How Mandy Brocklehurst Found the Best Boyfriend Ever

It might seem like things started on Valentine's Day, but really it all started on August 31st of last year, the night before we were scheduled to go back to Hogwarts on the Express.

I've never understood my parents. They're completely lackadaisical about some things, like tattoos and hair dye, and when my older sister Sarah's boyfriend came to meet the family, he stayed in her room and they didn't bat an eye. Most people's parents would have freaked.

But they're absolutely ridiculous about things like hygiene, and every new school year, everybody going to Hogwarts has to display everything they're taking so it can meet their approval. They've never confiscated anything, except the time they found Sarah's stash of Billywig stings, but they insist on looking at all of it and then making all of these horrible comments.

Comments like, "Do you really think you'll need black underwear, dear," and "Really, Mandy, boys don't like girls who wear that much makeup." It's absolutely hideous. The worst part is that the whole family is forced to be there for it. Sarah wasn't this time, of course, since she doesn't live at home any more. But that little troll Jason got to see every embarrassing thing I own, and he has this way of sniggering right on cue with each horrid joke.

Of course, I get to see what he's taking to Hogwarts too. So as I lugged my last Ectoplasmic Identifier up the stairs to her trunk ("Darling, when are you going to get over this ghost thing?" "It's not a phase, mum, it's a hobby. And maybe a career someday."), I couldn't suppress the glee I felt at the sight of my brother's worried face. He was going to pay this time. Oh, would he pay.

Ten minutes later, things were going splendidly. Jason was being tweaked just as badly as I was. I even threw in a few jabs myself. And then he unrolled his fifth poster, and everything changed.

It was yet another Quidditch poster, like the twelfth one he owns or something. Kenmare Kestrels was splashed across the bottom in bright green ink, and the team posed above. Most of them were unremarkable, or even downright ugly, but the one in the middle was . . . dreamy.

This guy had long wavy black hair and dark blue eyes. His face had just enough stubble to be manly without being intimidating, and his chin had the most adorable cleft. He had this rakishly bent nose, probably the product of one too many Bludgers to the face, that saved him from conventional pretty-boy looks and gave him a raffish charm. I was definitely intrigued. And then he winked at me. That was what clenched it. I had to figure out who this person was. Preferably without exposing myself to more ridicule, of course.

Jason unwittingly helped me out. "What're you staring at, Man-hands?"

"Your two hundredth Quidditch poster, loser. What, do you have a thing for jocks or something?"

"I'm not gay! Mum, tell her I'm not gay!"

"Now, Jason, we had this talk when Sarah came out of the closet. If you grow up and decide that you like guys and not girls, or if you decide that you like both, as Sarah does, there's nothing wrong with that."

"Yeah, Jason, there's nothing wrong with that. It's okay to get tingly all over whenever you see that guy in the middle."

"I'm not in love with Eamonn Troy! Leave me alone!"

Now I had a name. And I could've boiled an egg on Jason's forehead. Delicious.

There wasn't enough time to pop over to Diagon Alley and get a poster, of course. To see my darling Eamonn's face, I was going to have to wait for the first Hogsmeade weekend, and that wasn't until October. It was absolutely unconscionable. But fate, thankfully, intervened.

See, the new buzz in September was a magazine especially for teenage witches, called Which Witch. I had been itching to get my own subscription, but pocket money was a little short and I had to save up for it. A lot of the other girls in my year were able to get it, though. And guess who was on the front cover of the September issue!

Thanks to that one picture, there were a lot of other girls mooning over Troy at the same time that I was. It actually got to be a little annoying -- after all, I was the one who had fallen in love with him first. But it also meant that there were soon a lot of pictures of Troy floating around, so I could see him everywhere.

Don't think that I was being obsessive or anything. He wasn't all I thought about, of course. In fact, the day that Su Li started this whole crazy thing, I was sitting in our common room reading Sarah's latest romance novel. Did I mention that she writes books? Anyway, this one was a racy story about the forbidden love between a werewolf and an escapee from Azkaban. It's sort of strange to read about the sexual fantasies of your older sister, I guess, but they're so hot that I don't really care.

So when Su Li squealed "We should start a fanclub!" I hardly even looked up. After all, I was right at the bit where the escaped convict told the werewolf that he had been imprisoned falsely and only their love had kept him sane. Su Li tends to say a lot of random things anyway, so most of us stopped paying attention to her a long time ago.

