Disclaimer: Unfortunately, under the circumstances I am not allowed to declare that this is my original work and any fool who accuses me of announcing it is all mine, well it will be OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!
Chapter 7: Food! Glorious Food!
"I'll meet you on the other side of the portrait hole," Jessica said, winking before leaving Lily alone in the dorm. Lily waited there for a bit, then got up and left as well. When she entered the common room she saw Felicity still over in the corner, head bent down over her charms homework, Remus was over near the fire reading some book and there were several first years with their heads over some Gobstones. However she couldn't see Claudia or Patience anywhere.
Lily sighed and walked threw the portrait hole, she would have to go threw her things later to make sure Patience didn't find anything else suspicious. She couldn't see Jessica anywhere, but she decided to walk along the corridor and see if she was waiting at the corner.
She was about to pass a suit of armor when a person jumped out and yelled "BOO!" Lily screamed until she saw Jessica sniggering.
"Bitch," she muttered and Jessica laughed and led her down to the Entrance Hall.
"Why thank you Jessica for showing me where the Great Hall is. Is that where you eat? I had no idea," Lily said sarcastically, hiding her disappointment that Jessica didn't have a better plan to get her food.
"Gosh, you have no faith," Jessica groaned, grabbing her arm and pulling her down to the basement and leading her down a corridor before stopping in front of a painting of a fruit bowl.
"I'm going to be eating paint?" Lily asked her puzzled "Watercolors, my favourite,"
"Tut tut no more sarcasm," Jessica, clicking her tongue. Lily grimaced.
"Sorry, its been so since I've been able to have a decent convosation," Lily said and Jess smiled sympathetically. "Don't worry, your outsider is on the job!" she said, saluting.
She walked towards the painting and she stuck her finger out towards the painting, and she did, what looked to Lily, was if she tickled the picture of the pear.
She heard a giggle echo from somewhere before the whole wall slid open, revealing a room bustling with activity.
"Wow," said Lily as she walked inside, "Where are we?"
"I present to you, Lily Evans, the Kitchens of Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Jessica said dramatically as she followed Lily inside. Instantly, at least five house elves walked up to Lily and Jessica, all with towels over their arms.
"Can we helps you misses?" the one in front squeaked.
"Why yes, little people you can! I would like some food! But not just any food, I want food that isn't fat free!" Jessica said and they all grinned happily, and bustled away again. Another one came up to Lily and said
"If you'd care to follow me Misses," he said and Lily followed him further into the kitchen, where she saw four replicas of the house tables. She went down at sat down at the one directly under the Gryffindor table and Jessica joined her there.
Four house elves came bustling over, each holding different plates of food. The first one came over with a plate of toasted cheese sandwiches, another with a bowl of chips, the third came with a plate of pizza and the four placed a chocolate sundae on the table next to them.
"Wow, thank you!" Lily said to them, the one who brought the sundae giggled as they bowed and went away.
"Good service, ay?" Jessica said as Lily helped herself to a sandwich, Jessica took a spoon and began helping herself to the chocolate sundae.
"Oi, get your own," Lily snapped, and Jessica instantly put the spoon down.
"Someone sure hasn't eaten a decent meal in a while," Jessica observed and Lily nodded and said "Told ya"
Once Lily had eaten all she could, they decided to return to the common room, as Jessica pointed out that Claudia and Felicity would probably be wondering where she had got to. Jessica left Lily to go alone as she forgot to pick up a book she needed for potions at the library.
"Croutons" Lily said when she reached the Fat Lady, who nodded and swung open, revealing the room within. The first thing Lily noticed when she entered was that Felicity was no long in the corner working on her charms homework, which Lily thought was a rather good thing because she had been working on it all afternoon and it wasn't really that difficult. She climbed up to her dorm to find that Claudia and Felicity were both in there.
"Hey girlfriends!" Lily smiled and they did their usually greeting hugs. "All finished charms homework?"
"Sure did, thanks for that spell by the way, it was really a life saver,"
"No problem, its my job to help my friends," Felicity and Lily shared a smile. Claudia coughed and their turned their attention to her.
"Now Lily, I've seen to it that Patience has learnt her lesson. I don't think she will be bothering you any longer,"
"Why?" Lily asked curiously, "What did you do?"
"You'll see. You guys ready to go down to dinner?" Claudia asked and Lily's stomach curdled.
"You know what, I don't think I'll have any dinner tonight, I'm not really hungry," Lily said and the other's shrugged.
"Sure, whatever. See you when we get back, sooner if its deep fried," Claudia said as they bid her farewell.
Once Lily was alone she fell smack down on her bed. Her stomach groaned.
"Enjoy the feeling of fullness," she told it "It may be a while till you get another decent fill,"
She thought of the subjects she had tomorrow, which reminded her she hadn't done her 500word revision essay on the Summoning Charm.
