Ch.6
AN: thank you to all that reviewed and those who helped me with ideas, you know who you are! This chapter is for you. Remember: I don't own Harry Potter!
"Lily's doing what?" Sirius whispered to his friend. He and James were hiding in the bushes of a event center of some kind. There were people walking in for some sort of event. Strangely, most of them were girls and their mothers. All the girls varied in ages. There were some babies, toddlers, teens, and every other age inbetween.
"She's in a beauty pageant," James said, for what felt like the three hundredth time.
"Why?"
"Does it matter? Lily is going up against a bunch of blonde hair blue eyed beauts! I may know that she is the hottest thing this world has ever seen, but the rest of the world is oblivious to this."
"Are you implying what I think you're implying?" Sirius may have been dragged out of bed at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, but if it was to rig a beauty pageant, he would have to reconsider gluing James' hand to an awkward place on his body.
"Not exactly," James said. "You see, the world may be oblivious to Lily's beauty, but I am 100% certain her competition isn't. I say, we just make sure that everyone plays fairly and support Lily.
"Way ahead of you," Sirius gave James a wink and the two boys made a quick dash for the building. Although it wasn't like they weren't allowed to go in, it was just against the Guy Code to watch a girly event unless it was for your wife or kid.
They found the ballroom that Lily's age group would be competing in and found a decent seat. It was close to the front, but in the blind spot of the audience and judge. James looked for a way backstage to tell Lily good luck, or was it break a leg? He'll mush the two together, just in case.
Seizing his opportunity, James dashed behind the scenes and stepped into a world of last minute make-up touches, giving the fake tan a once over, and complaining that someone stole your brush or teeth whiteners.
It didn't take long for him to find Lily in an elegant, long emerald green dress. He found himself stupefied with how pretty she looked. It wasn't until a girl in a not so elegant pink dress walked into his vision. She winked at him and gave a flirtatious wave, polishing the encounter with a Charlie's Angels hair flip.
James had to admit, the whole encounter was hot...if you were a 13 year old pubescent boy. Unfortunately, Lily saw the whole encounter and James knew exactly who he had to arranged to be taken out first.
"What are you doing here?" Lily asked, shooting a glare at the girl in the pink dress. She never liked her. In fact, if Lily was ever competitive, that exact girl would be her rival. She always beat her out in the talent and swimsuit portion of the pageant. Now, she was trying to beat her out in the relationship portion as well.
"I came to see you," James said simply, breaking Lily's vow to squash her competition. She worked for six long years to avoid James, now that she had him, he wasn't going anywhere with anyone!
"Are you okay?" James asked, waiving his hand in front of his girlfriend's face. She looked back at him.
"Sorry, it's just we're starting soon, so I guess I'll see you later."
"Yeah, we will celebrate after you win," James agreed. He gave Lily a quick kiss before going and taking his seat again.
Sirius was sitting there with a little brochure in his hands. James nodded his head toward the brochure and Sirius showed him that it was a collection of all the girls competing in the pageant, their hobbies, and goals. Each girl had their picture by their little snippet.
James took the pamphlet and skimmed through it until he found the girl that was trying to distract Lily with her cougar ways.
"Her," James pointed to the picture labeled 'Penny.' "She tried to veer Lily's focus off from her competition. She needs to be the first to go."
"According to this," Sirius motioned to the pamphlet, "she loves dogs."
"Does she now?" James' familiar smile crept across his face. "You know, Padfoot, I'm pretty sure I saw a mud puddle outside. Let's see how much she loves dogs."
"I'm on it," Sirius ducked out of the room, just as the host was announcing hte start of the pageant. Each girl, upon being announce their name, hobby and fact about herself, would step out, smile, and wave at the audience then rejoin the group.
Lily's response was flawless, naturally. She stumbled a little walking back but James accredited her with showing that she was not perfect, nor did she try to be.
When it came time for Penny, she stepped out, flashed her smile, blew a kiss and was quickly established as a favorite with the crowd. Just as the judge announced that Penny loved dogs, Sirius burst into the ballroom, caked in mud. He ran onto the stage, jumped on Penny and barked happily.
"Ugh! Get off of me you filthy mutt!" Penny pushed Sirius away and Sirius made it look like she pushed him to the ground for he flopped over onto the edge of the stage and gave a whimper.
"Look what you did to my dress!" Penny cried, trying in vain to rub the mud off her gown. Meanwhile, Sirius was issued off the stage and outside, playing up a limp. The crowd crossed Penny off as their favorite. She lied about loving dogs.
"How was that?" Sirius muttered to James, returning from the 'bathroom'.
"Perfect," James said. "You got a little mud on your chin there."
"Oh, thanks. So, who's next?"
