A/N: Alright, next chapter. Sorry it took so long. Here you go.
Chapter Thirty-Two: Fakin' It
Wormtail sighed and looked around at the cage he was locked in. Matters could be worse. He might be back in the hospital wing with that damned Scot and Poppy Pomfrey suggesting he be taken to Filch for 'a quick disposal.' He might be bleeding and just coming out of unconsciousness again, instead of safe in an admittably nice and rather spacious cage with a lovely dry corncob to nibble on. It was also a bit warmer than Julie's room had been, with a pot of something that smelled like tea brewing on the antique stove. There were lots of good smells in the little house, smells like currants, ale, butterbeer, toast and Hagrid's delicious rock cakes, a treat Wormtail used to get from the younger Weasley boy. Being a rat, he could gnaw them for hours, his favorite way to go at food, and it looked like maybe his new owner would give him one.
Hagrid loved animals, even suspicious ones. He had come up to Madam Pomfrey's with a hurt thumb where a Squiffpicket had bitten him and protested to letting Filch kill the rat.
"'E's just a little rat, he 'asn't 'urt nobody! Look at 'im, the sweet little squidgy mite!"
Madam Pomfrey, kind-hearted if incredibly busy soul that she was, had merely healed Wormtail's cuts from the fight with Julie's pet ferret and handed him to he gamekeeper for a new pet. Nobody had recognized him so far, which was a lucky thing. His master wouldn't be pleased, but then, his master wouldn't be waking up for another solid year at least, assuming he got out in time to draw the pentacle.
Wormtail figured a vacation would do him good. After the fight with that fleabitten pet of hers, he was in no mood to continue for at least a week. Julie would probably have found that record by now and decided that a servant might be a useful thing to have, so he could probably afford to hang around and get some of those rock cakes he liked. They were so tasty. And Hagrid had always treated him well when he was the pet of the Weasley boy. As long as he didn't notice which rat he was, Wormtail could enjoy dry corn and Hagrid's baked goods to his heart's content.
The rat sighed and curled himself into a ball to fall asleep. The cage opened and a pair of huge fingers stroked his little back gently.
'G'night, little Squidge," Hagrid whispered to him.
That was his new name as Hagrid's pet; 'Squidgy.' Wormtail was at that second profoundly glad that rats were incapable of vomiting. Oh, well. At least it was better than 'Scabbers.'
**************************************
Julie went up to her room and changed out of her school clothes. She was going to wear the patch shirt and her old fraying bluejeans, but there was a new pair in her wardrobe that actually still had a crease in them. She looked at this unusual surprise and then sniffed it; the jeans smelled of starch. They must be brand-new. Sure enough, there were tags and a note in the pocket from her mum. Julie immediately tried them on, only to discover that wizards' jeans were the most comfy things short of flannel pajamas she'd ever owned. Instead of being stiff and just a little rough, the inside seams were soft, and the entire pair seemed to stretch like lycra or spandex. Julie checked her appearance: phenomenal. Her old jeans were almost worn through at the knees, but the new pair was perfect dark indigo. To her surprise, there was also a small stack of button shirts, iridescent satin that seemed to be two colors at once. How neat!
It was with a bit of chagrin that Julie realized she wasn't sure how to take tags off new clothes, only having owned perhaps three non-second-hand garments in her entire life. At Broughton and most of the other orphanages, all of a given month's birthdays were celebrated on the fifteenth at supper, with one present for each kid from what amounted to the Royal Society for Being Nice to Kids And Stuff. Every year the presents were usually clothes, and every kid of a certain age got the same thing. At seven, she and her friend Rosaline had both gotten sneakers with rainbow laces, at nine it was a shirt, and at fourteen she had gotten one of the two pairs of old jeans she owned. Many of the presents were from factory outlets and therefore had one or two eccentricities, like the sneakers with one of the lace holes not punched through and the shirts with buttons that didn't match. The jeans, however, had been found at a going-out-of-business sale and were generally flawless, an orphanage rarity. All the kids her age that year got a new pair of them.
Thinking of birthdays made Julie recall something. Wizards celebrated birthdays rather frequently with presents to and from friends, quite a lovely thing. For Tom and Tim's birthdays the past September, she had gotten them each books at Flourish and Blotts, and for Aldous's she was thinking about a stuffed Gryffindor lion that roared whenever someone said 'Slytherin.' It was all well and good to convert Muggle money at Gringotts and get presents for her friends, but how was she to explain that she didn't know her own?
She knew that she had been left at the orphanage on the sixteenth a little after midnight, but noone was sure how long it had been since she was actually born, though it was between a week and two days. She knew Cory's birthday because his mother had died giving birth to him, and her friend Beatrice knew hers because her mother had fled the Broughton hospital after being under an assumed name. Julie knew that her mother's original birthday was in November and technical one was in February because of the Time- Turner, and her father's was in August, which had surprised her some. She had figured her dad to be born in the dreariest, darkest part of midwinter, but he had laughed that idea off as very 'Sybil-ish,' whatever that meant.
It was with another sting that she realized she would probably not have this problem with Donaghan. Things were definitely over with him from now on, even if he had claimed he wanted to keep on being friends. In the process of sending her away due to his lycanthropy, a fight had sort of started between the two of them, and both had said some things they didn't really mean. She had called him an overzealous boy scout, he had called her a devious little tart, she had made a crack about wolves, he had made a crack about snakes; it had been ugly. What made it worse was that she had really been enjoying a good fight with him when he suddenly grew quiet and tried to apologize for a decidedly innappropriate remark that questioned her propriety. They had never fought before and he was obviously somewhat inept at it. She had, of course, tried to storm out on him, but he had stopped her and basically hugged her into a more or less amiable breaking- up. She still talked to him at lunch and at Quidditch practice, which was suddenly a lot less important than the drama club.