"Lisa, Padma, Mandy, I'm serious." She stood right in front of me, forcing me to look up. I gave her my best death glare, but she was undeterred. "We all love Eamonn Troy. We ought to start a Troy Appreciation Society. No, Troy Appreciation Group, TAG for short. It would be awesome."

"And what, exactly, would TAG do?" Morag asked skeptically. I put in a bookmark. This might be good.

"Well. . ." Su hesitated for a moment, but she rallied quickly. "We could, um, collect all of our pictures of him and put them into a little magazine, something to share around. We could collect press clippings. If it got big enough, he might even come to visit us."

"But we all know each other already," Padma said. "We've seen each other's pictures and posters, and whenever anybody gets something new it's shared right away."

"With a fanclub, we'd just be doing it in an organized manner," Su said. She's always been big on the idea of organization, even though she can't so much as pick up after herself. "Besides, our club would be inter-house, so we'd get to see what everyone else has stashed away too."

It actually wasn't such a bad idea. For all of Su's flakiness, any idea she bothered to pursue usually turned out well. Well, except that time with the bats. But then, none of us could have known that Lisa would turn out to be allergic to cashews.

"I don't know, you guys," I said. "Su may be on to something here."

"You would," sneered Marietta Edgecombe, a snotty sixth-year. From across the room, no less. I was a little surprised; I hadn't known she was listening to our conversation.

"Well, my sister Sarah is a pretty well-known novelist. She probably has at least a passing acquaintance with Troy. I bet if we put together an official-looking club, at the very least he'd send us some exclusive pictures."

"Sarah Brocklehurst? I've never heard of any books by her."

"Not everyone writes under their real name," I said haughtily. "I'm positive that she knows him. In fact, if we form the club, and I can't get Troy to at least acknowledge us, then I'll stand up in the middle of Potions class and tell Snape to wash his bloody hair."

Edgecombe's eyes danced in the firelight. "I'll hold you to that," she said, and immediately turned back to her other conversation.

"Great!" Su squealed, inches away from my ear. I flinched. "I'll get some flyers made up and get them on all of the house bulletin boards. Oh Mandy, this is going to be so much fun!"

Only then did it sink in. I had agreed to set up and run a club. Not with someone competent, or even by myself, but with Su Li, who is possibly the most annoying person on the planet. I was going to have to persuade my sister, who I've barely spoken to in the last two years, to get the hottest and most in-demand athlete in the world to contact me. That was assuming she even knew who Eamonn Troy was. Even if somehow she did know him, and could persuade him to get in touch with me, he was undoubtedly a busy man. If he couldn't or wouldn't make time in his schedule to see a teenage girl, then I was still sunk.

Oh well, I thought, as Su babbled inanely at my side. At least things couldn't get any worse.

Then I remembered my History of Magic paper: eight feet on the impact of Goblins on Wizard culture. Due tomorrow. I'd done the research, but somehow between Eamonn Troy and the latest issue of Apparitions Annual and my sister's latest paperback, I'd completely forgotten to actually write the stupid thing. It was going to be a long night.

Things weren't quite as bleak by the time TAG had its first meeting in mid-October. I managed to turn in my scroll with half a foot over the minimum, and Professor Binns gave me a really good mark on it. More importantly, Su helped me come up with a multi-phase plan of action. The first objective was to make TAG a resounding success.

Su put her one of her best pictures onto the flyer: one of Troy standing on top of a cliff and looking heroically in the distance. All by itself that got a lot of girls interested. Pansy Parkinson, for whatever reason, decided that liking Troy was the in thing, so we got her and her entire entourage as well. Plenty of girls showed up to our first meeting, way more than we expected. What we didn't expect were all the boys.

Su and I exchanged glances as the classroom filled up, obviously thinking the same thing. This could get awkward. How could we tactfully let these guys know that TAG was to appreciate the finer qualities of Troy's smile, as opposed to the finer points of his Chasing?

Sometimes you can accomplish more with a Bludger than a Snitch. I gave Su the go-ahead and she strode up to the podium, a big smile on her face.

"WHO HERE THINKS THAT EAMONN TROY IS HOT!"

The girls all whooped and clapped and whistled. The guys, with a few noticeable exceptions, looked horrified.

