AND I'm back! YAY! . . .didn't notice, eh? Well, I wasn't allowed on the computer this past week for certain reasons that I shall not go into right now.
I meant to post this chapter before I lost the computer, but never got around to it. This chapter's really random and probably has nothing much to do with the overall story, but I had fun writing it:D
--Chapter 22 - Marshmallow Fluff--
"And one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one!" The dance instructor, Elizabeth North, counted. "Stand up straight! Don't be shy, hold her close, Boy!"
"This is degrading!" Ricky hissed in my ear. "We already know how to dance! I'm beginning to think that uncle Harry's having us take lessons for his own twisted amusement." I glanced over to where the headmaster and professor Ackerman were sitting. They were chatting but watching us at the same time.
"There is a bright side to this. The rest of the seventh years are going to be taught by Ginny." I smirked in an evil sort of way.
"Stop, stop, stop!" The blustery little woman yanked us apart. "Miss Lupin, please try to be more graceful!" Ricky snorted at this. I shot him a dirty look. "Observe!" The dance instructor grabbed Ricky to demonstrate how it was done. They were dancing for all of two minutes before Ricky gave a yelp, and fell over.
I couldn't help it, I laughed.
Ms. North sighed, "Let's take a break." She walked away, saying something about needing a new job.
"We can dance!" Ricky repeated furiously, dusting nonexistent dirt off of his robes. "She just makes me nervous." I grinned happily.
"One moment," I said, and skipped over to the instructor's music collection. I flipped through the disks until I found one of my favorite classical songs. I put it on and walked back over to Ricky.
"You've got a twisted sense of humor as well," Ricky muttered when he recognized the song. It was Aquariam from "The Carnival of the Animals". When we had originally taken dance lessons, one of the routines was to this particular song. It was sweeping, grand, and dramatic. I loved it, but Ricky had never liked it much.
"I know," I agreed mournfully. "May I have this dance?"
"Aren't I suppose to be asking you that?" he asked, but held out his arms anyway.
"It's the twenty-first century, Ricky. Women-kind has learned to fend for itself." I placed one of my hands on his shoulder and held his hand with the other.
"And yet all women seem to want a knight in shining armor."
I giggled, "Who told you that?"
"I over heard Veronica--" Ricky spun me out; I twirled back in and our hands met."--and Angel talking one day."
"As long as you didn't think of that yourself. . .that'd be a bit odd." We paused mid-'swirl' as the rainfall-sounding part came on. "But for the most part it's true."
"What about you?" The rain portion ended and we continued to spin around the Great Hall.
"Me? Oh, I've already found mine." I grinned impishly at him.
Ricky frowned. "Is he someone I know?"
"Yes, actually."
The music stopped, and Ms. North came over clapping. "Very well done! I think that you are ready to pick out your opening dance music. We could keep this one if you'd rather not bother coming up with a new routine. . ."
"We'll keep this one," I said quickly. Turning to Ricky, I explained, "This way we could decorate the Great Hall in all sorts of blues, greens, and silvers. Oh, there could be sparkling bubbles floating in the air as well."
Ricky made a face, but shrugged. "Whatever. You're the mastermind behind all this."
The next morning at breakfast, a small, tawny owl crashed right into my plate of scrambled eggs and sausage. It gave a shrill hoot and tried to hold out its leg which was buried beneath a mound of eggs. I picked it up and detached the letter before cleaning the poor creature off.
"Hey! He looks like Pig!" Ricky exclaimed, taking the small owl from me. "I know it's not, but I didn't know anyone else who had an owl this small."
"Who's 'Pig?'" Alice asked.
"My dad's owl. He's a pest, but a decent owl nonetheless."
Maddie leaned across the table trying to inspect the letter I'd gotten. "Who's it from?"
"Lorelei, I'm guessing. See? There's a triple-W symbol in the upper left corner." I tore open the envelope. There was a card wrapped in tissue paper and a smaller note:
Dear Enna,
I just found this in one of my "memory boxes" (corney, I know)the other day. I thought you'd like to have it for sentimental reasons.
Good luck, my niece-in-law to be.
Love,
Lorelei
Curiously, I pulled the tissue paper off the card. "Oh boy," I murmured. It was a purple and green card elaborately decorated with silver glitter, and hearts. Blushing brightly, I tried to hide it in my tote bag. Unfortunately, Ricky caught sight of it.
"What's that?"
"This? Oh, it's, um, our wedding invitation?" I laughed nervously.
