DISCLAIMER: Yeah, still not mine. Also, I took some insults from my very handy Insult-a-Day calendar. So those aren't mine either.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks a bundle to my two reviewers! You guys rock my socks! I'd appreciate it if everyone else followed their example...(wink, wink) Also, does anyone know who the head of Ravenclaw house is? My guess is Sinistra, but I'm too lazy to look it up. Correct me if I'm wrong, s'il vous plait!

Chapter 3

Frazzled, Lisa couldn't stem the flow of words streaming from her mouth as she and her friends zipped down the stairs to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"…so I hope Snape lets me continue with Potions. He only lets in students who got O's on their O.W.L.'s and I just barely got an Outstanding! Oh, crap, he might reject me! How would I work for the Ministry then? Who's going to stealthily influence the laws and regulations of the wizarding world if I can't work for the Ministry? Holy mother of Merlin, what if I don't get into any N.E.W.T. classes? What if I -"

"Lisa, will you please SHUT UP?" Amelia roared, silencing Lisa immediately. Massaging her temples, Amelia heaved a sigh. "Ahh, that's better. Wow, I can hear myself think again! Welcome back, thoughts!"

Ignoring Amelia, Mandy gently patted the terrified Lisa on the shoulder. "Stop worrying, Lis. You got, like, ten O.W.L.'s. You've got nothing to worry about."

"Except for Pansy Parkinson," Padma muttered heatedly under her breath. Lisa groaned as the pig-snouted Slytherin and her gang rounded the corner. Lisa made to duck behind a statue of a warlock with a bad case of acne, but Parkinson caught sight of them too soon.

"Look who strayed from the pasture!" Parkinson called as an explosion of giggles and moos erupted from the Slytherins. Flushing crimson at the rude comment, Lisa and her friends turned to face the approaching parade.

"Who's ruling hell why you're gone, Parkinson?" Amelia spat, fists on her hips in a defiant pose.

Parkinson scoffed. "Good one, pipsqueak. I knew they put you in Ravenclaw for a reason." The sarcasm hit hard and Mandy had to physically restrain Amelia as she ferociously clawed the air in front of Pansy's face.

"C'mon, guys, let's just go…" Lisa muttered, wringing her hands nervously.

"Looks like the Mudblood cow's soft on the inside and the outside, huh?" Parkinson harshly interjected, coaxing more laughs from her cronies.

Padma, who had been striving to stay calm through out the entire episode, finally lost her patience. "Mudblood?" she yelled, jabbing a finger at Parkinson's chest. "That's low, Parkinson. Take it back, right now!"

Pansy smiled smugly. "Over my dead body."

"Whatever," Padma hissed, barely two inches from Parkinson's face. "Just leave Lisa alone. She's never done anything to you! During six years of your cruel, pointless tormenting, never once has she retaliated!"

"There's some logic behind that, though. You see, she's so fat that her reflexes are slower than death. By the time she pulls out her wand to fight back, I'm long gone."

Lisa felt tears spring to her eyes. She was so humiliated! Shame swamped her, but she couldn't even muster up enough courage to respond to the teasing. Quickly turning on her heel, Lisa sped off toward the Ravenclaw common room amid gales of laughter from the Slytherin girls. She hadn't even taken five strides when a spell hit her from behind.

"ENGORGIO!'

Lisa screamed in pain as her body ballooned up to twice its size. Tumultuous laughter spewed from onlookers and the hysterical Slytherins as her body inflated so much that she began to float toward thecavernousceiling. Flailing her arms and legs in a wild attempt tosail back to earth, Lisa panicked upon hearing her frenzied friends below her fruitlessly debating a way to get her down.

"I don't have my wand!"

"Me neither! It's in my school bag!'

"Parkinson ran away! She's not going to be punished!"

"We need a teacher!"

"No shit, Sherlock!"

Lisa yelled out in pain again as her body convulsed and continued to enlarge. Every muscle was stretched way beyond its capacity and she felt like she was going to black out from the increasing tension. She had to be the size of a small bear, and was still growing. She felt her robes rip andthe buttons on her blouse pop off one by one. Her bracelet dug into the tender flesh of her gigantic wrist.

Abruptly, the ceiling loomed directly in front of Lisa's humongous nose. She was going to crash! Shielding her face with her hands, she shrieked and -

"REDUCTO!" a deep voice hollered from the ground.

The spell hit her in the back immediately before she collided. Screaming, Lisa hurtled toward the stone floor asspectators gasped, only to be slowed at the last moment by a levitation spell. Strong arms caught her gently as her aching body regained its natural size.

