Chapter 6: Attack of the Mysterious Blob Thing
"If you even think of going back in there, I will make you regret when your mother told your father that Bill looked lonely and needed a sibling. And then I'll stop being nice." -Ashley Yata
Okay. So the week had flown by, and I hadn't spoken one word to Charlie. It would be nice if I never have to speak with him again. But I have to, considering if we're supposed to arrange something at Hogsmeade. And it will only be us, considering what happened to Monica after the whole mattress escapade.
Apparently she came down with a particular nasty bug that's caused her to stay in the Hospital Wing all week. She's also been forbidden to go to Hogsmeade, which REALLY sucks, considering this is the only time to get our costumes for the whole 'mystery ball' thing. Oh well. The three of us will probably go to the costume store, buy a black dress as a base, and get a bunch of different shaded purple pieces of fabric and make a costume.
Stupid, but I really don't care.
It was Saturday morning, and I went down to breakfast alone, I actually got up first for once. Normally it was Monica, Chaki, me, and then Hannah last. But seeing as Monica was in the Hospital Wing, and Chaki was really tired last night for some, ahem, odd reason, that left me to rise the earliest.
I was alone, until I saw Michelle run up to me.
"Hi Ashley!" she said bouncily.
"Uh, hi?" I said, confused as to why she was this happy.
"Hey, you don't have to be mad at Charlie anymore!" she said, still happy. Michelle was usually happy and bouncy, but she was also a big gossip, though what does that have to do with anything? And how does she know I was mad at Charlie?
The confusion must have shown on my face, because her smile only widened.
"Well, I heard you socked him in the side of the face and yelled at him pretty good, so I figured you were pissed. And I am touched that you're concerned for me, because that's what friends are for right? But he actually came up to me and apologized, and he told me why he was annoyed, it's cause he-"
"And what a lovely morning it is!" I heard a voice come from behind me, identified as Charlie's. He came up and stood next to me and glared at Michelle.
"He what?" I asked, this was actually interesting.
"It's nothing, anyway you promised Michelle," he said to her, a little hurt.
She frowned, "I know, but," she sighed, "Fine. I won't tell. Even though it would help things."
"No, it would probably hinder things." He said, frowning. What are they talking about? This is so confusing! Grr…that's one thing I hate, people talking about stuff I have no clue about.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said shortly. Okay, I couldn't get mad at him when he uses that tone. Damn. I could tell he was annoyed. Oh well. I shrugged.
"Well I'm hungry, so I'm going to go get food, you guys coming?" I asked them.
"No, I had breakfast already, I gotta go get ready to go to Hogsmeade," Michelle said as she shrugged.
"Well that leaves you," I said to Charlie. He shrugged in annoyance and started walking. How rude, he didn't even wait up for me. Geez, am I really that awful? Heh, probably. We walked in silence, until the Great Hall was in sight. I decided to say something to him.
"You know what, you remind me of a squirrel," I said after a few minutes. He just looked at me like I was crazy.
"Okay, I think you've officially gone crazy," he said, still giving me the funny look.
"That happened a LONG time ago. Plus, if you squint really hard, dye your hair brown, and shrink you down about five feet, you could really be a squirrel!" I said, smiling. Actually, I was just trying to get him out of the bad move he was in. I mean, I hate it when anybody was sad. It made it seem as if the world was ending. It also makes me feel as if I was the problem.
You see I have major guilt problems. Anybody can easily guilt me into doing stuff with them or for them. Hannah does it all the time. It's quite annoying and I know when I do have kids, they will be spoiled. Unless, of course, I find a guy who isn't easily manipulated, and I've never met one that couldn't be manipulated. It's seriously funny to get people to do what you want. The problem is to get them to not get you to do what they want.
We reached breakfast and I sat down at the Gryffindor table with Charlie, I didn't want to sit alone. That's all it is, I swear. Wait, why am I defending my choices? That's odd, oh well.
"SoareyougoingtoHogsmeadetoday?" Charlie mumbled at me. I was startled out of my deep thought from the noise of his voice.
"Huh?" I asked, confused as to what he said. See, I didn't hear it too clearly. My ears are bad, it has nothing to do with spacing out, not at all.
"Nevermind."
"Hey, Tell me! This is the one time where I actually am interested in what you have to say."
"Hey!"
