Inklings of Celebrity

Inklings of Celebrity

Chapter Nine: Intoxication

A/N: And may I present to you chapter 9? Sorry if it's boring, but I had a serious writer's block. And if you read the rest of this, you'll start thinking I really hate Van. I actually don't, not very much anyway. And the dance part is mainly from Harry's point of view, in a state of drunkenness, and therefore very disjointed.

Throughout the next week, Van spent every single waking moment of his with Hitomi, although no sleeping moments. Meanwhile, Selena had been teaching Harry how to dance. This was actually a rather funny part of Harry's education, since it involved a mop and a mannequin (don't ask). He soon learnt that Selena was an incredibly good dancer, and even if he didn't succeed, he'd look good dancing with her anyway.

But he realized that there was no way that he'd come through Selena's lessons without learning how to dance. She was incredibly good at demonstrating the male part of dances to him, and a really good teacher. Besides, he still felt wonderful just looking at her. She had pretty, chin length, ash-blonde/silver hair, and beautiful blue eyes. Her face actually made her look very innocent. Harry still strongly suspected that she was a Veela, and took the chance to ask her one day.

"Do you know what Veela are?"

Selena smiled, but shook her head. "I don't think I've heard of them." Harry looked at her in surprise. He'd been quite sure that she was Veela, because of her looks.

"Why did you ask?" Selena wanted to know.

Harry shook his head. "No reason." The two of them started walking towards the breakfast table, where the breakfast seemed to be especially superb. Before everyone cleared the Great Hall, Dumbledore stood up with an announcement.

"The new students from the Salem magic school have arrived. This means that they will be Sorted, and those students who will be replacing them shall have to pack up soon to leave." Dumbledore cleared his throat, and reached into his robes to pull out the tattered Sorting Hat.

The first, second, third and fourth years were sorted with no interesting incidents. But when the new fifth year girl, Lisa Lynn, came up to the Sorting Hat, it seemed to be of two minds. At first it put her in Slytherin, then Ravenclaw. It then changed its mind again and put her in Gryffindor.

The school seemed to be in an uproar now, and most people thought that the Sorting Hat must be losing the brains that had been put in it. Dumbledore stepped up to the hat, and tapped it gently with its wand. Lisa Lynn tried again with being sorted, but this time, nothing happened.

Dumbledore then announced, "Miss Lynn, you will have to be put in Hufflepuff, as it is the only house that was not called. For the students who have not yet been sorted, they will try their luck with the hat." His eyes twinkled. "Perhaps we shall have get a new Sorting Hat." The Hufflepuffs clapped loudly as the blonde girl went over to their table.

But for the rest of the new students, no odd incidents occurred. Those in the Hall laughed greatly at this, then continued the excellent breakfast. In Herbology after that, Van was especially rude to Lisa. She seemed not to mind, though, which made Van even more ill-tempered.

He took this out on a duel with Dilandau in a hallway, while Selena watched to make sure neither of her friends died. Although Dilandau and Van both got cuts on their arms, nothing else out of the ordinary happened. They each went down to the hospital wing to get the wounds healed and to miss class. This was good for them, because Snape was in a particularly despicable mood that day.

Because of this, Gryffindor lost 15 points, and the Gryffindors lost all hope of ever getting out of the negative points. Harry was still in slightly dampened spirits by the time Care of Magical Creatures rolled around. By this time, Van and Dilandau were back in the class.

During hands-on work, Hagrid talked with Harry. "Have yeh got a date fer the dance yet?" he asked, chuckling.

Harry nodded happily, and pointed out Selena to him. "Hermione is going with Selena's best friend, Dilandau, so it'll be like a double date," he told Hagrid. "Are you going with anyone, Hagrid?" Hagrid blushed at this, and muttered something about going to check on Pansy Parkinson's work, which needed correcting.

That night, Harry fell asleep almost immediately. He started to have a very strange dream, involving a new scheme of Voldemort's.

"I have uncovered an old piece of Dark magic, which will make me immortal and even more powerful," he told Wormtail, handing him a list of things to get.

"Lord Voldemort, how shall we get a King?" Wormtail asked after scanning the list.

"There is a spell, that will show you where an item you desire is, or at least the closest item you need. We shall use that," Voldemort replied, and did a spell with his wand. Lines started forming on the wall in the shape of a map, and Harry recognized it to be Hogwarts. "Good," Voldemort whispered, "We can get Harry Potter at the same time."

An arrow pointed at a Gryffindor dormitory, and a picture started to form from mist of a person. Before Harry could catch a glimpse of who or what it was, he woke up. He resolved to tell Dumbledore in the morning, and went off to sleep once again after pondering about his dream.

The next morning, Harry had forgotten most of his dream. He only remembered that Voldemort was once again going to come after him. Therefore, he told both Sirius (who was acting as a pet of Hagrid's), Dumbledore and his friends this.

The King at Hogwarts was forgotten to Harry.

Hitomi left the next week, and Van went into a rut of misery. Selena, Folken and the DragonSlayers (who were really quite friendly with Van by now) all tried to cheer him up, but to no avail. He still acted very moody.

