One very interesting addition in the pre-wedding lunch party was that of an innovative game prepared by Fred and George. This alleged game, responsible for most of the hysterical laughter in the marquee, was called Tail the Squib. In this, three blindfolded wizards had to fix a donkey-tail on a Squib's buttocks via magic. Fred, George and Lee were the blindfolded 'Seekers' while Argus Filch was the Snitch - I mean, Squib.
"C'mere, c'mere… Flichy!" Fred cackled, his wands shooting body-binding spells in all directions. "I have you now...!"
Argus Filch, all corporal punishment forgotten, was sprinting around the tent and running for his life, emphasising his appeal by a blood-curdling scream.
"Aaaaaaaarrgghh!"
Meanwhile, our slippery-slithery-Snakeman was huddled in a comfy two-seater, waiting for the right opportunity to strike Potter and for the fruit punch which his mousey gofer had gone to get him.
Five minutes…ten minutes…fifteen minutes… Lord Voldemort was sick of singing the National Anthem under his breath for the fifth time, waiting for his punch.
‘This place is…’ thought Voldemort, his eyes hovering away from the raucous Hairy Cousins, who were setting the stage on fire to the Tail the Squib game, to people munching on pre-lunch appetisers with apparent relish to Moody and Figg doing a lambada. ‘…completely boring!”
Then his sight caught a far, unimpressive crook of the tent, where a sign read Ron's Fun Corner. Ron Weasley was standing on a makeshift stage amidst a clutter of empty audience chairs. He was unflinchingly cracking joke after joke, witnessed singly by his girlfriend Hermione who was yawning and saying 'Lol' after every punch-line of his.
‘Hmmm…that looks interesting,’ Voldemort decided and shifted from his cozy sofa to the straight-backed plastic chairs assorted in Ron's Fun Corner, depositing himself behind Hermione.
He began to actually enjoy Ron's wisecracks, which no one in the vicinity seemed to pay any attention to and clapped loud when Ron completed. Bad joke after bad joke, it seemed to go on. Suddenly Voldemort's attention was rudely invaded when Molly "Jumper-factory" Weasley slid next to him, as though appearing from thin air.
"That was fantabulous!" She crooned rapturously, without precursory greeting. "How did you do it?"
Voldemort was perplexed for a moment. Then, deciding that his irresistible Dark demeanor had finally rewarded him with an interested lady friend, he began pompously, "You see it all started in Hogwarts itself. Do you know anything about Horc - ?"
"No, no," Molly said, irritated. "I mean, how did you lose so much weight in a matter of half an hour?"
"Weight?" he spluttered, nonplussed.
"I mean…you were fat when you came and now…" she sighed admiringly. "It's almost like you were carrying an animal on your back and have now set him free or something!Oh Bob…don’t I really crack myself?" Molly laughed dimwittedly.
"Oh…oh, that!" Voldemort said, flexing his fake moustache, "Um…it's…just that I…it's that tap-dance, you see! You must try it…burned my fat in a matter of minutes!"
"Really?" said Molly, eyes wide. She seemed not to believe him. Nonetheless, the pseudo J.K. Rowling (seven babies, right?) pinched his hollow cheek mischievously and waddled away, flaming red hair tossing around as she did so.
Voldemort returned his attention to the stage, his mind not relieving him of the daydream he had just witnessed. Another five minutes passed without anything interesting happening except Ron cracking a corny joke about a Thestral, a Pygmy Puff and Professor Snape, who all enter a bar. For some strange reason, Voldemort was suddenly put out.
‘Boring…this place is boring to the hilt,’ he decided tastelessly.
But, wait! Was that the wind or unexpected magic or a predictable plot twist? For now Voldemort suddenly felt something eerie and unusual. He could sense that something new, something startling, was waiting to occur, like a sort of explosion. He glanced sideways to lay his eyes upon the third audience member who had joined to watch Ron's foolery with an interesting expression on her face - Sybill "Pur-leaseee" Trelawney.
* * *
"Excuse me, please! Make way, I need to go!" Nymphadora ‘Recognize-me-now’ Tonks was briskly paving her way through a thicket of chatty guests, her keen eyes trying to spot Trelawney to keep a sharp watch on her during the wedding day. After at least a minute of trying to separate overexcited children, Firewhiskey-obsessed wizards and obese witches, she realised that the pre-action, Melodramatic Effect in the Ladies' was harming her cause rather than strengthening it.
"Please, make way!" she appealed, "This is important, Okay?"
And as though the guests were under the influence of a Disagreement Charm, they kept bumping into her and gossiping about various trivialities of the world.