She pulled her book bag onto her bed, pulled out a spare piece of parchment, her favourite quill and a bottle of ink and began to write. It took her just over fifteen minutes to complete it and she blew on it to make it dry faster. The door opened and Lily hurriedly put her essay in her bag and dumped it on the floor.
"Hey relax, its just me," said Jessica as she came over and sat on her bed next to Lily's. "What were you up to anyway?"
"Charms homework," Lily said, lying back on her bed.
"Wow, secretly doing homework. How could you?" Jessica said and laid down on her own bed.
"So have you talked to Potter, Black or Lupin recently?" Jessica asked after silence had consumed them.
"Not really, I saw them this morning, their white legs shaking 100 meters up but that's all," Lily said without moving, she didn't want to risk it.
"Are you allowed to talk to them?"
"I guess, but I don't really in particular. They did ditch me and I'm still getting over it. Why the sudden interest?" Lily managed to turn her head in Jessica's direction.
"I dunno, I've been pretty bored this year, well, the whole week we've been here. My friend moved to some country down south that I'd never heard of before and so I've basically been by myself. I need knowledge!"
"Haha, well, I'll be your friend. Well, when I'm not a wannabe," Lily said and Jessica sighed.
"Thank goodness. I thought I was going to have to be your friend when you were a wannabe! Lipstick is so no worth it,"
-:-
"Snap!" James cried and the cards exploded. When they'd cooled down, Remus picked them up and began to shuffle them again.
"He cheated!" Sirius yelled and James smugly shook his head.
"Did not!"
"Let me shuffle, then he won't win!" Sirius said to Remus, going to grab the cards from him but Remus pulled them away.
"See, Remus is my friend. He's going to give them to me to shuffle," James said, holding his hand out to take them but Remus just had a blank expression on his face. James frowned.
"How bout, I'll shuffle, so none of you can cheat, then we'll find a winner based on pure talent?" Remus suggested. Sirius and James looked at each other then burst out laughing.
"Where's the fun in that?" Sirius asked him bewilded. Remus groaned, knowing he was defeated, he threw the cards down on the table and got up and stretched his legs, looking at his watch as he did so.
"I think I'll go for a walk," he said to the others.
"You planning on getting caught by Pringle are we? Going for a walk at eleven at night?" James asked, not taking his eyes of the cards.
"No, I'm taking the map," Remus said, waving it in front of James's face but pulling it away before he could snatch it up.
"Ah, well at least it's not the cloak," James said in defeat.
"Oh, no," Remus laughed "I've got that in my bag," he said and bolted out of the portrait hole before James could grab his cape and drag him back.
As he walked along the corridor leading away from Gryffindor Tower he saw Felicity and Claudia coming towards him. He smiled politely at them and Felicity turned pink and giggled as she passed. However, when Remus returned from his walk, he was still confused as to why she always did that when he passed her.
-:-
The next day was Monday so it was back to classes and work. After breakfast (being half a banana), Claudia, Felicity and Lily headed towards the charm's classroom. Once they were seated, Professor Flitwick collected all their essay's and proceeded in marking them while he set some revision work on the black board.
Lily thought she did quite well in that lesson and was surprised to find she got an O on her homework. Claudia was going on how her homework had granted her an E and so Lily kept her mark quiet, she didn't want to rain on her parade. However Felicity was looking heartbroken as her essay had given her P.
As it was History of Magic next, Lily offered to read her charms essay. Felicity was too happy to reply, she just thrust her paper at Lily for her to read. Once Professor Binns had sunk into his usual monotone speech, Lily began to read.
The Summoning Charm, well, it was first discovered by that guy, watshisname, the one with the grey hair... oh yes I remember now, his name was Charles Summon in 1478. The Summoning charm is very useful as OMG that guy is so cute, I think his a 7th grader. No, Felicity concentrate, alright, back to the Summoning charm, its quite useful because it summons what you need. For example if I were sleeping over at a friends house and I wanted to colour her nails red but I only brought pink, I could summon the bottle to her house. The charm is quite simple as oh no! That hair is out of place, no no no no, this can't be happening, that cute guy is staring at me no wait, I know what I'll do, I'll flick my hair and it will fix it and it's a good flirting technique. Right here we go ... bingo! I totally pulled that off. Back to summoning, back to summoning. Well, I could write what the spell is, that's probably a good idea. The spell itself is pretty simple, you say the word 'Expecto' followed by what you want. Oh I so want that guy over there, do you think the summoning charm would work on him? Hmm couldn't hurt to try ... no. Absolutely not, I have to finish this homework if it's the last thing I do...
Lily looked up from Felicity's essay, not needing to finish reading it to work out why she had gotten a P. In her opinion, by the looks of this essay it was if Professor Flitwick was marking her easily, judging by the fact on top of it she wrote the wrong incantation on it to boot.
