A New Year's Encounter

Chapter 1

Mary Clearwater sat on the steps of The Three Broomsticks and looked around at the crowd, completely enthralled. Boy, did magical folk know how to spend New Year's Eve! All around her, wizards and witches, young and old, raced around and set off Fillibuster Fireworks, drank something they called Butterbeer and generally acted foolish; and Mary absorbed every bit of it. This is just like back at school, she thought to herself, except the sights in Hogsmeade are so much more entertaining than watching Mike Stout sneak behind the school to break wind.

When the owl from her cousin Penelope had arrived inviting Mary spend her holiday in Hogsmeade, Mary was so excited. For eight and a half years now, ever since the summer Penny got her letter, Mary had been curious about the magical community. She'd made her cousin write constantly from school and tell her every little detail. And when she broke her leg and had to miss Penny's graduation last June, Mary was devastated.

But that was okay now because this was much better. On this trip her parents stayed home and instead of getting a hotel in a Muggle city and only visiting Hogwarts during the graduation ceremony, she got to stay in a magical house, in a magical town, and sit outside a magical bar. Penny had even supplied her with a set magical robes and matching cloak.

Of course Percy and Penny, her escorts for tonight, had invited Mary inside with them, but the idea of entering a room filled with drunken men with magic wands interested her very little...besides, there was so much more to see out here.

At first, when Percy had said he wanted to go inside to say hello to his old boss, Rosmerta, Mary was shocked. She might have made a comment about how in the world Perfect Prefect Percy - as Penny still called him even though he graduated from Hogwarts two years ago - could do something so undignified as work in a bar, except at that moment the street band started playing a very seductive tune. When a group of middle age witches started whooping and dancing, Mary burst out laughing instead.

"No, you two go on ahead, I have got to see this." And she plopped down on the steps to watch.

Ever since she was a kid, the idea of anyone dancing who was over the age of eighteen amused her. Maybe it was because her parents simply refused to dance and always complained when she and Penny blasted Madonna on the radio and pranced around the house like two fools. Actually her mom made her so self-conscious about it that, even though Mary liked to dance, she would die if anyone outside of her family saw her.

Mary checked her watch. Yes, in exactly one day and one half-hour, she would turn eighteen, and her dancing days would be over.

Just then, one of the women threw her bra onto the stage, and Mary laughed so hard she almost fell off the stoop. As it was she had to reach out and grab the railing, or so she expected. Instead of the cold metal she anticipated, her hand closed around something very human: a leg. Fortunately, she gained her balance. Unfortunately, the owner of the leg did not. Fireworks, something later identified as Dungbombs, and bottles filled with a curious green liquid shattered on the cement steps. The boy dropped them when his arms flailed around briefly before he went crashing to his knees.

"Umph, I'm sorry, I didn't see you there. I was trying to grab the railing." Mary apologized.

"Well women are always trying to put their hands on my body, but usually it's because they find me irritable, I mean irresistible."

Mary looked at the boy with bright red hair, now rubbing his knee, and laughed. "Trust me. If I wanted to get my hands on your body I would do so in a way that didn't leave me covered in slime," Mary pointed to the bright green stain on her robes.

Immediately, his wand appeared from inside his robes. How do wizards do that so quickly? she thought. He pointed it at her, bowed, and said, "I'm at your service, Madam. Please let me take care of that for you."

Mary had no intention of waiting for him to finish his magic spell and she jerked away quickly. No strange boy was going to place a hex on her! Especially one barely able to keep the humor out of his expression. Her sudden movement, however, displaced her from her newly secured position on the stoop, and this time, she really did fall over the side and land face down in the mud.

Through her mortification Mary noticed the lack of laughter coming from the steps and was grateful the boy possessed manners enough to not laugh. She stood up to take note of the damage and hoped her cousin's robe was salvageable.

Then she heard it: a great gasp for air - the sound someone makes when they've laughed so hard they'd failed to make any sound. Audible guffaws followed and then a sentence broken by more laughter and more wheezes.

"You...should've...let me...help." Here he had to break for more snickers. "I might have missed a few spots of the slime, but at least it would've been mud free!" The last sentence was yelled at her back as Mary raced into The Three Broomsticks. She was beginning to think his earlier slip was more on target: he was irritating.

Mary raced to the bathroom, appreciative that almost everyone was too busy partying to notice the mud-coated girl who slid along the back wall and disappeared into the loo.

"What?" Mary looked down confusedly at the perfectly clean robes and spoke to no one in particular. "What happened to the mud? And the green slime?"

"It looks like it all migrated to your face and hands. What happened to you, anyway?"

Mary looked up and saw a very pretty black girl standing in front of her. "Oh, excuse me. I didn't realize anyone else was in here. I fell in the mud outside and came in here to clean up, but it appears I'm already clean."

At this statement the girl started laughing. "You must be a Muggle. Don't you know that magical robes rarely stain? And trust me, you definitely need to do a little washing up. Just look in the mirror."

Mary walked over to the mirror, and jumped when it actually spoke to her. "Well, what do we have here, a radioactive pickle?" (The mirror in her guest room at Madam Pomfrey's house did the same thing earlier in the evening, but it still shocked her that anyone would choose to own a talking mirror. Especially ones as rude as these seemed to be.)