"I saw the one girl, Vanessa, checking out the back of Lily's dress, like she wanted to rip it."
"Well we know how to handle that, now, do we?" Sirius pulled his wand out, givigna small wink.
Meanwhile, back on stage, Lily looked over in James' direction. Sirius was there too. She noticed that he came in right after the dog came in and jumped on Penny. Sirius could turn into a dog. A big, black, shaggy dog, much like the one that came on the stage. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
Throughout the competition, she began to feel more and more that they were rigging the other girls' routines just to give her and edge. Vanessa's dress ripped in the walking portion for no reason whatsoever. Lily slipped on one of her heels during this portion, but the girl behind her fell due to a broken heel. Also in the walking portion, a girl's hand got stuck in her hair, but her hair was in a simple French twist.
When it got to the swimsuit portion, Lily half expected someone's top to fall off, so she, from her spot in line, slipped her wand out and threw a little charm in the direction of the Marauders. It was a simple charm that prevented Sirius, or James from performing a spell.
"Let's see what you do now, James," Lily said to herself.
"What did you say?" Penny inquired from behind her.
"Nothing." Lily replied and waited for her name to be called for her to walk on stage. Lily's swimsuit was simple. She gave up on the whole extravagant swimsuits that are all glitz and glamour, complete with drink holders that attached at the hips. No, this year she wore the swimsuit she bought when her family went to the Bahamas for the summer. It was a two piece that she tie dyed on one of the islands.
Out in the audience, James and Sirius were putting their head together, trying to figure out why their spells weren't working. They had ten more people to take care of, but with wands not working, Lily's whole routine was going to be sabotaged and everyone will laugh at her and then she would be so upset.
Lily walked on stage in her tie dyed bikini. James took one look at her and knew he would make beautiful, articulate babies with the woman. He looked over at the judges to see if they were as impressed with her as he was. He noticed that all the judges were men. In fact, everyone in the audience were men. And they were all looking at Lily with a particular gleam in their eyes. James knew they were all picturing his girlfriend naked.
"Lily's mine!" James said to himself, feeling rage coarse through his veins. He burst out of his chair and dashed onto the stage.
"James, what are you–" Lily sputtered.
"You'll thank me later," James cut her off, covering her in his cloak and dragging her off stage. "No guy will look at my flower, with the intention of stealing her from me!" He grabbed Lily's wand and ran back out into the ballroom, hexing every guy in the audience to a well deserved oblivion.
It didn't take long for the aurors to show up with mind modifiers. The aurors advanced on James and he did his best to fend them off, but they surrounded him and pulled him to the ground, immobilizing him.
James screamed out angrily. He wasn't going to let a bunch of wizard cops stop him in his quest to get rid of all the men in the audience...which was everyone. He wriggled and tried to break free, but Made Eye came around and shoved some kind of potion down his throat. James faded into darkness, whiled still trying to escape.
"JAMES!" James felt someone slap him across the face. Hard. James sat up quickly, throwing a few fists around to beat out whoever was still standing from his smack down.
"Are you okay?" Sirius asked. James realized he was on the ground. He was surrounded by women, one of the ones in the front being Lily, and Sirius. James sat up and looked at his girlfriend. She was still in her swimsuit so he took his cloak and wrapped it around her. She rolled her eyes at him, but pulled the cloak tighter around her body.
"What happened to the aurors?"
"What aurors? There are no aurors here," Sirius gave him a look and motioned to all the muggles.
"Then why am I on the ground?"
"You passed out."
"Oh."
"Do you need a hospital?" one of the women with a button that said "judge" on it.
"No, I'm fine. I guess I just dozed off a little," James laughed shakily. He stood up and sat back down in his chair. Everyone gathered that he was telling the truth and went and sat down as well. It took a couple of minutes for the pageant to get up and rolling again, but when it did, it was as though nothing ever happened.
After the swimsuit portion was the Q&A portion. Lily was the fourth person to go on so she didn't have much time to change and her thoughts kept drifting back to James. She fixed her hair and make-up and went to pull her dress on. However, when she pulled the gown off of the rack where it had been hanging on its wire hanger, she saw that someone and cut strips into it and broke the zipper off. She couldn't wear the dress, nor could she put on her ball gown.
"Good luck, Lily," Penny called to her, she was the first to go on. There was also something about her tone that told Lily she was the one to slash her dress when everyone was focused on James' fainting.
"Oh no," Lily had to think of something and fast. The Q&A had a lot of points to it and disqualification meant last place for sure. Not even her impressive 'magnetic' floating plate routine from the talent portion could save her if she was disqualified from the Q&A. She needed a dress and fast.
Lily's eyes trailed to the box that held her second birthday present from James. A light went off in her head as she remembered he had gotten her a dress. She quickly dug the dress out and figured it was fancy enough to walk on stage with.