Her vision was fuzzy, like looking through a windshield while driving in a downpour. Eyelids fluttering, a dark, unrecognizable face swam in and out of focus. Her savoir cleared his throat, and in a low, husky voice said uncomfortably, "Um, you might want to replace that blouse."

Lisa's body went limp in a dead faint.

---------------------------------------------

Soft voices tickled Lisa's consciousness.

"…shh, Mandy, you'll wake her up!" Amelia urgently whispered.

"But I just feel s-so b-b-bad!" Mandy sobbed quietly. "We couldn't h-help her or any th-thing! Parkinson g-got her when her b-back was turned!"

Padma soothed her, "Don't blame yourself. None of us could do anything about it. We didn't have our wands. We now know that that is practically suicide in the wizarding world. It was immensely irresponsible of us to leave our wands in our dorm room. I can't even begin to explain how stupid we are."

"You guys are so stupid that your foreheads would cave in if exposed to the gentlest of breezes."

Her friends gasped as Lisa cracked the joke, trying to make light of the situation, although strain was evident in her hoarse voice. Mandy, Amelia, and Padma promptly sat down on the edge oftheir newly-awakened friend'shospital bed, fluttering over her like butterflies on steroids.

"How are you feeling? How can I help?"

"Do you need anything? I can prop your pillow or get you some water or…."

"I'm s-so s-sorry!"

Smiling slightly, Lisa rasped, "Yeah, I'm okay, and Mandy,don't worry about it. I've definitely been better, though," she added, wincing at the dull ache that had nestled into every joint and muscle in her body. "What happened?"

"You can't remember?" Padma asked incredulously as Mandy hiccupped viciously and Amelia earnestly tried to calm her.

"Nope," Lisa replied. Her mind was all fuzzy, like radio static.

"Must be all the drugs," Amelia said with a wise nod of her head.

"What?" Lisa yelped. "What drugs? I do drugs? Hoy shit, I do drugs?"

Laughing Padma responded, "No, you idiot. Stop hyperventilating! Madam Pomfrey had to give you about six different kinds of potions. Parkinson hit you with a nasty enlargement spell."

Lisa groaned and covered her face with her hands as she recalled the incident. Seeing her distress, Padma lightly patted her arm. "Don't worry; I'm sure everyone has forgotten it by now."

"Yeah, right. How long has it been since I…you know…?"

Hesitating, Padma said, "Two days."

"WHAT?" Lisa hollered, flabbergasted. "TWO DAYS? I missed the first TWO DAYS of classes? I missed so much information already! I'm not going to be able to graduate and then I'll have to be a witch who cleans toilets at the Leaky Cauldron and no one will love me and I'll die alone and -!"

Amelia stuffed the bedcovers in Lisa's mouth, halting her rambling. "Hush!" she commanded, and Lisa didn't really have a choice but to oblige. She couldn't have moved her tongue if she tried.

"You're going to be fine," Amelia assured her, staring at her pointedly. "You're in Ravenclaw, for Rowena's sake! You're clever enough to catch up in a jiffy." Acquiescing, Lisa nodded to show her agreement, and Amelia extracted the bedcovers.

After a moment of silence, Lisa ventured, "So who was it that stopped my fall?"

The three girls hesitated again, sharing skeptical glances. Slowly, Mandy informed her, "It was Dean Thomas, you know, the soccer nut. He reacted to your screams before a teacher had a chance to turn up and kept his head long enough to perform the counter spell."

Lisa colored a little bit, remembering the context of the conversation in which Dean's name had appeared the other night.

Clearing her throat, Mandy drew Lisa's attention back to her. "That's not all though. When you were, um, growing, you kind of…." Mandy trailed off looking embarrassed.

Padma sighed and continued for her friend, sympathy scrawled across her features. "I hate to tell you this, but you sort of grew out of your robes and your blouse when you ballooned up."

Eyes widened in disbelief, Lisa murmured, horrified, "No. Flipping. Way."

Amelia looked concerned. "So when Dean caught you, you were only wearing a bra."

Peeking down her dressing gown, Lisa moaned and sank deeper into her pillows, pulling her blanket over her head. She was wearing her sports bra that said, "Take it off like Brandi Chastain."

Clearing her throat hastily, Padma added optimistically, "At least it was a magical bra that only you can take off and will never tear. I told you that a jinxed Muggle bra was a good birthday present!"

What was the world coming to?

AUTHOR'S NOTE: For all of you who don't know, Brandi Chastain played for the U.S. women's team and ripped off her jersey after winning a world cup match, exposing her sports bra. Sorry if that wasn't clear - I took a shot at creativity. : )