Authors note: By now I'm sure you are used to the way we all play in the Hogwarts Universe that JKR has created. Past this chapter a plot actually begins to try and rear its ugly head. You've been warned.
By the way: I work for Pizza and/or smoothies. NOT smoothie pizza or pizza smoothies. Just wanted to clear that up.
Kerri Potter and the Little Sisters of Doom!
Chapter Six Fluffy is short for Fluffitmus the Third
Christmas dinner was boring. Boring. Boring. Dull as a dead and unshiny doorknob. Krista forked some pudding over to Mini-me and sighed heavily. How, oh how, could she make dinner more interesting? Harassing her older sister Kerri never got old! Alas, her Slytherin sister was talking to Professor Flitwick, so the budding would need to happen later. Still bored, Krista started shaping the butter and pudding into little statues. She presented her Ravenclaw friends each a replica of herself in butter. "Cherish this always!" Krista chirped to them. Minions, ah, wasn't it great to have minions. Soon, the world would appreciate her genius. The pudding was molded into a model of the Loch Ness monster, and she sat back to examine her handiwork.
Perfect.
Sure that mini-me would appreciate her genius, Krista peeked under the camo cloak at her clone, who looked sad.
Sad. What could possibly make a clone sad? She was perfectly content to sit with fluffy and sing him the cuckoo song. Which mostly involved her singing the word, Cuckoo, over and over again while rocking the fishbowl back and forth.
Sad.
Krista looked skeptically at her clone, poked her once or three times, and noticed the distinct lack of cuckoo song and rocking of fishes. Where did the fish and bowl wander off too?
"Kerri!" She interrupted her sister, who was now talking to Blaise-fancy-pants-Zambini. "Where is Fluffy?"
Kerri looked over to her sister with feigned surprise, the evil plotting little Slytherin. Thought she was better than the great Krista, eh?
"Fluffy? I don't know anyone named Fluffy." Kerri said, body language clearly guarded, as if she were waiting for the punch-line of the joke. But oh no, Krista could tell when someone was lying. She could smell it. Kerri was a Slytherin, after all, that's what they do. Lie, smell…and wear a lot of green and silver.
"Fluffy is my goldfish. He is missing. His bowl is gone as well. They may be seen together at times, though sometimes they travel apart. The bowl is about yay high, and sometimes transports water, sand, little colorful pebbles, and a replica of the Hogwarts castle…and bubbles. Sometimes bubbles. " Krista was using her hands to illustrate the size and shape of the goldfish bowl.
"Fluffy is a goldfish. He is pink. And a fish. He swims…lives underwater. Likes the little flaky fish food." Krista was now making a face, and acting out how Fluffy would eat the fish flakes.
Kerri rolled her eyes to the display. "I know what a goldfish and bowl look like. That doesn't mean I've seen them. Normally your.. eh.. pet.. uhm." Kerri tried to think of a way to say clone without saying it, but she couldn't think of one. "Normally someone else is taking care of…Fluffy? What kind of stupid name is that for a goldfish! Besides, I know for a fact that YOU stole my green evil fuzzle slippers- which are much better than a goldfish named Fluffy."
Krista narrowed her eyes into little slits. What a good idea that was, stealing those slippers. Mini-me's feet would be nice and green, and evil wrapped in those slippers.
"Thanks for the idea Kerri." Krista said with a smirk. "It goes without saying that someone doesn't have my fish, or his bowl. Or the castle for that matter. Not even a speck of sand. She does have the fish flakes, but doesn't like the way they taste. What remains is the fact that my fish is missing."
Kerri turned back to Blaise, ready to ignore her sister. Krista started flinging peas into her sister's goblet of pumpkin juice, her brain already thinking of a new plan of attack against her fish stealing sister. She wasn't quite sure about the whereabouts of the bowl, but surely Fluffy wouldn't venture too far from water. Water!
Krista pulled her clone from the seat, and went to visit a certain ghost in the girl's bathroom.
Moaning Myrtle was floating glumly around her toliet. Krista and her cloak covered clone popped up in front of the dead girl.
"Waah! Of. It's you."
She said accusingly. "You get to celebrate, open presents, and be alive while I have nothing to be happy about. NOTHING! And you've come to rub it in, haven't you?"
Krista stood patiently through this bit of Myrtle's normal crap.
"Right,"said Krista, when she was sure that Myrtle was just whining now, and not actually talking. "I've come to offer a trade. I have a companion for your U-bend."
Myrtle looked interested.
Krista opened the Tupperware container, and the ghost toast floated about. "This is Toast. He is toasty. Tasty too, he once belonged to my sister. Then I ate him. Have you seen a pink fish in the toilets lately?"
Myrtle looked at the toast greedily, but did not answer.
Krista opened the Tupperware, and the toast floated back into it. She closed the lid.
"No. No fish." Myrtle said hurriedly, eyes wuden behind her glasses, as the lid closed on the Ghost Toast's tomb.
"Perhaps you should look again, just to be sure." Krista place the toast coffin on the ground and sand on a sink waiting.
Myrtle flew down through her toilet and was gone immediately to search.
Mini-me pulled off the cloak and waited with Krista.
Myrtle returned rather soon. "No fish, not a pink fish. Not even in the lake. No fish sticks in the kitchens, not even a fish animagus in the country. Wherever your fish is, the Hogwarts portraits have been alerted and the other ghosts will be watching for it."