Ricky laughed, "I remember this!" He took the card from me."'You are invited to the wedding of Ricky Weasley and Enna Lupin.' Boy, my handwriting was terrible! . . .we forgot a date."
"So I've noticed," I rolled my eyes, taking notice that Alice was looking rather mad.
"You're engaged?" she demanded.
"Since we were five," I shrugged.
"Only because we were very bored one summer day, Alice." Ricky grinned sheepishly. "If I were to really marry Enna, I'd propose to her properly first. Now, come one, we've got class."
Ricky stood up and offered his hand to Alice. She ignored him and walked out of the Great Hall in a very sulking mood. Ricky followed her out of the Great Hall, looking quite cheerful for some reason.
You know, I'll never understand male-kind.
"En!" Maddie tapped my arm as I was heading towards the big double doors. "Do you think we could chat later? Just you and me?"
"Sure, Mads. We could go to my dorm during lunch. That's nice and quiet."
"Okay, I'll meet you outside your potions class." And with that she walked off. What was bugging her?
Potions, what a class. Today we were, of all things, trying to concoct a Giggle Potion. Professor Byrd had apparently decided that we'd been working very hard and needed a day off. There were all sorts of sweets and the like on our desks to use as ingredients. In the center of each table was a very large bowl of marshmallow fluff.
Yes, marshmallow fluff.
"Ricky!" I gave my friend a rough shove. "You got marshmallow all over my robes!"
"I'm so sorry," he replied in a highly sarcastic tone.
"In that case. . ." I scooped up a handful of the white mess and threw it in his face.
Calmly, Ricky picked up a handful himself and threw it in my general direction. Keyword being, "general." It missed me and hit Cody on the side of the head. Cody in turn threw some at Ricky, but hit William instead.
"Marshmallow fight!" someone shouted.
Chaos ensued. White mounts of sugar where flying in every which way, and instead of stopping it, Byrd joined in. We divided into two teams, hid behind various desks and tried to bomb the other with marshmallow. Luckily, Byrd was on our side. She might not look intimidating, but man, she has a wicked arm!
By the time we ran out of enough fluff to throw, we looked like half melted snowmen. The cleaning process covered us in even more sugar. Since we really hadn't done anything educational during class, Byrd skipped homework and sent us to lunch.
"We have to do that again!" I proclaimed happily as I followed Ricky and William out of the classroom.
"What happened to you?" Maddie, standing just outside the door, demanded.
"Marshmallow fluff fight," William told her, wiping a bit of the candy off his forehead.
"Hey, Mads!" Cody greeted Maddie with an enthusiastic kiss.
"Oh, you taste good," Maddie grinned, and kissed her boyfriend again.
"Can't complain now can you?" Ricky asked.
"Nope."
"I need to go change." I pulled a sticky strand of marshmallow out of my hair. "Correction, I need to shower. I'll see you all after lunch." I walked down the hall in the direction of my dorm. A few moments later Maddie had caught up to me.
"Sorry," she apologized and fell into step with me.
We remained pretty much silent until we reached he portrait of the Greek goddess. I gave the password ('Chaos'), and headed inside.
"It's very bare," Maddie commented as we entered the main area.
"Our rooms are much nicer then this. Come on!" I led her up my staircase and into my dorm room.
"Now this is a bedroom!" Maddie flopped on the bed. "This is so much bigger then our normal beds!"
I laughed. "I'll be back. I just need to clean the sugar out of my hair."
"I'll be here," she sighed and stretched out.
About fifteen minutes of finger numbing scrubbing later, I'd gotten all the sticky sugar out of my hair, and off my face and hands. I pulled on a clean skirt, blouse, and sweater before heading back into my dorm.
"That stuff hard to get out?" Maddie asked me. She was now sitting cross-legged on my bed, flipping through one of my books.
"Very," I complained and sat down on the bed next to her. I grab the brush off the nearby table and ran it through my hair. "You said you wanted to talk?"
"Yeah." Maddie closed the book, and looked at me for a moment. "You're in love with my cousin."
"Maddie," I teased her, "please be more specific. You've got too many cousins to count."
"You know who I mean, you moron! Ricky!"
"Ah," I said in a softer tone. "That cousin."
"You do, don't you?" I avoided her gaze; my cheeks flushed. That was all the answer that Maddie needed. "I was right! Ronnie, and the others are all, 'No! She's not in love with him!'" Maddie grinned wickedly. "Did you purposely get that wedding invitation sent to you? To get Alice even more jealous of you?"
"No! I swear I didn't know it was coming! I--wait, what happened to it? I never got it back!"
