Mélange

Full Summary: Lily has always been the pretty face. No one ever sees past the flawless face, thick and majestic red hair, and those expressive green eyes. When the Hogwarts letter arrived, it was what Lily had been waiting for. No one would know of her past of being magazine covers and a face on commercials. She can start out as a normal student and focus on academics. That plan had worked, until the teen magazine for the wizarding world found her. She didn't even know such magazine existed in her new surroundings.

Disclaimer One: I do not own Harry Potter characters – obviously. This is merely for enjoyment, no copyright infringement intended. And there is no way I can money by doing this, I mean, does this work seem like it would sell?!

Disclaimer Two: The idea of selling students is not my own, I actually got this lovely concept from my school. Selling seniors has been a tradition for many years. The purpose of auctioning the students was to fund raise money the prom. The event has been quite successful – in the eyes of all students and parents – and few seniors' egos were slashed, but nothing that was not repairable. ^^

Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait. It seems my beta is quite busy, so I am proofreading this myself to get this chapter out. Since it is the end of the school, I hope I have learned something from English . . . ^^
 

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Chapter Three: Money Issues

            As things turned out, the money needed for the two balls planned for the students will not be covered entirely by the Board of Governors. They didn't feel Hogwarts needed two balls. After all, the castle is an educational institution, not some place to party.

            "Poop on their brains," Lily cursed quietly when she heard the news. Without sufficient funding, the only two choices are not having two balls or do fund raising. Since everyone's hearts were set on having two balls, the vote was obviously do find financial aid. The task was to think of ways to gather money for the additional ball.

            Fate had decided to resume its usual tendency to make Lily feel uncomfortable. As she said her little curse, everyone in the room decided to be silent. The only that was heard besides the head girl's pencil scratches was Lily's soft cry of frustration. All eyes were focused on the usually inconspicuous prefect.

            "Sorry," Lily muttered feeling her cheeks burn from embarrassment and the fact that at least twenty people were staring at her.

            "Okay everyone. Back to brainstorming," Aleia declared seeing the Lily's discomfort. The room immediately returned to the buzzing of bees.

            "Hello Lily," a disembodied voice said. Lily turned to the direction of the sound. An expression of surprised was donned on the redhead's face. What Lily thought was a disembodied voice actually belonged to James Potter. Oh lovely. Now he is going to tease me about what I said for the rest of my life. I know the comment sounded like a curse of a three-year-old, but cursing is bad!

            "Lily? Earth to Lily!" Now that was a different voice. Doesn't sound like James . . . or Jon. Lily drifted away from her thoughts to notice the two most sought-after boys in Hogwarts or perhaps the magical world of the British Isles are standing in front of her with what she deemed as maniacal smiles.

            "Hello James . . . and Sirius," Lily answered slowly as her eyebrows made a frown. The next thing Lily wanted to say was demanding why they were standing in front of her as it made her feel short and suspicious. But being the nice courteous girl she was supposed to be, Lily quickly changed the frown to a smile. Thanks goodness for model training. I have to thank the photographers for teaching me how to smile on cue. "What brings you to me?"

            "We thought we needed help with the fund raising ideas and you are one of the brightest person around," James answered casually.

            "Right," Lily answered obviously not believing a word he said. "Why are you here Sirius?" It had just struck Lily that Sirius was not a prefect yet he was present at one of the meetings.

            "I came to see Aleia," the boy answered. If any stranger had heard, it would be perfectly natural for the boy to see his best friend's sister. But when the boy is Sirius Black and the sister is Aleia Potter, something is amiss. For one, Sirius is afraid of Aleia. She is one the few girls he would not want to get cozy with. The other thing is Aleia makes Sirius work and being situated in the prefects' meeting room means work. Seeing the disbelieving look on Lily's face, James had to smirk.

            "Actually, he came to sabotage Jon." Lily gave James an evaluating look.

            "You know, just sabotaging Jon won't get you anywhere. Every player on the Ravenclaw is great. Besides, even our backup is great," Lily answered with a smirk. "Also if you do decided to hurt our beloved head boy, you are going to have a large group of people after your skin."

            "And if they are after our skin, I think we might have a group to be after theirs," James retorted with an annoying expression that was a cross of a smile and a smirk. Why does he have to seem so arrogant? Hmm, maybe that is why people take him seriously. The arrogant son of the minister of magic . . . that sounds like James.

            "I am not going to argue with you. Otherwise, we might have a war inside Hogwarts," Lily sidestepped her way from the discussion. That had caused the two boys to laugh and they each grabbed a nearby chair to just talk to Lily, about everything.

~*~*~

            "I can't think of anything that would be good!" James cried running his hands through his messy hair, which actually made it look neater.

            "I do have an idea," Sirius proclaimed to his audience of two. "I will sell myself to Aleia for a price that will pay for the costs." Lily looked at Sirius and then at James her body language asking why are you friends with a lunatic?

            "So you basically want my family to pay for this ball?" James asked scoffing at the absurdity of the idea. "Sirius, your own fortune can pay for half of the preparations. And just a little reminder: you practically live at my house."

            Lily coughed at the boys' topic of conversation. If didn't bother her when some people are richer than others. Though whenever there is even a hint of the rich flaunting their wealth, the reaction from Lily automatically points to her red hair.

            "Guys, stop. You are sounding like spoiled brats from aristocratic families, which is probably partially true anyway," Lily chided with an annoyed face. James and Sirius looked at each other. A silent conversation was going on between the two best friends. Lily didn't care. She was too irritated with their snobby rich boy act.

