Mélange
Before the story begins,
Aaaaaaaaaaaah! I am very sorry about the one-month wait with a measly five pages of actual story. Please do not get angry with me since I have a very good reason, at least I hope. For those of you keeping up with my life on my journal and my website (that is currently dead due to a server problem), you will have noticed my worrisome personality becoming apparent as AP tests and finals exams approach. Currently, I am in the middle of a Model UN competition that requires my sleep. So quick replies to everyone before I snap in the middle of the conference.
Shree: very sorry about the tense changes. You probably will find more tense problems since I didn't get to go over this. Also, no beta at this point… would you like to help? ^^
Tyster: Hmm, not really what will happen. You'll see, but you are close.
Dee Ann: Lily saying yes would be not like my Lily. Just showing her character, but anyhow, characteristics will progress. So she might agree sometime.
TheSilverLady: Thank you! But I think this chapter may not be as well written as the others since I have been rushed by myself, not reviewers.
mystic fire demon: Thanks, but soon is not exactly an option with my schedule. I am in the middle of a model UN competition and in less than a week, I have an economics competition. AHH!
Yola: It would be cool with a magazine person, but you've guess that option and I go for uniqueness. It might end up like that, it might not.
Chicken Stars: Well, one of your questions is answered. ^^
JeanieBeanie33: In due time all will be revealed . . . so in about two chapters, averaging my guesses.
Lololchik: Well now, she is going to the ministry ball . . .
CrystalBallerina: Thanks. Wonderful enthusiasm. Great, now I feel worse about not being able to update as much.
Jegan: Oh dearie, thanks for the two reviews to rush me otherwise this would not have made it to the public until, hmmm, until possibly my spring break that is in around two weeks. Love you for that! But kind of not since now I am on a major guilt trip about everything.
Biz: I will, I will! Geez, I will. Not in any snooty way, but as I mentioned above, I am on a major guilt trip.
rebecca shepherd: Welcome to the story, I believed this is your first review and a UK person! Wow, and my enthusiasm is because I am representing UK in the Model United Nations competition. Stupid France and Russian Federation was being mean to me. Tricks are not good when mixed with facts.
Katie: Sorry about not helping you on time. I would have e-mailed you had you kept your e-mail, but oh well. Good to know you enjoyed this.
FireBringer: Short, simple, sweet. I'll do that too: thanks.
Lovely reviewers, thank you so much! It was great that when school was getting difficult and awful (I am not doing very well in one of my best classes and I have been feeling awful) and I see all your reviews, it makes me a little less depressed. Thanks, there is a reason why writing is therapeutic most of the time for me.
Love,
Omnifarious
Now read.
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Chapter Nine: Dance Part II – I said NOT dancing, did you not hear me?!Lily felt proud when she and Mei walked to the Great Hall. She wasn't proud because she looked like goddess of the season with her green dress robe that looked uncannily like an evening dress on her. In fact, Lily probably didn't know the seasonal colors on her made her look like ethereal, a dreamy spirit for those poor boys looking for a devastating beautiful girl. She was proud because she managed to put all 10 of her ruby hairpins in Mei's hair. Certainly they were now very late due to the struggle in putting decorations in the unwilling Asian girl's even more stubborn hair, but what the rubies did to Mei's aura made it worth it.
The thought of her ability to make others show their real beauty made Lily smile.
"What are you smiling at?" the other girl asked with a pout. Apparently she wasn't happy with Lily's forcible makeover for her.
"Oh, you look so pretty!" Lily gushed for the eleventh time since they walked out of the Ravenclaw wing and they were only twenty meters away from the portrait that guarded the entrance of the common room. But of course, Lily had a healthy start on complimenting her friend before they even left the room. "If only you could walk down the stairwell like a debutante girl with the boys staring at you with their jaws on the ground."
Mei playfully glared at her friend who proved the rumor regarding a redhead temper during their struggle with her hair. "Yeah, if my brother is deported because he felt the need to curse the entire male population, it's all your fault. This is like baiting my brother to so something overdramatic." Lily shrugged. If a girl was pretty, it wasn't crime to look so. If a girl was gifted with beauty, why not use the most out of it? That was a lesson in the modeling industry and one that Lily agreed wholeheartedly with. It was a girlish nature to dress up. When the girls were young, they would play with items on their mothers' vanity. By the time they are older, makeup and other beauty enhancers are used to accentuate the result of the dress up game, not to create a new appearance. It wasn't hard to make Mei look pretty. Her pale skin made her almost look like Snow White. The crimson dress robe made her glow.
"You still look pretty," Lily remarked. "And stop that scowl. It only makes you more attractive." To the redhead's glee, Mei did stop scowling.
When the girls reached the decorated Great Hall, no students were entering. The entrance was silent while just across the two oak doors, the festivities were loud with people's laughter and music.
"Okay, ready to enter the crazy world of Hogwarts's first student-planned dance?" Lily asked when they approached the threshold. "Ready to face everyone in something not typical of our daily dress? Ready to be a knockout and be asked to dance many times in the night?"