After she had pulled on the dress, she realized it was too big for her. Not too too big, just a little baggy on her, but it will do. Lily ran over to the entrance of the stage where it was almost her turn to go on. She was listening to what one of her opponents that pretends to be her friend was finishing up when she realized that she could use wearing a dress her boyfriend gave her as a new edge.
Lily, with her newfound edge, walked on stage with the usual poise and approached the mike, prepared to answer her questions. The judges pretended to be unfazed with her wardrobe change, but it was obvious they were curious. Lily, however, acted like there was nothing in the world wrong with what she was wearing and answered her questions.
"I have to ask," one of the judges finally said. Lily was on her last question and knew exactly what was coming. She tried to hide her smile and glanced over at James, who looked like Christmas came early.
"What are you wearing?" The judge asked.
"Oh this is a dress my boyfriend got me this for my birthday," Lily acted as though it was an obvious answer and walked off the stage. She gave Penny a smirk as she walked by her and changed into her ball gown.
James couldn't put into words how happy he was to see Lily in the dress he got her and he had to make one last attempt to off the competition for her. At least, the competition that threatens to off Lily.
"Sirius, we need to think of something."
"When did you figure that out, Captain Obvious?" Sirius responded. He was a bit peeved because of the bag of ideas he had gone to waste due to the lack of wand power. It was probably the Ministry of Magic.
"Okay, there's one category left and I'm thinking of charming some of the girls to speak their minds and reveal the naughty things they think about the people, the judges, and the world," James explained.
"That's great... for the last category! How are they supposed to speak their minds when they aren't even talking?" Sirius pointed out. This sent James back to the drawing board.
"I've got it!" Sirius shot up in his seat. "We put a small patch of ice on the stage and charm every girl that Lily is trying to take Lily out to walk over the patch of ice!"
"Brilliant! Where are we going to get the wand power needed to make this happen?" James asked.
"Steal Lily's, of course."
"Again, brilliant!" James said and snuck back stage. All the girls were scrambling to perfect themselves for the last time. It was distraction enough for James to quickly summon his girlfriend's wand and slip out undetected. He passed y the stage and shot a quick patch of ice on it before dashing back into his seat.
"Ready Padfoot?"
"I most certainly am, Prongs."
The two boys smiled mischievously as they watched the girls walk out. Penny was the first of the enemies to cross paths with the fated ice patch. It quite a hoot watching her walk out, pose, and while walking back, take a weird turn, slip and fall, then quickly get up and run off the stage.
"This may be the best idea you've had yet, Sirius," James gasped between laughs as their next victim, Vanessa slipped for the third time.
After Vanessa practically crawled off the stage, Lily walked on, turned, and walked off. Flawless. The same couldn't be said for the girl, Rachel, who unknowingly walked straight into the ice patch without being charmed.
When the last girl had walked off the stage, all the competitors walked back on some ten minutes later to hear who had won the title of Miss Teen Fluff. The winner, to Sirius and James' surprise, took home 2,000 pounds as well as a year's supply of marshmallow fluff.
"James, do you realize how many fluffer nutters Moony can make on our nights in the Shrieking Shack with a year's supply!" Sirius practically squealed. If there was something he loved more than mischief, it was fluffer nutters.
The audience held their breath as they heard the results. In third place came this girl named Cassie. James recognized her as the girl whose had got stuck in her hair. They obviously didn't damage her enough. Second place, despite the efforts of the Marauders, went to Penny. James noted that she was not happy about winning second, so he took that as a small victory.
"And in first place, the winner of the Miss Teen Fluff pageant goes to..." the announcer paused. Sirius and James held each other in anticipation. "Lily Stewart!"
James and Sirius immediately started to celebrate. They made a victory shout and chest bumped each other. The audience felt like the boys had turned the pageant into some football game.
"That's how you win a pageant! Right there!" James exclaimed. "Prettiest girl on the planet and don't you for– wait, did you Lily Evans?"
"Stewart," Lily Stewart said. She looked around nervously wondering if anyone knew who the random boys were and what they were doing there. She was smiling with her crown on her head and flowers in her arms.
"What!" Sirius yelled.
"This pageant's rigged!" James yelled. The boys knocked a few chairs over on their way out.
Lily, onstage, was a little disappointed with how her final pageant went, but then she realized: she never actually won a beauty pageant and it's not like it mattered to her. She was going to dinner with James Potter, the boy that, a year ago, she wouldn't be caught dead with ion private, let alone public.
AN: very long, I know, but I hope it wasn't too painful. The next one will be shorter, promise! If you have an idea for the next chapter (being as I have none) please let me know! Just leave it in a review and I will take it into consideration. Don't forget to review!