"Well most of the time words come spewing out of you mouth, and then, ten minutes later, you actually process what you said," I said smartly, giving him my evil grin.
"That's creepy," he said matter-of-factly.
"What is?" I asked, slightly confused as to what the hell he was talking about.
"Your evil grin," he said smirking through a mouth of food.
"Hey! It's supposed to be creepy! And you talking with food in your mouth has somehow lost me my appetite, so I'm going to go attempt to wake Hannah out of her Eric stuffed dreams."
And with that I got up and left the Great Hall. I felt kind of bad, just leaving him there, but oh well, he'll get over it. I walked back to Ravenclaw, and met no one on the way. It was strangely odd.
On a totally random subject, you know those smelly hand lotions muggles have? I really wished for one right then. Just because. I had some in my trunk, really good stuff that was scented as warm vanilla sugar, but I didn't use it all that often, because, c'mon, in all the romantic stories the girl either smelled like flowers or vanilla. And if I'm ever going to get some sort of meaningful relationship with a guy, not my normal flings that always end badly, I don't want to be like everyone else and smell like vanilla. But it smells so good. Oh well, maybe just this once…
I finally got to where I was going and I saw that only Elena had gotten up. I remember a time where we actually were friends, but that time was long forgotten. In fact Elena was the one who introduced me to Monica and Chaki. They were already friends so I was added into the group.
Then came Hannah. For some reason Monica and Hannah seemed to know each other and were sort of friends. Not like we all are now, but friends all the same. But I became better friends with Hannah when she was hanging out in Gryffindor with her best friend at the time, Adrianna. It was creepy how they would do everything together. Well I think it started when Adrianna blew off Hannah to go off with Carrie somewhere and I was talking to her for the whole night.
I don't think Hannah ever forgave Adrianna for blowing her off, but now she was in our group. We're a tight knit group and I think it's been that way ever since second year, since we all became friends.
A loud yawn erupted from the red poof and I grinned. I walked over to it and plopped down, putting all my weight on the person below.
"Ahhh a nice comfy poof couch!" I said happily.
"Geroofmeifyavalueyerlife," a voice came from beneath me. If it's possible, my grin got wider.
"Oh what now? It speaks?" I asked, pretending to be puzzled.
"Yes NOW GET OFF!" and with that Hannah threw me off her. I was laughing loudly the whole trip down to the floor. Surprisingly, Chaki slept right through this, snoring away. She doesn't normally snore, so she must be really tired.
Hannah had already gone to the bathroom, so I took liberty of waking Chaki up.
"Chaki, hon, you need to get up," I said as I gently shook her.
"Wha?" she mumbled, still half asleep.
"You need to get up, it's nearly ten, don't you have to meet Eddie somewhere at eleven?" I asked her. Her eyes immediately snapped open and she leapt up and ran passed Hannah, who had just come out of the bathroom, ready for the day that lay ahead of her. Heh, what a day it would be.
"I think she'll be fine by herself, don't you think?" Hannah asked me. I nodded and we linked arms and proceed towards the Great Hall, where they were hopefully still serving breakfast, seeing as I didn't get much because of Charlie. He seems to be popping up a lot lately doesn't he? Well, I guess he's okay, I mean he's not as I bad as I once thought. If he keeps going at the pace he's going, I can seriously see us being friends in ten years.
We got down to the Great Hall, and were disappointed that there was no breakfast. Oh well, I'll just stalk Eric and mooch something off of him. I mean nobody can resist my puppy dog look; it's just too cute and loveable.
Charlie and Eric seemed in a deep conversation while standing near the front door. They were having a conversation, probably about Hannah, the way Eric was blushing. Charlie started laughing and no one seemed to notice the carefree attraction he had right then.
Oh no.
This will not happen. I refuse to go to the Dark side. I refuse to become one of those evil little stalkers who stalk guys around and obsess over every little detail. Okay, so maybe he wasn't that bad, but I will not turn into one of them. I. Will. Not. Ever.
During my fuming period, I lacked to notice that Charlie and Eric had made their way over to us and Charlie was talking. From the looks of it he had just finished.
"Huh?" I said, snapping out of my daze. Charlie put a mock hurt on his face, but I could tell he was joking, the little signs, such as an amused look twinkling in his eyes.