Mei smiled and added, "Ready to take the responsibility of all my brother's actions today? Ready to make sure all your charms spells worked?" That made Lily nervous. What if one of the decorations fell on someone? What if the Christmas tree's lights weren't lit the entire night? What if the moving charm on the mistletoe was dysfunctional the mistletoe was now targeting specific students out of random?
Lily unceremoniously grabbed the other girl and dragged her to into the dance without the fanfare of late arrivers. Everyone else was either too preoccupied with their his or her dates or too engrossed in a conversation to take note of the two girls' presence. Lily spot-checked everything.
"Phew!" she said sagging her shoulders in relief. "Don't you dare scare me like that again!"
"You should have faith in your skills. Even if you aren't, you shouldn't worry over a comment I made. I have never been in any of your classes, so my comments are completely random," Mei replied stoically. She looked around, "So, what do we do now?"
Lily's eyes scanned the room once again. All the tables were taken.
"Oi my lovely flowers!" the two girls heard the characteristic bellowing of Sirius. "Come here. I've saved a seat and a dance for each of you."
"Flowers?" Mei asked with a frown. "His flowers? What piece of information am I missing to understand that?"
"The experience in dealing with Sirius," James answered from behind, making the two girls jump in surprise. "You two certainly look beautiful. Mei, if I were you, I would hide. Apparently Sirius has decided to latch onto you tonight since my sister is too busy with her boyfriend." Seeing the lunatic approaching them, Lily and James walked next to each other to hide the girl. It didn't take long before she found her brother talking with another student and left.
"Hello Lily . . . and James?" Sirius spoke with a frown. "What happened to my other flower?" James bowed gracefully. "Ew, Jamie. I don't swing that way!" Sirius's loud complaint directed everyone's direction onto them. Whispers started and James decided to play along and chase Sirius across and back the hall trying to kiss him. That action took Sirius by surprise, but not to be outdone by a lovesick puppy, meaning James, Sirius turned back and tried to kiss James.
The result took Lily and the two Chinese students by surprise. They actually kissed. Well, it was more of a peck, but the principle of the action was their mouths touched. Of course, everyone was stunned for a moment until the two best friends started wiping their mouths in disgust and calling for water or punch or better yet, some alcohol to cleanse off the James or Sirius germs.
"Now, now Sirius," Aleia spoke first, "you do that and you expect to get a goodnight kiss from me?" That comment made Jon stiffen. Lily smiled to herself and noted how possessive of his girlfriend her surrogate brother was. It was definitely ammunition to something great, maybe to get out of some boring prefect duty. It wasn't that she didn't like to be a prefect, but patrolling does get boring sometimes.
Lily noticed Mei and her brother trying to act nonchalant about the whole ordeal. Apparently she misjudged how much they could expect of Marauder madness. Feng was trying to explain it as something normal while his little sister looked unconvinced. The dubious look eventually rubbed off on Feng and he looked uneasy about spending more time with James, which ultimately resulted in spending time with Sirius and James at the same time.
"Hello Lily," the older of the two greeted with an uncertain wave.
"How d'ya like the ball so far?" she asked, trying to divert their attention away from what just happened by waving at the decorations, the food, and the people actually dancing. Seeing as she didn't succeeded, Lily continued, "Ignore that display of abnormality. Our school had seen many stranger displays by James and Sirius in the five years. See how no one was that surprised?"
"Are they actually… um…" Feng stuttered.
"No!" Lily exclaimed with a wide grin. Seeing as Asian cultures were that open about boy/girl, male/female relationships, the same sex idea was probably the back of the broom closet sort of topic. "They kid the audience lots. But James and Sirius are more interested in girls than each other. They are practically like brothers."
Both siblings nodded and looked around, "The decorations are lovely!"
"Lily did them all, too," Mei added, smiling proudly at Lily and then her brother.
"And I can see she did your hair too," Feng muttered with a wry smile. He turned to Lily and took her hand, "Thank you so much. It took me forever to even get her to wear a dress."
"I do wear dresses!" the sister pouted to contribute to her indignation. "I just don't like wearing them at festivals since I can only take small steps. And if you don't mind finding your own friend, I'll be taking Lily out of your bad influence now." The two girls hooked their arms together and walked away laughing at something Mei said.
The two walked around the entire hall with Mei asking questions about the construction of the hall and the history of the school while Lily's answers were paraphrases from A History of Hogwarts. Many times, a few boys had asked then to dance while groups of girls asked for them to join in a chat. For all of those initiations, both Lily and Mei refused since both wanted to join the fun of a school dance later. At this point, the two girls were still in curious stage of friendship in which questions were asked like a long cargo train.
Mei suddenly stopped, "Lily, I think James was looking for you." Lily turned to scan the room. "He's been retracing our steps without knowing we were walking in circles."
"Oh," Lily said with a shrug. "Why don't we continue misleading him?" Mei didn't disagree so the two girls walked through the crowds, spoke with ghosts, took some food from the serving tables and eventually got caught by a Gryffindor and Ravenclaw by the punch bowl.