Miss Parkington, being the sweet (if slightly lacking in foresight) person she was, had turned the entire box of old drama tapes over to Julie's parents and Dumbledore. What this meant was that while Julie and her mum could have lovely conversations about character aspects in plays she had done years ago, her father could spend happy hours whistling specific little songs in Defense Against the Dark Arts class just to make her squirm. It was enough to make a girl wish she had never even heard of Rogers and Hammerstein. Fortunately, Draco and Uncle Ron hadn't seen all of them, because there was no way in hell they could pretend to be Death Eaters after they saw her as Grandmother Armfeldt in 'A Little Night Music.' Julie had never really gotten a leading role, excepting the time Ophelia Madoc got the measles and she had to take over as Beatrice in 'Much Ado About Nothing.' In fact, she most frequently wound up taking men's parts when there weren't enough guys to go around, despite being very short until she was about eleven or so.
However, despite never being given a lead, her only true disaster onstage was when she had gotten stuck playing Captain Hook, a theatrical travesty she attributed to a harmless prank she had played on Miss Parkigton giving her teacher a profound lust for revenge. For some reason library paste had the gall to taste nice in addition to being their only theatrical adhesive, and poor Julie nearly stuck her mouth together twice when she'd licked her moustache. And then she had tripped backstage and gotten her hook (coat hanger and black plastic drinking glass,) caught in the curtain, a horror she still had bad dreams about. Cory's one theatrical appearance had been playing Michael in that very same play, and his only problem was the tendency to crack up when Julie/Hook tried to frighten him. Maybe it was the moustache. She still missed Cory.
She was assuming that her new sibling would be a brother, though, as Dumbledore had referred to him as a 'he.' Julie wondered if he would look more like her mum or dad. Either way, little 'Whoever' would be an interesting change to an already over-complicated life, she knew. Maybe after all the mess with Santa Anna de Diablo and America was over, she would be able to babysit her little brother and do homework, more like a normal magic kid would do. She knew Kenny Longbottom sometimes had his baby sister in the first-years' dormitory while Professor and Mrs. Longbottom went out to dinner or something like that. It could be cool to have a little crib in her room with a baby brother to tell stories to. The idea of a playpen in the Defense Against the Dark Arts room with her father occasionally going over to amuse the baby also sounded decidedly fascinating.
As soon as she was suitably dressed in new clothes and worn-out sneakers -very comfortably, Julie set out for rehearsal in the Transfiguration room. She knew that Draco and Uncle Ron would be arguing, though probably only about whether Viktor Krum or Alexei Navyena did the better Wronski Feint. They had gotten used to rehearsing their 'servitude' together, and therefore had put aside their antique animosity. It also seemed that Draco had once done something that impressed Uncle Ron, and for a specific reason the redhead was treating the patrician Professor Pureblood with more respect. She didn't know why, but it seemed that Uncle Harry and her father felt the same way sometimes. Ah, well. It was probably some impressive feat of spying during the war against Voldemort. She opened the door and stepped quietly in, only to be bowed deeply to as if she were the Queen of France.
"Hail, milady," Draco intoned to her.
Merlin's nails, he was a dish like that! Julie made a mental note to give Tom and Tim an entire Quidditch library should she become rich enough for making her professor's hair grow long like that. He looked like a seventeenth-century gentleman, especially with the neat roguish moutache and goatee beard.
"Does her Darkness require anything?" Uncle Ron asked her.
"Her Darkness? There's no way a Death Eater would call her that," Draco protested.
"Well, 'your Grace' sounds too much like a vicar, y'know? She's supposed to be evil, after all, Malfoy."
"I suggest," Julie announced in an icy tone, "that you refer to me as She- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." A shocked second passed where both Ron and Draco looked passably terrified and then Julie cracked up at them. "I'm sorry, that was just a little over-the-top, wasn't it?"
"No, it was excellent. Can you make your eyes go red when you say that, though?"
Julie thought hard. A bad thought...needed a bad thought...
'Why don't you snog Draco in front of Uncle Ron?' the little voice inquired. 'That look of shock on Uncle Harry was funny, wasn't it?'
Her eyes lit up red like a reindeer's nose.
"Great! Say something evil."
"Silence, lowly speck!" Julie checked her reflection in a nearby mirror and realized her eyes were still brilliant red. "How was that?"
"It works better with the red eyes. How do you do that?"
Julie just shrugged, not wanting to explain salacious or bad thoughts to her Uncle Ron. She knew he'd be only too happy to inquire just what she was thinking about. And considering all the thoughts at that moment involved his old school enemy, there was probably no use shattering his illusions as she almost had Uncle Harry's.
A thought occured to her: she could maintain the red eyes with salaciousness. Shades of Tallulah Bankhead, but this was weird! With a furiously blushing giggle, she realized that keeping Draco along would be helpful in more ways than one. The Aurors gave her a look as if she were mad.
"I'm sorry, my eyes go red when I have ...mischievous thoughts, and that last one was a little silly."
"Really? What was it, Julie?" Uncle Ron looked as mischievous as his nephews.