"I didn't know it was that kind of club," shouted Adrian Pucey, a scandalized expression on his face. As if he hadn't been trying to look up all our robes for the last five years. It's so annoying, how guys drool over everything with breasts and then get all moral when women do the same thing.

"The door's right there, fellows." I gestured lazily, and watched them make a rush for it.

After that rabble cleared out, the meeting could begin in earnest. Professor Flitwick gave us permission to meet in that classroom every Wednesday evening, but that conflicted with Gobstones Club, so we decided to try to move it to every other Thursday. Next, everyone had to file up to the front to sign their name on the roster and put down their seven Sickles membership fee, and after that we started tossing out ideas for the first newsletter.

The discussion was surprisingly heated for such a silly topic. Halfway through, I kicked back and continued reading my sister's novel. After their long, multi-day reconciliation, the happy couple moved to an old house as a hideaway. They were in the middle of christening every room (and there were a lot of rooms) when Su finally adjourned the first official meeting of TAG.

"Don't forget, Thursday after next!" she shouted after them. The first phase of my plan appeared to be complete.

The second phase wouldn't begin until I went home for Christmas Break. I guess I could have sent Sarah an owl, but this request was too important to trust to the vagaries of written communication.

"Sis!" she said, as she stepped out of the fireplace on the 23rd. "How'd you like my book? What was your favorite part?"

"It was great," I told her. "At the end, when the convict's ghost came back to be with the werewolf one last time, it was so sad I cried."

"Yeah, I cried too when I was writing that part. Hey, if you liked that one I bet you'll love my next book. It's set at Hogwarts, and there's this student who falls in love with his dark and mysterious professor. And even though the professor knows that it's wrong, he falls in love with the student too. It's going to be brilliant." Then off she went, talking about all the things that she was doing and planning on doing. That's the trouble with Sarah; she knows exactly how cool she is, and she never gets tired of herself.

I waited a few days to ask Sarah about the whole Troy thing. I figured I could use the time to show what a caring and loving sister she has. In other words, I had to suck up like there was no tomorrow.

I'll admit, I went a little overboard with it. My parents started giving me odd looks when they noticed me clearing Sarah's plate along with my own every meal, and gave me even odder looks when I started making Sarah's bed every day and picking up her things. Fortunately, they decided to stay out of it. Jason is usually pretty oblivious, but even he noticed me following Sarah around and laughing on cue at all of her jokes. Which were mostly obscure literary references or what I suppose were in-jokes that she has with her friends. I just know that I didn't understand any of them.

I thought that I had Sarah herself fooled, though, and that was all that mattered. And she didn't show a sign of noticing my new, house-elfier self until the day after Christmas. After opening presents, we had a huge mid-day dinner, and after that my parents went up to their room to listen to the Wireless. Jason disappeared too -- probably wanking to all the new Quidditch stuff he got. Which left only me and Sarah in the living room.

"So," she said when everyone had cleared out. "You can drop the act, sis. What do you want?"

So I told her. All of it, except the part about the bet I'd made with Edgecombe. About midway through she started giggling, and by the end she was laughing. Not just regular laughter either -- the kind that comes up from your gut and paralyzes you on the floor for minutes at a time. It was not a pretty sight at all.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "It's not funny, and I really need him to come and see us, and I was hoping that you could just do this one thing for your sister, but I guess not." I crossed my arms and flopped onto the loveseat. I was steamed, no question.

"So-so-sorry," Sarah gasped. She was holding on to the other sofa as if it was a lifeboat. "It's just -- you-you-you guys started a fanclub? Over Eam-monn Troy?" And then she started giggling again.

"Are you going to help me or not, Sarah?" I said sourly. I wasn't in the mood.

"All right, all right." She managed to regain some semblance of composure, and pulled herself onto the sofa. "I don't really know him that well, but I can reach him. If you send me a letter to send to him," she said, "I can see that he gets it. After that the Quaffle's on his side of pitch."

"Really? You could do all of that?" As I said before, I didn't expect Sarah to even know who Troy was. This was turning out remarkably well.

"I'll do my best. Just tell me this, though. Why Eamonn, of all people?"

"Have you even seen his pictures?" I blurted out. "He's the most gorgeous person on earth. And Which Witch says that he feels very strongly about the preservation of mooncalves," I added piously. "What's not to like?"