"There you are," Aleia said rolling her eyes. "I've sent the entire Marauder team after you and Jon and of course, I find you two." Mei and Lily looked at each other. Did they do something wrong? "And Jon here was telling me maybe you two retired early for the night."
"Hello," the two girls chorused. "We've been walking around."
"See?" Aleia said glaring at Jon with her hands at her hip. "Well," she continued, turning her attention to Lily and Mei, "I just got the news that all representatives will meet each other at the Ministry's New Years Ball. You will be meeting the dozens of other students representing various schools there." Aleia finished with a grin. "Oh this will be so wonderful!"
Mei smiled with Aleia while Lily forced herself to do so. Hm, that made some things interesting. What was she going to do? She now had to go to that fancy event. All the reasons in the world told Lily to not feel guilty about refusing James. Certainly she refused him and hurt his masculine pride and ego, but that doesn't mean she should feel bad for declining the invitation. Of course, the new development with the ball was the fact that she now had to go to the event. Right, she shouldn't feel guilty whatsoever.
As Lily was in her own little world, she didn't notice Mei wandering off by herself. Looking around the room for a dark haired girl wearing red robes, Lily couldn't find her new friend.
"I see you've spoken with my sister," she heard James comment from behind her.
"Yeah." Lily continued to search for her charge. "Have you seen Mei? I think I lost her."
"She's over with Moira right now," James replied. Lily followed his line of vision to see Mei surrounded by girl who adored James Potter's latest ex-girlfriend. "And the Sirius fans have decided to join the already crowded table. Followed by Sirius. I think he is still trying to get her to dance with him."
Lily laughed at the scene in front of her. Sirius was trying to push through the crowd of girls to reach Mei. He asked for Mei to step out of the group of girl so he could speak with her but the girl didn't budge. Eventually, after frivolous promises to the Sirius fan club and a small vote of confidence in Moira dating James, to James's dislike, Sirius did reach his target.
"And he's going to ask her out," James continued to predict correctly.
"She'll refuse."
"He'll plead"
Lily looked at the Sirius on his knees. "And that might attract the attention of the older brother and I believe Mei might want to kick him in the shins." Feng did look at that scene between his younger sister and his new friend. However, the hostility Lily hinted was actually humor on the account of Mei's discomfort.
"Aha, you're wrong. I win!" James announced. Lily smirked at the Gryffindor next to her and crossed her arms and shifted her weight. She wasn't a Ravenclaw for no reason.
"No, no," Lily corrected, shaking her index finger delicately. "I was right. You see, Feng did react."
"But Mei didn't kick Sirius in the shins."
Lily laughed, "But I said she thought about kicking Sirius." This caused an adorable James Potter pout that stopped several girls from whatever they were doing. "Nice try James, but those faces don't work on me. I am the youngest in the family so I have the talent of begging as well."
The pout stopped, but somehow, Lily felt her stomach drop in disappointment.
"Well, would you like to dance with me?" James asked out of the blue, bowing. Lily looked at the hand hesitantly. It wasn't out of personal inhibitions, but rather to tease the boy that was trying to be chivalrous after a classic pout.
"Let me see," Lily started. "I believe I made the decision to not dance today." She wasn't sure if she teased James just to see the pout again, but when the messy haired boy struck out his bottom lips to beg her, Lily felt lighter and giggly. Before she was about to answer, someone else seemed to reply for her.
"DAMMIT, NO! How many times do I have to tell that? What part of I am NOT dancing do you NOT understand?" Moira shouted and punctuated each negative word with a stomp. The persistent Hufflepuff skittered off whimpering quietly after the girl's loud refusal. The entire school looked at Moira and then at the poor Hufflepuff and for some reason, a few people looked at James.
"Hmm, right, so lovely decorations, right?" James commented to Lily trying to look as though his former girlfriend did not scream at a kind and good-looking Hufflepuff.
"Yes," Lily replied looking around as James scanned the room. "And I belief Sirius finally found Mei. At least her brother is with them."
James laughed and coughed, "Excuse me, Miss Evans. I believe my best friend is very capable of impressing a girl when he wants to. And also, he is not a hormonal teen trying to scare away our Chinese representatives."
From the double doors of the Great Hall, Lily saw Jon and Aleia walking towards them with a grin. From the gleam in their eyes, Aleia probably thought she and James reconciled, which would mean they are dating. The gleam in Jon's eyes were less cheerful, but rather threatening. When the couple approached, Jon brought Aleia in between Lily and James with Jon standing next to James and Aleia next to Lily.
"So, what happened?" Aleia asked Lily with a smile.
"I know that my sister has been thoroughly snogged tonight," James retorted, narrowing his eyes at Jon. It seemed as though both males had a superiority and protective brother complex.
"And I see Sirius finally talking to Mei," Aleia observed with a frown. "Poor girl. I don't think she could handle him even with her brother." As though Sirius heard the group talking about him, he ran over with a wide smile.
"She's going to the ball with me. She's going to the ball with me!"
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This is it for now. As I said before, I am very sorry! Am still on guilt trip.