Disclaimer: Everything you know belongs to the genius that is J.K.Rowling. Parts belong to J.R.R.Tolkien.
Miss Hogwarts
The next part of the competition would take place the following week and Rowena appointed herself as Lily and Tara's helper. She would flit back and forth between them, if she were needed. Her speciality was in dancing, but her dance act had came to short in the competition. Lily and Tara welcomed the help.
For the participants of the competitions the week was filled with practise and the tiniest bit of house rivalry. But soon the Saturday had arrived again, and this time the twelve of them met in bathing suits. Lily trooped up in a peachy white two-piece, a pair of high-heeled sandals and a see-through white piece of fabric tied around her waist. Her hair had been removed from her eyes with a pair of sunglasses on the top of her head.
The eight participants stepped out of the line of the twelve and had to twirl a bit for the audience. After this they all went to their changing rooms to change for their second talent competition. When Lily had dumped the bikini in favour four a forest green dress the girls assisting her placed a crown of flowers on her head and twirled some leaves into her hair. Jennifer added a light touch of some green and brown make-up before ushering Lily out the door. In that dress Lily could blend into every forest. It was green as a forest in spring and little glass pearls looked like the morning dew in fresh grass. A veil had been fastened to her crown, and there gave the image of the finest woven spider web.
Lily passed Mirabella on the way out on the stage. Mirabella smiled and whispered her good luck. Instead of the light, elven-like light that had shone on the stage the last time, a misty green light glowed. Again Jennifer stepped forward as Lily sat down.
"They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen feet high, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether it was hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. Theses deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with a green light. Often afterwards Pippin tried to describe his first impression of them." Now Jennifer retreated herself to the depths of the curtains and Lily spoke.
"One felt as if there was an enormous well behind them, filled up with ages of memory and long, slow, steady thinking; but their surface was sparkling with the present; like sun shimmering on outer leaves of a vast tree, or on the ripples of a very deep lake. I don't know, but it felt as if something that grew on the ground – asleep, as you might say, or just feeling itself as something between root-tip and leaf-tip, between deep earth and sky had suddenly waked up, and was considering you with the same slow care that it had given to its own inside affairs for endless years." Lily rose slowly and met every judge with her eyes.
"This his how Tolkien describes ents in his books. But unfortunately for the ents, they have no entwives left. Entwives are what you could call the female ent. But then again, you might not know what an ent is. They are called tree-shepherds, and were awakened by the elves a long time ago. Here is a song about ents and a bit of their history, song by ent and entwife. I have played in the voice of the ent myself, earlier, and this will be played now as I sing the entwife." Lily smiled gently at them all, noting her mother smiling proudly in one of the couches on the right. In a voice laid a bit deeper than Lily would normally sing, the verse of the ent streamed out in the room.
When spring unfolds the beechen leaf, and sap is in the bough;
When light is on the wild-wood stream, and wind is on the brow;
When stride is long, and breath is deep, and keen the mountain air,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is fair!
In spring light tones the verse of the entwife streamed from Lily's mouth.
"When spring is come to garth and field, and corn is in the blade;
When blossom like a shining snow is on the orchard laid;
When shower and Sun upon Earth with fragrance fill the air,
I'll linger here, and will not come, because my land is fair."
When summer lies upon the world, and in a noon of gold
Beneath the roof of sleeping leaves the dream of trees unfold;
When woodland halls are green and cool, and wind is in the West,
Come back to me! Come back to me, and say my land is best!
"When summer warms the hanging fruit and burns the berry brown;
When straw is gold, and ear is white, and harvest comes to town;
When honey spills, and apple swells, though wind be in the West,
I'll linger here beneath the sun, because my land is best!"
When winter comes, the winter wild that hill and wood shall slay;
When trees shall fall and starless night devour the sunless day;
When wind is in the deadly East, then in the bitter rain
I'll look for thee, and call to thee; I'll come to thee again!
"When winter comes, and singing ends; when darkness falls at last;
When broken is the barren bough, and light and labour past;
I'll look for thee, and wait for thee, until we meet again:
Together we will take the road beneath the bitter rain!"
Then the two musical voices of Lily Evans, one darker then the other, blended together as she sang the last verse, the verse that the ent and his entwife should have been singing together:
"Together we will take the road that leads into the West,
And far away we will find a land where both our hearts may rest."
As the vibrant tones died away the applause broke loose. Lily bowed gently and swiftly left the stage letting Persephone enter it. She got into her biking again in her changing room and slipped a thin robe over it. Jennifer was the only one of her crew left in the room, and she washed of the green make up and applied some other light. Lily slipped into the high-heeled pair of sandals again and the two of them made it for Lily's sofa corner in the Great Hall. After listening and watching their way through Desiree, Jeannie, Tara and Xyania the judges left the room. This time Lily didn't bother with pulling the boys up, she levitated them up in stead. James planted a kiss on her forhed after a warning from Lily not to ruin her make up. The judges used a whole hour this time, but eventually returned with their results. Without being told so, the twelve of them lined up. At Dumbledores command, the eight of them who made it last time stepped one step forward.
"Desiree Cannes, Hufflepuff. Lily Evans, Gryffindor. Persephone Malfoy, Slytherin. Marilee Voulige, Ravenclaw." Lily hugged Tara, Jeannie and Mirabella before she let herself be congratulated by her fans.