"I'll let you meet him. Maybe then you'll figure it out. Eamonn Troy, indeed. I'm going out for a smoke."

She walked out of the room, leaving me there alone. I stared after her for a moment, breathtaken by her total rudeness, but then I remembered that she had agreed to send Troy an owl. The second phase was complete, even if it hadn't ended just as I imagined it would. Super delicious.

Phase three was actually getting a reply. And that didn't take very long at all. Oona, my owl (well, actually she's Jason's too, but Jason never uses her) is very good with instructions like "if she hasn't sent a letter to Troy yet, then mess all over her manuscripts". I soon got a very snippy reply from Sarah, but more importantly a week later a gorgeous snowy white owl swooped over the Ravenclaw table and dropped practically into my lap.

"Oh my God, is that Troy's owl?" Lisa Turpin asked. She's one of Pansy's minions; when we first pitched TAG, she wouldn't have a thing to do with it until Pansy joined, and now she's got more Troy stuff than almost anyone.

"I think it might be," I replied cautiously, and pulled the letter off of the owl's leg. He hopped back a little, cocked his head at me, and then flew up without even taking a little of my pumpkin juice.

On the back of the envelope, stamped into bright crimson, was the letter T. My breath stopped for a moment. Gingerly, I peeled off the wax trying not to actually tear it, with moderate success, and then opened the envelope. The letter was the kind of beautiful creamy vellum that you only see behind the display case at Flourish and Blotts, and right at the top it said, "To the incomparable Miss Amanda Brocklehurst," in green ink.

They tell me that I just fell face-forward onto the table. The next thing I remember for certain is a circle of anxious faces and Professor Sprout shouting for everyone to move back so I could get some air.

"Are you all right, dear?" Professor Sprout asked me. "Do you need to go lie down or anything?"

"No, I'm just fine," I said breathlessly. I was better than fine. I had just received a personal letter from Eamonn Troy. A personal letter that everyone was going to want to read and tear apart. Hmm.

"Actually, professor, I think I should go and rest for a little bit," I said, trying to look pitiful. "Just for the first hour, then I should be fine."

"That should be all right, dear," Professor Sprout said. "Who do you have at that time? Professor Snape? Well, I'll just tell him what happened and everything should be fine."

I was missing a class with Professor Snape to read my own letter from Eamonn Troy. This day just kept getting better and better. "Delicious," I murmured.

"What's that, dear?" Professor Sprout half-turned.

"Er, nothing," I said, and tried to look unwell.

As soon as I got up to the tower and waved off my faithful entourage, I pulled the curtains of my bed closed and cast Lumos. Sitting crosslegged in the middle, I unfolded the letter to read the rest of it.

To the incomparable Miss Amanda Brocklehurst,
I was informed of the existence of your delightful little club by your sister, the charming novelist and conversationalist, over drinks last week.

Sarah got to have dinner with him? I frowned in dismay, but then I realized that my sister had had dinner with Troy! That easily trumped Lisa's uncle's stepson who was a towelboy for the Kestrels. I read on:

She went on to inform me that your group's greatest wish was to receive recognition from the object of their mutual affection. However, I assure you that I am willing to do much more than that.

At this point I had to stop reading to fan myself a bit. I was starting to get lightheaded again. After a moment, I flopped onto my back and read the last little bit.

I would be willing to arrange an exclusive interview for your group. Please reply soon with the time and place most convenient for you.

Yours respectfully &c.,
Eamonn Troy

For a moment, all I could do was breathe in and out. Eamonn Troy, world famous Quidditch player, world class hottie, handwrote a letter to me. He wanted to meet me, Mandy Brocklehurst, at my convenience. It was almost too much to bear. This was easily the best thing that ever happened to me, and perversely enough I had Edgecombe to thank for it.

It got better. When I started on my reply letter, I realized that the next Hogsmeade weekend fell on Valentine's Day.

Everything worked out wonderfully. Eamonn and I exchanged letters two more times until we settled for a noon meeting in front of Madam Puddifoot's. Padma knew a Gryffindor who would take our picture for a few Sickles, and enlisted him to be there at the same time. We planned to conduct the interview over lunch, but if things got too noisy, or too nosy, I knew the perfect place for us to get some privacy.

