Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Normal Teenage Problem

Chapter Two \

They moved on to hangman. It's difficult to win at tic tac toe when one of both of you isn't incomprehensibly stupid. Mandy tried to teach him a modified version where you charm the X's and O's to attack each other but the first time Justin tried the spell, he made Mandy's notes disappear off the page. She wouldn't play with him for a week after that.

Hangman it was.

It was Mandy's turn to guess and Justin's stomach was in knots. Two voices had been screaming in his head ever since breakfast, when he tried to convince himself Parvati Patil didn't exist. One went "ask Mandy!!!" and the other went "don't ask Mandy!!!" For the greater good, he decided to quash the "don't ask Mandy!!!" voice and spent the few minutes before class dithering, pottering, vacillating, as well as indulging in some dawdling just for good measure.

On the back of Justin's essay about Dwarfish runes could be seen the following:

_ I L L _ O U _ O T O T H E D A N _ E _ I T H _ E

"Odd," Mandy mused softly. "I've never heard of this book title."

No repeats of the Yule Ball, he thought firmly, strategically choosing to ignore her last comment.

"R?" Mandy tried.

"No." Justin drew one more limb on the stick figure and turned back to the lesson, leaving her to tackle the thinly disguised invitation. Or at least he thought it was thinly disguised. He wondered if Mandy had gotten enough sleep last night, or if she already knew and was just politely pretending.

"Ahdjk afdosj bmwn jksnv, vtavv!" said the professor cheerily. "Dsah sadfjkhxmew fs!"

One of the reasons Ancient Runes remained one of the most unpopular classes in Hogwarts was Professor Effusia's penchant for lecturing in the language she was teaching. To attempt and survive the class, a few students did manage to order the scandalously expensive Translating Quill (English Language Version) through Flourish and Blotts last year. These were the ones used by high-ranking journalists from the International Wizard Tribune or WNN, and were available in a variety of languages. In pursuit of thoroughness, the company even had specified vernaculars, which caused problems for some people. Lisa Turpin, who was known for her anal retentiveness, almost broke down when her Translation Quill refused to write U's and put Z's where S's were supposed to be.

The Quills quickly wore themselves out under the duress of Professor Sabine 'when does she ever breath?' Effusia's barrage of Old Mermish. Their translations, much to the students' anguish, became illegible. The best way to pass this class was to cling for dear life to the textbook. Having a few good contacts with the Merpeople in the lake helped, too. This year, however, they've moved on to High Troll, and so far nobody was willing to go out to the Forbidden Forest to employ one as a tutor.

"Gdishfo nampcr!" chirped Professor Effusia, and began to write something on the board.

Justin dipped his quill into his inkwell and began to take notes. In truth he liked languages. Even before the whole magic thing started he liked to watch the German existentialist movies his uncle collected, and wholly supported his grandmother's fondness for Spanish telenovelas. He liked understanding words. It gives him a sense of superiority that when he spends summers in the country with his family, he knows those noises are not the mating call of the greater kingfisher, as his father claims, but forest gnomes making fun of Finch-Fletchley Senior's large nose.

"W?" came Mandy's voice beside him.

"What?"

"Is there a W in this?" She tapped the hangman game.

"Oh. Er, over here. And here, too." He scribbled them in.

"And a C?"

"Here."

Mandy filled in the rest of the blanks herself. Justin jammed his eyeballs to the periphery, trying to see her reaction. Mandy nibbled at her quill-tip contemplatively.

"Strange," she said. "Our category was title of books published last year and I don't recall ever coming across this one. Who's it by?"

Justin resisted the urge to hit her. He was beginning to question the Sorting Hat's decision about Mandy Brocklehurst. "Justin Finch-Fletchley," he answered.

Mandy raised an eyebrow. "Oh?" And then somewhere, somehow, something clicked. "Oh!" she exclaimed, and turned a shade of scarlet.

-

Stupid Pucey, fucking Pucey, stupid fucking Adrian Pucey...

Mandy Brocklehurst was going to the Halloween dance with [see above]. Their conversation tapered off awkwardly after this revelation and they plodded through the rest of the class taking extra long notes. When class was over, Justin quickly gathered his things and was one of the first out the door. He descended the staircase two steps at a time.

He had all the emotions ready, too! The guilt from using a friend who trusted him because he was too much of a wimp to go after what he really wanted. The angst from not even trying to go after what he really wanted. There were even the self-confidence issues - some of which would have stemmed from the former two - all ready to go. It had all been ready to unfold and bloom and Mandy Brocklehurst was going with Adrian Pucey. The angst and self-confidence issue were still viable, but devoid of Mandy-shaped shields he would only have himself to blame this time.

At the foot of the stairs, Justin heard voices coming from a side corridor.

"So... will you?" someone was asking. Male. Old.

"I'm sorry," another person replied. Female. A student. She sounded absolutely heartbroken. "You know how I feel... but... we can't."

"Why?"

"Because we can't."