Selena convinced him to unfurl his wings and fly one day, and he went off the highest tower, under the protection of a human-sized Stealth Cloak, belonging to Folken. The Stealth Cloak kept Van from being seen, so he came back with no injuries in much better humor.

Because of this, he started to go out often under the protection of the same Cloak. One day, he got hit by an arrow (a bad huntsman had been wildly shooting into the air) while flying. He made it back and staggered to the hospital wing on one leg, using his sword for a crutch.

Madam Pomfrey was greatly suspicious of the arrow wound. "How did you come to get hit by an arrow?" she asked.

"I was out, and a careless hunter was shooting in all directions. I got hit in the leg by one of the arrows," Van answered truthfully.

"Be more cautious next time," warned Madam Pomfrey before applying a potion to his wound. After Van promised this, he walked to the common room.

"Van!" called out Selena from a puffy chair where she was talking to Harry. "What happened? You were gone so long!"

"An arrow," he replied shortly, and sat down with them. A conversation about dragons ensued when Harry mentioned that Hagrid loved dragons. This topic continued in their conversation a long time, or at least until Hermione entered the room.

"I was just in the library," she said to Harry, then noticed Selena. "Do you know where Dilandau is?"

Selena paused to silently ask Dilandau where he was, then told Hermione, "He's in the kitchens, grabbing some food."

"Oh. Can you come with me to talk to him?" Hermione asked. "I don't know what to say to him." Selena agreed and got up, leaving Van and Harry to continue talking.

"Did you ever see a dragon?" Harry asked Van, carrying on the topic of conversation.

Van smiled, saying, "I once slew a dragon." This surprised Harry, who had found it hard enough just getting past a dragon. He figured that Van must be lying, and just nodded. They started to talk about their last Quidditch match until Gatti entered the common room and Van went over there.

The next two weeks passed quickly, and the school was very excited. The Cupid Ball would be in the next week, and even some of the teachers started to act oddly around each other. Folken wasn't one of those teachers, and he carried on normally.

On the day of the dance, Selena called Dilandau to the fifth-year girls dorm, to help her put on her dress robes. They weren't really robes, but more like a dress, with a corset and a petticoat and other tiresome Asturian-styled things that Selena couldn't put on herself. Since Dilandau had, after all, been Selena, he helped her with her ensemble, then rushed off when Pavarti noticed him and screamed.

Hermione was a nervous wreck. Even though she'd talked to Dilandau more often throughout the past month, she still didn't feel like he liked her. Selena had to comfort her and assure her that he did like her (he actually didn't mind her, but that was all) before she would start to get ready.

Hermione and Selena went down to meet their dates, who were waiting in the common room. Selena and Dilandau looked unperturbed, while Harry and Hermione looked slightly nervous. Harry's jaw dropped when he saw Selena. She was wearing a light blue robe-style Asturian dress, and it was extremely well made. She looked prettier than ever to Harry, as he told her.

Hermione was wearing a yellow silk robe, and she had used several spells and potions to make herself look nicer. Dilandau said what he thought Allen Schezar would've said, then the two couples went into the Great Hall.

It was done in shimmering hues of red, and objects had been transfigured to look like cupids. There was going to be a supper first, and the cups seemed to be never empty. Everyone sat down and ate first, but it wasn't until during the dancing that people started to notice that others were acting odd- almost as if they were drunk, in fact.

Draco Malfoy had once again gone with Pansy Parkinson, and they were hollering nonsense at the top of their voices. Snape seemed to be trying to catch one of the cupids fluttering around. Dilandau was hoisting up a drunk Hermione from the floor while trying to burn the cupids (although this probably wasn't from intoxication). Some others were trying to fight, but missed each other by a mile.

Harry himself felt flushed and giddy. He hadn't had very much to drink, since he'd personally thought that the drinks tasted quite terrible. He supposed, later on, that the taste of alcohol just didn't agree with him. Right then, though, Selena was also looking flushed and was acting somewhat ditzy. She downed another cup of the stuff as the band on stage made wild efforts to recruit people out to the dance floor, as no one was dancing.

After a few minutes, Harry blurrily noticed that Selena's eyes had clouded over and she seemed to be in a trance. He made several attempts to revive her (namely water, hand-waving, and yelling out her name), but none of these worked. She abruptly clutched hold of something that hadn't been there before, which Harry perceived to be a crown, or circlet.

In her trance-like state, she started to walk towards the chaos-filled woods outdoors, and Harry ran after her in vain. She stopped by someone with silver hair, and a girl with yellow robes- was it Malfoy and his date, Harry wondered dreamily? But as he caught up to her, panting, he realized that the two were Dilandau and his friend- what was her name? Yes, his friend Hermione. Harry laughed aloud thinking of such a weird name, and convinced himself that he was drunk.

Selena absently reached up and handed Dilandau the thing in her hands. Harry thought it looked an awful lot like a crown. That was funny. Dilandau apparently wasn't drunk, since he instantly recognized the crown. He kissed and donned it, then noticed that Selena looked as if she was on drugs that moment.

