ push your hair back too, you know," Padma said, and immediately realized that this was true.
Jack burst out laughing, and then started to sing a song about Padma and Lisa sitting in a tree, at which point Lisa turned very red and rushed him off to the loo. Padma supposed that was a Muggle thing, and wondered what on earth it was about.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ::shivers:: Ooh, dear, I've commited OC. Please don't hurt me... unless you're going to flame me! ::hugs Jack for possibly causing flames:: :) ::has grown addicted to smileys::
Right. And now to answer reviews.
Kimagure- You should have flamed me. But if Padma and Mandy make up, then Padma The Seething Mass Of Hormones (TM) won't pay any attention to Lisa The Other Seething Mass Of Hormones (also TM). And Lisa shouldn't be punished just because she has a roundabout way of showing her affections, should she?
Normandie M- You should have flamed me. Don't ask me why, it's an obsession of mine. Sorting Hat tests drive me rather insane- first I got Slytherin and was horrified, then I purposely answered differently and got
Ravenclaw, then I tried again because I felt bad for cheating and got Slytherin, then, after I finally got used to being in Slytherin, I got Gryffindor. Ugh.
Tess- You should have flamed me. (I am getting tiresome, I suppose.) But your review is all, um, nice and fuzzy and stuff. So thank you.
Chinsei- Yes, please /do/ flame me! I'm really looking for something of the "U Sicko Padma Doesnt Play 4 That Team Y Do U Think She Went W/ Roon" variety,which I could reply to with an amused "Parvati /made/ her go with Ron, you git. And don't you /dare/ tell me they belong together, just look at Hermione. And it's Ron, not 'Roon.'" But I suppose it would be funnier if it was an actual flamer, because then I wouldn't be making fun of someone who /pretended/ to be a flamer.
Bec- As I said to Kimagure in the last chapter, you ought to flame me because of my not being worthy of your greatness. What does 'w00tA_" mean?
Another Rowan- Same as I said to Bec and Kimagure. But thanks a lot. (Not sarcastically, although people tend to use it that way.
Silverdrag- ::jumps up and down:: Thank you, thank you, thank you! ::hugs you and deposits a cookie on your outstretched palm:: Sorry I was writing slow- it was because I couldn't figure out if there were any Hindu holidays around Christmastime.