The only fly in the ointment was the owl I got from my sister two days after Troy's first letter arrived. It didn't make a lot of sense; apparently she had been too angry to write coherently, and all I could see between the blotches were phrases like "you'd better be grateful, you hear me?" and "never gone through such torment". The only thing it could possibly have referred to was the Troy set-up, but that didn't make any sense. Finally I concluded that she must accidentally sent me the wrong letter, and right now a very confused enemy was getting the down-low on her latest book and her hot date with Eamonn. I sent her an owl explaining the mix-up, but she never replied.

In the meantime, I had to get ready for my meeting with Troy. In my head, I was calling it a lunch date, but I was determined to be professional. So instead of wearing my flashy Weird Sisters light-up shirt, I went with the much more demure Celestina Warbuck Tour of '92 sweatshirt instead. It didn't hurt that she's one of Eamonn's favorite singers, of course. My trousers were Muggle khakis; I'd heard that Troy's mother was a half-blood, so of course they'd be a fitting tribute to his Muggle heritage. I only have two pairs of trainers; I chose the white ones, to symbolize purity. And of course, I wore the lucky socks that Su gave me for Christmas last year. She charmed them to be luck-seers, actually; they tingle when good luck is approaching, and wriggle a little when bad luck is coming. Except sometimes they can't quite distinguish what kind of luck is coming, and then they tingle and wriggle at the same time, and sometimes catch on fire. They haven't burned in a long time, though; Su's reinforced and refined the spell several times, so by now they really are lucky socks. For taking notes, I brought the really nice quill that Sarah got me when her first novel hit it big, and some gorgeous lavender vellum to write on.

I was armed for battle, but I wasn't meeting Eamonn until noon. So I had several hours to wander around Hogsmeade and get nervous enough to puke. My friends were with me, of course, and usually that would help. But my stomach was churning, and walking around only seemed to make it worse. As if things weren't bad enough, it was raining, and that didn't bode well at all. I tried to be pleasant and pay attention to everything, but by eleven-thirty all I could do was sit on the steps in front of Madam Puddifoot's and try not to hyperventilate.

I was supposed to have lunch with Troy! What if I threw up all over him? Mum always says that I eat like a pig; what if my manners disgusted him? What if he'd decided that he didn't like Celestina Warbuck after all? What if the rain ruined my tasteful and discreet makeup? I tried to stay calm. Padma helped a lot, but then her boyfriend Ernie Macmillan showed up and they went into the tea shop. They're such a good match for each other, and normally I'm all for them having couples time together. But not when it means that I'm left alone in the rain.

Thankfully, Eamonn Apparated in front of the shop next door at about ten minutes to noon. I might've squealed just a little when I saw him, but I quickly remembered to play it cool.

"Mr. Troy! Eamonn! Over here." He saw me after a moment, and headed over.

Close up, he was shorter than I'd expected. I mean, I'm only about five foot three, and I'd say that he was only about half an inch taller than I was.

"Miss Brocklehurst?" Eamonn had a beautiful Irish accent, and I'll admit that I went a little weak in the knees when he pronounced my name. He peered at me from beneath eyebrows that were already dripping. "Let's go inside."

As soon as we walked in, I could see that this wasn't going to work at all. The place was standing room only. My socks were tingling though, and after a moment Cho Chang rushed past us in tears, followed in short order by Harry Potter. Really, we all appreciate that the poor girl lost her boyfriend, but surely she'd be over it by now.

Cho's weepiness was a good thing today though, since it left an empty table that I was quick to claim for us. Once we settled down, there were drinks to order. Eamonn preferred tea, which surprised me because in Quidditch Weekly he said that he had a taste for mulled pomegranate juice. I figured I could save that question for the interview.

While we waited, I watched his hands. They were unusually large, and the nails were rough and bitten. I'd have to put that into my report. When he turned his palms up, I could see how calloused they were.

"Ahem," he said, and I realized that I must've been staring for about ten minutes. My face got hot. Why couldn't I make witty small talk like Sarah would have done? He was probably mentally comparing me to her and wondering how I came up short. Fortunately, just then our drinks arrived, and that gave me a chance to study him some more without seeming out of place.

He was clean-shaven today; he must've done that just before coming, to be polite. That was a little disappointing, since I prefer stubble on my men. His eyebrows, now dry, were only a little bushy. When he lifted the mug up to his face, his eyes glinted across at me like diamonds at the bottom of a mine.