"Why my heart has been torn out and stomped on, oh the pain of this cruel world," he dramatically put the back of his hand to his forehead accompanied with a dramatic sigh.
"You'll get over it," I stated simply. He mumbled something about the cruelty of it all. "Hey Eric," I said and turned to him, "Do you want to come to Hogsmeade with me and Hannah? I know you'll have to bring him," I said pointing at Charlie, "But it would be really fun with three people and a moron instead of just two people."
"Okay that sounds fine," he said, grinning. I grinned back. Part one of the Smoochies plan was a success.
"Hey!" Charlie said, interrupting my thoughts.
"What now?" I said, pretending to be annoyed.
"I'm not a moron!" he protested.
"Of course you're not, not all the time. You have your moments, where you actually act like you have something other than air between your ears. You wonder why you have an abnormally large fan club? It's not only because you're hot, well some of them are in there for that, but it's also because you're kind, sweet, and every other thing we girls look for in a guy, even the random bouts of moronicness that seem to fill up most of your day. Now enough inflation of your ego, let's get going before Filch hangs us."
And without further ado, I walked right past him and out the door. Hannah followed, laughing and I'm pretty sure Eric had an amused smirk on his face. I turned to face the stunned and blushing Charlie.
"Coming?" I asked, smirking.
"Uh, yea," he said, his ears still bright red. Hey look, his ears match his hair, how amusing. He followed me out to the carriages with Hannah and Eric. The four of us boarded the carriage and we were off.
The ride was surprisingly silent. Well I didn't talk, and neither did Charlie, which was surprising, considering the amount of gabbing he usually does. Hannah and Eric didn't say anything, they were too busy worrying over what the other thought. It was quite amusing to watch. They were seated across form each other and would occasionally look at one another and when one noticed the other looking, they would both look away and blush. It was super cute, yet very corny. The tension is amusing, but seriously get over yourselves and hook up already!
I grew tired and annoyed watching them, so I stole a glance at Charlie and looked out the window. I just don't know about him. I mean, I don't think he's as bad as I once thought he was. It strange how your opinion of a person can change over such a sort period of time.
The carriage came to a halt and we climbed out.
"Hey lets go to the Three Broomsticks first!" I suggested after a couple of seconds.
"Why?" Hannah asked suspiciously.
"Because I'm thirsty, that's why," I said as I challenged her with a menacing look. She just shrugged and started off towards the pub. Damn, my menacing looks never worked on her. Well, they worked on other people. She must be immune to my stupidity. Part two complete.
We walked into the pub and sat down at one of the wood tables and ordered drinks. It was now time to put part Three of the Smoochies plan into action.
My face grew a concerned look and I turned to Charlie and asked, "Hey Charlie, can I talk to you outside?"
"Why?" he asked slightly confused. Now here was the hard part, convincing Eric and Hannah that I needed to talk to Charlie in private.
"Because it's something about Quidditch," I said, still concerned.
"Why not ask him here?" Eric asked suspiciously. Damn, he catches on quickly.
"Because of the captain-player policy," I said quickly, grabbing Charlie's hand and dragging him outside. I dragged him away from the pub, and while he was stumbling behind me, I thought about how badly that went. I mean really, something must be wrong with me; I'm usually much more convincing than that. I must be losing my touch.
"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Charlie asked, a little freaked out.
I spun around quickly with fire in my eyes and a glare on my face, "If you even think of going back in there, I will make you regret when your mother told your father that Bill looked lonely and needed a sibling. And then I'll stop being nice." The effect was almost instantaneous. His eyes widened and he nodded furiously. "Good. Now I'm going to go to Honeydukes to get chocolate for Monica." With that said I walked off towards Honeydukes.
When I got there, I opened the door and expected a nice smell to float out. One problem, the stupid door wouldn't open. Now that wasn't fair, it wasn't fair at all. Here I was, trying to get to a nice shop and the door was stuck closed. I checked the window and it said it was open, so I couldn't understand what the problem was. I tried the door again and it suddenly flew open, knocking me backwards.
Someone caught me from behind and I looked up and saw the obnoxious brat who shoved the door open. He was tall and had curly dark yellow hair and was Slytherin. I recognized him as Kyle Anders, a major asshole. And his hair was dark yellow, not blonde. It was totally awful looking. He sneered at me and the person who caught me and walked off.
