...Then she was accosted by several large purple tentacles, the kind like nylon tubes filled with jelly but without suckers.

"You cheese headed demon," Beverly exclaimed, but in a jovial laughing way even as she was placed in peril. "You think infecting the citizens of Turkeyberg with spore laden pizza slices will raise you a backup dancing zombie army to take over the world?"

"Fool!" came the voice that came from no real mouth but the speaker was a large, vein throbbing, cross lidded eyeball glaring at her from the end of the stalk (like a slug's eye, not the stem of a plant). "I'm not interested in the world. Just parts of it. The junkyards, the back alleys, the sewage plants. The locations of glorious filth. They please me and help me grow stronger. So what if collateral damage brings down the property values much lower then what people originally paid for them and makes the districts my kind of destitute?"

"Truly you are the most evil of pizzas!"

"And that's my name: Evilpizza!" And Evilpizza, with one of his tentacle arms, dunked Beverly into the Tub of Long Spoiled Smelly Gravy, stickier than the strongest patch of molasses quicksand on the whole of the planet...

At this point of her writing, realizing that she had written herself into a corner, Obderedria paused to think.

Technically, her writing assignment was supposed to be an essay on Preservative Potions due to Professor Vaillancourt -- It had taken five lessons with the professor for Obderedria to realize that the French woman was not named 'Vanilla-court' -- but the speckled haired Hufflepuff had gotten distracted with writing something else in what should have been study time for the responsible student after a day of classes and not a means of trying to remember a dream.[1]

She didn't usually need to write about Beverly's adventures. She could just think of them -- normally she just wrote letters to her imaginary pen pal but she seemed to have grown out of that. Normally normally she would be doing this kind of writing in Hufflepuff house or somewhere cozy but Obderedria wasn't above exploring the castle -- provided terror dungeons weren't on the tour[2] -- to find other places of inspiration.

Such as this hunchbacked witch statue that just stuck out on the third floor. There was probably a cruel joke in there somewhere.

Obderedria was trying to lounge against the statue, legs crossed at the ankles and together, lying sideways, as her torso inclined over the section of plinth where her current written work was flat on the stone, left arm resting on the other side of the paper. An awkward resting angle that wasn't suitable for her uniform bunched up and stretched out in different places match her posture.

As she often did when writing and thinking, Obderedria minutely licked at the sweet end of her Sugar Quill. Then she resumed writing.

...Luckily, Beverly had swamp survival training and knew how to pencil dive and kickoff from the Tub of Long Spoiled Smelly Gravy, landing a triple black-flip with a midair pivot like the gymnasts do at the Olympics.

"Curses! that have nothing to do with actual magic," cursed Evilpizza...

It made sense to her at any rate.

1.	link
2.	Where Your Fears Face You

Silvia was in a rotten mood, but to be honest, when wasn't she?  She'd written her stupid potions essay last night, breaking a total of three quills in her frustration.  Preservative potions!  Hah!  What use did she have for jams and, and, and floating eyeballs?!  They ought to be learning, what was it, how to brew fame?  Or was it bottle glory?  Either way, she decided grumpily, turning down the hall of the Humpbacked Witch.  It was an ugly statue and suddenly she hated it with all the passion usually reserved for potions class, which Silvia found dull, even when the potions in question were more her style. 

Engrossed in her impenetrable gloom, she nearly passed right over the small, pudgy writer busy against the statue.  With quick, nimble fingers, she attempted to snatch Drea's notebook from under her nose.  Why she wanted the book wasn't clear, even to Silvia.  More likely than not, she was merely annoyed that she'd nearly overlooked the writer, or was reacting instinctively to the girl's careful concentration.  It was the sort of scene Silvia enjoyed disturbing, because it was private and comfortable and (typically) didn't include her.

"What's Piggy writing, then?" she asked, practiced scowl replaced with manic grin.  "Let me see--"

..."I'll just return this to the rightful owners," said Beverly, shaking the last of the gravy off her as she picked up the Nuclear Toaster.

"You aren't getting away that easily! A pox on you, your livestock, your first born and your roommates!" And from Evilpizza's toppings came more means to trap Beverly, all manner of disgusting and gross------

Without warning the notebook Obderedria used to keep odd jottings and doodles was ripped away from her as the quill left a scribbled trail. She looked up and her eyes grew wide and dilated in horrified recognition at the dark eyes and the flaky skin on the nose of the face above her.

Silvia Bog-Goyle!! All of Obderedria's first year at Hogwarts had been spent avoiding Silvia as best as possible. It only took a few social interactions for Slytherin girl to peg the Hufflepuff as a favorite target.

