Adelaidaline Jujuvitz

"Expecto Patronum."

"You think you're funny, don't you, Laidy?"

"Oh yes, hilarious. Why do I have to learn this stupid charm? When do you suppose I will be crossing paths with a dementor this year, or any year for that matter?"

"You never know." Laidy had begun to think that Bono had adopted this saying as his catch fraise, she had been hearing so often lately. "What's your happy thought?"

"Haven't got one."

"You're kidding."

"Why have you all of a sudden decided I have chosen a career in comedy? No, I am not kidding, as gut-bustingly mirthful that is," she answered shortly. "I'm sorry that, with recent events having occurred, I am having trouble coming up with a happy thought."

"Well I just assumed, I mean you do have a vast rhetoric for a ten year old and seem to be able to come up with big word at the drop of a hat, maybe your list of memories was just as long."

"Oh now who's the comic?"

"Just come up with a happy memory... the happiest you have... ... ... ... ... do you have one? ...Ok good. Now focus on that memory and say the incantation..."

"Expecto Patronum."

"Louder... Keep thinking..."

"Expecto Patronum!"

"Louder... focus on your happy thought..."

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

"Good! Very good, Laidy! Look at it!"

She did. It was the prettiest thing she had ever seen. It was a gorgeous, pale, luminescent Bengal Tiger, prowling around her very protectively.

"That's your protronus, Laidy," Bono said from the corner. Laidy didn't take her eyes from the glowing feline. She felt herself start to sway and realized just how tired she was. The practice had taken a lot out of her. She was slightly aware of her knees buckling but was unconscious before she hit the ground.

Laidy stirred in her bed at a very late hour, or very early hour seeing as it was actually the next morning. Her eyes flickered open to darkness and she reached to her bedside table to turn on her reading light. She lay down in bed, trying to bring the illuminated part of her bedroom into focus.

Once her vision had cleared, she picked up the clock on her bedside table and groaned as she read the time. Two o'clock. What on earth was she suppose to do at two in the morning? She switched her lamp off and tried to return to sleep but sat back up again after ten minutes of tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable. She turned the light back on and searched her room for something to occupy her time.

A small, deep red book on the floor caught her eye. She racked her brain trying to remember what the book was about. After a minute or so she came round and realized it was the old diary her mother had kept. She reached down and lifted it from the floor, flipping it open to a page somewhere close to a third in.

February 13^th, 1973

Dear Diary,

Today was a bore. Not much happened. I did see Pers working on a piece of parchment in the common room today. He was all boarded up in a corner. He was using pink ink, which he's never even considered touching before, so chances are it's something for Valentines Day tomorrow. Chances are it's for Acantha, that toad. Some of his friends notified me of his fancies for her. It's driving me mad. You would have thought after the ball and all that he would have begun fancying me, but no, that thorny cow Acantha is all that's on his mind. She's not even that pretty! She's so full of herself and yet she still looks as if she's just bolted face first into a brick wall! She reminds me of great aunt Aggie's pug dog. In more than one way, too. She drools like a faucet when she falls asleep in class. And you think her stomach is going to explode on her whenever she eats, she never stops. It's fairly disgusting. Her hair is as coarse and dark as Bear's, too. So I'm going to be alone tomorrow. Valentine-less, lonely, and distraught. It's quite depressing. I actually stopped wearing that bracelet Pers gave me, it gave me too much false hope. He asked about it, seemed a bit upset, but he probably really doesn't give a swat. I told him I lost it, which seemed to depress him, but he recovered... most likely just couldn't hold the look of disappointment very long. I didn't feel like talking to him today, it hurt too much, so I pretty much turned him down whenever he tried to say something to me. He just turned and said whatever it was to Acantha every time, who gulped it up eagerly batting her lashes so ferociously I'm surprised she didn't take flight. Lord, is she a cow or what? But it's driving me to tears just thinking about how Pers led me on for so long. What dirt.

February 14^th, 1973

Dear Diary,

Today was wonderful! I woke up early and dressed in jeans and a pink and red angel sleeved blouse with darling jewelry and went downstairs with Vega, ready for a day of loneliness. I was eating breakfast, waiting for the rest of the gang to come down so we could leave for Hogsmeade, when Pers walks up to me looking very nervous indeed and gives me a valentine! The only valentine he had made! It was fairly plain, no hearts or anything, but he had used pink and I didn't want to push it. He asked me to be his valentine and I said yes, of course, and then he came with us to Hogsmeade. It was so much fun! Oh! And he also gave me another bracelet with the card, to replace the old one, which I explained on the walk to Hogsmeade I had never really lost. And he didn't mind that I had fibbed to him! He just said that this bracelet could be considered solely a Valentines Day present. It was very pretty, with pink stones set in white gold. We went to the Three Broomsticks and he bought me a butterbeer, and we talked about everything. Then we went into Quality Quidditch Supplies and I bought him new gloves that he was admiring the entire time we were there. He tried to not let me buy them but I did anyways. We went to Zonko's afterward and I bought him some more stuff there, just to even out the price range of our gifts. Then we walked back to the school and played a muggle game called Spin-The-Bottle in the boys' dormitory. Pers and me landed on each other ten times! It was fantastic. Best of all, when Pers landed on that cow Acantha he said he was really tired and asked me if I wanted to go down to the common room with him before she could kiss him. We ended up going for a walk around the courtyard, which I just got back from. He gave me a hug goodnight and then I came up here. It was the best day of my life by far. Good night, Diary.

