The Princess and the Pauper
One is a spoiled, rich brat from a muggle family. The other, a poor yet satisfied pauper that comes from a wizarding family. Could they ever meet and… fall in love? Not your average Cinderella story, I promise you!
Um, kinda irrelevant fact, but the ceiling wasn't bewitched to look like the sky yet.
If any of you have been having problems with flames, you should try reading the new thing I put out, called something along the lines of How to Deal With Flames. Actually, a lot of you should try reading it…
Taracollowen- yep, it will, and one of them is this chapter. I basically based them off of me and… yeah, me. Hehe… none of my friends' insanity levels are that high.
Tsuki tatsu- thanks, thanks, and thanks. Thanks for loving it, thanks for liking the title, and thanks for the quote. Nice pen name!
HPMystery- thank you! I was actually planning on working in the pronunciation this chapter. Thanks again!
DreamReal- thank you, and I'll try… no such thing as too many exclamation points!
Sierra Sitruc- thank you, I will, and most likely but maybe not.
DreamingReader- thank you and I will!
MidnightLily- can you e-mail me the aothor of one reason to die 3 to live… I didn't quite get most of that, but I'll e-mail you anyway.
CurtK- thanks and I'll try.
Clavel- thanks soo much! I've really just started working with the Tarot cards… I bought some, and after I'd used them a few times, I found out my dad had some in the attic… -. -' Twelve bucks down the tube… I could've bought a book. Oh well… I haven't predicted deaths, but one of my friends was traveling away from intelligence and towards something not good. The first one I did that made sense was pretty good, and it all fit together. I'm not great at translating it yet, though…
G.D.Jade- thanks, and I read that chapter… dunno if I reviewed, but it was good! I think I read it off-line, and then got kicked off the computer… and thanks for title ideas!
Danielle- yep, she's mean, but say what? She said/thought a lot of stuff… thanks, and it made PERFECT sense.
The Golden Snitch- for some reason I wrote your name as 'The Golden Lion'… I think my insanity is really beginning to surface. Thank you… yay! You hate her! WOO HOO! Erm, that was really weird… -.-
Quitesirius- if that's the one I was watching when I wrote this chapter, then yep! And I won't do anything mean. I can't, can I? Thanks!
The girl who is obsessed with Harry Potter- Bella is mentioned as part of the 'old crowd' at the end of book four, though, so obviously she had to be a friend. She also lives longer than Lily, and some people age faster than others. I'm glad you like the fic, though, and thanks for the quotes!
Thistlemeg- maybe he can be… ::grins evilly then glares at Peter:: or maybe he can be like the honorary marauder. That could work… let's see ::opens score book and adds in a few points under Dung's name:: thanks for your input!
SilverSickle17- when aren't you feeling lazy? Binah Dumbledore is Binah. The end! I could easily leave it there. I see you haven't read my Lee Jordan story yet. Maybe you'd like to read my Tamora Pierce one, once the beginning of that is up. I'll write when I want to write, thank you!
*** *** *** ***
After a very, very boring History of Magic lesson came supper. Most of the class was very groggy as they stumbled down to the Great Hall, but Lily, who'd always been taught to pay attention, swept down the stairs with her usual air of haughtiness.
The class was woken up, as well as any other tired students, by a loud explosion.
"James, did you use my firecrackers again?" Sirius demanded. It looked as if most of the Great Hall had been blown up. Everyone stood amidst ash and dust, some of the paintings coughing and trying to clean themselves.
"No," James said innocently. "I used Remus's."
"WHAT?" Remus exploded. This was not what he'd wanted to hear. "You told me that you'd gotten them from Sirius's trunk! That's the only reason I agreed to set this up with you…"
Suddenly, another explosion occurred, blowing a hole through the ceiling. The impact threw everyone to their fronts as little bits of roof began to crumble in.
"James!" many of the Gryffindors yelled, guessing that the one called James that the others seemed to blame was usually responsible.
"That was not me," James said indignantly.
"Remus?" a few less people said, using another trouble making name.
"Nope," Remus said, shrugging.
Even less said, "Sirius?"
He shook his head.
Suddenly, the three accused jumped around and shouted, "DUNG!"
"Not me! I didn't," Dung said quickly.