"Namibia, here you are!" McGonagall said, intercepting Tonks' path and clutching her by the shoulders. "Why haven't you been keeping a watch on Potter? I see that you are very negligent!" she shook her hard.
"Please, Professor!" Tonks begged, extricating herself from the latter's Scottish grip. But her peeves were not over yet.
"Tonks, wait!" An easily forgettable Gabrielle Delacour rushed forward and stopped her. "I want to talk to you!"
Praying hard, Tonks stood there, keeping respect for the inquisitiveness of children and Anglo-French relations.
"What is it?" She couldn't dispel irritation in her voice. "And make it quick!"
"I can't take ‘zis! First of all, ‘zis wedding ‘ees compleetly bogus, conseedering ‘zat it lacks our headmistress' honorable presence! Moreover, people here are ‘eeting, dreenking and playing but no one cares ‘zat my seester ‘ees missing! Also, ‘zees dress made by Madam Malkins doesn't feet me! It ‘ees too loose, conseedering I'm (supposedly) theen and sexy! And Ginneey ‘ees not cooperating as bridesmaid; shee keeps avoiding me! Shee says ‘zat if I look into ‘ze mirror, point my wand, and say Stupeefy! all my Chreestmas weeshes will come true! Does shee theenk I'm stupeed? Ha, ha! Just tell her ‘zat I very well know ‘zat ‘zis spell is meant for nose-jobs and not for fulfeeling Chreestmas weeshes. You'll tell her ‘zat, won't you Tonks, won't you? Won't -"
"Silencio," whispered Tonks softly, kicking herself for not thinking of this earlier. Gabrielle continued to move her lips but no sound came out.
Tonks walked on, fearing another 'guest-ly ' intervention, only to find her path being cleanly cut by Molly Weasley, who on Voldemort's advice, was sincerely tap-dancing across and intermittently looking down at her paunch to observe whether it reduced or not.
"Get out…huff…of the… way …puff… Tonks!" Molly cried, panting as she tap-danced. "This is serious business..."
"Molly, please! Move out of the way!" Tonks pleaded, "I need to go!"
To her dejection, Professor "Photosynthetic-boyfriend" Sprout stopped Molly in her exercise and began chit-chatting with her.
"Molly!" She exclaimed, Firewhiskey sloshing around in her wine-glass. "I was - like - looking for you all around and wanted to - like - tell you that the decorations-" she surveyed the hall enviably. "Oh my god, oh my god! It was - like - so different and everything - like - I know, not as good as my niece's wedding, but it's a start, Molly, a start. You are - like - a learner; - like - six more kids to be married off! You must practice, Molly, practice!" She smirked, patting her on the arm. "Incidentally…" she began, in a different tone, apparently waiting to ask this, loaded with sarcasm, "Where is – like – our bride? Fleur?"
This caught the smiling and panting Molly off-guard. She almost stumbled and responded tersely, "She…um…she's…er…relaxing…a bit, I mean, you know how it's like…pre-wedding…um…thingies?" She looked at Sprout pleadingly.
"Relaxing?" Sprout leered, acting unconvincingly curious. "I saw her in the kitchens, cooking!"
"Yes, I mean…" Molly began, seeing no hope, "She felt like cooking…um…" Sprout nodded, unhelpfully. "On her own accord!" Molly added unnecessarily, suddenly gripping her wand firmly as she said so.
"Ah, I see…" Sprout raised her eyebrows.
"Ladies!" Demanded Tonks from the background, "As much as I'm enjoying this conversation, can you please let me go across?" She deftly tried to separate the two women, but failed, just like a Lexus does when trying to slide between two trucks. So she simply walked past them (Drat! Why didn't I think of this earlier?) and her eyes finally caught Trelawney's. She was sitting at the far and inconspicuous end, impatiently listening to Ron's jokes and laughing, her cackles as false as her predictions.
* * *
"What in the name of Rowena is she doing?" Tonks spluttered, seated comfortably as an audience member in Ron's Fun Corner at a convenient distance from Trelawney, shocked by the fact that the latter had unearthed a grimy toenail from her handbag and was inspecting it. Tonks felt like retching, but this wasn't the worst part.
Then, Trelawney dug out a small heart-shaped bottle with Fred and George's faces on it, dropped the toenail into the bottle and shook it hard. When she was satisfied that it had dissolved, she smugly deposited the potion back in her handbag and turned to watch Ron with an innocent expression on her face.
"That slimy Seer!" Tonks muttered under her breath. "She's using a Love Potion on Remus!" She decided that Ron hadn't talked to his brothers about their joke shop selling wrong things to wrong people. Selling Amortentia to Professor Trelawney was a potentially dangerous business transaction.