The man sighed, sounding equally heartbroken. "I... I understand."

The conversation sounded private and clandestine, and Justin did what anyone else would do. Separating himself from the students going to their next class, he tiptoed closer and tried to get a better listen.

"Oh, Severus, don't look so sad..."

Justin's eyes bugged out of his head. Snape?! What the hell was Snape... was this even legal? Back in his hometown, there'd be a public picketing for Snape's head and probably a raffling off for the rest of his body. Justin was aware that the wizarding world has different views on certain issues, however, and he wondered if this was one of them. 'Statutory rape? Eh, why not.' Maybe.

He inched closer to darkened corridor, pressing his back against the wall. Ninety degrees away, Professor Snape and his mystery lady continued their exchange unawares.

"Why can't I show my true feelings?" Snape whispered passionately. "Am I not allowed to be sad?"

"But you look so beautiful when you're sad..."

"You don't want me to be beautiful, Arialynne?"

Arialynne! That was the name of the transfer student! Ah, he knew it would come eventually. Arialynne. With Snape? Justin knew there was something shifty about that girl.

Well, at least something came out of this most unfortunate intrusion... Now all he had to do was escape very fast before the conversation made him take his eyes out with his wand. He couldn't run now, however. The hall was empty and his footsteps would be very audible.

"If you continue being beautiful, I might just fall in love with you," said Arialynne.

"You mean like how I fell in love with you?" said Snape softly.

Something about the words made Justin's rational mind scream in horror and try to go in eight different directions at once; anywhere, basically, as long as it wasn't within earshot of trashyromancenovel!Snape. It tripped over its own feet and stayed where it fell, gibbering.

"I don't know what I'd have done without you, Arialynne," said Snape.

"Severus, you musn't do this to yourself," said the tender young jailbait, sounding tearful. "You and Lupin are in love. Don't let me get in the way."

"I love Remus... and yet... and yet I know you, my love, as you know me. I know that you are perfect." Snape lowered his voice. "So perfect."

"Oh, Severus!"

"Arialynne!"

And then came the unmistakeable sounds of snogging.

I reckon you better get up now, said Justin's gag reflex, nudging the fallen rational mind with a foot, and tell Justin's legs to get us the fuck out of here.

Gumblefoozlewaah, rationality gibbered.

Oh, come now, said the gag reflex reproachfully. Pull your weight, will you! Hurry up before the mental images decimate you completely.

Bloobywoozles, it replied. Oomblawatzeltoss.

The gag reflex sighed. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, but for the greater good... It whipped out a cattle prod and gave the rational mind a stern tap.

Yee!

"Yee!" Justin agreed, and sprinted for the doorway.

-

On the way to Transfiguration, Justin tried to organise the questions stampeding madly around in his head. He tried to put them to a list. 'Will I ever sleep again?' was somewhere near the top, as was 'what brand of glue have they been sniffing?' Number one, however, was 'why is everyone getting some and I'm not?' Feeling quite discouraged, his mind turned, as usual, to the violent thoughts that he learned solely from watching American cop shows and listening to his brother's Korn records.

He began devising clever ways to smite them all. The perfect, sickening (in more ways than one) lovebirds. You'd think Noah was building another ark with the way everyone's been paired off. So engrossed was he in the precise mechanisms it would involve to pull Terry Boot's intestines out his anus that he crashed into someone turning the next corner.

"Oh, bloody... ah. Sorry about that. Are you alright?"

Justin, still fallen on the floor, stared up with saucer-wide eyes as his mind tried to do the eight-different-directions trick again, but for a completely different reason.

"Are you alright?" Parvati Patil repeated, eyebrows creased in concern.

"Urk," Justin replied. "Erm. Arh. Hurr."

For a moment Justin was confused as a sector of his mind showed him a picture of a cattle prod.

Parvati held out her hand. "Here, let me help you up."

Clutching her hand, Justin pushed himself to his feet and tried to un-gape.

"I didn't see you there," said Parvati. "I guess you didn't see me either."

I see you all the time. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." She tipped her head to the side and asked, "Hey, don't we both have Transfiguration next?"

Will you go to the dance with me. "Yes, we do."

"Isn't the classroom that way?" Parvati pointed behind him. Justin turned around. There it was: an open door at the other end of the hall. He had walked right past it.

"Yes, it is."

"Well, class starts in a minute, so why were you going this way?"

"Because..." Will you go to the dance with me. "Because I... walked... right past it. Er."

"Oh," she said, looking confused. "Alright..."

Will you go- shut up, alter ego, Justin thought, and inwardly smirked in satisfaction when his head was empty again. Using a series of hand gestures and monosyllabic sounds, Justin conveyed the message that he wished to walk with Parvati to class.

"Sure," she said. "Come on, we have to hurry."

Will- shut up! "Okay."

They hurried.

-

McGonagall stared at the increasingly jittery Gryffindor. "Excuse me, Weasley?"