Laidy closed the diary with a smile lingering on her lips and placed it on her bedside table. She realized she was even less tired than she was before she had started reading and decided to go down to the gym to workout a bit.

Once down there, Laidy began stretching. She contemplated the diary entries her mother had written around twenty years previous. She smiled at how much dislike emanated from her mother towards that Acantha girl. She laughed out loud when she remembered how Andi had shunned her father when she was mad at him, relating it to recent times when she use to use the silent treatment on Perseus as punishment.

When she was finished with stretching, she began practicing the back-walkovers Bono had taught her earlier in the week. After about two hours of endless stretching and kicking Laidy could do up to five back-walkovers in a row, one right into the next. She walked to the far side of the running tumbling mat and tried to do as many as she could in a row. After multiple failed attempts, she finally managed to cross the entire mat, a difficult feat. When she ended her last tumble, she was startled to see Bono staring at her from the uneven bars.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, trying not to reveal her surprise.

"About ten minutes. Those look very good. Very clean and precise. Good work. Are you fully recovered from your exhaustion?"

"Yes. I just needed to sleep."

"Good. I believe you are about ready to move on to back-handsprings. What do you think?"

"Yea, I can do them. Are we starting now? What time is it?" Just how long had she been down there?

"It's six. Yes, let's begin now." He waved a hand and a squishy wedge mat materialized between them.

Laidy jumped onto the mat's highest point and stood as straight as she could, listening to Bono as he went over the execution once more. Once he was finished, she threw her shoulders back and held her arms out in front of her. She lowered them as she lowered herself into a short squat, and then shot up and backwards as Bono helped her turn. He apparently thought she would only require a light spot, because after getting her to a handstand, he let go letting her fall on her head and come close to snapping her neck.

She glared up at him from beneath her own behind. He gave her a hand up and told her to try again. She repeated the procedure and this time felt Bono sufficiently spotting her. Two hours later, she was overly exhausted but could do a close to perfect back handspring with only the lightest of spots. It was then that Laidy admitted to not yet eating, which earned her a long lecture on the importance of a good breakfast that took the entire length from the gym to the kitchen to complete.

Once in the kitchen, Bono handed her a disgusting looking drink. It was a pea green color with a golden froth on the surface.

"You're only kidding yourself," she quipped at Bono. He gave her a stern look and shoved the crystal goblet underneath her nose. It smelt revolting and Laidy could feel the few contents in her stomach threatening her with rising up her throat if she didn't remove that rancid stench right away. She shoved it away with a stubborn look. Bono gave her a look with eyes that could shoot some oxymoronic flaming icicles into one's irises. Adelaidaline remained obstinate with a curt shake of the head.

Next thing she knew, Bono had her by the hair, head tilted to an uncomfortable angle, pouring the noxious sludge down her gasping throat. And worst of all she didn't even think to fight back. All that was on her mind was a list of therapists within her family friend knowledge that she wished to recommend to Bono: people that could help him sort out his anger problems and maybe lengthen his miniscule fuse.

When Bono finally released her she was choking on what she believed at first to be the substance, but then realized in horror was her own heave, which tasted repulsively similar. She began to feel a burning sensation in her esophagus as she fought a battle against her stomach's understandable reflex to eject the retched ooze from her body. She tried to cooperate with Bono who was yelling at her to "get it down, quick!" but as she felt her esophagus begin to deteriorate, she ran to the sink and spewed the god-awful slop down the drain. She took a deep breath, only to regurgitate once more and find she was correct in assuming her throat was being scoured: blood was laced into the retch, as if Laidy was staring down into some sort of ugly, deep-red and yellow-green marble basin.

Laidy wiped her mouth on her arm and turned to Bono with a look of pure manic in her scandalized eyes. She picked up the closest object to her and hurled it at his head. Bono caught the kettle right before it smashed his face in and had just barely shifted to put it back on the counter when the toaster whizzed by his ear. He turned to Laidy, who had pink, bloodshot eyes, and red foam rising up her acrid throat, emitting from her mouth, and trailing down her chin. She looked like some sort of derailed, rabid, crack head about to rip her tutor apart tooth and nail.

"I told you to get it down quick. Now you're going have to drink another one."

Laidy felt her gritted teeth fall apart, her mouth gap, and her eyes widen in disbelief. Then she heard herself sub-consciously begin to scream. "IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO JUST SIT HERE AND LET YOU FORCE THAT VILE SHIT DOWN MY THROAT, WELL YOU"VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING MISTER BONO!" She kept going, eyes watering from the searing pain in her lungs and larynx. "YOU TOUCH ME ONE MORE TIME AND I WILL PERSONALLY BAYONET YOU IN THE EYE NEXT TIME YOU FALL ASLEEP, GOT IT?"

Bono seemed to have gotten it. He looked shocked and Laidy was willing to bet that no one had ever stood up to him like that. She also assumed that he had never come across a ten-year-old with such a vicious rhetoric.

Bono finally closed his gaping mouth and gave her an apprehensive look. He smiled slyly and said, "I think it's about time for your kickboxing lesson. Let's just hope you can focus your anger into that, so that we don't get any crying children complaining that Adelaidaline Jujuvitz said she was going to cleave their ears off if they didn't stop contradicting her."