Although after looking in at her reflection, she had to admit the mirror was correct in its evaluation. Her hands and face glowed bright green.

"Just ignore her. She's just in a bad mood because there's so much going on outside and she's stuck in the bathroom. Here, let me help you." The girl pulled out her wand and uttered a few quick spells. This time Mary stayed perfectly still - falling flat on her face once was enough. Besides, this girl seemed friendly. "My name´s Angelina."

Mary jerked back to attention as the girl addressed her. "Oh, hi. I'm Mary."

Angelina tilted her head to the side and gave a huge smile, with gleaming white teeth and Mary upgraded her opinion from pretty to beautiful. "Well Mary, where exactly did you fall in this mud? Because I've never seen it glow lime-green before."

"Um, I think the green came from something else. Someone dropped some little bottles filled with this goo and it got on me."

"Was it a boy about eighteen with bright red hair holding a bunch of brown glass bottles?"

"Yes."

"Oh no. It sounds like you must have met my boyfriend. He likes to invent practical joke novelties along with his brother. It looks like you got in the way of their party favors for the midnight toast. But he was planning to wait till the countdown - strange that you got it early."

"Well, I don't think he intended to...I sort of tripped him."

This time Angelina really did laugh. "I hope all the bottles broke then. Just be glad you didn't drink the stuff, your entire body would be green for an entire day in that case. On the bright side, I think this fades in twenty minutes or so."

Mary looked once again at her hands. Were they getting brighter? This is just great, she thought.

"I've always hated being in the spotlight, but actually being the spotlight is worse. I think I'll just stay in here till it fades." Mary said this as she sat down on the overstuffed couch. "And WHAT is that smell? I know this is a bathroom, but common, that's horrible...why are you laughing?"

"It's you."

"What?"

"You. You're the one that stinks. I wasn't going to mention it because I wasn't sure if you smelled it or not (loud snort from Mary) and I didn't want to bring it up." Angelina scrunched her nose, "I saw his brother grab some Dungbombs before we snuck out of Hogwarts tonight. I think you got a pretty big hit by some pretty big explosives."

"No offense, Angelina, but your boyfriend's really starting to bug...Hogwarts? You go to Hogwarts? My cousin went there - just graduated last year." Mary's enthusiasm grew, "Ohhh. How do you like it...what year are you...do the staircases really move...? Wait. I didn't think you were allowed in Hogsmeade on New Year's Eve. How'd you get permission?"

The girls lost track of the time as they spoke of Hogwarts, classes, and sneaking out. They'd just begun talking about Angelina's boyfriend and how they had started dating, but were interrupted by the unmistakable countdown, "Ten...Nine..."

Angelina jumped up and ran out the door, pausing briefly to explain, "I have to go. If I don't find Fred to kiss at midnight, I'll have bad luck all year...it was nice meeting you, bye."

Mary looked at the closed door, then at her hands and noticed they had returned back to their original color. Well, it's pointless to stay in here any longer, she thought. I might as well join the fun. "Six...Five..."

In her haste to get outside before the fireworks began, Mary failed to notice the boy until she ran into him. "See, I told you women can't keep their hands off me. Geez woman, the least you could do is try to hide it. Have you no pride?"

Intending to make a sarcastic remark about how maybe the women were using their hands to push him away, Mary looked up into the smiling face of the boy from earlier just as the crowd yelled, "...One...Happy New Year!!!!"

Explosions of fireworks, noisemakers, and sparkling torches erupted. Everyone all around started kissing, and Mary was quite shocked when the boy began to lean in. She jerked away quickly and said, "What - you couldn't find your girlfriend, so just anyone else would do? You sure have a lot of nerve. She's the most interesting person I've met so far and you treat her like this?"

"Girlfriend? I don't have a girlfriend," he said.

"Yes, well, does she know that?" She continued, "Because I recall Angelina saying quite clearly that the boy I bumped into with all the booby traps was, in fact, her boyfriend."

The boy started to laugh, "Angelina was confused. She and I are most definitely not dating. I know for a fact she finds me attractive, but it would never work out."

Mary was appalled. Of course they were dating, how many redheaded, practical jokers running around with Dungbombs and green slime could there be? And the fact that he was leading on someone as cool as Angelina really got under her skin; she couldn't refrain from a quick remark before turning to leave. "You're disgusting. Men. You're all disgusting...except for Percy." Mary thought of the way Percy looked at Penny with such emotion. Too bad this boy was such a loser, because she just might be attracted to him...

The boy grabbed her arm and spun her back around, "Percy? Did you say Percy, as in Percy Weasley, my bro..."

Whatever he intended to say got cut off as someone barreled into his back: someone who looked exactly like him and was followed by a worried-looking Angelina. "George, we have to get out of here. I just saw Percy and Professor Snape; if either of them sees us we're in for it."

As Fred grabbed his twin and pulled him towards the backdoor, everything started to click into place for Mary. George and Fred were twins: Percy's twin brothers. Penelope had written about them and how much they annoyed Percy.

Mary laughed. Now she understood Percy's irritation.