Ron, pale-faced, repeated himself. "Neville Longbottom ate my homework."

At the adjacent table, Neville squeaked remorsefully.

"Weasley, if I-"

"I swear, I swear!" Ron exclaimed, jumping out of his seat. "I had the pebbles you gave us and I Transfigured them into Bertie Bott's jellybeans and he ate them!"

"I didn't know!" Neville cried out in anguish. "They were just lying there on the common room table and no one said anything so I thought-"

"I hope they were Skrewt-flavoured, you oafish bastard!" Ron shrieked.

"Weasley!" McGonagall exclaimed, nostrils flaring. "Watch your language! Ten points from Gryffindor!"

"Ah, f-" A sharp look from McGonagall made Ron pause and, after some quick thinking, he settled on "...ffffuzzy yellow ducks."

Justin arranged his homework into the shape of a four-leaf clover, which he thought to be quite clever since he Transfigured his pebbles into four-leaf clovers. A four-leaf clover made of four-leaf clovers. That would knock them dead. Hehe. I am an idiot, Justin concluded.

McGonagall nodded approvingly. "Good work, Justin."

Beside him, Michael Corner snickered. He found it endlessly amusing that over the years Justin became the only Hufflepuff the teachers called by his first name. Professor Flitwick had lasted longer than most, but after the thirty-seventh Flak-Felchly, Justin himself had to restore order.

To Justin's satisfaction, Michael lost points because his marshmallows made clicking sounds when knocked together. Being the good friend he was, Justin offered him a self-satisfied smirk, which Michael gloomily ignored.

Parvati Transfigured her pebbles into flowers. So did Lavender; hers were violets because she was trying to be clever. Parvati, however, had Transfigured them into different kinds of flowers. Justin recognised a daisy, pansy, and a yellow rose, but the names of the other flowers escaped him. Parvati, what kinds of flowers are these? He filed it away under Possible Conversation Topics.

Class resumed as normal, if you didn't count Ron trying to hex Neville when McGonagall's back was turned. A few years ago, Hermione would have scolded him, but now she was too busy trading flirtatious looks with Dean Thomas and slapping away Seamus's hands whenever they got too close to her C-cup breasts.

Justin thought he was crazy to notice, until Susan said she noticed them as well: a bizarre wave of changes in Hogwarts that didn't seem to affect Hufflepuff students. Slytherins, who used to be merely aloof, were now suspected of holding demonic sacrificial rituals in their common room. Except for Draco, who seemed to have developed a penchant for crying about his father and staring longingly at the sky.

The Gryffindors were no less spared. The Boy Who Lived was gay, which was alright, but then there were his friends: Ron the Boy Who Became A Bastard and Hermione the Girl Who Experienced A Spontaneous Makeover And Became The Hottest Girl At Hogwarts. There was also the Ravenclaw Seeker, Cho Chang, who was now Hogwarts number one bitch extraordinaire. Then, of course, now there was this whole Snape thing...

Justin closed his eyes and frantically shoved the thought out of his mind. No sense in unnecessary trauma a second time around.

It was as if a mysterious force took over Hogwarts and completely overlooked the Hufflepuff house.

"You're both daft," said Michael when they told him. "Of course the Hufflepuff house was affected. Didn't you notice a while back when everyone in our house temporarily became fat, blithering idiots?"

They all shuddered.

"You reckon we should be worried?" Susan asked, worried. "Maybe we should talk to Dumbledore."

In the end the three of them decided that on the whole, it seemed harmless enough. At least it made for more interesting gossip. They promised not to bring the subject up again.

Parvati was wearing her silver necklace again today. She had two, and this was the one with the clasp instead of a hook so Justin knew it was dolphin pendant. The delicate chain rested on her neck like... like a... like a delicate chain... on someone's neck.

Justin had never been very good at poetry.

McGonagall instructed them to partner up with their seatmates and Transfigure the cup of water into sand. While Justin was puzzling over the decidedly unsand-like contents of his cup, Michael already Transfigured his. He decided to celebrate the achievement by prying into Justin's private life.

"So why do you like her?" Michael asked.

"Like who?" he said automatically, looking up at the table in front of him. Thankfully, Parvati and Lavender seemed too engrossed in their work to hear.

"Par-ow!"

Justin kept his foot firmly on Michael's, adding pressure. "Speak a little louder, won't you?" he hissed.

"Sensitive, aren't we..." Michael gasped, face contorted in pain. "She won't hear-ow! Stop that!"

"Apparently your foot is as sensitive as I am." Justin let him go and turned back to his cup of water. "So you stop it." He repeated the spell in a more resolute tone and tapped the edge of the cup. The water shivered and turned slightly foggy, but that was it. "Stupid transubstantiation..." he muttered.

"Maybe you're not saying pronouncing the spell correctly," said Michael.

"Well then help me. We're supposed to be working on it together anyway, aren't we?"

With Michael's help, Justin's water turned into a brown sludge, which they supposed was better than nothing.