"Then who did?" Sirius wondered.
"Me!" Binah said proudly, standing up amidst the rubble.
"Hey, don't forget me!" Bella shouted, shoving her friend.
James surveyed the amount of mess that had been piled up, then saw Remus doing the same. "Not bad," they said together. "Not bad at all."
"I'm guessing that at least half this mess is yours," Remus said, mentally comparing the before and after images of the Great Hall destroyed and the Great Hall really destroyed.
At that moment, Dumbledore stopped chuckling at the other staff members and said, "I would like the creators of this mess to see me now, please. All the rest of you may go to bed. Food will be sent up to the common rooms so you can eat."
The whole hall was a mass of movement for the next few minutes. Lily could be seen disgustedly brushing off her clothes and shaking ashes out of her hair as she left, and Sirius and Dung were laughing at the expressions of many of the students. The main one had been shock, but others had had simple looks of, 'Who on Earth did this and what were they playing at? This place is a mess and I'm STARVING!' or thereabouts.
Bella, Binah, Remus and James bounced up to the high table- er, what used to be the high table- to meet their doom. (A/N: Nuttos… darn it, that's what I'd do… erm, yeah.)
"So, you four are responsible for this mess," Dumbledore began.
"No, Binah and I did the ceiling and those two the rest," Bella interrupted. "We didn't know that they were going to blow up the tables."
"If we had, we would've rescued the food. Look at that poor chicken leg! It's crying," Binah added, pointing at a chicken leg that was, indeed, crying. It was also dragging itself along like a slug. Dumbledore frowned and waved his wand at it, causing it to immediately flop down.
"Remus Lupin and James Potter, I'm afraid I'll have to give you detention for blowing up the lower half of the Great Hall. Binah and Arabella, detention for blowing up the upper half of the Great Hall."
"Yes, sir, Bumblebee sir!" they all shouted in unison. This actually hadn't been planned or thought of before; it was just some spur-of-the-moment thing, and the fact that they'd all said it together made it hilarious. Which was why they ended up rolling around on the floor laughing.
"Go to bed, you three," Dumbledore said, pointing at the boys and Bella. "Binah, I'd like to talk to you."
"That's funny. I thought we were talking," Binah said, with a slight trace of seriousness in her voice.
"That we were," Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling a bit.
"So why'd you ask if we could talk if we already were?"
"Er…" Dumbledore didn't know how to respond. {A/N: Wow… I thought that would be impossible.}
"Anyway, I have lots of questions to ask you," Binah continued. The other three had left the hall by now, and the teachers were working on repairing the damage. "Why, if you're my grandfather, was I left at an orphanage? What happened to my parents? What should I call you? Why did I never know about you? Do I have any other family?" She most likely had several other questions to ask, but Dumbledore held up his hand and stemmed the flow of questions.
"You haven't any other family. The evil wizard named Grindlewald murdered them all. A more recent dark wizard, named Voldemort, killed your parents. You were left at the orphanage because he didn't know of your existence, and I didn't wish to endanger your life. You didn't know about me because any contact with you could put you in a dire situation. Voldemort won't attack me directly, but he will attack my family, just as Grindlewald did before I defeated him. Grindlewald didn't realize, and Voldemort won't learn, that killing my family won't weaken me. It will make me stronger." After a moments pause, given so Binah could take all that in, he added, "You can call me whatever you like."
"All right, Whatever-you-like. It's a rather long name, so how about," Binah paused for a moment, contemplating the decision, "WYL? Or While?"
Dumbledore laughed and said gently, "How about Grandfather, or something like that?"
Binah's eyes lit up. They looked exactly like her grandfather's, actually. She snapped her fingers and said, "I've got it! How about Grandpapa? Or just Papa?" {A/N: Grand-pa-paah, short a then long a, not pa pa.}
"How about Grandpapa? I'm not young enough to be called Papa," Dumbledore said, sighing wistfully. "May I ask you a question?"
"You just did, Grandpapa, but you can ask me another one," Binah said.
"Thank you. I would like to know why you blew up the roof."
"That wasn't a question. But I decided that I liked the sky better than the ceiling, so I thought that everyone else might like it too. I don't think you should put it back."
"But what if it rains?"
