Squibbiness

Disclaimer/Author's Note: I am not J.K. Rowling. Not only is she older than me and British, but she also has different-coloured hair and, in all likelihood, doesn't have the faintest idea who Elinor Crawley is. (Someone from Vanity Fair, maybe?) Everything you see here that screams, "I was in Harry Potter!" is from one of the dozen or so Harry Potter books you can find in your local bookstore/supermarket/drug store. The rest of it, including characters whom you wouldn't be able to find in either the Potter-verse or the real world, belong to me. Mine. So does the story arc, I guess, a.k.a. the plot. Now, if you're still interested in reading this after such a long hiatus AND such a long disclaimer, then kudos to you! You have much better staying power than I do! And I kind of apologize for not updating. I had writer's block, which apparently doesn't really exist…it's just a construct…but hey, lots of things can happen in two years and a month.

And now, onto the story…

Chapter Six: Limelight

I've always been told not to wear pink. Pink just isn't your colour. That's what they say in clothing shops. Clashes with your hair. Washes you out. Makes your nose look red. Why don't you try this lovely shade of blue?

I was standing on a stage in front of five hundred assorted Quidditch players, officials, famous people, and pressgang members, and naturally, I was wearing pink.

I must admit that I didn't plan on wearing pink. Originally I'd set aside a very decent set of black dress robes with orange trim (to emphasize my connection to the Cannons), but somehow they had shrunk in the wash. Don't ask me how. I've worn them several times before. I suppose I shouldn't have worried so much about the tomato juice stain on the left sleeve. They were black, after all. It seems rather irrelevant now.

I won't say that Jenna and Georgia forced me to wear pink. Rather, they wrangled me into wearing it. Finding high quality dress robes on short notice – because all the press ever cares about is who-you're-wearing when you attend a high class function – is well nigh impossible. I told Jenna about my little accident with the washing machine ("I told you not to use those Muggle thingamajigs," she said) yesterday morning, and Georgia, who happened to be in the room (to grab one of the donuts Mr. Gogadille brought for breakfast, again), said that her sister had a cousin-by-marriage who used to work for Sorceri, the U.K.'s premier purveyor of fancy witch's wear. A couple of head-in-the-grates and one phone call later, we got in touch with Martha, the cousin. She assured me that she had just the thing. According to her, it was perfect for this year's fashion trend. I don't know much about fashion trends, but I do know they tend to look a bit less fashionable on me.

She brought the robes over to HQ this morning. I was going to head to the cauldron-bottom-fancy-thing straight after work (although I briefly considered following Lindsay's advice, eschewing my own good sense and heading straight to the nearest pub), so they stayed in the clothing bag, hanging from a peg on the back of my office door for the better part of the day.

I opened the package after the team finished practice. I'd timed everything so that I would be able to get changed and sneak out of HQ while the team were still in the locker-rooms, but somehow they managed to shower and appear, fresh and cheerful as anything, in my office a few minutes before I even got there.

"Hurry up and put them on," said Lindsay.

"Oh, do! Let's see them!" said Jenna.

"Martha has the best taste in robes," said Georgia.

I swallowed, wishing my mouth hadn't suddenly gone dry, and peeked outside the door of my office. Johnny, Damson, Wallace, and Wallace were standing there with great big grins on their faces, as if they were expecting to have a jolly good time. I shut the door on them as loudly as I could.

"Okay." With trembling fingers I unhooked the package from the peg and laid it across my desk. The robes were in one of those standard zippered clothing bags. I unzipped it, almost reverentially, and got my first glimpse.

I swear they were so bright that they were glowing.

"Oh, Elinor," said Jenna as I lifted them from the clothing bag, "I do hope they fit you."

I glared at her, shoved the robes back into the bag, and marched out of my office and down the hall into the women's washroom. Once there, I got changed and inspected myself in the mirror. They fit. Fitting wasn't the problem.

They had little bows and hearts all round the neckline. And pink lace along the hem of the skirty bit. My black-and-orange robes hadn't even had a skirt. They'd been a fully functional pants-and-overrobe set, until the washer got at them. Not for the first time, I wished that I could whip out a wand and make some wiggly gesture that would excise the bows, hearts, and lace from existence. In this universe, at least.

I wrapped the clothing bag around my shoulders, covering the dress robes up as best as I could, and left the washroom. I set off down the hallway at a run. Damson started guffawing before I'd even made it past him.

"Look at me! I'm hideous!" I shouted at Georgia as soon as I was back in my office. "What the hell did you mean when you said Martha had good taste in clothes?"

"It's quite nice, actually," said Georgia, tilting her head to one side and surveying me up and down. "A bit frilly, but gives you a lovely shape."

"It's pink," I moaned, making a quick transition to the despairing stage. "Pink. The one colour everybody's always told me to avoid. Neon pink."

"Pink is the new black," suggested Jenna. She averted her eyes when I looked at her.

"Pink has never been the new black," I said. "They'll be able to see me from a mile away."

Which was precisely what I didn't want. All eyes on the Squib.

"Here," said Jenna, "I'll get rid of the hearts for you, if you want. They're a bit much, aren't they?" She glanced at Lindsay.

