This chapter is being edited…yeah. I'm probably working my way up till the…sixth chapter or so? Hmmm. Okay. So, read, please?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in the story , they belong to O great J.K Rowling.
That sounded like it came from the bible, didn't it? I didn't mean for it to.
Oh well, I'll carry on.
Anyway, without further ado (dun dun DUN) and stuff…. Here's the fic.
Love is a Funny Thing, Chapter 2
Lily crashed up the stairs into her dormitory which she shared with her three best friends, Hazel, Amanda, and Michelle.
Hazel was the subtle beauty of the group. Her shoulder-length brown, straight hair and upward-slanting large hazel-colored eyes attracted stares from many a boy at Hogwarts. She had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose, which while everyone else insisted were "cute", they weren't the ones with little brown dots sprinkled, like spilled salt, all over her nose and cheeks.
Even though Hazel was beautiful, she rarely tried really hard with make up or clothes. As a child, Hazel's mother—Marianne—had constantly emphasized Hazel's beauty, and even tried to send Hazel's picture to a modeling agency (Hazel threw a rare screaming fit at her mother's action).
Perhaps because her mother made so much out of her beauty, Hazel made so little out of it. She was a bit withdrawn and shy, though she connected to her best friends quite well.
Although Amanda was the current seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team (3 years winning the Hogwarts Quidditch cup, thank you very much) , her close acquaintances often thought Amanda should start a cheerleading squad. Amanda was the most excited, bouncy person ever—possibly ever to walk the earth.
She was short, average weight, with curly blonde hair, the color and texture of beautiful corn silk, a pale yellow. Her eyes were round and light blue, which had the habit of widening when she saw somebody she liked. She had a very down-to-earth approach of saying things, which often got her in deep trouble with teachers, and earned her many detentions.
Michelle had deep black eyes, long, straight shiny black hair, and dark skin. She basically had classic Oriental features, and wasn't traditionally considered a pretty sort of girl, she was beautiful in a different way. Her main love was gymnastics, and had been on a competing gymnastics team before she'd come to Hogwarts.
Lily, Hazel and Amanda knew that constant gymnastics was one of the few things Michelle sorely missed from her childhood.
Michelle was also extraordinarily enthusiastic and ambitious. She could oftentimes be seen planning sometimes what were absurd things, like trying to organize a Hogwarts gymnastics team or group hikes into the Forbidden forest.
"Lily… umm… er… what happened?" Hazel questioned cautiously of Lily's noisy arrival.
Lily opened her mouth to speak, just as Amanda, blunt as ever, proceeded to interrupt her.
"It was James, once again, am I correct? You got into a shouting match with him, challenged him to what-have-you, and now are mad, once again." Amanda rattled off in a bored way while lying on her stomach on her bed, reading the newest TeenWitch magazine with subdued interest.
"Honestly, he is SUCH an annoying, smug, little…-- Lily exclaimed, apparently searching for the worst word that she could find to describe her sworn enemy.
"Idiot?" Offered Michelle helpfully from the far corner of the room.
"Pig head?" Amanda suggested.
"Prat?" Hazel offered.
The three burst into giggles. The list of insults for James that were discussed in the dormitory went up by the second; Hazel suspected it must be in the thousands now.
"Guys!" Lily whined. "Listen to what happened."
"Sorry, sorry." Amanda replied on the last of her giggles. "What did he do?
"We-ell," Lily said, I was innocently sitting, trying to write my Muggle Studies essay—"
"Yeah, I've still got to do that…" Michelle remarked with a hazy look in her eyes. Lily shot her an annoyed look (for interrupting), and continued.
"—when he and Sirius start discussing the possibility of opening a KISSING booth at the Hogwarts festival! In tones loud enough for someone in Siberia to hear! And he said that his booth would definitely make more than mine. I've got to prove him wrong." Lily ranted, wringing her hands in consternation.
"Wait, Lils, you're doing a booth? I didn't know that! What are you doing?" asked Michelle, her midnight-black eyes sparkling with eagerness.
"Uhmmmm, well, I was hoping you guys would help me with that side of things… right, you guys?" asked Lily hopefully.
The room (for once) was silent. The girls stared off into space and thought deeply. Lily just needed something to beat that arrogant jerk…
After a few minutes, Amanda spoke out excitedly.
"Hey, Lily, I've got the best idea. You open a rival kissing booth! It'll be the ultimate test to prove he isn't the only popular one around here. It'll be great." Amanda said with relish, savoring her idea.
"'Manda!" exclaimed Lily in shock. "That is completely derogatory, completely degrading, and…HEY! That might just be the most perfect idea! It'll prove to him that he's not the only one who's admired around this place."
"Well, at least that's done with." Amanda replied.
"Wait, I just thought of something. James is doing the booth with Sirius, and… wait, you guys! That means one of you has to help me…please?" asked Lily.
"No way, girly! I helped you figure out the idea, which, I might add, is extremely brilliant, crème de la crème, marvelous, the work of an absolute genius, the cream of the crop, totally wonderfully amazingly awesome, --and, well, I helped with that, anyway, so it has to be Haze or 'Chelle."
"Not me! Noo, Lily, my bestest friend, no! The boys don't like me—you'd be losing galleons! You'd lose the bet!" Michelle exclaimed quickly, a certain fear in her coal-colored almond-shaped eyes.
Lily looked in amusement between the two friends, each making their cases why they shouldn't be partnering her.
"Lily, noooo!" Hazel was saying earnestly. "I'll do anything—but that!"
