8: Slugs and the havoc they cause

Disclaimer: We own the random slugs. And also, she helped to sculpt Frenchy's character. Who's Frenchy? Ah, now that is the question!

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It was a cool, summer's day. Nothing much had really been happening. Voldemort was still weird, Lily pined for Professor Slughorn, Harry and Ginny met up and snogged, Hermione and Luna bonded over tea and crumpets… all was good. At the moment, Luna, Hermione, Lily, Ginny, Lavender and Parvati were resting on a random front porch, licking their ice creams, all trying (and failing miserably) to get a tan.

"Get off my front porch you rascally children!" yelled a voice, which happened to belong to Professor McGonagall.

"Oh, Merlin's beard!" the six heroines cursed.

"We chose the wrong house," said Ginny sadly.

"Oh, yes, funny that," said Parvati, laughing nervously.

"What?"

"Well, you see, I like following Her and watching Her. She's fascinating. I know every detail of Her life. Nyah!" exclaimed Parvati.

"OK… right," said the others.

"Anyway, Lavender, you had something important to say?" said Hermione, desperately changing the subject.

"Yes, what is it, Lavender?" asked Lily.

"Well, as you know, I'm going out with Trevor," said Lavender.

"Really? We never would have guessed," muttered Ginny sarcastically.

"And you also know that I'm a Hogwarts student," continued Lavender. Everyone rolled their eyes, and were going to ignore her, when she burst out with, "But what you don't know is that I am also a secret agent, in league with Grubby-Pank, and I have been informed that I must arrest you all!"

"Er, Lav, there's a slug hanging off you," said Parvati, picking it off. "So, what were you saying?"

"Hmm?" said Lavender, looking confused, and licking her ice cream. "Oh, nothing special, just how I like this ice-cream." Her eyes suddenly widened, and, panic-stricken, she gasped, "Oh god! No! Guys, hide behind me! I'm trained in stuff like this! That thing could kill you!"

"Uh?" said Luna.

"Wa?" said Parvati.

"Bah?" said Ginny.

"Huh?" said Hermione.

"Quoi?" said Lily, flicking through a Learning French guide.

"I dunno," said Lavender, picking a beetle out of her hair. "Geez, all these random creatures keep getting on me. So strange."

"Indeed," said Luna.

"It seems so," said Ginny.

"Yeah, yeah," said Parvati.

"Highly worrying," said Hermione.

"Très, très bizarre!" said Lily.

"You guys are freaking me out," said Lavender. "OH MY GOD! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!"

"Oh, geez, another beetle," said Luna, picking it off.

"Spider… er… araignée?" contributed Lily.

"Several ants," pointed out Ginny.

"A slug!" exclaimed Parvati.

"And a Slughorn… the scariest of all creatures!" said Hermione.

Sure enough, Slughorn was hanging off Lavender. He saw them and disappeared. Lily sighed sadly, and then Hermione suddenly saw something behind her.

"NO!" she screamed, pushing Lily to the ground.

It was Professor Slughorn again, and knowing, as you do, the plotline, you understand why Hermione was scared. Hermione was a brave, kind and clever girl, but if there was one thing she could NOT stand (other than elf mistreatment, Voldemort, Umbridge, etc.), it was pupil/teacher relationships. Lily, on the ground, sighed sadly again, and fell asleep, because it was warm, and she was leaning on something soft, which grunted in surprise at this sudden leaning on of girlness, and tried to get out. Hermione, meanwhile, was watching this thoughtfully, Ginny with amusement, Luna with nonchalance, Parvati was watching McGonagall's house, and Lavender, well, she was thinking about Trevor, so it doesn't matter. This tableau was still, apart from the moving, wriggling person, until suddenly Parvati's head snapped around to look at him, and she started yelling at Lily.

"i nu u wrnt a rl m8! u wer cheatn w mi boi! I h8 u!"

"Firstly, Lily's asleep, and can't hear you, and secondly, what's happening?" said Luna.

"goway luna u nt mi m8!"

"Parvati, stop it!" yelled Ginny. "This is getting ridiculous! Who is he anyway?"

The boy wriggled some more and threw Lily off, and the others managed to see he was the random guy from Beauxbatons who took Parvati off to dance at the Yule Ball.

"mi pav!" he yelled.

"mi French-guy-from-Yule-Ball!" replied Parvati, and they started kissing, or rather, licking each other.

"That's so gross," said Hermione with distaste. "Stop it!" Suddenly she spotted the slug slithering down Parvati's leg, and picked it off. Parvati suddenly pushed the French guy (Frenchy) away.

"Urgh! You were licking me! Get away!"

"pavi i luv u!"

"GO AWAY!"

"no i dun wanna!"