"I don't know," said Lindsay, wrinkling her nose, "I think they rather suit you, Elinor."

I narrowed my eyes, opened my mouth, and Georgia quickly intervened. "And the bows. And the lace. Without all that you'll feel much more comfortable."

I acquiesced. They did a number of fancy things with a wand and suddenly I found myself wearing a set of dress robes that were merely pink and ugly, not pink and hideously horrible. Children would only have nightmares when they saw me, instead of requiring therapy for the rest of their lives.

"I think that's about as good as it's going to get," said Jenna, adjusting my collar. "They are quite form-fitting, at least."

"Pink makes me look fat," I said, tiredly and irritably.

"Ah, well," Lindsay grinned at me. "It's not like you're going there to find yourself a husband. You have a job to do, woman! Step up to the task! Senior promotional advertisers aren't supposed to look good!"

We all raised our eyebrows at her.

Damson was still laughing when I left HQ. I suspect he laughed all the way home. Wallace and Wallace cracked jokes about (respectively) Cinderella, cupcakes, and the Queen's two-piece solid-colour suits all the way to the door. Johnny had disappeared, but I could hear a wild, hooting noise – rather like what I've always imagined the Canada goose would sound like – coming from the men's washroom.

The press junket was nothing like what I'd been led to imagine. Rather than being a huge press conference, it was set up as a fancy dinner, with a couple of speakers, a meal, and then disaster – I mean, the cauldron demonstration. Afterwards there would be live music and some kind of dessert buffet. It was all very commercial. The Chudley Cannons weren't the only organization endorsing Weasley's cauldrons – various music groups, wizarding businesses, and a nice sprinkling of generally famous persons were also rubberstamping their seal of approval on the Clever Cauldron™. I think Percy Weasley could have at least come up with a more creative name than that. Then again, he invented the silly thing. That says loads about his IQ.

Both the press and some select members of the general public had been invited to the party. It really was just a party. Other famous people had invited themselves along, too, including Grulina Higgins-Furthingspell (who mumbled a discreet, "Hello," when she walked past me and then remained a good twenty feet away at all times for the remainder of the evening), and a couple of the higher profile Quidditch players. Viktor Krum had come all the way from Bulgaria just to boost his sagging profile. He wasn't doing so well, these days; the fame and adoration he'd had through the early part of his career had diminished after the Daily Prophet had published an article about his fling with a fifteen-year-old Bulgarian girl. Had a bit of thing for younger women, he did. He was hulking around the edges of the room, brooding over one of the many punch bowls and making eyes at the female reporters.

Puddlemere player Oliver Wood was floating around, too, looking distinctly puzzled. Mr. Gogadille went through a phase where he was convinced that Wood was the one thing the Cannons needed to bring them back into the lime- (or should I say orange?) light. He even tried to set up an interview with Wood, who declined – good move, I think, since he's just been drafted for the English World Cup team. Every time I've seen Wood, he has looked puzzled. I think it's something that comes naturally to him.

I found myself a corner where I could clutch my orange juice and try not to look too conspicuous. With all of the people wandering about, I was surprised that Weasley's company hadn't invited the whole team to come along. It seemed to me that Jenna and Damson would have enjoyed this much more than me – Lindsay would have headed straight to the open bar – and it would have raised their profiles significantly, too. Reporters were darting all over the place with their cameras and recording devices (I can never remember what they're called. I find Muggle Dictaphones complicated, so don't even get me started on wizarding ones), asking what people thought the Clever Cauldron™ would look like, or how they were enjoying the evening, or if they had any new albums/books/mergers that they wanted to talk about – and who they were wearing, of course. So far, all of the reporters had avoided me. May I mention that this could be due to overexposure? After all, I'd only just recently been featured in Witch Weekly. The issue had come out two days ago. Grulina hadn't put me on the cover, but there were about four pages devoted to "The Girl Who Flies With Geese," accompanied by a tiny picture of someone who looked vaguely like my grandmother. Grulina (or whoever had written the article for her) had obviously developed a thesis relating geese and early traumatic broomstick experiences to my current career as a Quidditich specialist. Anything over two pages is pretty significant in Witch Weekly. I bet she was regretting having published the article after seeing my dress robes.

I had received a few of letters from people after the magazine came out – two, actually, and both were from women who wanted to know if I could get Damson's autograph for them – preferably with a piece of his clothing. I tossed both into the rubbish bin. What I was actually wondering was if people would recognize me after I went up on stage and tested out the cauldron. If my current level of non-existence persisted, then I suspected I might actually make it back to my normal life unscathed.

I had given up hope on my idea of learning how to do magic. In the previous two weeks, I had tried out three different learn-it-yourself, Squibbiness-Be-Gone courses, and none of them had made the slightest difference. I hadn't spoken to Raymond for several days now, either. But apart from the pink dress robes, I really wasn't feeling all that bad. In hindsight, I had exaggerated the problematic nature of my situation. I was going to be fine. No one would ever know that I was a Squib.

That was until Oliver Wood dragged a group of reporters over to me and announced, between gulps of wine from a plastic cup, "There she is! The girl who flies! Apparently she's fantastic on a broomstick!"