Tonks expected Trelawney to leave her place and tail Remus to somehow spike his Gillywater, but contrary to this, she walked to Ron Weasley's stage and started her usual sightseer's vision thing.
Trelawney quickly unearthed a pack of cards, shuffled them vigorously, picked out one and announced dramatically to no one in particular, "King of Spades! Conflict! All red-haired boys cracking dull jokes should evacuate their stage at once, otherwise the chances of a second war is high!" Ron jumped off the stage with a panicky expression. "Also…" Trelawney pulled out another card, "Five of Diamonds! Destiny! All red-haired boys with bad sense of humour should turn to their past Divination Professor and be ready to answer anything she asks, otherwise they may not get an Apparition license!" Ron shuffled around the spot vigorously, deciding where to go, when Trelawney roughly pulled him next to her by his shoulder.
In annoyance and superiority, Hermione wound her left ear; when she released it, she turned into a steam engine which released monosyllabic "tuh"s.
"Aaah…" said the Divination Mama in misty tones. "Ronald Weasley, is it true that you have been hospitalised recently?"
"Y-yes…"
"St. Mungo's?"
"Y-yes…Don't ask…"
To his surprise, Trelawney clapped her hands rapturously like a girl, swiveled on the spot and blurted excitedly, "Who was next to you in the ward?"
"Oh, my Aunt Muriel, who's been hospitalised due to her face displaced at the back of her head and an overdose - " he said over Hermione's sounds of "Tuh- tuh- tuh- tuh, tuh…"
"No, no!" Trelawney interjected, irritated, "On the other side…don't you remember, a man, blonde, blue eyes, tall, cute…" she stared dreamily into space again, forgetting the people in her vicinity.
"You mean that Lockhart?" Ron asked.
"Yes, him, him!" Sybill clapped again. "D-did he receive m-my invitation? Is he c-coming?"
Ron went into thought before saying, "Invitation? I don't know about yours…but he was opening a letter from some 'Pariah' who was inviting him to this wedding. It had a photo of a wacky bespectacled woman in a Hula costume…"
"Yes, that's me! Pariah is my middle name!" Trelawney was almost bouncing. "So he is coming, isn't he? Coming? Coming? Coming?"
"I don't know…" Ron pondered, "But I remember him autographing the card and going to sleep. He would probably come…" he added hastily after observing the Divination teacher's put-out expression.
"Whoopee!"
"You horrid woman!" Tonks leaped up from behind and demanded of Trelawney's out-of-ordinary silhouette. "Two men at once! First Remus, then Lockhart!"
"Remus?" Trelawney enquired curiously. "Remus Boardman, the lead bass player of…"
Tonks gritted her teeth. "Don't pretend, you vicious, scheming scorpion! I'm talking about Remus Lupin! MyRemus Lupin!"
Trelawney stared into space, but this time with doubt and curiosity. "That Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher? Ah yes, I remember him. Why, both of us were introduced in the same book! Classes in consecutive chapters…of course I remember him…" she chuckled, slapping her forehead delicately.
"So…" Tonks said bitterly. "You said to me that he's your dream-man-” (Hermione mimicked retching) “-Now what's wrong? Why Lockhart?"
"My dear fairy princess," Trelawney started, hands on hips and voice as harsh as when she made predictions, "I always meant Gilderoy from the start! Did I ever mention to you that it's Lupin who I'm after?"
Tonks racked her brains for the exact words which Trelawney had used… “Good-looking and an excellent wizard! Ah, since yesterday, whenever I look at anything, I see his face smiling at me…Ah…he was on my dinner plate, my radio and even my toilet seat…Ah… why even a werewolf like that…Ahhh…”
True, she hadn't said anything about Remus. "But the werewolf thing?" Tonks demanded. "Lockhart isn't a werewolf!" she added testily.
"Oh that? I meant 'Why even a werewolf like that Wagga Wagga Werewolf is thankful to Gilderoy, simply because he taught the guy some hair-curling tips…' Isn't he wonderful?" Trelawney twittered fondly.
There was a pregnant pause to be filled by Tonks working her brain and realising her folly.
"Oh-kay…" she heaved a sigh of relief. "I thought…you like…anyways, carry on…Love Potion thing…excellent…" and she began to walk away, embarrassed.
Trelawney finally caught the meaning of Tonks' suspicion and laughed, "You didn't think…Remus Lupin and me!" She guffawed. "Now, really! Is my taste that bad? I mean look at me - curvy, svelte, illustrious, and intelligent and him! Furry, weird, mustached, paunchy – ha, ha, ha!"