Krista considered this information for a moment, then nodded, and set the ghost toast loose to join Myrtle.
Little did anyone really know, Myrtle was one of Krista's best sources for information. The paintings were far too gossipy, and had a habit of letting the headmaster know just exactly what you were up too. Krista took the information with her, as well as her cloak-covered up clone, and went off to harass Kerri.
Said person was busily opening crackers with Blaise-I-love-chicken-enchiladas-Zambini. He was blahblahing on about the relative greatness of chicken enchiladas when Krista walked up. Merlin, did the boy ever say anything intelligent? She stood there in awe, listening to him prattle on an don about nothing. Krista felt sorry for him at the moment. Very sorry. She decided she was going to do Blaise-stupid-rambling-Slytherin-Zambini a favor. Most people expect Krista to be noisy. Very noisy. One time, she conjured a miniature marching band and parade of mini purple elephants and monkeys with tambourines in the early hours of the morning, while trying to create the best alarm clock ever. They followed her around for a day and a half before her Professors finally had enough, and Evanseco'd them away.
Students and Professors alike expected Krista to be followed constantly by that level of noise wherever she went. Expected, meaning when she was completely silent, no one knew she was there. She was silent a lot, including now, when Zambini was telling her sister about spicy Mexican entrees.
"Kerri. My fish."
Kerri almost jumped, but had long ago controlled her startled reactions, knowing tha Krista did this sort of thing all the time. Zambini fell out of his chair. Krista sat in the empty seat, next to her sister.
"Look, Krista. I don't have your fish. Even if I did, I wouldn't give it back."
"Let me clarify, Kerri,." Krista said, the epitome of seriousness. "It is not my fish. It is my clone's fish. She is very disappointed that it is gone. I'll give you an hour to return it to my dorm with out any negative consequences. No hard feelings. But you don't mess with my fish."
"Are you trying to intimidate me?" Kerri looked incredulous. "I don't believe you! First you steal MY slippers and leave me with a stupid ransom note as a Christmas present! You lousy, not good, bratty little… BRAT!"
Krista was puzzled for a moment, she let it show on her face. While all of that seemed plausible, and a rather food idea at that, she was sure she had sent her sister a new set of testube for Christmas, and acurse quill, that wrote insults about your Professors if you used it to do your homework. The insults didn't show up until after you turned in the parchment. Krista had invented it herself. She explained this to Kerri.
Kerri was turning red with anger, and looked like she was going to explode. "I'm tired of your lies Krista! No one else writes like you, or even spells as bad as you do! You didn't even spell Gryffindor correctly." Kerri waved the ransom note like a flag in front of her sister.
"G-r-y-f-f-i-n-d-o-r." Krista spelled. "Besides I would have used cut out letters, not written it. Hell-o!" Krista was watching from the corner of her eye at her older sister Caitlin. Caitlin was watching their conversation with a lot of interest. Krista's brain was once again planning, this time she was coming up with all sort of new an interesting embarrassments for Caitlin.
Kerri followed Krista's gaze, all the while keeping up her rant about the note. Krista's eyes met Kerri's and she smirked her twisty little smirk.
"Well, its been nice talking to you sister. Hope to see you very soon."
Blaise Zambini picked himself up from the floor and crawled up to the chair. "Is it gone now? Is it safe to come out again?"
Make Caitlin's Life Living Hell rose on Krista's to-do list. It was even above, Make Kerri's Life Even Worse. Krista and her camouflaged clone bobbed away.
That night the students at the Holiday party sat around a roaring fire, drinking hot chocolate. Soon the house rivalries would be back in place, but as for now, everyone was comfortable spending time with each other. They traded stories about their childhoods, told jokes, and acted like kids for a while.
Three of those kids ended up in the hospital wing very late that night. Or early in the morning, if you please. However you see these things.
Caitlin Callahan was by far the worst. She was covered in rainbow feathers, all the hair on her body had become feathers. She looked like a Technicolor Big Bird, and every time she hiccupped, which she did every few seconds, out popped an egg. Sometimes she would jump up and sing Old MacDonald, like a woman possessed, eggs and feathers flying. It was truly a sight to behold.
Kerri Callahan was pink. Her eyes, eyelashes, teeth, and fingernails, her skin, her clothes: all pink. She now had a fish tail sprouting from her tailbone, and twenty-three and a half tentacles waffling on her forehead. Scales were patchy and slick covering her elbows and knees. She was immersed in a large round bath tub full of liquid when the gills popped up on her ribcage.
The youngest of the Callahan sisters was covered in green evil fuzzle fur. Blinding inneon green, thick tufts of fur sprouted out her ears and nose, then covered her entire body like a chiapet in full bloom. Two beady little Krista eyes were all that were visible under the carpet of fur. You could barely tell it was Krista, she was so fluffy, but her sisters knew.
"Merry Christmas," Caitlin wished her sisters, a hint of a giggle in her voice, before turning over to sleep.
Kerri was not as quick to forgive: "Shut up, stupid." Shespat out bitterly, "You're not the one who is sitting in a human sized fish bowl!"
Krista dropped one of her Christmas presents in to the tub, and her clone offered Kerri some fish flakes.
"Merry Christmas to you too." Krista replied.
"Cuckoo!" A voice echoed.