"I just considered the possibility of making you wear Death Eater uniforms."
"Black robes? We are going to have to have insignia, you know, maybe the uniforms wouldn't be such a bad idea." Draco was talking to her like his equal more often around others because of their new mission, and since her not-precisely-messy breakup with her other guy, Julie was beginning to feel a little more secure about dating her parents' friend.
"Uh, I don't think you would have liked the uniforms I had in mind." Julie gave her teacher a very Mae West-ish look, causing his eyebrows to nearly leap off his head and Uncle Ron to laugh.
"What were you thinking, Julie?" Draco asked a bit sharply. This was obviously cue for an argument.
"Oh, perhaps a loincloth made of fur and a pointy hat. I like my servants to remember their place, you know."
"I'm not wearin' any loincloth!" Ron protested.
"You will obey her Ladyship in whatever she commands," Draco intoned forbodingly, pretending to be serious.
"Hey, he's got it nailed! Dish an' three-quarters!"
A weird, twangy voice had just spoken. The Aurors and Julie turned toward the door.
Standing next to a kindly beaming Dumbledore was a girl about Julie's age with reddish-brown hair and an infectious smile. She was dressed oddly enough, in tight Muggle jeans and a mottled blue button-shirt over a snug black one. She also had glasses that seemed to correct more than bad vision and what looked like the most dilapidated denim backpack since Julie's grandparents' time. The two girls looked at each other for a brief moment.
"You must be the Brit who's gonna play Lady Voldemort. I'm Mitchie Tyler." The newcomer came over and boldly proffered Julie her hand, which Julie shook nervously.
"I'm Julie Snape."
"You must be the American." Draco greeted Mitchie with his hand out. "I'm Draco Malfoy. We were expecting you."
"I wasn't." The stranger's presence had Julie entirely surprised.
"Aren't they sendin' you all the memos, mate? You're the leader of this op'ration, aren't you?"
"Uh, no, I'm not, I just play the leader 'cause my eyes turn red. And what the bloody are memos?"
"Memorandums. Notes." Sometimes Draco could be so damn superior. "We were notified on Friday that our American cultural advisor would be arriving soon; where were you?"
"Oops, I had a small matter of five exams to take and a Quidditch game!" Julie answered sarcastically. "Meaning no offense, Miss Tyler, but you're about my age."
"Precisely. Tha's why your Minister Dumbledore had them send me. Say, where'd he go?"
Dumbledore had simply dropped off the American. Uncle Ron spoke up.
"I'm Ron Weasley. Are you going to be staying long?"
"D'know, it looks like I'm gonna have to join up with you Brits at this Hogwarts place awhile. They've already sent over all my school stuff, can't think why they would."
"Well, we might as well start the assimilations. Where's America?" Julie asked the stranger who had dared to call her guy a dish.
"'Where's America?' Where's your compass? It's to the left of us, two thousand miles!"
"Thought so."
"Didn't they tell you where it was they were sendin' you?"
"Well, yeah, but I sort of wondered just how far I would have to go. What else should we know about America?"
"Well, it's not England by any stretch of the imagination, y'know. There's fifty states, which are like mini-countries, and forty-eight of them are on the mainland. The other two are Alaska and Hawaii, you probably won't see them."
"I know that much. Where are you from?"
"Pittsburgh, actually." Mitchie said this the way a Parisian announces their home city, as if it is the only place worth being in the entire world. Julie had, of course, never heard of it.
"Where's that?"
"Pennsylvania, of course." Mtchie said this as if it were obvious. "Where are you from?"
"Why, London, naturally; Cobham to be exact."
"Alright, I have no idea where you're from either. They're setting up your headquarters in New Orleans, you know, pity we can't be there in time for Mardi Gras."
"Carnival? We celebrate that here as well," Draco informed her.
"Yeah, but nobody does it like they do in New Orleans…so I'm told. They're also supposed to have a very large amount of French words there…I know exactly one sentence, hello, goodbye, pencil, and can count to ten. I can't help you there."
"I can speak a fair amount. I was in Paris last year."
"Really? Soudainement, tout le monde tout les ecrase par un camion."
Draco suddenly burst into laughter at this statement. Julie figured it must be something to do with Monday and camions, whatever those things were.
"Why New Orleans?" Ron asked.
"It's all bayous and kudzu down there, kinda scary, especially if you're Mexican. The idea of this is to lure that Dyablo guy in and nuke him, right?"
"That seems to be the goal," Julie observed a little sharply. She did not like the idea of this encroaching little…Yank calling Draco a dish again. "Tell me, Miss Tyler-"
"Mitchie. It's short for Michelle, y'see."
"Alright… Mitchie, I was wondering exactly how old you are. Just for reference."
"Almost sixteen, just like you, Julie. That's why your Minister of Magic asked for me, because we're the same age, y'know. It certainly wasn't for my grasp on American teenage culture, def'nitely." For a second a little bit of homesickness flashed across the stranger's eyes. "It wasn't for my availability, either."
Julie instantly regretted being so jealous so fast. Merlin's hangnails, she was being a git today!
"Yeah, I was wondering, you must be in fifth year at school just like me."
"Fifth year? I'm a sophomore. What's this fifth-year stuff?"
"It's two years before you graduate?"
"Oh yeah, you guys put seventh- and eighth-graders in the same building. Yeah, we're in the same grade then. Do you play any sports?"
"Just Quidditch. I'm a Seeker."