Amanda was currently staring at a high-strung Hazel, who was clearly going overboard and ranting on and on. It wasn't often that Hazel did this, but when she did, there was almost no stopping her. She could go on for hours and hours. You could leave the room, and she'd still be there, ranting to the wall.
"—and if a boy kissed me, they'd see my freckles. My FRECKLES! My dreaded, ugly, horrendous FRECKLES! They'd see them right up close, as plain as day, all over my face! I'd never get a boyfriend! What do—"
Lily sighed in exasperation, and looked at Hazel, who seemed unperturbed to Lily's annoyance.
"Shut UP, Hazel! Now!" Lily exclaimed as if she was some commander. "Attention! Left, left, left right left!"
The girls started giggling for a few minutes, and eventually Hazel joined in and stopped ranting about her freckles, which was a relief for Lily, Amanda, and Michelle. Eventually they all calmed down, and Lily reclaimed her serious face, reserved only for important matters.
"Seriously, you guys. One of you HAS to help me. It's not fair… Black and Sirius would be two against just me, and they'd definitely make more money than me," Lily exclaimed, preparing her puppy face, which was reserved especially for matters of begging and such.
The three other girls looked at each other guiltily. They knew perfectly well that if they'd been in the same situation as Lily was, they would want help from one of their friends.
Michelle had a rather guilty memory of the time, just last month, when Lily had begrudgingly helped Michelle trudge around the icy-cold castle, frozen chilly in its wintery season, putting up flyers for Michelle's newly-formed SFHSR (Support for Hogwarts Students Rights.) Lily had willfully even charmed the hot fuchsia-colored flyers to breathe a bright, iridescent orange colored steam in the students closest to it's face, and would not evaporate until the students carefully read the notice.
True, the SFHSR hadn't exactly taken off on the wings of one of the Care of Magical Creatures teacher's larger Hipogriffs. McGonagall had made Michelle and Lily take down the flyers on account of the brightly-colored steam obscuring the students' vision, the thought was still there. (Besides, professor Flitwick had discreetly added fifteen points to Gryffindor, because he was impressed at the use and effect of Lily's charm.)
Lily, having been in the begging situation many times, sensed her friends weaken. She sat up a little straighter on Amanda's bed, which they were communing on.
They often gathered on Amanda's bed, since it was farthest away, secluded bed that was farthest from the other, quite unfriendly two girls that they unfortunately shared a rather large dormitory room with. It was also closest to the showers room, which came in handy when getting to the closet bed to dry off.
Also, if you were fortunate, you could be the lucky recipient of one of Amanda's famous untangling and hair-drying charms. These were very useful when you slept late and feared walking into the Great Hall with wet, uncombed hair and looking like a hedgehog that had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Yes, there were definitely times where the three other girls greatly appreciated Amanda's skill at beauty spells.
Hazel, sensing the guilty feeling that was traveling around the small circle like a scentless, colorless gas, decided to throw a fair idea into the circle.
"Okay, I have a fair idea, because none of us want to DO this." Hazel gave Lily a playful rolling-the-eyes look.
"Go on." Encouraged Lily, slightly nodding her head.
"So, I learned it from my cousin, Tory, when none of them wanted to do the chores around the house." Hazel began.
"So…why couldn't they just uh…USE MAGIC?" asked Michelle in an isn't- it – obvious sort of way.
"She was a MUGGLE, Michelle…remember?" Hazel responded.
Hazel's mother was a witch, and her father was a Muggle. She lived with her mother, mostly, during the summers, but she visited her father, and her Muggle cousins, on the rare occasion that she went to see her Dad.
"Oh, yeah, her…" Michelle answered faintly, forgetting for a moment that not everyone lived in a totally wizarding community.
"Anyway, she told me this fair way to decide who has to do the chores, you know, like sweeping the kitchen or whatever. You take pieces of paper and write the people's names each on a separate piece of paper. Then, you crumple it up, and have somebody else pull one out of a hat. The person whose name is on it has to do the chore or whatever." Hazel finished.
"Okay, so we'll do that. Hey, Manda, wanna get me a piece of parchment and a quill?" Lily said.
Amanda reached over, accidentally knocking over her Transfiguration essay, and grabbed a spare piece of parchment, and her favorite eagle-feathered quill. Unfortunately, it was very cheap, so it shed feathers everywhere it went.
She handed the things over, and Lily ripped three small pieces off, writing a girl's name on each one. She then reached to her head a took of her quite large pointed wizard's hat, and threw the three crumpled pieces of parchment in it. She reached in, grasped a slip of paper, and said….
A/N: Sorry for the lame attempt at a cliffhanger. The next chapter will be much better… I promise. Once again, if you have any ideas (about who should get picked, about the plot, whatever) feel free to suggest them! Hoped you liked the fic. Sorry this chapter was soooo bad, once again, the next chapter WILL be better. Anyway, please review! They mean a lot to me… and encourage me to keep writing!
Okay, oh and thank you SO much to the people that reviewed:
A-is-for-Amy: Thank you so much for the idea! It's great and I'm going to use it, so once again thanks. Oh and the thing about Sirius being prepared to slap Lily, I don't know. It just came to mind, you know?
lovehimnot : Thank you! I hope you'll like the story.
popppincorn : Thanks!
Charming Visions : Yeah, I'm trying to finish this chapter as soon as I can!
tHeOnEaNdOnLyStEpHy : Awww, thanks for the compliments! I am trying to finish this thing soon as I can.
anymos-chan : Thanks! I hope this chapter will meet your expectations.
Crazy-Phychotic-Freak : Thank you! I'm trying to finish this chapter as soon as I possibly can, ok?