"Ashley, are you okay?" a voice above me asked. I looked up and saw the concerned face of none other than Charlie Weasley.
"Yup!" I said brightly as he helped me up. A faint warm scent washed into my nose. Mmm that smells better than Honeydukes. I noticed I was standing there so I scowled and went into Honeydukes. Luckily the door worked this time.
The warm smell of chocolate flooded into my nose and Charlie and I walked into the store. Wait that reminds me, why the hell is he following me?
"Why are you following me?" I asked him.
"And what makes you think I'm following you?" he asked, with one eyebrow raised.
"Because I gave you glare #26, the death glare, and that scares everyone off. Not even Eric can withstand it and I give it to him so often its very surprising that he hasn't become immune to it," I said smartly with a smug grin on my face.
He laughed, what a nice laugh, and responded, "Okay, you got me, I figured I'd just follow you around because I have nothing better to do."
"I'm sure Carrie would like some company in the shrieking shack."
"Yea but that would be boring. Sluts like her are all the same, they just scratch you in hopes of leaving a mark and getting you to come back for more. It's quite annoying," he said, his nose scrunching up in annoyance. I giggled and wandered over to where they kept the chocolates that were Monica's favorites. I grabbed some that had caramel mixed with dark, white, and milk chocolate. They were really good and I could see how Monica enjoyed them. I grabbed some chocolate covered strawberries for me.
"These are really good," I said to Charlie, showing him the strawberries. He nodded, a light smile on his face.
I looked around for a bit, and saw that there was nothing else worth getting, they were out of the chocolate covered cherries, and paid for the candies. We exited the store and wandered around a bit.
"I love the fall," I said, while we were looking out at the Shrieking Shack. The colored leaves were still on the trees.
"Yea, the leaves are so pretty," Charlie said. I could tell he wasn't all that interested so I did the only thing I could think of, talk about it more.
"I heard that over in America, New England I think, they have amazing fall foliage. I think when I'm older I'll go take a trip there just to see the colors," he just gave a 'mhmm' and ignored me. Well that jut needed to be fixed. I think I'll give him a-
"No Eddie! Stop it's not worth it!" a distressed voice that I immediately recognized as Chaki's. I turned my head and saw them down a bit further, Chaki an Eddie, standing in front of a tall boy, whose hair I immediately recognized as Kyle Anders's hair. The git had his back turned to me, so I took a few steps forward to hear what he was saying.
"C'mon Chaki, I'll show you good time, then you can go running back to that nigger boyfriend of yours after, telling him about the ride I gave you." I could just see him sneering. But that comment just pissed me off. A lot. More than what Charlie did. I silently stomped up behind him and gave him a good kick right behind his knee, you know, the place where it causes you to fall over in pain.
"Now I know the whore house is in the opposite direction than where you were facing, Anders," I said coldly, "and I know you'd be welcome there. Girls who live in that place are welcome to even the ugliest and lowest people of your insufferable gender." I gave him a swift kick in the side, looked at Chaki and smiled.
"You'll regret this," the bastard muttered from the ground.
"Oh really? And what are you gonna do to the girl who beat the crap out of you?" I asked, again coldly, but this time I raised one eyebrow. He quieted right down, much to my satisfaction, after I gave him another swift kick in the side.
"Let's go," I said, and turned away, expecting them to follow me.
"Remind me never to get on your really bad side, cause I know I'm already on the not so bad side," Charlie said seriously. I hadn't even realized that he was next to me. Chaki and Eddie were behind me, Eddie comforting a very distressed Chaki.
"Oh, you'll know way before you get to my really bad side that that's exactly where you're heading. Although lately you've been moving in the opposite direction." I replied back, just as serious.
"Oh my god what happened?" Hannah asked as she came running up to us. Apparently she and Eric had finally figured out that Charlie and I weren't coming back and had gone out to investigate. She must have seen Chaki looking upset or my really pissed of face and came running.
Eric came up behind her, confusion written on his face.
"Kyle Anders," I choked out, barely controlling my anger. Her face immediately mirrored mine.
"What did he do?" she said angrily, "When I get my hands on him…" she trailed off.