"I-I-It's nothing--" Obderedria wasn't ashamed of what she wrote but she didn't think anybody but her would want to read it -- And she didn't want somebody like Silvia reading it. "--I should be working on my Potions essay, please, my notes are in there--" Somewhere in there, probably, unless the pencil headed turtle drawing she made next to last week's notes had been this notebook or another set of school notes.

Silvia grinned triumphantly, waving the notebook aloft with a theatrical air better suited to a more dramatic figure.  As it was, the grand gesture appeared ridiculous on her tiny frame. 

"Ooh, this doesn't look like potions homework to me!" Silvia crowed, ignoring Drea as her small eyes flickered across the page.  "Let's see--'then she was accosted by--' oh, my, Drea! --'by several large purple tentacles'!  I'm not sure this is appropriate for school, you know.  I wonder what our classmates would think."

The thought was delicious, if largely idle, thought and she accompanied it with another flourish, waving the notebook just out of Drea's reach--a difficult task for someone as vertically-challenged as Silvia.  There was something inherently delightful in teasing the chubby girl and all ready her foul spirits had begun to lift.  Was it the faces she made?  She did make such faces.  And the groveling--the groveling was nice too.  Remembering the Slytherin girls' haughty, sour faces, her mood fell again, and she read on.

"Beverly this--Beverly that--seriously, does this girl just go around fighting food?"  She realized that indeed she did.  A smirk stretched across her too-thin features.  "I suppose that does makes sense, considering."

Even for growing up in the muggle world, being the only child of a single mother left Obderedria very sheltered and innocent to the kinds of connotations Silvia was suggesting. She had been the girl who upon the discovery of the best selling wizarding YA book series had blushed profusely at reading the back cover summary of the first Slither Girls and blocked the memory of ever having done so. "Well, you wouldn't like it too if something like the giant squid attacked you."

Obderedria really hoped that might have triggered the appearance of a wayward cephalopod to attack Silvia but wishing wasn't going to get rid of the Slytherin.

The thought of standing up to get her notebook back didn't occur to Obderedria -- that she was marginally taller than Silvia or even standing up on the statue's base would have given her the high ground -- as mainly she wanted wanted to curl up and hide somewhere. If there had been, say, a secret hiding place under the Hunchbacked Witch or something the green spotted Hufflepuff would have given anything to hide there right now.

"Beverly doesn't just fight food, there was the war between the worms and the ticks that she broke up, the times the Shadows broke free from the Black Pit to takeover the rest of the Color Kingdom, and the time she went to Jupiter--" Obderedria lapsed into silence, ears burning and face tingling as if from talking too much. No doubts trying to explain the stories she imagined up while daydreaming was only giving Silvia more means to tease her with.

"Considering what?" she asked of the open statement, finding that she couldn't look Silvia directly in the eye, her own pair of eyes settling on the girl's prominent brow or black hair clip.

Silvia wasn't interested in the girl's blatherings--on and on about--ticks and worms?  She sniggered.  Ticks and worms.  That wasn't how you write a story at all.  Obviously the poor mucky-blood had never seen a real book before.  Silvia's tastes in literature leaned more towards non-fiction, but even she'd read stories about Morgan Le Fay and knew that real heroes fought dragons and kings and had nothing to do with peace at all.

"Oh, well, just that I expect if you fought your food instead of eating it your uniform might actually fit."  The comment was cruelly off-hand, as if Silvia wasn't even insulting Drea, only stating the obvious as she paged through the rest of her notebook.  Some of the doodles were--interesting, and she tilted her head, trying to figure out what the piglet had drawn.  Silvia couldn't draw herself, never bothered drawing at all, but never let this stop her from playing the critic.  "What is this, an imploding hippogriff?"[1]

1.

Sorry it's taken me so long to post this!  I've been stressing over starting college and had a massive writer's block.  Hopefully this means I've vanquished it, but even if I have, the next few days are going to be really busy for me.  I'm moving into my dorm in a couple of days (tomorrow is dedicated solely to the drive down XP ) and after that I've got orientation.  So if it takes me a little while to respond . . . well, that's why.  I will try to keep up with AO, but things might get a little erratic while I get settled in.  So I'm just begging you bear with me for a little while while I sort things through!

"I--I--" Obderedria's face flushed a cerise opposite of her green spotted hair. Standing self consciously her hands tugged at the edges of her clothes as if trying to avoid pulling leaves off a plant in Herbology.

