The Ballrooms of Mars

It was a clear, brisk morning on the Saturday before school began. Shards of golden yellow sunlight spilled into Millicent’s bedroom through the bay window and reflected off of her collection of high-power telescopes. A small black cat lay sprawled out on the windowsill. Its tail was twitching slightly even though it was fast asleep. Textbooks opened to three-dimensional star maps and rotating diagrams of lunar orbits lay scattered around on her royal blue carpet. Millicent groggily mumbled some unintelligible statement in her sleep and pulled the quilt over her head. She had stayed up late finishing her summer astronomy project for professor Sinistra.

“Wake up, Millicent! We need to buy your school supplies this morning,” Mrs. Bulstrode said in a hooting voice as she poked her head into her daughter’s bedroom. “Look at this mess! Why can’t you be more like your sister and clean up after yourself?”

Millicent grunted in response and buried her head under the pillow. Mrs. Bulstrode pushed the door open with enough force to make it bounce off the adjacent wall cause one of Millicent’s books to fall off the shelf with a soft thud.

“Your hard-working sister is giving up her weekend to help Mr. Malfoy organize files for the Ministry even though she is just an intern. Unlike you, Adeola cares about her future and does more than what she is supposed to,” Mrs. Bulstrode barked as she approached Millicent’s bed, kicking textbooks out of her way. “When are you going to get your life together? When will you take yourself seriously?”

Millicent grunted again, still not quite awake. Just then, Mrs. Bulstrode yanked the quilt off Millicent’s bed and dropped it in a heap on the floor.

“What are you doing?!” Millicent yelped as she curled into a fetal position.

“Get up,” Mrs. Bulstrode demanded crossly. “Right now.”

“Mum, give me just one more hour of sleep. Please.

“That’s it,” Mrs. Bulstrode said as she reached for her wand, which was tucked under the sash of her lime-green silk bathrobe.

“NO! Not the water-blast charm again!” Millicent pleaded. “Fine, fine, I’ll get up. Now get out so I can get dressed.”

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Meanwhile, at the Burrow, Ron grumpily stumbled down the narrow staircase into the kitchen, where pots and pans seemed to be scrubbing themselves. Ginny sat at the dining table and helped herself to a waffle. Fred and George sat side-by-side, already almost finished with their breakfasts. Mrs. Weasley hovered over George and fussed over the lint on his teal sweater. Mr. Weasley sat at the head of the table, reading “The Stranger” by Albert Camus and mumbling “absolutely brilliant” and “pure genius” while underlining key passages.

You know, muggles have this school of thought called existentialism and the basics of this philosophy were started by Nietzsche in the late nineteenth century but they were expanded upon in the years following World War II,” Mr. Weasley announced to nobody in particular. “When Nietzsche stated that God is dead, it came as such a shock to the religion-oriented muggle world. See, existentialists generally believe that whether or not there is a God does not matter because life is meaningless and finite.”

“Dad?” Ginny asked impatiently.

“Now, after World War II and the use of the atom bomb, many muggle intellectuals began thinking about how absurd and random this world is. This led to many existentialist books and plays. In fact, there is a whole style of theater called theater of the absurd. Speaking of that, I highly recommend Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Now, nihilism is a sort of sub-philosophy of existentialism. In many areas, these two schools of thought blur together. Let me explain.”

“Dad?” Ginny repeated.

“Both existentialist and nihilist thinkers say that there is no purpose. But here is where they split. Existentialists think that because there is no purpose, one should accept this lack of purpose and make his or her own purpose. Nihilists believe that because there is no purpose, one should reject the absurd cruelty and meaninglessness of existence and just not bother because nothing matters in the end. Do you follow?”

“Dad!” Ginny shouted. “Nobody cares! And no, nobody in this room followed a word you just said.”

“But it’s so fascinating! You know, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that-“

“Dad!” Ginny interjected. “Can it.”

Ron, still standing on the last stair with one eye open, groaned sleepily. He still wore his plaid flannel pajamas and his hair resembled a dark orange bird’s nest.

“Ickle Ronnykins is awake!” Mrs. Weasley cheered. “Eat quickly and then get dressed because we are going to Diagon Alley.”

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Diagon Alley bustled with frantic shoppers who were picking up items for school at the last minute. Impatient parents and fascinated children completely covered the cobblestone pathway with their feet and robes. A long line of costumers waiting for tables in the Leaky Cauldron snaked around the corner of the building. One could hardly hear what a person was saying because the words would get lost in the mess of noises that included the shrieking cries of babies, temper tantrums, mothers loudly scolding naughty children, and the din of general conversation.

Mrs. Weasley held two heavy bags in each hand while Ginny carried only a small plastic bag from the junk shop. Ron took his new quidditch gloves out of the Quality Quidditch Supplies shopping bag to admire them. He had talked his mother into buying them because Fred’s old gloves, which Ron had been using, were in extremely poor condition.

“You better take good care of those because I’m not buying you a new pair for at least five years,” Mrs. Weasley said sternly. Her voice always had a sense of kindness about it except when she talked about financial matters.

Ron paid no attention to anything besides the smooth black leather and shiny brass buckles in his hands. They looked just like the gloves that Galvin Gudgeon, the Chudley Cannons seeker, had been wearing in a recent photograph.

“Keep them in the bag, Ron. They cost good money so I don’t want you scuffing them up,” Mrs. Weasley said. “Now, we still have to stop in Flourish and Blotts and get Ginny her schoolbooks.”

Flourish and Blotts was the most crowded shop along Diagon Alley that day. Ron had tremendous difficulty reaching the Quidditch section due to all of the bodies packed into one small space. The Flourish and Blotts employees were even more frazzled than the costumers because the shop was severely understaffed that day.

Finally, Ron managed to slowly push through the crowd to the back of the store. The Quidditch section comprised of only one shelf that had quidditch books on it. The surrounding shelves were packed with astronomy books

Ron spotted a book called A Guide to Being a Chaser by no other than Aladair Maddok, the chaser for the Montrose Magpies. He reached for it but his hand bumped into somebody else’s.

“Sorry,” he mumbled as he took the book off the shelf.

“Don’t touch me,” snapped a familiar voice. Ron looked up to see Millicent Bulstrode standing before him with her arms crossed over her chest.

“You,” Ron growled, his eyes transforming into narrow slits. “You were in my way!”

“No, YOU were in MY way. Anyway, where’s that mudblood? It seems like she’s always tagging along with you.”

“Can’t you think of your own insults instead of always copying Malfoy’s?”

Millicent realized that the Weasley boy was right. She was always simply repeating insults that Draco overused so she took a moment to come up with one by herself.

“Here’s one,” she hissed. “Hasn’t your mother ever heard of the birth control charm? Now she has about seven of your hideous mouths to feed!”

“That’s it!” Ron shouted, pulling his wand out of the pocket of his robe and aiming it at Millicent. “Tarantallegra!”

As the spell exited Ron’s wand, it veered to the right and hit an extremely old witch who had been browsing the Romance section. She promptly began dancing at a very fast pace, her wool stocking-clad legs resembling a whirlwind. Millicent laughed uproariously, clutching her stomach and hunching over. Ron couldn’t help but see the humor in this so he stifled a fit of chuckles.

“Nice one, Weasel,” Millicent said as she spun around and vanished around the corner.