"GO AWAY!" yelled the five heroines together, and, finally, Frenchy was forcibly Disapparated by their yells. Everyone was happy, until they saw something appearing where Frenchy had been. Everyone shrieked and pointed, until they saw it was a Frenchy clone, except this Frenchy was nice.

"Hi Parvati! I'm… er… Frenchy. Would you like to come and see a movie with me?" he said.

Checking that there were no bufs on either her or Frenchy Clone, Parvati accepted, and they walked to the garden gate, where they waved, walked out, and went down towards a cinema. Suddenly, Lily woke up.

"I was having the most wonderful dream!" she said, enthused, and then paused and looked around. "But perhaps now is not the time. Where's Parvati?"

Hermione sighed, rolled her eyes and told Lily what had happened while she had been asleep.

"Oh! Cool!" said Lily, and they did the head-bopping thing. Luna and Ginny rolled their eyes, and then Lily and Hermione started dancing the salsa, in seriously cool salsa costumes, with Slughorn and Ron as the males of their choosing, while singing in Spanish. But then Luna and Ginny started waltzing, which was weird, and Lavender started line-dancing by herself, which was even weirder, so they all invited Professor McGonagall to join in, which she did, in a cowgirl outfit, with a very low-cut V, which grossed everyone out, so they didn't look.

Then Parvati came running up the street, tears running down her face in great quantities.

"Frenchy Clone is a git, he broke up with me!"

"Oh no, why?" asked Lavender, going over to her and putting a comforting arm around her.

"I don't know. He just… did!"

"Oh, you poor, poor thing," cooed McGonagall. Suddenly a fresh wave of tears burst forth.

"What's wrong?" asked Hermione. Parvati started sobbing uncontrollably.

"I think this calls for desperate measures," Lily said to the others.

"Don't worry, Parvati, remember this message and take comfort in knowing," chorused everyone, except for Parvati and McGonagall, "somebody out there cares about you, and always will!"

"Thanks, guys," said Parvati, cheered up. "But… UGH! It's just… UGH!"

"What?" asked Ginny, losing patience slightly.

"McGonagall looks so disgusting!" she squeaked. Professor McGonagall was deeply offended, and stormed back into her house.

"Oh," said everyone. "We didn't really know, as we didn't look."

Anyway, then Crookshanks appeared, and said, in a strange voice, "Hey everyone. How are you today?"

"What the hell?" said everyone.

"What's up? Why are you all confused, guys?" asked Crookshanks.

"You're a talking cat!" said Hermione.

"Oh never mind that, let's just be friends!"

"Cool!" said Luna, and everyone, including Crookshanks, did the head-bopping thing, until they all saw someone they had hoped they wouldn't see: Frenchy Clone.

"Aaaaaargh!" everyone yelled. "We hate you! You're evil! Or at least irritating!"

"And you broke my heart, Frenchy, you broke my heart!" yelled Parvati passionately.

"Yes, I know," he replied, in a very smooth, yet oily way. "But I'm also very sexy, right?"

Parvati looked like she was going to say 'Yep', but Lily trod on her foot, and they all yelled, "God NO!"

They had successfully deflated his ego, and were about to forget about him and let him wreak havoc on the general world, when Hermione went up to him, and took out a pin.

"This won't hurt a bit… well, it will, but not very much," she said, and stuck the pin in him. He deflated, like a badly inflated balloon. "I worked out that because he was such an air-head, he must be made of air. So I deflated him!" explained Hermione, and everyone cheered.

Suddenly, Frenchy Clone began flickering. When he stopped, they all gasped at who they saw. It was Draco Malfoy!

"Oh my God!" gasped Parvati. "I was dating Malfoy!"

"Why were you dating Parvati, Malfoy?" asked Ginny suspiciously.

"Was it because you always liked her really? That would be so romantic!" said Luna, sighing happily.

"No! It was because I wanted her to give me information that I could give to the Dark Lord, so that I wouldn't be executed," said Draco despondently.

"Woah!" said Crookshanks. "That was too deep for this story! Let's go with the 'I always liked her really' idea!"

"Yay! That's so romantic!" yelled everyone, and Parvati snogged him.

"No!" yelled Draco, pushing her away. "That's not right!"

"Aw… shy, are we?" said Lavender, elbowing him painfully.

"It's so cute!" squealed Lily.

"No! I wanted information!" yelled Draco.

"That's nice, Malfoy," said Hermione, patting him on the head condescendingly. He growled and Disapparated, and the six heroines squee-ed over his love for Parvati for a long time.

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Coming up next time:

magic-joint-telepathic-powers™!
The reappearance of Voldemort!
And a Voldemort-illoooooooosion!

Hepsa and Larka