"Don't change the topic! I would be more then willing to break those two up. I can't stand her. She's just. . .well, I honestly can't think of a word. I dunno. I went up to talk with her one day and she just snubbed me! If she's planning on dating a Weasley, she's going to have to deal with the whole family. You of all people know how close we are! If she can't learn to appreciate and respect that, she shouldn't date any of my brothers or cousins." Maddie sulked and pushed her glasses back up her nose.
"Mads, I highly doubt they're going to get married."
"Still!"
"Okay, how about this: if they get engaged, I give you permission to use any force necessary to break them up." I grinned as a thoughtful look crossed her face. To my utmost horror, it was replaced with an evil smirk.
"Anything?" she whispered and rubbed her hands together. "Excellent." Perhaps that wasn't such a good idea after all.
After musing for a little while longer, Maddie turned back to me.
"What?" I asked.
"You never answered my question."
"Which one?"
"About the wedding invitation."
"That thing? Lorelei and I were talking the other day and it came up the the conversation. . .Apparently she had gone through some boxes, found it, and decided to send it to me. I didn't know what was in the envelope, so you can't accuse me of opening it in front of Ricky and Alice on purpose."
"'Cause you're too angelic to pull a stunt like that," Maddie sighed.
I snorted, "Hardly. I just don't want to be the reason that a couple breaks up."
"No one'd blame you."
"No. Look, they'll beak up sooner or later because of an argument or something. Okay? And don't you think that I should be the one worrying about this? You and William are trying to get involved too much. If we're meant to end up together, we will."
"So you admit you're in love with him!"
"I never denied it," I told her softly.
"Oh. . .Right."
"You aren't going to tell anyone are you?"
"Not if you don't want me too."
"I'd rather you not."
"If that's how you want it," Maddie shrugged.
"Thanks."
"Sure, En."
I glanced at the clock and smacked my forehead. "We missed lunch entirely, and we're going to be late for class!" I grabbed a clean (though slightly wrinkled) robe out of my trunk and pulled it on.
"Let's go!" Maddie, already half-way out the door shouted.
We ran down the stairs, out into the hall, partway main staircase and right into Ricky, Alice, Sirius, and James. We fell and landed at the bottom of the steps in a heap.
"My leg!"
"You did that on purpose!"
"I'm bleeding! I think."
"Get off me!"
"You're sitting on my hand!"
"You're elbow is currently poking me in the stomach. Move it!"
"We're late for class!"
"I think my glasses are broken!"
"You okay?" a new voice asked.
Maddie (who was closer to the top of the pile) laughed nervously, "Hi, Dad, Uncle Ron."
I tried to lift my head up to see, but the fact that Ricky was currently laying across my stomach obstructed my view. "Ricky," I said calmly. "Would you please be kind enough to move?"
True to his boyish nature, he replied, "What if I don't want to?"
"I highly doubt that your father, your uncle, and your girlfriend would want you to stay on top of me, now move it!" I gave him a shove.
"Hey! I can't as it is! James is on my legs!"
"Kick him!"
Suddenly there was a loud 'whoosh' and a gust of strong wind lifted us and basically tossed us in opposite directions.
"Thanks, Dad." Sirius dizzily stood up and leaned back against the wall.
"What happened?" Ron asked his son, and offered his hand to me. I gratefully took it and he pulled me into a standing position.
"We were walking along minding our own business when those two--" He shot an angry look at Maddie and me. "--came out of nowhere and ran into us. We fell down the stairs."
"I'm dizzy," Alice moaned and put a hand to her head.
"Sorry, Alice," I apologized while I massaged my aching shoulders. "I hope you didn't get hurt."
"Let's get you all to the hospital wing," Harry said with a sigh. "Just incase you broke something."
We all started limping in the general direction of the hospital wing. Ricky was walking between me and Alice, snickering slightly.
"What?" I demanded.
"You just took out the Head Girl and Head Boy, and you got us out of taking a test in the class we were suppose to be at." Ricky gave me a lazy smile. I shook my head in disbelief.
"You are very strange, Ricky."
"And you, my friend, are talented at the art of getting out of tests."
"Not only did you say that in front of your father, but the headmaster!"
"They have selective hearing."
"Ricky?" Alice said in a sweet voice.
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
-laughs- Too random? I dunno. I wrote this during finals week and my mind was all over the place at that time. I hope you liked it anyway. Forgive any flaws as I'm in a hurry (I've got to leave for Jujitsu in about five minutes).
Until Next Time,
Anne