She looked up and saw Felicity staring at her, quite hopefully. Lily gave her a small smile, then began to write helpful hints on the piece of parchment in front of her. She also made a mental note that if she was asked to perform the spell again on Felicity, it would only be thoughts on the subject, she didn't think the professors should suffer from the woes of a fifteen year old.
-:-
That night at dinner, she sat and watched Claudia and Felicity pick at their celery and carrot.
"God I wish I had your will power," Felicity complained, chomping on a piece of carrot "If I did I would have your figure,"
"It's pretty hard, you have to train yourself," Lily told her, secretly thinking about all the food she would be eating later tonight in the kitchens.
"I've trained myself to only have two small meals a day," Claudia boasted "And I haven't slipped up once!"
Lily and Felicity instantly bombarded her with praise and she smiled, taking it all in.
"So what did you do to Patience? I haven't seen her since she dragged me to you," Lily said, suddenly remembering the fourth.
"I wouldn't blame her for not coming out," Claudia said, taking another bite of celery, signaling the end of the matter. She finished the stick and she stood up and motioned for Felicity to do so afterwards.
"I need to go to the library, I haven't finished my potions homework that's due tomorrow," Lily told them as they stood up.
"Sure, whatever. See you upstairs? You never know, Patience might decide to show her face" Claudia said
"Definitely," Lily said and they left the hall. Lily waited a bit, before heading back out to the Entrance Hall. Quickly checking that they hadn't hung around, she bolted down to the basement. She ran straight to the 'Fruit Bowl', tickled the pear and burst into the kitchen. Jessica looked up startled from where she was sitting at the Gryffindor table.
"In a hurry much?" she asked and Lily plonked down next to her. A house elf suddenly appeared next to her, waiting expectantly for her to order.
"Oh, I'll have whatever they're having upstairs. But minus the salad," Lily said. The house elf bowed and hurried off, returning moments later with a small group of elves, all carrying plates full of food and placing it down in front of Lily.
"Thank you very much," Lily said and they all bowed, returning back to their work. Lily then began piling the plate in front of her with food, before sticking mouthful after mouthful into her mouth.
"You know the phrase 'slow down'? You might want to put that into practice about now," Jessica joked and Lily slowed.
"Sorry, I've been looking forward to this all day, don't pop my bubble," Lily said and Jessica stopped protesting however Lily did slow down.
"So anything happen today over at Camp Popular?" Jessica asked curiously.
"Well to help Felicity with her homework I put a Thought Spell on her to help her with her charms homework. But in between the actual describing of the charm which she refers to nail polish, she also keeps mentioning some 7th grader and how well she pulled of a hair flick," Lily told her between mouthfuls of pudding.
Jessica snorted. "Did she really hand that in to Professor Flitwick?"
"Yep-pa" Lily said, taking another mouthful of pudding.
"Oh poor Professor Flitwick! I feel so sorry for him to have to read something like that. What did he give her?"
"Oh he gave her a P,"
"Professor Flitwick," Jessica shook her head sadly "Always so kind"
"So you ready to head back up to the common room now?" Lily asked, finishing off the bowl
"I believe the proper question to ask is whether YOU are ready to go back to the common room," Jessica pointed out.
"Ah well, I've got to go sometime," Lily said sadly and they left the kitchen, first saying goodbye to the house elves.
"So dinner again tomorrow night?" Jessica asked before they turned into the corridor leading to Gryffindor Tower. They had decided it wasn't wise for them to be seen walking threw the portrait hole at the same time so to say goodbye a good distance away.
"I dunno if I could weasel two days in a room. It may seem a bit suspicious. Or, on the other hand, it could seem like I have fantastic self control. Hmm I don't think I can risk it, but Wednesday good?"
"Yeah, its not like I do anything else,"
"Well I'll see you back at the dorm," Lily said before waving goodbye and walking of down the corridor. She was about to reach the Fat Lady when somebody else came out first.
"Hey Remus," Lily said when she saw his bewilded face "What's up?"
"Felicity just asked me out," he said in a small voice, as if he didn't believe it himself.
"Oooo really? What did you say?" Lily asked him. Remus sank to the floor,
"You know what Lily? I was so shocked I don't remember moving but I think – I think I actually said yes!"
A/N: And this signals the end of chapter. Exit here and here to go out and line up again to enjoy the ride again. Sorry, just happy, in a few days I'm going on a holiday to Sydney!! Woop! But don't my rapid readers worry their pretty little heads, the next chapter is already half written so shall be posted soon anyway! Alothough apologies to you all as I was supposed to post this yesterday I just got preoccupied with going to the movie's to see 'ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS'! For those sad enough like me to have seen that film, HOW CUTE WERE THEY!!!!!! Cough sorry, mature again... anyways please REVIEW!!!
Moonlight Honeysuckle xoxo