We stayed that way for some time, Eamonn and I, just drinking and chatting with each other. Though by chatting I mean that he made various observations, and I said things like "um" and "I agree". He didn't seem to mind, though. It was too soon for me when he finally put down his empty glass and took on an anticipatory expression. "Well, shall we begin our interview?"

I started with my first few questions, but soon I think we could both tell that this wouldn't do at all. I hadn't noticed while we were drinking, but there were an awful lot of people gawking at us. Mostly girls, of course, but a few Quidditch fans as well. I wanted our interview to be an actual exclusive, and if I conducted it here, then every girl in the castle would know everything in it before we ever got back to Hogwarts.

"Um, do you want to go somewhere else for the interview?" I asked.

"'Choo -- excuse me, I mean, where did you have in mind?" He was so courtly! It was absolutely delicious. Not like the neanderthals I normally have to deal with, who think that chivalry is the skin that forms on the tops of potions and that the way to a girl's heart is tormenting her for months on end.

"I've got a special place I can take you to. You'll see."

It was perfect. All the girls were there on dates, so they wouldn't be able to get up and follow us. Even if they did, no one would dare to venture where we were going. I could just hear the gossip: "Troy snuck out to the Shrieking Shack with Mandy Brocklehurst! Details of their horrible deaths expected soon." At the worst, we'd have a few hours before someone's curiosity finally outweighed their common sense.

He held the door for me on the way out, too. Why can't guys like him go to Hogwarts?

The rain had mostly stopped by the time we came outside, though it was still a little drippy. Eamonn conjured an umbrella for us to walk under, and we had to huddle close together to fit under it. We were in our own little world, with raindrops splashing all around us and Eamonn's spicy cologne in my nostrils. I gladly could have stayed there forever.

Perhaps because of that, we got lost three times on our way to the Shrieking Shack, and we had to stop and retrace our steps each time. By this time you're probably wondering, why the Shrieking Shack, of all places? Didn't I realize that it's haunted by the nastiest bunch of ghosts this side of London Tower?

Well, that's what all the rumors say. But when I was thirteen, I dragged my very first Ectoplasm Identifier all the way up there one Hogsmeade weekend. I wanted to try to figure out how many spirits actually lived there, and maybe work out their types. I scanned all around the outside of the Shack, but I didn't pick up a single trace. Finally I ventured inside, and there wasn't anything or anyone there. It was baffling. I suppose the Shack crowd must've moved on long ago, and no one actually noticed.

I've been there several times since, though I never told anyone else about it. Sometimes I keep things there that I don't want anyone else to know about. Nothing really valuable, and always hidden. It's nice to have a place you can call your own.

Now, though, I was letting someone else in on the secret. I wouldn't have told most people, but this was Eamonn Troy. Surely he could be trusted.

"Here we are!" I announced, as we rounded the last bend.

"The Shrieking Shack?" he blurted out.

I looked at him oddly. Troy hadn't gone to Hogwarts for education; in his interview with Which Witch, he said that he'd been taught at home in Ireland. How would he know about the Shrieking Shack?

He must have noticed my look. "Er, I've seen pictures of it before. Aren't there a lot of malicious spirits after-living here?"

I assured him that it was perfectly safe, and we went inside. The dust was undisturbed; I use one of the spells in "Solaris Slytherin's Guide to Sneaking and Spying" to take away my footprints every time I leave. Most useful book I ever owned, that.

Anyway, we pulled up some old rickety chairs and got to talking. He told me all about what it was like growing up in Ireland near the Giant's Causeway, about what a Quidditch fanatic his father was and how he pushed him to succeed, how he'd signed to the Kestrels, what it was like playing with his teammates Mullet and Moran, and what suddenly being famous was like. We covered a lot of the minor stuff too, like his favorite food (Peking duck) and what he looked for in a girl (someone who knew a lot about Quidditch. I resolved to read up on the subject.). At some point, he noticed how quickly I was scribbling and was nice enough to charm my quill with a Transcription Spell.

"All right, last question," I said. "Are there any ladies in your life?"