            "Sorry, Lil'. We didn't want you to . . ." Sirius never got to finish. Lily shot him a silencing look.

            "I do not feel inferior. Actually, my family has a great income thank you very much. We are not in the middle of the social structure, nor are we in the lower end or higher end. My family may not be of nobility, but we are much better off than at least half of the people living in England."

            "Okay . . ." Sirius trailed with wide eyes. Lily's little lecture had completely caught him off guard. How did the girl that was quiet suddenly become the younger version of Professor McGonagall?

            "Never mind," Lily said waving her hand to signal the end of the discussion. James, being around too many stuffy ministry officials for the better part of his life, smoothly changed to course of the discussion to fund raising ideas,

            "Hey, maybe we can sell chocolates or something. I remember Aleia complaining about children in America bring catalogues to her and begging her to buy something."

            "James, that idea is worst than Sirius selling himself. Actually, anything is worse than Sirius advertising himself," Sirius bowed at Lily's announcement while the others laughed.

            "I have happy everyone appreciates me so much that I needed to be shared." James playfully punched his best friend in the shoulder.

            "Right, but we are better off auctioning ourselves off than doing the magazine thing. Couldn't people just order from those professional sales catalogues? It would be pointless." Lily said while smiling at what looked like a choreographed fight between James and Sirius.

            "That might work," said a voice from behind Lily. The three fifth year prefects looked back. Aleia and the two heads had smiles on their faces.

"I think that might be the winning idea!" Eloise exclaimed. "It is original and new. People would definitely be interested in this." A look of horror replaced the smiles that had been on Lily and James's faces. For Lily, she really didn't want to be sold. It would have been like people trading slaves. Look, here is a redhead slave with magic and is excellent with Charms. James on the other hand, had a different concern. He was afraid of what his owner would do to him once he was bought.

"No, no!" both Lily and James exclaimed at the same time.

"Why not?" Aleia asked. "There are definitely going to be restrictions on what your owners can do with you and there will be a time period in which they own you."

"Besides, we will be in Hogwarts the entire time. They can't do horrible stuff to you without being caught," Jon added.

"You do realize I am not going to go through with this plan unless there will be others, right?" Lily said with a stern expression attempting to keep fear out of her voice. Jon was about to retort that James was going to accompany Lily but Aleia got to speak first.

"Of course. We would never do that to you," Lily had a suspecting smile. She realized then that she wouldn't be sold alone. James was also part of the conversation. Maybe I should have made clear that I wanted the other prefects to do so too!

"Every prefect will participate," Eloise finished.

"Does that include the heads?" James asked. The head girl nodded yes.

"How do you know everyone will participate?" Jon asked incredulously. He himself didn't want to be sold.

"I asked everyone while you were scaring those two," Eloise said with a shrug pointing to Lily and James. Poor Sirius was ignored. He was quite indignant when no one paid attention to him.

"Hey! What about me?"

Aleia looked at the boy who could be her brother, "What about you?"

"I want to help too," Sirius answered with a pout. The other prefect shared a look.

"Sure," Jon granted the boy with a shrug while everyone else nodded in agreement. Though somewhere in the Slytherin section of the prefect meeting murmurs of apology to whoever ended up owning Sirius were heard.

~*~*~

Everything had been settled. The fund raising method was going to be selling prefects, including the head boy and girl. A week after the news got out, some thirty other students wanted to participate as well – like Sirius. So the final plan was any one that wanted to be sold can participate.

The format was to be a student auction. Each participant would be auctioned off starting with 3 galleons. Everyone was to pay within one week of the date of the auction. Also, as advertisement for the small auction, notices of performing prefects and other participants were posted in each classroom. Every student in Hogwarts was ready to see their reserved peers (the prefects) and their friends make fools of themselves.

The matter of guidelines was changed. The buyer can ask for help from their prefects, but everything must be school business. Activities outside the school must be approved the teachers – making them more or less crankier than ever. However, besides school tutoring, the owners are allowed three wishes from their prefects, this still needed to be approved the by teachers. The rumors of a rising Dark Lord had caused adults to be more careful. It wasn't known how many families are actually supporters of this new evil but smart wizards.

~*~ finis for now ~*~

Coming up next: The fund raising auction – Yay!

Author's Note: Well that was basically the introductory chapter of the auction. I'll have to work out how actual auction will be like, since everyone is pretty much dialogue. Happy reading! I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as possible seeing as I don't have school anymore. Summer will be friendly to be hobby. ^^

Thanks to:

KV (guess that wasn't soon enough?), Lucky-719 (I had liked my Middle School English teachers, more Language Arts), melissa(), Lauryn, Scarlett*eyes (Thanks, at least my made-up character is liked.), Night-'n'-Day, 0, flamin-phyinix (thank you for that e-mail ^^), ednra, the redhead from Hell (good plan, though I am not sure if I would be able to do it.), jesica black, harrys girl, JerseyGirl03 (Thanks for the ego booster!), and starborn.

Without your comments, I might have given up. I have had a really bad writers block on all of my stories right now. It gets quite frustrating when I cannot put my ideas and thoughts into the words and phrasing that I like. I am actually quite tempted to just have a nuclear explosion, kill the characters, and end the fic. Yep, it is quite bad.

But thank you once again,

Omni

Now please review and such. Ideas are also good too!

With my sincerest gratitude, I would like to thank all the readers again for their support in taking the time to read this piece of work if it could be called that. ^^ Have a wonderful day!