"That's not why my uniform doesn't fit! We meant to take it into Madam Malkin's during our back to school shopping--but I think we forgot--" Thinking about the last time she had visited Diagon always made it feel like her hair was growing into her head and tickling her brain whenever she tried to recall the date.

Genuinely surprised that someone noticed her doodling, the Hufflepuff had her mood change like a twisty wind from "Oh, that's Evilpizza--," to further discomfort and awkward explaining "--he might have an imploded Hippogriff, but he's a pizza that collects all the nastiness in the world, turns them into toppings--"

It was a horrible thought that maybe someone as nasty as Silvia would be banished to Evilpizza, never to escape. But the though did cross Obderedria's mind before she chastised herself for such a horrid wish.

"Oh, shut up," Silvia snapped, mildly irritated by the pig's ramblings.  Born on a short fuse, it didn't take much to irritate her, mildly or otherwise.  She flipped through the rest of the notebook without much interest, before slamming it shut.  There was an evil glimmer in her eye, but much worse than that was the smile tickling her lips.  They weren't lips that had been made to smile--sneer, yes, smirk, naturally, but smile?  The expression looked entirely unnatural on her peaked features.

"You seem awfully attached to this little book, Drea.  I'm not sure it's healthy to be so well attached . . ." 

Obderedria blinked. Several times, as if an eyelash was irritating her eyeball. She cringed at how Silvia was handling her notebook, tugging at the pages that they might rip from the coil--squashed coil, she had sat on it once. Obderedria knew all the contents of the notebook, the silly stories and the doodles bordering the margins. All imagined by her so she still remembered what everything was but it was always nice to look back over the pages.

"Not healthy? But--" It was hers, for one thing! She hadn't been doing anything but writing in it when Silvia snatched it up. "--W-What are you going to do with it? Please don't--"

Any instinct to grab her notebook back was muted, she just stood there with her hands awkwardly pressed together.

Silvia tickled its pages with her wand, sickly smile still sticking to her face.  She was practically doing the girl a favor, really, getting rid of something so hideously embarrassing.  And maybe this would help cure her hopeless optimism.  You couldn't go through life always looking on the bright side of things, especially when your existence was so bleak.

"I don't know, maybe I should test out that new charm we learned in class . . . what was it again?  Incendio?"  Her lips curled wickedly, and her wand flashed in a brief, meaningless motion, tapping against the innocent pages of the book.  She paused as if to listen, then shrugged.  "Or maybe not.  Maybe Moaning Myrtle needs a good laugh?  I could flush this down her toilet . . ."

The thought appealed immensely, and not only because Silvia harbored a deep distaste for the mudblood girl's ghost.[1]

1.	How do you want this to go?  Now might be a good time to find someone interested in intervening, unless you have something else in mind, or would prefer to let Sylvia destroy the booklet.

When the Gryffindor first past her Hufflepuff and Slytherin counterparts, she didn't originally have any intentions of stopping or getting involved.  She frankly didn't worry herself much with either of the other girls.  Obderedria was strange and Silvia was a Slytherin.  And, at first, Mairead had to side with the Slytherin.  Anyone willing to shed tears over a book was probably unhealthily over attached. 

Mairead passed the two girls, casting a dark scowl in the Slytherin's direction.  After a few paces, whem Mairead heard the Slytherin threaten to flush the book, she paused and turned back.  She wasn't entirely sure why she was feeling inclined to intervene.  Perhaps, it was just Mairead's overall disdain for any of the meddling, mean girls from Slytherin.  Either way, with a slight sigh, Mairead moved back to stand next to Obderedria and put her fists on her hips, glaring up at the Slytherin.  If the Hufflepuff could grow a spine, Mairead could continue on to more important business.  Like hiding chocolate frogs in the toilets of the dungeon's girl's loo. 

"Ifrinn leat![1]"  Mairead barked at the Slytherin.  "Give the book over, ye heifer.  It's not yers." 

1.	Irish for Go to hell.

Obderedria's eyes were wide with shock at what all Silvia was threatening to do. Why to her notebook, why to her, for no reason at all?

The sudden interjection of foreign language she didn't know--was it spell? What would it do, remove spleens?--and there was one of the rowdiest Gryffindor girls. "Mairead!"

"I--" Obderedria didn't know what to say to ask for help, she was quickly becoming speechless. Heifer was a cow, right, but Obderedria wouldn't have called Silvia a heifer. That sounded more like--

Seeing as Silvia would be distracted, Obderedria finally did something of her own accord and reached out for her notebook--