How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days.
You have all heard of Composure Magazine in the wizarding world, haven't you? It's a better selling magazine than Witch Weekly, since it is read by both young teenagers and the older women. What you don't know about Composure, is how hard the women (and men!) work to send you their magazine every month.
One of these wonderful women is Lily Evans, the How-To girl. She has worked there for only two years, yet her article has become one of the most looked forward to articles, especially after a splendid one called "How-To: De-gnome your garden without breaking any fingernails." A woman's must-read.
Many of you use this article every month to upgrade your home, upgrade your social status, or in some one way to improve your life. Since Lily Evans is helping you help yourself, your vision of her must be the image of a perfect woman, who has absolutely no problems in her life, since she can fix all of yours.
You imagine her with supermodel beauty: blonde hair, blue eyes, and the longest legs you've ever seen. You certainly wouldn't think she was a short, red-haired, green eyed, and freckle prone girl, who could pass for a student still. But that's who she is. Sure, most would say she is beautiful in her own way, but she could never reach the standards of today's shallow look upon beauty.
You imagine her with a dark, handsome husband, who is a successful Auror, and brings home thousands upon thousands of Galleons. He is also blonde haired, and blue eyed, and as tan as the guys on Baywatch. Also, he has the body of Brad Pitt, with the manners of Orlando Bloom, and the sense of humor to match Jim Carrey's. You would never think she was single, having just broken up with her pot-smoking loser of a boyfriend, who flirts shamelessly with the Quidditch Ticker Seller to get free tickets to each game.
You imagine her with two perfect blonde haired, blue eyed children, who are complete dolls, and always follow everything she says, without question. They are also twins, and always dress alike, and always have a smile on their faces. They are never rude, or racist, or falling behind in school. You would never think that her only child relative is her sister's son who is a rude, fat, ugly, selfish little creature, and constantly pulls her hair out, yet his mum thinks he's a doll.
You imagine her living in a magnificent mansion, full of castle-like corridors and large rooms with fireplaces, and floors made of marble with Persian rugs spread upon them, and large tapestries hanging on the walls. Also with a huge courtyard full of fountains, and fresh green grass, and her own tennis court. You would never even think that she had a small one-bedroom apartment, the only fireplace being on the first floor lobby, and only used for flooing.
That is what you imagine Lily Evans to be, you imagine her being so different from yourself, your idea of perfection, but really, she's just like you. She's just a normal twenty-four year old who has guy problems, money problems, bad hair days, spring cleaning, and has to put up with her boss, Lana Wright, but nobody's ever going to tell you what she's really like, so you'll go on believing in her perfection until the day you die, or the day you meet her. But that's your problem.
Lily Evans sat typing at her computer that was placed in her small cubicle, that would normally be white if it was not covered with notes and clipping from the major fashion magazine she worked at, called Composure.
She was working on her newest article titled, "How-To: Bring Peace to the Wizarding World." Unlike her fashion-obsessed co-workers, she did not like writing about things like, "How-To: Flirt Better." Or "How-To: Get a Guy by Friday Night." It wasn't in her personality to write things like that, but still she had become an expert at it.
She had enjoyed writing since she was little more than eight, which was when she had been bought her first diary. She still had it, too, every page filled up completely, some of her days took almost five pages to write them, so she had moved on to new books fast. She had a total of over thirty books, the last one dating to two years ago, when she had gotten her job at Composure, and had not felt compelled to write at night anymore.
It had only been six years since she had graduated from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and she was amazed to actually have such a steady job so soon from graduating from journalism school. She had busted her butt the entire four years, impressing her professors with her ability, even staying away from the Quidditch games she loved so much, to ensure a good job. And she had gotten one.
Ah, Quidditch. Quidditch was her other passion besides journalism. It was worth it to flirt with the unattractive Davey Gudgeon in order to get free tickets to every game that came up, yet the next game was only two days away, and he hadn't given her tickets yet. Of course, she had been working him for two years, so maybe he had finally caught on. She would need to find another ticket salesman, preferably the handsome Mark West, who had been trying to catch her eye for quite some time. He, of course, would catch on quicker than Davey had, yet she would have at least three months before he did.
She sighed and backed up from her computer to examine what she had written. It was amazing how she could keep her mind on a million things at once, yet still write whatever she meant to flawlessly. It was a gift she had acquired at age ten, when she began writing her diary in the middle of class, to save her from having nearly sleepless nights, astounding her teachers when she was able to repeat back everything said from the lesson, though she had been doing something else the entire time.
She noticed a flash of bright red from the corner of her eye, and matched two and two together when her best friend and co-worker Dorcas Meadowes banged on her computer to attract her attention. "Yes?" Lily scratched her nose, pausing to re-check her last sentence, since it did not seem to quite make sense.
"Have you seen Marlene?" Dorcas asked her, panting as if she had been through the whole building already. "I can't find her. Usually we stop for butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks before work, and today she didn't show up."
"How come you never invite me?" Lily grinned, finally looking up from her computer screen to the face of her frazzled friend.
"Lily. Come on. I'm serious. What if something's happened to her? What if she's dead? What if-?"
"Oh my goodness, it's probably just a late night Caradoc's or something. You know how it is with her-they've been dating for ten days, it's pretty serious." Lily joked. Then something clicked in. Caradoc.
Dorcas was the first to groan. "Oh, great. Another break up, no wonder she isn't at work, she must be a mess. I call getting the coffee this time."
Lily grinned. "I'll go get her then, shall I?" She said, standing up, and taking her purse with her. "Meet you in fifteen minutes back here, or we'll be late for our meeting."
"Here." Dorcas swept a few cosmetic items into her bag. "Take samples." Then she threw a velvet green shirt over Lily's arm. "And this."
"Oooh, samples. Good idea." They brisk walked toward the doors together and out into the busy neighborhood. "You'd better be here!" Lily cried, looking backwards.
"Don't worry!" Dorcas managed to call back, before being swept into the crowd heading toward the coffee house.
Lily headed in the direction of Marlene's apartment, stopping only a moment to collect a few fashion magazines. Ringing the buzzer to go upwards, she wondered for a moment if Marlene was even going to let her in, but thankfully the door buzzed open soon enough, allowing Lily access to the splendid apartment.
Marlene greeted Lily at the apartment door with an overly cheerful smile, then immediately collapsed into tears. "I'm going back to bed," she moaned, throwing herself on top of her water bed, making everything else that was on it fly off.
The apartment was considerably dark, so Lily threw open the curtains beside the bed murmuring, "Oh, look, the sun's out."
"Dear, dear, dear, honey, do you want to tell your mummy Lily all about it?" Lily cooed, settling herself down beside Marlene on the water bed.
"I can't believe it! It was all going so well!" Marlene burst out into tears once more. She pulled the covers of her bed around her, and stuffed her face into a pillow. When she finally arose, the pillow was streaked with her tears, just like it was from all the other times she had broken up with many various boyfriends.
"It's okay, it's okay. Look-I brought samples!" Lily tossed her the samples and a beautiful green cashmere sweater.
"Samples! Oh, cashmere!"