"That's already been accomplished, and I highly doubt he'll tell somebody, seeing as it would be a serious blow to his pride to admit to being beaten up by a girl. Although," I said, glancing at Charlie, "He might blame Charlie or Eddie, but I'll take credit if that happens, seeing as it was me." Slowly the tempers cooled, and Chaki and Eddie decided they were going to go back to the castle for some quiet time. Heh I wonder exactly what they mean by "Quiet Time."
It suddenly occurred to me what Anders had said. He called Eddie a nigger, it surprised me to realize that he didn't have the same color skin as Chaki and the rest of us. I guess I just never noticed it before, seeing as I lived in a neighborhood where there was one other white family and they were two old people who never went outside. The rest were people from all around the world with different ethnicities. It was so cool just wandering the streets looking at all the cool shops.
But we moved when I was nine to a big house on the mouth of a river. My grandmother died and had left us the house and the surrounding land. There weren't very many people, but there was this one girl who was really nice. Her name was Phoebe Costello and she was from America. Well she was born there, but she moved to England when she was two. She had long straight blonde hair and was three years younger than me, but she was still fun to hang around with. She was muggle, so she went to the local private school. Her parents weren't really home, so it was just her, her golden retriever Jasmine, and her calico cat Chester.
So I was left standing there with Charlie, Eric, and Hannah.
"So what did you guys talk about?" Hannah asked curiously.
"Oh this and that," I said nonchalantly.
"Yea, it wasn't that big of a deal. So what did you talk about?" Charlie questioned.
"Nothing," Hannah replied shortly. I stopped walking.
"Nothing. You two talked about nothing?" My face screwed up in annoyance. Damn. Now I have to take this to drastic measures. "Charlie, I believe we have more things to discuss, not about Quidditch, but about these two buffoons." He nodded and we took off running towards the carriages. Luckily Hannah and Eric were too much in shock to follow us.
We got to the carriages that would bring back to Hogwarts, panting. Charlie started to laugh, at first it was a few heh heh's here and then and then it turned to full laughter. I started giggling, and then laughing.
"Did you see the look on their faces?" he asked, still laughing.
"Yea! I wish I had a picture," I resumed giggling. We calmed down a little and climbed into the carriage. I sighed and stretched my legs out so they were propped up on the seat opposite me. I slouched a little bit and I was comfortable.
"You are so bizarre," Charlie said as he sat next to my feet.
"Oh why thank you good sir!" I replied back cheerily. I yawned and slouched a little more, preparing to go to sleep.
Suddenly the carriage jerked and I almost fell over. Luckily my position had prevented 'me from going flying, as Charlie flew, to directly next to me. He didn't appear to be hurt, but appearances can be deceiving.
"What the hell's going on!" he asked, slightly annoyed.
"If I knew I would tell you!" I snapped back.
"We should probably sit on the floor to avoid being thrown," he suggested.
"Wow for once you have half a brain," I said pretending to be amazed.
He grinned sheepishly at me, "Oh why thank you my fai-" The carriage jerked again, cutting him off.
"Floor. Now." He nodded at me and we dropped to the floor. Another jerk came suddenly, but this time it almost knocked the carriage over. We were movig quite quickly, and I could assume what was wrong was the something was attacking the Threshals. I had never been able to see them, but Monica told me they were there. She didn't tell me how she saw them, so I guess she was probably pretty young. I wonder if Harry Potter would be able to see them when he first comes to Hogwarts. But he may have been to young when he parents died. Or he wasn't in the room. Hmm.
The ride became very jerky, the carriage door flew open and we could see that the carriage was moving REALLY fast. It would be a stupid idea to jump.
I started slipping towards the door and I let out a small 'eep'. Charlie grabbed my arm and yanked me towards him, where he was holding on with the other hand to the closed door's handle. Luckily that door was the door that never opened unless it was an emergency, and right now it needed to stay closed, so it did. When he yanked me towards him, the carriage took a turn, so I practically flew at him. I immediately wrapped my arms around his middle, and he let go or my arm to use both arms to grab onto the bar on the closed door.
With one final jerk, the carriage fell over and everything went black.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaan cut! Okay, wow. That took a while. I apologise for the wait and I promise the next one will come up quicker. I guess I was distracted by vacation and the general lazyness off summer. I pondered for a while about not leaving it here, but I decided to, because this is long. It may not seem long, but I don't think I've ever written a chapter this long before. Heh, yea. So I promise the next one will come out soon. Cheers!