"Then we'll use umbrellas. Good night, Grandpapa!" Binah said happily, kissing the old man on the cheek and skipping off.
"She's a lot like her mother," Dumbledore said. "She looks exactly like her. But she has my eyes."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
"Stupid pranks," Lily muttered, wringing out her sopping hair. She'd just gotten out of the shower. "Stupid people pulling stupid pranks. Stupid explosion because of stupid people pulling stupid pranks. Stupid ash in hair because of stupid explosion because of stupid people pulling stupid pranks. Stupid-" she was cut off her ranting by the door swinging open and Kora poking her head in.
"Are you done in here yet? Bella and I would like to get cleaned up, too, and I'm sure that as soon as Binah gets back, she'd like to-"
"I NEED TO TAKE A SHOWER!" Binah sang out cheerfully, bursting open the door of the dormitory.
"I'm coming out," Lily said resentfully, wrapping her hair in a towel after pulling on her baggy pajama pants and a tank top. "It's taken you long enough," Bella said huffily as Lily emerged.
"I'm sorry that I've got long, thick hair that takes a while to get ash out of. If you'd actually thought before you blew off the roof, then maybe I wouldn't have taken so long!" Lily said snottily, seating herself in front of a mirror while unwrapping her hair from the towel. She began the tedious process of brushing it out, which she had only had to do once before. When at last it was tangle-free, she settled in to braid it. At this point, Kora had finished in the bathroom and Bella was half done.
Kora was whispering to Binah. "How did you put up with her for so long? She's already driving me crazy!"
"I had Pia to balance her out a bit. Pia- Petunia- was really nice to me. She even said that I'm more like her little sister than Lily is."
Kora nodded understandingly as Bella pounced onto the bed. "Your turn!" she informed Binah.
"I figured," Binah said wryly, skipping into the bathroom.
"You should have seen your face when the roof blew off," Bella informed Kora. "It was funny enough after the initial explosion, but with the added circumstances, it was completely comical!"
"How'd you do it?" Kora inquired thoughtfully. "We barely had any time to set it up at all…"
"Well, first we chose the proper longitude and latitude to set up the experiment on, then we-"
"Without the fancy big words, PLEASE!" Kora begged her dictionary-wise friend.
"Basically, we snuck up onto the roof before supper and set up a few joke bombs, timed to go off together about halfway through the meal."
"Thank you," Kora said, crawling into her bed as Binah came out of the bathroom.
"The water was freezing!" Binah exclaimed, shivering.
"Well, maybe if Miss I'm-too-good-for-you Evans over here hadn't taken so long, it wouldn't have been so cold," Bella mock-scolded her friend.
"I'm sorry that this stupid castle doesn't even have a decent water-heater!" Lily snapped, turning off the lights.
"Excuse me! Did any of us say that we were ready to sleep? No? So turn back on the lights, stupid!" Kora cried from her side of the room.
"Fine," Lily said shortly, turning the lights on. "And may moths eat all your clothes."
The others simply laughed at this interesting curse.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Everyone was awed when they walked into the Great Hall the next morning. The ceiling was there; you could just barely pick out the rafters if you looked hard enough. It just didn't look as if it were there. The mirror image of what the sky would look like was portrayed in precisely natural colors.
When Dumbledore saw his granddaughter look at him curiously, he stood up to make the announcement. "Some of you may have noticed the interesting change in our ceiling. This is because I was informed last night that certain people thought that the Great Hall would look nicer without the roof. I decided that, indeed, it would, but it would be inappropriate to go roof-less. So I enchanted the ceiling to look exactly as it would if the roof were not there. Eat! You need your strength for your lessons!"
Everyone closed their gaping mouths and began to wolf down their food as quickly as they could. It would be the first real day of lessons, and they didn't want to faint from hunger.
The year proceeded in this fashion until Halloween, the fashion being excruciatingly boring, difficult, or fun lessons with a few pranks thrown into the mix, along with Lily being haughty and disdainful to… everybody, actually, and everybody ignoring Lily. Unless they got fed up with her. Then she fell victim to some of the pranks.
*** *** *** ***
What say you all? R&R! Don't forget to check out my other fics… I'm just starting a Lee Jordan one that could prove to be interesting further into it. Well, I'll write more soonish!