"Vet'ran cosmic! I play Keeper. We don't play that much. Americans have always got to go and be different. Sometimes it's cool, but mostly it ticks me off 'cause there's less Quidditch games than the other sports. I used to follow the British teams when I was kid through the newspapers."
"Which was your favorite?"
"Chudley Cannons. They seemed like they'd be the most fun to actually play beside."
Julie smiled. Mitchie had just about declared herself Uncle Ron's relative by virtue of liking the Cannons. Sure enough, the red-haired man grinned as if he'd found a long-lost cousin. Draco gave the American a scrutinizing look.
"Did you just say 'vet'ran cosmic'?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"Yeah, what of that?" Mitchie retorted. Julie grinned and began to quote:
"Be it sight, sound, smell or touch,
There's something inside that we need so much,"
"The sight of a touch or the scent of a sound
Or the strength of an oak with roots deep underground," Mitchie capped the line, a smile growing on her face as well.
"The wonder of flowers, to be covered and then-"
"To burst up, through tarmac, to the sun again,"
"Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing,"
"To lie in the meadow and hear the grass sing,"
"To have all these things in our memory's hoard," they continued in unison:
1 "And to use them, to help us, to find-"
And they both cracked up.
"I don't get it," Uncle Ron said obtusely.
"A Muggle thing," Draco clarified. "Sort of like a cult."
"It is not!" both girls protested.
"They're your favorite, too?" Mitchie asked Julie.
"Definitely! Did you see their new 'Hall of Fame' concert?"
"You didn't get to go, did you?"
"Oh, no way, it was long sold out. Tried like bugger, though."
"What are they talking about?" Ron asked Malfoy as the girls became passingly more incoherent by the second.
"I kind of lost them at the poem," he admitted. "That's so clever of Dumbledore to bring a fellow junkie in, though."
"Hey, she digs the Cannons! I think she'll turn out okay."
"I just wonder where Dumbledore found this kid."
********************************************
"I have a special announcement," Professor McGonagall said at dinner that night. "Hogwarts is very pleased to welcome out first American exchange student, Miss Michelle Tyler of the Morrison Academy."
There was a varied amount of applause as a nervous Mitchie appeared from a side door in her American clothes, which weren't a school uniform. The Gryffindors, having been briefed on the newcomer's character, were the loudest of all in the applauding, whilst the Slytherins sort of scanned the newcomer as if she might give them all fleas. The Sorting Hat was on a chair to Headmistress McGonagall's left, and it was evident that Mitchie was totally scared of it.
The room went silent and the hat went over Mitchie's awry mahogany hair quickly. All that could be seen of the American's face was a trembling lip and a fairly standard Irish-model nose. For almost thirty seconds the hat deliberated, until it finally shouted out:
"Gryffindor!"
Julie and her friends were on their feet to welcome their temporary housemate, and the whole table quickly joined them in enthusiastically welcoming the newcomer. Mitchie sank at last into the seat across from Julie, before going totally silent as Professor McGonagall continued. Meanwhile, Julie passed Chloe a little note:
Chloe,
I've attended to the problem, no more day tripping. Can we be friends again?
-J. S. S.
Chloe scribbled her reply on the back of it:
Julie,
I was wondering when you'd get around to this. Of course, if you'll tell me which one you kept.
-C. M. D.-D.
Julie got the first-year's attention and made a small hand gesture; scratching her upper lip and then mimicking a ferret's paw. Chloe's green eyes lit up and she hastily scribbled another note:
And you accuse me of being French all the time!
-C.
Julie smiled and glanced back at Mitchie. To her surprise, the American seemed absolutely enthralled in gazing at something or someone about seven feet away. Julie nudged her twice and finally had to poke her with a fork to get her attention.
"Julie, who is that?" Mitchie asked, her voice sounding half-asleep.
"The Weasley boys? Uncle Ron's nephews?"
"No, the one with the red ponytail. Who is that?"
Julie realized that the foreigner was gazing longingly at her Scottish ex. For a moment she was jealous, and then with a final wrench severed the bond of attraction to Donaghan. She glanced at her blond professor and then answered Mitchie:
"Oh, that's Donaghan McPhersen, the Quidditch captain. Want me to introduce you?"
Mitchie went absolutely pale.
"N-n- I don't think-"
"Naw, he's really nice. Just hold on a tick." Julie got up amid the American's protestations and walked down to where the Scotwolf was trying to cut his food despite wearing leather gloves. Julie knew he was probably wearing them to hide the fur that persisted through the first few months of transformations. "Hey, Donaghan, could you come over and meet the new Yank we got?"
"Oh, sure, Julie," he answered obligingly, getting up and accompanying her over to where Mitchie was.
The poor American looked as if Julie had gone down the table and brought Ewan McGregor back, standing nervously and going paler than ever. For his own part, Donaghan suddenly looked as if he'd found something he'd looked for for awhile and never found. Julie introduced them as calmly as she could, as she was inclined to both giggle hysterically and chew out her own liver, only to have the two of them stare at each other and almost incoherently mutter the pleasantries. She moved her chair over and then let them start to chat, as Chloe switched places with Aldous, thus moving next to her.
"Now that was a Gryffindor thing to do."
"So that's why it feels like a lion just bit my guts."
"No, seriously. It was the right thing to do. They're dead gone, easy."
"I only hope you're right."
"Can I ask you for a small favor?" Chloe asked.
"Sure."
"Take me along with you to New Orleans."
