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Author's note: 50 chapters. How the hell did that happen? Around 200k words, too, depending on how you count. More notes at end.



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Chapter 50: Hurled Peas



Wednesday, January 16, 1991: Evening, The Great Hall, shortly after the appearance of food.


"Charlie," said George, "there is a naked fairy in your hair."

"Yes, I know."

The twins stared at the top of his head.

"It probably wants someone to pay attention to it," said Charlie, "just, don't laugh at it."


It was pretty easy for the fairy to get attention, at least from the twins. She was attractive, naked, and clearly wanted people to look at her.

Fred squinted and leaned forward to get a better look. "Does she have something on her face?"

"Probably human blood," said Charlie, "from the last person who laughed at her."

The fairy looked embarrassed by that, and wiped her face until the brick-red spot of dried blood was gone. She twittered and made several gestures, then flew down to the table. She walked along it, examining the food, occasionally sampling bits and pieces.

She was now standing in front of Lee Jordan, who looked like he wasn't sure whether to look away politely or take every opportunity to stare at her. He settled for quick, side-long glances. She grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes from his plate and looked up at him while eating it.

"She's not a very neat eater, is she?" said George.

The fairy stuck her tongue out and turned her back to him, finished the potatoes, and licked her fingers while staring up at Lee. Lee squirmed, because he couldn't politely look away anymore.

"Um, Lee," said Charlie, "you know she is trying to get you to ogle her, right?"

"Yeah," added George, "if you don't she might be offended and bite you!"

The fairy smiled, looked at George, and playfully bared her teeth and snapped them at him.

"Look at that!" said Fred, "thoroughly ungrateful, she is! I guess she doesn't want to obtain her lascivious ogling by means of threats of violence." The fairy turned to look at Fred now, cocked her head, then looked back at George, then back at Fred. "Hah! She noticed we're twins. I guess we don't all look alike to them? Charlie, how much do they understand? Is it all tone of voice?"

"That's a real puzzle. Kettleburn thinks everything understands English perfectly, so he's no help. And she looks like us, right?"

Fred nodded. "Except for the wings, being naked . . ."

". . . and glowing," finished George.


"Right. I think, you know, humans want to believe animals are like us—it's just easier that way? Have you ever tried reading the Daily Prophet to an owl? Or, better yet, a dog? You do something like that and it will cock its head back and forth trying to figure out what you are doing, and look very intelligent in the process. So you assume it understands. But dogs are awesome at reading human body language, because they kind of co-evolved with us, and fairies did too, I assume." The fairy certainly looked like Charlie was making sense to her. "And body language plus tone of voice is worth a lot—think of how much you use it in a really noisy environment where you can't hear."

"So what you're saying," said George, "is we should test her."

Fred made a mock-determined expression. "Right, then. Okay, fairy, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

She looked confused.

"Must not have read ahead," explained George. "What is Gamp's Third Law of Elemental Transfiguration?"

The fairy found a large buttered pea and hurled it at George's face.

"Wow!" said Fred, "that would have gone straight in your eye if you hadn't dodged. Charlie, do you think you could teach fairies to play Quiditch? This one would be an awesome chaser."

"I don't know," said George, "that might have been a lucky throw."

"True, true. We will just have to repeat the test. Ack!" He dodged another flying pea, "Just not with my face as the hoop, okay? What if we made her a little hoop? Are you done with that pork chop?"

Fred grabbed the bone off his twin's plate, took out his wand, and concentrated for a moment. After a couple of tries he had a satisfactory fairy-sized wire hoop that stood two feet off the table, at least if you held its legs down with some dishes.

"You should make a little quaffle for her, too!" said Oliver, who had been studiously pretending none of this was happening, but couldn't resist anyone talking about Quidditch. "Here, let me . . ." He took out his wand and turned a pea into a tiny quaffle. "Okay, fairy—Charlie, does she have a name?"

"Yes, but the last person to laugh at it is with Madam Pomfrey right now. Got that? This is Treacle-mustard." The fairy nodded, confirming. "I could tell which one she was by the human blood on her face when she came in here." Charlie wasn't looking, and got hit on the side of the head with a pea. "Fine, I suppose I deserved that. Anyway, by all means carry on." He sat back, indicating that this was anybody's show but his, so no one should blame him when it ended in disaster.

