Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong!

Chapter Two

Serena's mood was not improved by the necessity of sleeping on one of the Common Room couches, as the dormitories had no spare beds for her. She nevertheless began the next day with fresh resolve, curiously un-matted hair, and miraculously un-wrinkled robes, despite the fact that she had fallen off the couch in the middle of the night and awakened face-to-face with a repulsive and deformed object which might have been a hat. Just so that no poor, fashion-challenged first-year would ever mistakenly wear such a travesty of nature, Serena picked it up gingerly and burnt it. This was probably unnecessary, but you never know: it might be, like, contagious, or something.

When the first bell rang, Serena sashayed eagerly down the stairs to the dungeons for Potions. Swinging her hips while thrusting out her cleavage (which she had subtly enhanced with some of those deformed socks) as well as gliding sensuously on 5-inch heels left Serena little concentration with which to keep her balance. She tumbled headlong down the last flight of stairs, landed on a totally nasty puddle of something slimy, and then picked herself up in what she evidently considered to be a dignified fashion.

Glaring at the group of tittering sixth-years who had witnessed her unbecoming plummet, Serena cried indignantly, "You wish you could be like me!"

With that articulate and coherent pronouncement (which left many of the onlookers, most notably Ron Weasley, completely in the dark) Serena flounced off to slam her books onto a Potions table.

During Potions class, Serena occupied herself by painting her nails a colour which promised to be 'ethereally beautiful and alluring,' much, she figured, like herself. The fact that she had no idea what was going on didn't bother her, as she knew that her Potions textbook was going to have mysterious and vaguely sinister instructions scribbling onto the margins which would explain everything, albeit in a mysterious and vaguely sinister fashion.

But when she opened her book, Serena was completely shocked. There was no writing on the pages! It didn't even look menacing - or even kind of manky like the other ones! Even Ron Weasley got a book that looked like someone barfed on it! Quickly flipping through all the pages, Serena ascertained the terrible truth: her textbook was as pristine as the day it was printed.

"Professor!" She shot her hand into the air indignantly. "Professor, there's something wrong with my book!"

Slughorn waddled over to Serena's desk and looked at her text with some befuddlement. "There doesn't seem to be a problem to me, Miss - ah - Heartfire. In fact, it looks like you bought it the day before yesterday. Still in good order, and all that. Now if you'll excuse me..."

"Fine," Serena burst out spitefully, tears quivering in her sky-blue eyes. "If you love it so much, why don't you marry it!"

She ignored the rest of the class, and Slughorn, who had begun to edge away from her with some degree of alarm, and turned to her Potions textbook. Stupid Slughorn! Serena thought. Not giving her a properly menacing book, ruining her life! Well she'd show him! She'd show them all!

Serena opened her text to the required page and waited for her amazing and fantastic, like, Potions smart-ness to kick in.

She waited.

And waited.

An hour later, Serena was still waiting, and class was practically over. Desperate, she grabbed all the Potions ingredients around her, including some from Draco Malfoy's table ("Hey, what are you doing, you utter whack-job?") and tossed them into her cauldron at random.

BOOM!

The resulting explosion sprayed everyone around Serena with a ghastly-coloured liquid and filled the entire room with smoke. Suddenly, a shriek pierced the gloom. It belonged to some majorly unattractive, pug-faced girl named Pansy Parkinson.

"Oh my Merlin! Malfoy's a toadstool!"

And so he was. He wasn't even a particularly attractive toadstool, either. The fungal growth that Pansy was clutching to her bosom and weeping copiously over was a poisonous shade of purple liberally embellished with green spots; vaguely malformed and sinister. Ron's giggling was quickly suppressed by Hermione's hand clamped over his mouth.

"Er... Miss Parkinson? Perhaps you want to take - ah - Mr. Malfoy to the hospital wing?" Pansy tearfully acquiesced, pelting out the door with the repulsive toadstool still clutched to her chest. The rest of the class turned to stare at the new girl. No one - not even Neville Longbottom - had ever managed to produce a Potions catastrophe of such gigantic proportions.

Unabashed under the weight of the staring (which even she could not delude herself into thinking was adoring in nature) Serena defiantly tossed back her mane of silky blonde hair and cried, "I hate you! You're just jealous of me because I have awesome powers and I'm thin and beautiful and smart and - er - naturally blonde! But I'll show you all! Just you wait! JUST YOU WAIT!"

And with that, Serena turned on her delicate heel and stomped out of the dungeon, leaving the incredulous sixth-year students gazing - uh - incredulously behind her.