******************************
Chapter Thirty-Two: Fakin' It
Wormtail sighed and looked around at the cage he was locked in. Matters could be worse. He might be back in the hospital wing with that damned Scot and Poppy Pomfrey suggesting he be taken to Filch for 'a quick disposal.' He might be bleeding and just coming out of unconsciousness again, instead of safe in an admittably nice and rather spacious cage with a lovely dry corncob to nibble on. It was also a bit warmer than Julie's room had been, with a pot of something that smelled like tea brewing on the antique stove. There were lots of good smells in the little house, smells like currants, ale, butterbeer, toast and Hagrid's delicious rock cakes, a treat Wormtail used to get from the younger Weasley boy. Being a rat, he could gnaw them for hours, his favorite way to go at food, and it looked like maybe his new owner would give him one.
Hagrid loved animals, even suspicious ones. He had come up to Madam Pomfrey's with a hurt thumb where a Squiffpicket had bitten him and protested to letting Filch kill the rat.
"'E's just a little rat, he 'asn't 'urt nobody! Look at 'im, the sweet little squidgy mite!"
Madam Pomfrey, kind-hearted if incredibly busy soul that she was, had merely healed Wormtail's cuts from the fight with Julie's pet ferret and handed him to he gamekeeper for a new pet. Nobody had recognized him so far, which was a lucky thing. His master wouldn't be pleased, but then, his master wouldn't be waking up for another solid year at least, assuming he got out in time to draw the pentacle.
Wormtail figured a vacation would do him good. After the fight with that fleabitten pet of hers, he was in no mood to continue for at least a week. Julie would probably have found that record by now and decided that a servant might be a useful thing to have, so he could probably afford to hang around and get some of those rock cakes he liked. They were so tasty. And Hagrid had always treated him well when he was the pet of the Weasley boy. As long as he didn't notice which rat he was, Wormtail could enjoy dry corn and Hagrid's baked goods to his heart's content.
The rat sighed and curled himself into a ball to fall asleep. The cage opened and a pair of huge fingers stroked his little back gently.
'G'night, little Squidge," Hagrid whispered to him.
That was his new name as Hagrid's pet; 'Squidgy.' Wormtail was at that second profoundly glad that rats were incapable of vomiting. Oh, well. At least it was better than 'Scabbers.'
**************************************
Julie went up to her room and changed out of her school clothes. She was going to wear the patch shirt and her old fraying bluejeans, but there was a new pair in her wardrobe that actually still had a crease in them. She looked at this unusual surprise and then sniffed it; the jeans smelled of starch. They must be brand-new. Sure enough, there were tags and a note in the pocket from her mum. Julie immediately tried them on, only to discover that wizards' jeans were the most comfy things short of flannel pajamas she'd ever owned. Instead of being stiff and just a little rough, the inside seams were soft, and the entire pair seemed to stretch like lycra or spandex. Julie checked her appearance: phenomenal. Her old jeans were almost worn through at the knees, but the new pair was perfect dark indigo. To her surprise, there was also a small stack of button shirts, iridescent satin that seemed to be two colors at once. How neat!
It was with a bit of chagrin that Julie realized she wasn't sure how to take tags off new clothes, only having owned perhaps three non-second-hand garments in her entire life. At Broughton and most of the other orphanages, all of a given month's birthdays were celebrated on the fifteenth at supper, with one present for each kid from what amounted to the Royal Society for Being Nice to Kids And Stuff. Every year the presents were usually clothes, and every kid of a certain age got the same thing. At seven, she and her friend Rosaline had both gotten sneakers with rainbow laces, at nine it was a shirt, and at fourteen she had gotten one of the two pairs of old jeans she owned. Many of the presents were from factory outlets and therefore had one or two eccentricities, like the sneakers with one of the lace holes not punched through and the shirts with buttons that didn't match. The jeans, however, had been found at a going-out-of-business sale and were generally flawless, an orphanage rarity. All the kids her age that year got a new pair of them.
Thinking of birthdays made Julie recall something. Wizards celebrated birthdays rather frequently with presents to and from friends, quite a lovely thing. For Tom and Tim's birthdays the past September, she had gotten them each books at Flourish and Blotts, and for Aldous's she was thinking about a stuffed Gryffindor lion that roared whenever someone said 'Slytherin.' It was all well and good to convert Muggle money at Gringotts and get presents for her friends, but how was she to explain that she didn't know her own?
She knew that she had been left at the orphanage on the sixteenth a little after midnight, but noone was sure how long it had been since she was actually born, though it was between a week and two days. She knew Cory's birthday because his mother had died giving birth to him, and her friend Beatrice knew hers because her mother had fled the Broughton hospital after being under an assumed name. Julie knew that her mother's original birthday was in November and technical one was in February because of the Time- Turner, and her father's was in August, which had surprised her some. She had figured her dad to be born in the dreariest, darkest part of midwinter, but he had laughed that idea off as very 'Sybil-ish,' whatever that meant.
It was with another sting that she realized she would probably not have this problem with Donaghan. Things were definitely over with him from now on, even if he had claimed he wanted to keep on being friends. In the process of sending her away due to his lycanthropy, a fight had sort of started between the two of them, and both had said some things they didn't really mean. She had called him an overzealous boy scout, he had called her a devious little tart, she had made a crack about wolves, he had made a crack about snakes; it had been ugly. What made it worse was that she had really been enjoying a good fight with him when he suddenly grew quiet and tried to apologize for a decidedly innappropriate remark that questioned her propriety. They had never fought before and he was obviously somewhat inept at it. She had, of course, tried to storm out on him, but he had stopped her and basically hugged her into a more or less amiable breaking- up. She still talked to him at lunch and at Quidditch practice, which was suddenly a lot less important than the drama club.