* * *
Looking weather-beaten, child-like curious and fairly handsome, Gilderoy “Tragical Me” Lockhart finally arrived, dressed in pale mauve and looking around the place as though it were a great carnival.
"I have arrived!" he proclaimed royally as everyone ignored him. "Order of Merlin, Third Class…Author of several bestsellers...Honorary Member of the Dark Force…"
"Yes, yes, we know all that," Molly Weasley cut in and ushered him into the tent.
"Oh, Gilderrroy!" A voice chimed pathetically from somewhere. Lockhart turned to the source of sound, expecting a squealing girl of seventeen but was put-out to see a screaming woman of forty.
"Hi!" Trelawney vigorously waved, her bangles clinking and shawls tossing to the floor. Searching for an excuse to escape the scene, Lockhart started to move towards the dining table, but Trelawney sprinted forward to meet him, thus blocking his path.
"Forgot me?" She demanded mischievously. "I had sent you the invitation! Come, come with me!"
"Oh, so it was you in the Hula costume?" Lockhart asked innocently.
"Of course!" She said, almost dragging him by the arm to the assortment of chairs in Ron's Fun Corner.
"Sit!" She directed him to a seat next to Lord Voldemort. "And don't move!" She vanished to get some drinks, glad that her plan was working so smoothly.
Voldemort sniffed Lockhart and wrinkled his nose. "Mudblood?"
"Celebrity!" Lockhart beamed, showing off his brilliant teeth.
"Will do," Voldemort cocked his head uninterestedly to look for Wormtail, who hadn't arrived with the drinks for an hour. "Where is that BEEEEP! Stuck in a mousey-hole, is he? I'm thirsty!"
"You look frustrated," Lockhart said cheerfully to Voldemort. "What's the matter?"
"If you like your mama - oops - mater a lot, don't ask questions," snarled the latter. Instead of being intimidated, Lockhart broke into a cheery song.
"When I went to Wagga Wagga,
In the bar I met this hagga-hagga,
Who was wearing a balaclava,
And wasn't very cleva-cleva…"
"And only then too soon,
Rose the great full moon…" Trelawney joined in, arriving from nowhere, carrying two sherry-filled glasses, the contents of one looking paler than the other.
"Oh, I simply love the poem about your defeat of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf!" Trelawney swooned, ecstatically. "Whenever you used to get drunk, you would turn outside the Divination classroom, singing this very song with this beautiful baritone of yours…" She sighed, thinking into space.
"Really?" Lockhart quipped, with mild interest. "I don't remember."
"That's the point, darling," Trelawney said, handing him a sherry glass. "You lost your memory!"
"No thank you," said Lockhart, refusing the drink. "I don't much care for beverages."
"Drink up, dear!" Trelawney coaxed, "It's the sherry you always liked! Tasty, tasty sherry!" She lied.
"Cherry!" Lockhart misheard and clapped his hands delightedly. "And when we finish it, we'll fling its seeds into that bushy-haired girl's hair! Ha, ha, ha!" he chortled. Hermione, who until now, had been gazing admiringly at Lockhart, snapped out of her trance.
"No, no, not cherry!" Trelawney was beginning to get irritated, "Sherry! Sherry! The one you always liked!"
"I don't care much for sherry," Lockhart refused formally.
"But I do!" Voldemort, who was panting with thirst, leaped at the goblet without invitation and before anyone could say anything, dunked its contents in a single gulp.
"Wasn't-meant…for-you…Love Potion…" Trelawney spluttered incoherently, but all damage was done.
"Aaaah…" the Dark Lord sighed with relief and closed his eyes with pleasure. "Finally…"
Trelawney was still glaring at Voldemort, shocked, trying to assimilate the consequences of her mistake. Before the effects of the potion began to take place, she escaped from the scene, running as fast as her legs could carry her, because it didn't need a Seer, not even a phony one, to guess what was going to happen next…
* * *
The Summer of Ninety Seven by SevenAndMoreToGo
Chapter Notes: Yes, it’s finally arrived – and my impeccable grammar-beta babkitty_92 and I agree that this is by far the best!
And as usual I don’t own JK Rowling or her characters but I will own a pre-ordered copy of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in a few months time, over which my brother and I would have to wrestle.
I’ve noticed that due to interest in the OotP movie, HPDH and Equus, readability in MNFF has dropped a bit. Guys, come what may, MNFF rocks and do continue reading, fanficking and reviewing.
For who knows, JKR may also be secretly checking them out!
Hugs to all who reviewed and guys please criticize things too – as I do want to improve. There are a few more chapters coming up, and lots of laughs ahead!
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