"Great! Okay, Treacle-mustard," said Oliver, who was far less interested by the name than the prospect of playing Quidditch at the table, "have you ever watched a Quidditch match before?" The fairy nodded; Charlie raised his eyebrows. Everyone but Oliver looked startled. "Awesome. So, I don't have a sticking charm on this quaffle, and we've got only one hoop, but you get the idea, right?" The fairy continued to look like she understood. "Okay," he said, gesturing for her to get in the air, which she did. "Catch!"

Oliver tossed the quaffle a little high and to the left of her. She darted up and caught it with both hands. "Nice! Maybe you could be a keeper, too? So, how about you go down the table a bit and start taking shots—see how far away you can go and still get one through from, all right?"

"Bloody hell, Oliver!" said Lee, "she's actually doing it!"

"Now, while I admit I'm impressed," said Charlie, watching as one of the twins caught the quaffle with a hover charm after the fairy's throws, then returned it to her, "I don't think coaching a fairy is a fair comparison to coaching Fred and George next year."


"He's right!" said George. "Just because she's good with the quaffle . . ."

". . . doesn't mean she'd be a good beater." The twins both nodded. "So obviously . . ."

". . . you need to make her a little beater's bat and have her hit peas at Alicia and Angelina."


The twins later agreed that this was one of the best bad ideas of theirs that they had ever gotten Oliver to go along with.


Alicia and Angelina were sitting fifteen feet down the table or so, on the far side of Oliver from Lee and the twins. Once Oliver had determined that Treacle-mustard could, in fact, use a tiny beater's bat to direct a pea pretty much wherever he indicated (through the hoop from five feet off, or at Lee's nose from seven), somehow trying for the chasers actually seemed like a good idea.


"Hey! Cut it out!"

"Ow!"

"Wait . . ."

"What the?"

"Is that a fairy?"

"Ow!"

"Okay, you . . ."

"It's so cute!!! Oww!"

"Oh, come on! Okay, fairy, let's play a game. We'll all throw things at the boys, and you decide whether to block them. Sound good?"

"No fair! We were just using peas!"

"Carrots go with peas." Alicia smirked, looking unrepentant.

"Yeah," added Angelina, "and so do mashed potatoes!"



Peas, when struck by a tiny bat, deformed a little, but could take a few hits.

Cooked carrots, at least done the way British house-elves thought proper, fell apart, pieces flying in all directions.

Mashed potatoes were not amenable in any way to blocking via beater's bat, fairy-sized or no.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



"Minerva, that looks confined to your house. I think you had better go put a stop to it before it spreads."

"Of course, Albus."


There was a food fight going on in the middle of the Gryffindor table. Minerva had seen a lot of food fights over the years, and between the colors flying around and the various styles of overhand throws, she pegged it for peas, carrots, and mashed potatoes. Her students were usually good about not wasting meat—unlike some other houses—but they were creative. She knew from experience that, left alone, sooner or later spoons would get turned into improvised launchers, and eventually someone would start in on the gravy and pumpkin juice, charming them to squirt and splash in a directed fashion. That was usually a sort of point of no return, where no matter how careful everyone had been so far, things had escalated to a level at which the Ravenclaw table was no longer safe.

Of course it was centered on the Weasley twins. Of course. Why had she even bothered to wonder? And they had a fairy with them, which was darting into the path of the food over and over again. Well, at least they weren't aiming at it . . . if someone had charmed it, though, they were in serious trouble!

Oh, good, at least a few children saw her coming, and tried to get the others to stop . . . too little, too late. Fine.

"WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON HERE!"

"Oh, hi Professor McGonagall! We were teaching the fairy to play Quidditch! Did you see her? She's awesome!"

Silence.

Oliver's expression began as full-on enthusiasm, then fell into a grimace of chagrin. Everyone looked at him in amazement, then back at McGonagall. The Ravenclaws had turned around to watch, too, now. Oliver looked like he wanted to slide under the table and stay there. The fairy—naked and covered in mashed potatoes and bits of carrot—was looking at her, too, she noticed, with the same expression of earnest worry as the rest of the students. Probably not charmed, then.

It was at this point that she saw the fairy-sized Quidditch hoop and the little beater's bat in its hand.


Keep a straight face.

Do not laugh.

Do not let the corners of your mouth twitch.

Do not bite your cheeks or tongue—everyone is looking straight at you, someone will notice, and you will need to speak intelligibly soon.

Stand there silently if you must, but if you laugh, you have lost.

Take a deep breath.

If you do absolutely nothing, they will just remain scared of you for a few more seconds, and that's probably a good thing.