Miss Parkington, being the sweet (if slightly lacking in foresight) person she was, had turned the entire box of old drama tapes over to Julie's parents and Dumbledore. What this meant was that while Julie and her mum could have lovely conversations about character aspects in plays she had done years ago, her father could spend happy hours whistling specific little songs in Defense Against the Dark Arts class just to make her squirm. It was enough to make a girl wish she had never even heard of Rogers and Hammerstein. Fortunately, Draco and Uncle Ron hadn't seen all of them, because there was no way in hell they could pretend to be Death Eaters after they saw her as Grandmother Armfeldt in 'A Little Night Music.' Julie had never really gotten a leading role, excepting the time Ophelia Madoc got the measles and she had to take over as Beatrice in 'Much Ado About Nothing.' In fact, she most frequently wound up taking men's parts when there weren't enough guys to go around, despite being very short until she was about eleven or so.
However, despite never being given a lead, her only true disaster onstage was when she had gotten stuck playing Captain Hook, a theatrical travesty she attributed to a harmless prank she had played on Miss Parkigton giving her teacher a profound lust for revenge. For some reason library paste had the gall to taste nice in addition to being their only theatrical adhesive, and poor Julie nearly stuck her mouth together twice when she'd licked her moustache. And then she had tripped backstage and gotten her hook (coat hanger and black plastic drinking glass,) caught in the curtain, a horror she still had bad dreams about. Cory's one theatrical appearance had been playing Michael in that very same play, and his only problem was the tendency to crack up when Julie/Hook tried to frighten him. Maybe it was the moustache. She still missed Cory.
She was assuming that her new sibling would be a brother, though, as Dumbledore had referred to him as a 'he.' Julie wondered if he would look more like her mum or dad. Either way, little 'Whoever' would be an interesting change to an already over-complicated life, she knew. Maybe after all the mess with Santa Anna de Diablo and America was over, she would be able to babysit her little brother and do homework, more like a normal magic kid would do. She knew Kenny Longbottom sometimes had his baby sister in the first-years' dormitory while Professor and Mrs. Longbottom went out to dinner or something like that. It could be cool to have a little crib in her room with a baby brother to tell stories to. The idea of a playpen in the Defense Against the Dark Arts room with her father occasionally going over to amuse the baby also sounded decidedly fascinating.
As soon as she was suitably dressed in new clothes and worn-out sneakers -very comfortably, Julie set out for rehearsal in the Transfiguration room. She knew that Draco and Uncle Ron would be arguing, though probably only about whether Viktor Krum or Alexei Navyena did the better Wronski Feint. They had gotten used to rehearsing their 'servitude' together, and therefore had put aside their antique animosity. It also seemed that Draco had once done something that impressed Uncle Ron, and for a specific reason the redhead was treating the patrician Professor Pureblood with more respect. She didn't know why, but it seemed that Uncle Harry and her father felt the same way sometimes. Ah, well. It was probably some impressive feat of spying during the war against Voldemort. She opened the door and stepped quietly in, only to be bowed deeply to as if she were the Queen of France.
"Hail, milady," Draco intoned to her.
Merlin's nails, he was a dish like that! Julie made a mental note to give Tom and Tim an entire Quidditch library should she become rich enough for making her professor's hair grow long like that. He looked like a seventeenth-century gentleman, especially with the neat roguish moutache and goatee beard.
"Does her Darkness require anything?" Uncle Ron asked her.
"Her Darkness? There's no way a Death Eater would call her that," Draco protested.
"Well, 'your Grace' sounds too much like a vicar, y'know? She's supposed to be evil, after all, Malfoy."
"I suggest," Julie announced in an icy tone, "that you refer to me as She- Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." A shocked second passed where both Ron and Draco looked passably terrified and then Julie cracked up at them. "I'm sorry, that was just a little over-the-top, wasn't it?"
"No, it was excellent. Can you make your eyes go red when you say that, though?"
Julie thought hard. A bad thought...needed a bad thought...
'Why don't you snog Draco in front of Uncle Ron?' the little voice inquired. 'That look of shock on Uncle Harry was funny, wasn't it?'
Her eyes lit up red like a reindeer's nose.
"Great! Say something evil."
"Silence, lowly speck!" Julie checked her reflection in a nearby mirror and realized her eyes were still brilliant red. "How was that?"
"It works better with the red eyes. How do you do that?"
Julie just shrugged, not wanting to explain salacious or bad thoughts to her Uncle Ron. She knew he'd be only too happy to inquire just what she was thinking about. And considering all the thoughts at that moment involved his old school enemy, there was probably no use shattering his illusions as she almost had Uncle Harry's.
A thought occured to her: she could maintain the red eyes with salaciousness. Shades of Tallulah Bankhead, but this was weird! With a furiously blushing giggle, she realized that keeping Draco along would be helpful in more ways than one. The Aurors gave her a look as if she were mad.
"I'm sorry, my eyes go red when I have ...mischievous thoughts, and that last one was a little silly."
"Really? What was it, Julie?" Uncle Ron looked as mischievous as his nephews.
"I just considered the possibility of making you wear Death Eater uniforms."