He paused a moment, uncharacteristically. "Before today, I would have said that there isn't anyone in my life," he said. "But you've been so kind, listening to me blather on. I don't know if what I'm feeling is quite appropriate." He reached forward and grasped my hands in his. All of my hard-won control was going straight out the window. My socks were practically vibrating. I stopped breathing and just looked at him.

"My dear, you are by far the most incomparable woman I've ever met." Oh God, he called me a woman! He thinks of me as a woman! "The insightfulness of your questions, your calm and professional manner, to say nothing of your surpassing beauty -- believe me when I say that these are traits I have been seeking for quite a long time."

I licked my lips nervously. Oh God, now he was looking at my lips! He leaned in.

"I hope I'm not being too forward," he said, and then he kissed me.

How can I describe that kiss? At the time, I remember being completely unsurprised by the fireworks. Then I realized that those were actually sparks coming from my socks.

"Oh my God," I shouted. Of course, I directed all of my attention for the next several moments to beating the fire out, and I didn't look up until Eamonn swore savagely and tore off his shoes.

Here's what I saw when I looked up. Eamonn was growing, right in front of my eyes. His hair was lightening from black to a mousy brown, and his skin was warping horribly. I couldn't do anything but stare, too fascinated to look away and too horrified to say or do anything.

After a few minutes, the person who stood before me was tall and skinny. He had jug-handle ears and what looked like a permanent case of bad acne. He had lank brown hair and squinty brown eyes, and he stood there goggling at me in robes that were at least six inches too short.

I goggled right back, my mind completely blank. What was I supposed to do now?

Finally, I said the only thing I could think of. "Who are you?"

He seemed slightly relieved that I didn't scream or hit him or anything. "St-stan Shunpike," he stammered.

"And why," I said deliberately, "aren't you Eamonn Troy? You know, the bloke I was supposed to meet and interview today, and hey, the kiss was a nice bonus, but I kissed Eamonn Troy and you're definitely not him and I really have no idea what's going on here." I realized I was babbling, and with an effort I managed to shut up.

"I -- beggin' your pardon, miss, 'twasn't spose to turn out this way..."

Slowly and falteringly the story came out. Stan worked for the Knight Bus. Troy was always really busy with Quidditch training and whatnot and didn't have time to nurture his budding celebrity status. Troy's agent intervened with a wonderful plan: pay someone else to impersonate Troy using Polyjuice Potion and do photo shoots and interviews, while Troy was actually out practicing Quidditch. Stan Shunpike had needed the money.

"But why did you kiss me?"

Stan looked bashful. "Well, you're awful pretty, an' I seen 'ow you took notes so keerful and I says, why not?"

"You think I'm pretty?" I realized that his eyes weren't blue like Troy's, but they were a deep chocolate. And the way that he looked at me -- I had seen the same look, in Troy's face, but for some reason in Stan's it was a lot more endearing.

"You're beaut'ful, Mandy."

My socks were no longer capable of doing anything, of course, but I think at that moment they would have been tingling.

So that's the story of how I met Stan. I quit TAG pretty soon after that. Between the club and studying for O. W. L.s and sneaking out to Hogsmeade to meet Stan when he was off-duty, I barely had time for it. Anyway, according to Stan, Troy is a really unpleasant person to be around. I guess my sister went out with the real Troy, which would explain the letter. She stayed angry with me until I told her about what happened on Valentine's Day, and then she sent me a letter saying that I'd obviously gone through enough punishment. She also sent me part of her next book; let me just say that I never imagined that whipped cream and handcuffs could be put to those purposes!

Also, that annoying Gryffindor boy never did show up to take our photo, so Edgecombe refused to believe that I had met Eamonn Troy, even though half the school saw us in Madam Puddifoot's. I stood my ground and refused to admit defeat, of course. And though I didn't have anything to do with what happened to her a few months later, you can trust that I laughed when I heard about it. Laughed long and hard.

It's June now, and we're still going out. At first I was worried about what my parents would think, but they just made all kinds of incomprehensible and insulting comments about phases and delinquent charm, and told me, right in front of Stan, to remember my Contraception Charms. Honestly, they're the most embarrassing parents in the world!

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if the real Eamonn Troy had interviewed me. What if I had taken him out to the Shrieking Shack, and he had been the one to kiss me. My life would be a lot different, that's for sure. But then I think of Stan's smile, and the feel of his hands, and I decide that I like the way things ended just fine.