Do not laugh!


She took her eyes off the fairy. It was just too ridiculous-looking.


"Weasley, Weasley, and Weasley, come with me. The rest of you . . . try to clean this up."

There was a chorus of protests.

"No! No 'buts'! I don't want to hear it. Unless you wish to accompany the Weasley brothers to my office, you will stay here and assist one another in cleaning up this mess."

She stalked out of the room, looking behind only to make sure the Weasleys were following her.

"We will go to my office."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


About four minutes later, she was seated behind her desk. The children had managed to clean themselves up in the meantime. Good.

They were looking at her expectantly.

"Professor Kettleburn's lesson today was about fairies, wasn't it."

Charlie just nodded.

"Madam Pomfrey arrived at dinner late. I presume you know why, Charlie?"

"The boy she bit was making fun of her!"

Fred pretended to look confused. "Madam Pomfrey bit someone?"

Minerva just glared at him.

"Sorry."

"Please don't blame the fairy, Professor. She probably doesn't know anything about school rules, and we kind of encouraged her."

She raised her eyebrows. "We?"

"Um, I don't want to blame anybody else, either. Things just kind of got out of hand gradually."

"I am sure. Mr. Weasley, I regret using this analogy, but the war with the Dark Lord also got out of hand gradually, yet we nevertheless know who started it."

The twins looked at each other.

"It was us, professor! We were teasing her, and she started throwing peas at us . . ."

". . . but she was really good, so we made her a little Quidditch hoop—"

"Stop! This is precisely why I removed the three of you from the Great Hall without further comment. I am sure that whatever explanation you have is utterly hilarious, and makes for a heartwarming tale of friendship between species, and that Silvanus has given the fairy some adorable little name like Dew-blossom or Moonbeam—"

"Er." Charlie was going to insist on telling her, and from his expression the name was obviously something unusual that would only add to the humor of the story—a story which they would all be able to tell over and over for years to come. Fine.

"What."

"It's Treacle-mustard."

"Ah. Did Silvanus really come up with that?"

"He claims the fairies all tell him their names."

"Of course, of course." She shook her head. "I am sure, as I was saying, that whatever Treacle-mustard did was also thoroughly adorable. Am I wrong about any of this?"

"No," said Charlie, looking very surprised, "that's . . . correct so far." The twins nodded.

"I am also sure if I got to the bottom of this, I would discover something fascinating and profound about the capabilities of magical creatures when they are determined to be the center of attention. You would no doubt all look less and less at fault, and ultimately it would end with the blame resting firmly on the shoulders of Professor Kettleburn. I don't care. I can tell that no matter what I do, my further involvement in this incident would only somehow lead to further hilarity. In this, I refuse to play along. I will not question you further." She sighed, and glared at them once more for good measure.

"Nevertheless," she continued, "I cannot escape the observation that whenever something like this happens, right in the center of it I find Weasleys. Always! I must assign some sort of blame, so I am taking five points from Gryffindor—each. Do not tempt me to deduct more."

Charlie and the twins looked as if they thought they were getting off lightly under the circumstances, and said nothing.

"Excellent. I think I have removed your trouble-attracting presences from the table long enough for everyone else to calm down. If we head back now, we should still be able to get dessert."


She really did want to know what had happened. Hopefully she could get the gossip later from one of the other staff members.










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Author's notes:

Nothing special for chapter 50 -- just ridiculousness. I wanted a break after all that ponderous Dumbledore stuff, which was kind of depressing to write.

So, the automatic word counting mechanisms on the different hosting sites produce, unsurprisingly, radically different numbers. Two out of three think I have broken 200k words with this chapter. I think even with notes it's close enough. (All agree it is over ~191k, the length of _Goblet of Fire_.) Go me! And, thank you to everyone who has read this far!

Another fun number is that, by my count, I have so far used 80 characters who had either lines or internal monologue, and at least 61 of them are canon. There are what -- 600-800 total canon characters? I have no idea what's normal for fanfiction.

Anyway, I forgot to note in the last chapter that the fairy dust is a joke in response to SomeGuyFawkes, who wrote long ago in a review on Ficwad that it was nice to see a time travel device made without using ground-up fairies. I have been waiting to use the ground-up fairies for some time now. I envision it being like the stuff in ramen seasoning packets, except better. For the record, I'm not trying to advocate for or against vegetarianism or anything, nor do I have any idea whether that's what Kettleburn is doing.