"Black robes? We are going to have to have insignia, you know, maybe the uniforms wouldn't be such a bad idea." Draco was talking to her like his equal more often around others because of their new mission, and since her not-precisely-messy breakup with her other guy, Julie was beginning to feel a little more secure about dating her parents' friend.
"Uh, I don't think you would have liked the uniforms I had in mind." Julie gave her teacher a very Mae West-ish look, causing his eyebrows to nearly leap off his head and Uncle Ron to laugh.
"What were you thinking, Julie?" Draco asked a bit sharply. This was obviously cue for an argument.
"Oh, perhaps a loincloth made of fur and a pointy hat. I like my servants to remember their place, you know."
"I'm not wearin' any loincloth!" Ron protested.
"You will obey her Ladyship in whatever she commands," Draco intoned forbodingly, pretending to be serious.
"Hey, he's got it nailed! Dish an' three-quarters!"
A weird, twangy voice had just spoken. The Aurors and Julie turned toward the door.
Standing next to a kindly beaming Dumbledore was a girl about Julie's age with reddish-brown hair and an infectious smile. She was dressed oddly enough, in tight Muggle jeans and a mottled blue button-shirt over a snug black one. She also had glasses that seemed to correct more than bad vision and what looked like the most dilapidated denim backpack since Julie's grandparents' time. The two girls looked at each other for a brief moment.
"You must be the Brit who's gonna play Lady Voldemort. I'm Mitchie Tyler." The newcomer came over and boldly proffered Julie her hand, which Julie shook nervously.
"I'm Julie Snape."
"You must be the American." Draco greeted Mitchie with his hand out. "I'm Draco Malfoy. We were expecting you."
"I wasn't." The stranger's presence had Julie entirely surprised.
"Aren't they sendin' you all the memos, mate? You're the leader of this op'ration, aren't you?"
"Uh, no, I'm not, I just play the leader 'cause my eyes turn red. And what the bloody are memos?"
"Memorandums. Notes." Sometimes Draco could be so damn superior. "We were notified on Friday that our American cultural advisor would be arriving soon; where were you?"
"Oops, I had a small matter of five exams to take and a Quidditch game!" Julie answered sarcastically. "Meaning no offense, Miss Tyler, but you're about my age."
"Precisely. Tha's why your Minister Dumbledore had them send me. Say, where'd he go?"
Dumbledore had simply dropped off the American. Uncle Ron spoke up.
"I'm Ron Weasley. Are you going to be staying long?"
"D'know, it looks like I'm gonna have to join up with you Brits at this Hogwarts place awhile. They've already sent over all my school stuff, can't think why they would."
"Well, we might as well start the assimilations. Where's America?" Julie asked the stranger who had dared to call her guy a dish.
"'Where's America?' Where's your compass? It's to the left of us, two thousand miles!"
"Thought so."
"Didn't they tell you where it was they were sendin' you?"
"Well, yeah, but I sort of wondered just how far I would have to go. What else should we know about America?"
"Well, it's not England by any stretch of the imagination, y'know. There's fifty states, which are like mini-countries, and forty-eight of them are on the mainland. The other two are Alaska and Hawaii, you probably won't see them."
"I know that much. Where are you from?"
"Pittsburgh, actually." Mitchie said this the way a Parisian announces their home city, as if it is the only place worth being in the entire world. Julie had, of course, never heard of it.
"Where's that?"
"Pennsylvania, of course." Mtchie said this as if it were obvious. "Where are you from?"
"Why, London, naturally; Cobham to be exact."
"Alright, I have no idea where you're from either. They're setting up your headquarters in New Orleans, you know, pity we can't be there in time for Mardi Gras."
"Carnival? We celebrate that here as well," Draco informed her.
"Yeah, but nobody does it like they do in New Orleans…so I'm told. They're also supposed to have a very large amount of French words there…I know exactly one sentence, hello, goodbye, pencil, and can count to ten. I can't help you there."
"I can speak a fair amount. I was in Paris last year."
"Really? Soudainement, tout le monde tout les ecrase par un camion."
Draco suddenly burst into laughter at this statement. Julie figured it must be something to do with Monday and camions, whatever those things were.
"Why New Orleans?" Ron asked.
"It's all bayous and kudzu down there, kinda scary, especially if you're Mexican. The idea of this is to lure that Dyablo guy in and nuke him, right?"
"That seems to be the goal," Julie observed a little sharply. She did not like the idea of this encroaching little…Yank calling Draco a dish again. "Tell me, Miss Tyler-"
"Mitchie. It's short for Michelle, y'see."
"Alright… Mitchie, I was wondering exactly how old you are. Just for reference."
"Almost sixteen, just like you, Julie. That's why your Minister of Magic asked for me, because we're the same age, y'know. It certainly wasn't for my grasp on American teenage culture, def'nitely." For a second a little bit of homesickness flashed across the stranger's eyes. "It wasn't for my availability, either."
Julie instantly regretted being so jealous so fast. Merlin's hangnails, she was being a git today!
"Yeah, I was wondering, you must be in fifth year at school just like me."
"Fifth year? I'm a sophomore. What's this fifth-year stuff?"
"It's two years before you graduate?"
"Oh yeah, you guys put seventh- and eighth-graders in the same building. Yeah, we're in the same grade then. Do you play any sports?"
"Just Quidditch. I'm a Seeker."