"What did you do to her?" he barked at Harry, who was surprised to be addressed.

"Huh? I... uh... dunno," he slurred, then would've gone off again if Dilandau hadn't just slapped him, hard. This shocked himself back to his senses adequately, and he answered again, more clearly, "Selena was drunk. After taking a cup of the stuff she went all weird and like a junkie." Harry giggled foolishly and insanely before receiving another slap from the other boy.

Dilandau leaned against a tree, and closed his eyes while delving into Selena's mind. He came up with nothing, which greatly alarmed him. He did the only thing he could think of to get Selena out of her trance.

He united the two of them in his body. This tired Dilandau, and Hermione didn't help, as she was parroting, "You can't Disapparate on the Hogwarts grounds!" After having a brief rest on the grass (which was actually crawling with bugs and rather damp), Dilandau tried to mold Selena into her own body, which was much easier than he'd ever have thought it would be.

When she appeared, she was still quite drunk, and a hangover seemed to be at maximum effect. Selena was dazed at her sudden appearance from her trance, and instantly turned to Dilandau for an explanation, through the link of their minds. What happened?

Remember the time when you went to Allen's house, and you went to visit your mother's grave?

No.

The butterfly? If nothing else, Selena remembered the butterfly. She raised her hand in the air, then clenched and unclenched her fist, slowly nodding. Before she could say anything to Harry, she retched violently- all over Dilandau's robes, in fact. He didn't actually mind, or at least it looked that way, because he just brought her over to the hollow of a nearby tree. Here she continued to rid her body of the extravagant meal of the hour before, along with an amount of blood.

Eventually, her stomach calmed enough to let her stagger back to where Harry was leaning idiotically against the tree, Dilandau still making sure she didn't fall. Dilandau tossed off his robe, leaving him in his standard tank top and leather pants. Hermione literally drooled at the sight of him (she was already drooling to begin with, due to some side-effects of spells on herself and the fact that she wasn't sober).

That was when Van ventured upon them, yelling loudly while swinging his sword in its sheath, "Bow down to Van Fanel, King of all Fanelia and angel among men!" Naturally, he was also drunk, and was doing nothing to benefit the scene. By this time, Harry had reached the conclusion that the drinks had been spiked, and proudly declared himself to be a genius.

Ironically, Dilandau was the only one who didn't look like he'd drank a pint or two of alcoholic beverages. He had amazingly drunk more than that, but since he was a very experienced drinker (unlike the others), he was of course able to 'hold his liquor', and therefore not look drunk- when he wanted to, that was.

As it stood, Dilandau was the one who knocked Van out so that he wouldn't blab all his secrets, forcefully dragged Harry back to the Great Hall, and did the same for Hermione. Hey, if he had to be the good guy he should at least get a little fun out of it. Dilandau took Selena back to her dorm, and took off her robes, corsets, petticoats, bustles and all of the horrid Asturian undergarments that I've mentioned. Since he had been her once, he didn't feel as nervous as some other males would.

He then went back to the disastrous Great Hall, where he stole one of the goblets, then he retreated into his dormitory and spent the night drinking and getting most gloriously drunk indeed.

The next morning, bright and early, he went to check on Selena, who was still having a particularly bad hangover. Dilandau never had hangovers, so he was still cheerful and quaking with laughter when thinking about the previous night. Just in case of any other upchucking, he brought along a chamber pot that he found on the mantle of the common-room's fireplace.

He entered the girls' dorm amidst weak protesting from those who could see him, who were nursing their own after effects of drinking. Dilandau could see Selena asleep, so he sat down, laying the chamber pot on her bed and waiting for her to rise.

She woke up a few minutes later, and starting to once again throw up, speedily getting rid of all her meals from the last two days. This woke up most of the girls who had slept peacefully, and they shrieked loudly at seeing a boy in their dorm. "Oh, shut up," Dilandau hissed after a while, then started to say encouraging things to Selena (who was at that moment in a bra and panties, still retching, perspiring hard and having a bad headache!).

"This should be something very interesting to tell Allen," remarked Dilandau to her wryly after she finally stopped. She nodded weakly, then Dilandau tossed her a robe from her trunk and left, taking the vomit-filled chamber pot with him to empty out on either Van or Harry Potter, whom he really didn't like that much. Or maybe that Snape teacher who was always trying to intimidate him, but was so far from intimidation that it wasn't even funny...

A/N: OK, this chapter turned out way better than I expected, and I actually like the way Dilandau turned out to be written in here- sort of a mix of being nice to the ones he likes (which is, in this chapter, just Selena) and being otherwise very funny in a vengeful sort of way. I'm reviewing my own story, this can't be good.

So anyways, I think that there should definitely be more Folken, eh? I quite like him as a character, although I might not be able to write him well. Anyway, to continue with my questions so you have something to put in your review (just in case you don't think you'd be able to review because you can't think of what to say):

  • genres you want to see

  • people you want to see

  • ideas of your own for the story (such as the matching up of characters)

  • places that you think should be incorporated into this story

And while you're waiting for the next chapter of this story, if you are, insert self-promotion you can read and review some of my other stories end self-promotion!