Welcome to my first fic, and I hope you all enjoy it! Btw, if you're confused, it's okay! This is all taking place the summer before Seventh Year. I will give a nice character analysis in the next chapter. Pairings: JPLE and SBOC. Possibly RLOC in future chapters.
DISCLAIMER: I own everything not already owned by J.K. Rowling…duh…
Flaws OF Perfection
Chapter 1- Work
Arielle was desperate to leave the house, convincing herself that staying inside would make her head explode or cause her to get some sort of convulsive twitching. Her parents, being so "Anti-Muggle," made sure she couldn't visit her good friend from school, Lily. Besides, the floo network didn't connect to Muggle households, and she wasn't quite old enough to take her apparition test yet. There was only one thing to do now-get a summer job. She registered for a part time position at Fourish and Blotts in Diagon Alley, hoping a bookstore would make a nice, stress-free environment.
"I can use a much 'stress-free' time as possible, with seventh year and N.E.W.T.s around the corner," she had thought when she walked to her first day of work.
So, everyday at noon till five, Arielle worked to sell books in the dead of summer, while her fellow students were likely vacationing or taking apparition tests. It was better than staying home and being criticized by her family.
"I can't believe you're in Gryffindor! You're the family disappointment!" her mother had said over a perfectly nice dinner (of course, she hadn't said those exact words, but it was the point she was trying to make.), "You will be marrying a respectable pure blood, won't you?"
Arielle didn't remember what she said in response, but it was something about hygiene and most pure blooded men, "I can't believe they've her family never noticed what kind of hygiene those people have…they smell horrible, most with greasy hair and a stuck up look about them, the list continues…they could at least have the decency to put on some eau de cologne or something…seriously…"
And, of course, she'd been sent out of the room after a statement like that (not that she minded too much); her family claimed they felt insulted, the Blacks, her parent's friends, took showers daily. ( She didn't bother to ask why they knew that…)
"Okay," she thought, arguing with herself, "Maybe Sirius does take showers, but he's still a git! I'm one of the handful of girls who hasn't snogged him yet, and that's only because the majority of them are first years!"
Suddenly, she felt sick at the thought of kissing someone like him. However, she couldn't help but admit that her opinion of him had changed from pure annoyance to slight pride when she heard that he moved out of his home. Arielle thought she might almost have the nerve to do that as well, except she didn't exactly have an uncle with a house to lend her.
Yes, reflecting over her summer memories seemed to be a wonderful way to start off her last day of work; it had such an affect on her witty side. Students from Hogwarts dropped by all the time to buy books for new term and she felt slightly superior knowing she was getting a discount.
Arielle propped her head up on her hand while leaning against the desk, a shorter piece of her brown hair falling gracefully from behind her ear in front of her face. She absent-mindedly blew at the hair so that it would move, but her attempts weren't working. She then became very determined to blow this piece of hair out of her face until she was disturbed by an eager customer.
"Excuse me, I'm ready to purchase now," came the steady, masculine voice.
"…Huh? Wha…Oh…right…purchase," she stuttered, as she snapped back to reality, a bit embarrassed, pushing back the lose piece of hair behind her ears, and found herself starring into the intense black eyes of Sirius Black.
"Hmph…thought books were beneath you…" she muttered under her breath sarcastically.
"Er-sorry?" he asked with a charming smile, but she recognized this as his way of drawing attention to himself.
"I said that's seven galleons."
"Right," he said, pulling out the money, "How was you're summer then, Miss Craft?"
"Fine," she answered more coldly than she had meant, although she had been tempted to answer 'Not as exciting as yours!' but she didn't feel he deserved this praise to his ego, and then began to convulsively clean the front counter. "And you?"
"Fine," he answered just as coldly back and left.
Arielle felt bad for a minute; she honestly hadn't meant to be that mean, but she was immediately distracted by the next customer.
"Arielle? How've you been!" came the excited voice of the one and only Lily Evans.
"Hey there Lily!" she said, flashing a smile at the pretty redheaded and stopped cleaning the counter.
"You're jobs going well, I suppose?" asked Lily.
"It's okay. I'm just going to miss that 'new-book-smell' when I'm gone though," said Arielle dramatically.
Lily cracked a smile and rolled her eyes, "You're so strange."
"And what's wrong with that?" sniffed Arielle.
Lily shook her head and changed the subject, "Hey-guess what! I'm Head Girl! Isn't that great! I'm so excited!"
Arielle just starred up at her.
"I could have told you that, Lily…"
"Oh! Don't you have something supportive to say?"
"…er…Thank goodness I'm on your good side!"
" Not if that's the kind of support I'm getting!" joked Lily.
End chapter 1Well now, my lovely readers and reviewers, What did you all think?
I'm sure it's more on the boring side, but hopefully you found something funny?
If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please click the lovely little button to review waiting for you! Look at how lonely it looks…its needs to be clicked…it begs to be clicked!
Okay, for chapter 2, you, the reviewer has a choice! If you'd like the next chapter to focus more on Lily and James, I can do that. However I could also make it centered on Arielle. If you pick Arielle, there is a character analysis within the chapter, (Arielle is not my only character) but not in the Lily centric one. What ever you decide is fine with me! I did write the Arielle centric one first, so it might make more sense, but it shouldn't be too confusing if the order is switched. Thanks so much! And oh yeah….REVIEW!