"Vet'ran cosmic! I play Keeper. We don't play that much. Americans have always got to go and be different. Sometimes it's cool, but mostly it ticks me off 'cause there's less Quidditch games than the other sports. I used to follow the British teams when I was kid through the newspapers."
"Which was your favorite?"
"Chudley Cannons. They seemed like they'd be the most fun to actually play beside."
Julie smiled. Mitchie had just about declared herself Uncle Ron's relative by virtue of liking the Cannons. Sure enough, the red-haired man grinned as if he'd found a long-lost cousin. Draco gave the American a scrutinizing look.
"Did you just say 'vet'ran cosmic'?" he asked, with an eyebrow raised.
"Yeah, what of that?" Mitchie retorted. Julie grinned and began to quote:
"Be it sight, sound, smell or touch,
There's something inside that we need so much,"
"The sight of a touch or the scent of a sound
Or the strength of an oak with roots deep underground," Mitchie capped the line, a smile growing on her face as well.
"The wonder of flowers, to be covered and then-"
"To burst up, through tarmac, to the sun again,"
"Or to fly to the sun without burning a wing,"
"To lie in the meadow and hear the grass sing,"
"To have all these things in our memory's hoard," they continued in unison:
1 "And to use them, to help us, to find-"
And they both cracked up.
"I don't get it," Uncle Ron said obtusely.
"A Muggle thing," Draco clarified. "Sort of like a cult."
"It is not!" both girls protested.
"They're your favorite, too?" Mitchie asked Julie.
"Definitely! Did you see their new 'Hall of Fame' concert?"
"You didn't get to go, did you?"
"Oh, no way, it was long sold out. Tried like bugger, though."
"What are they talking about?" Ron asked Malfoy as the girls became passingly more incoherent by the second.
"I kind of lost them at the poem," he admitted. "That's so clever of Dumbledore to bring a fellow junkie in, though."
"Hey, she digs the Cannons! I think she'll turn out okay."
"I just wonder where Dumbledore found this kid."
********************************************
"I have a special announcement," Professor McGonagall said at dinner that night. "Hogwarts is very pleased to welcome out first American exchange student, Miss Michelle Tyler of the Morrison Academy."
There was a varied amount of applause as a nervous Mitchie appeared from a side door in her American clothes, which weren't a school uniform. The Gryffindors, having been briefed on the newcomer's character, were the loudest of all in the applauding, whilst the Slytherins sort of scanned the newcomer as if she might give them all fleas. The Sorting Hat was on a chair to Headmistress McGonagall's left, and it was evident that Mitchie was totally scared of it.
The room went silent and the hat went over Mitchie's awry mahogany hair quickly. All that could be seen of the American's face was a trembling lip and a fairly standard Irish-model nose. For almost thirty seconds the hat deliberated, until it finally shouted out:
"Gryffindor!"
Julie and her friends were on their feet to welcome their temporary housemate, and the whole table quickly joined them in enthusiastically welcoming the newcomer. Mitchie sank at last into the seat across from Julie, before going totally silent as Professor McGonagall continued. Meanwhile, Julie passed Chloe a little note:
Chloe,
I've attended to the problem, no more day tripping. Can we be friends again?
-J. S. S.
Chloe scribbled her reply on the back of it:
Julie,
I was wondering when you'd get around to this. Of course, if you'll tell me which one you kept.
-C. M. D.-D.
Julie got the first-year's attention and made a small hand gesture; scratching her upper lip and then mimicking a ferret's paw. Chloe's green eyes lit up and she hastily scribbled another note:
And you accuse me of being French all the time!
-C.
Julie smiled and glanced back at Mitchie. To her surprise, the American seemed absolutely enthralled in gazing at something or someone about seven feet away. Julie nudged her twice and finally had to poke her with a fork to get her attention.
"Julie, who is that?" Mitchie asked, her voice sounding half-asleep.
"The Weasley boys? Uncle Ron's nephews?"
"No, the one with the red ponytail. Who is that?"
Julie realized that the foreigner was gazing longingly at her Scottish ex. For a moment she was jealous, and then with a final wrench severed the bond of attraction to Donaghan. She glanced at her blond professor and then answered Mitchie:
"Oh, that's Donaghan McPhersen, the Quidditch captain. Want me to introduce you?"
Mitchie went absolutely pale.
"N-n- I don't think-"
"Naw, he's really nice. Just hold on a tick." Julie got up amid the American's protestations and walked down to where the Scotwolf was trying to cut his food despite wearing leather gloves. Julie knew he was probably wearing them to hide the fur that persisted through the first few months of transformations. "Hey, Donaghan, could you come over and meet the new Yank we got?"
"Oh, sure, Julie," he answered obligingly, getting up and accompanying her over to where Mitchie was.
The poor American looked as if Julie had gone down the table and brought Ewan McGregor back, standing nervously and going paler than ever. For his own part, Donaghan suddenly looked as if he'd found something he'd looked for for awhile and never found. Julie introduced them as calmly as she could, as she was inclined to both giggle hysterically and chew out her own liver, only to have the two of them stare at each other and almost incoherently mutter the pleasantries. She moved her chair over and then let them start to chat, as Chloe switched places with Aldous, thus moving next to her.
"Now that was a Gryffindor thing to do."
"So that's why it feels like a lion just bit my guts."
"No, seriously. It was the right thing to do. They're dead gone, easy."
"I only hope you're right."
"Can I ask you for a small favor?" Chloe asked.
"Sure."
"Take me along with you to New Orleans."
******************************