A Brownie Obsession Unrelated To James Potter

I had a problem.

I had loads of problems.

But this one was the main one.

The one that probably triggered the rest of my problems.

I never liked problem solving, I was never good at Maths (okay, who am I kidding? I was brilliant at Maths. I just didn't like the effing subject!)

I was never normal (of course being a witch sort of takes you off the normal scale, but besides that). I was always the one who would probably put leaves in my hair instead of normal hair clips. Or make skirts out of scarves because my Mother thought I was too young to be bought mini skirts (I was 14 for Merlin's sake!).

This problem. This was the most unusual out of all the abnormalities I had.

I was obsessed with eating brownies.

Of course this usually occurred after I saw him but I don't really like to mention that because I refuse to believe that I eat brownies because of him.

(It's delusional. I'm telling you, people at this school are totally out to get me.)

So there I was, forced to sit in Madame Pomfrey's office. Waiting for this child/young adult (the young adult put after I protested heavily that I was not a child!) counsellor, who would try and find out why I ate so many brownies, managed to not gain any weight, but drag myself into the hospital wing complaining about how my stummy (I refuse to believe I actually used this particular word, but Madame Pomfrey insists that I did) hurts.

'This girl is absolutely mental,' Madame Pomfrey had cried to Professor McGonagall when I had been taken out of Transfiguration. 'She needs to see the counsellor!'

'My dear Poppy, would you care to explain to me why this girl, who in my opinion is perfectly normal, needs to see the counsellor?' Professor McGonagall had asked.

Five minutes later.

'Miss Evans, you will be seeing the Hogwarts child - ' I cleared my throat. ' – I mean young adult counsellor,' McGonagall said to me.

I knew this was coming. I had foresaw it (Seriously, I have like a sixth sense about these things).

It was only a matter of time before someone would take me away from those delicious brownies.

After a while of being fed biscuits by Madame Pomfrey, (she insisted I had biscuits no matter how much I protested that I didn't have a problem and one brownie wouldn't hurt anyway) the young adult counsellor walked in.

She was a fairly nice looking lady, she seemed more like a Mother. But I knew what was behind that short, blond hair and those soft brown eyes. An evil woman, here to take my brownies away from me.

(Have you ever tried the brownies the house elves make? I mean it's got like this layer of that thing you make brownies out of, and then there's this filling of absolutely scrumptious fudge or whatever, and then that brownie thing again, and then its covered with milk chocolate frosting that is finger licking good. You so need to try it.)

(I do not have a problem!)

I sat on the leather rotating chair (oh yeah! It rotated! BOO YAH!), and waited for the so called 'nice' lady to come and sit on the chair across me.

She had had a patronising look on her face. (And for a moment there, I was scared she was going to eat me, but it turns out she was just 'brushing something of my shoulder'. I don't trust these counsellors. I mean come on! I was almost eaten by one a minute ago, you would be scarred too!)

'Lily, is it?' she asked me. 'That's a very pretty name.'

I nodded and tried to smile at her, whilst still putting the problem child look on my face. 'I'm Pat,' she said to me.

She cleared her throat and crossed her arms as she looked at me with a pitying look. (I'm sure it was a pitying look, but McGonagall thinks she was trying to sympathise)

'Darling, what do you feel about – cookies?' she asked me.

I shrugged, 'They're okay, I prefer cookie dough,' I had said.

And like this questions about my favourite foods had been asked, after she asked me about my personal life, what did this have to do with me liking brownies anyway?

'Do you have any brothers or sisters?' she asked me in her falsely sweet voice.

I rolled my eyes, 'A sister, older, called Petunia,' I said irritably.

And she had looked at my expression, tutted, and then scribbled something into the parchment that was in her hand.

'Are your parents divorced?'

'No.'

'Do you feel you can talk to your parents?'

'No.'

'Do you feel you can talk to any of your friends?'

'Yes.'

'Do you ever have the need to talk to your friends?'

'Well we don't exactly communicate through song.'

'Right.'

She muttered something about me being bitter, as she wrote furiously into her parchment. She looked up again, the fake smile plastered on her face.

'Do you like boys?'

'As a species, I feel that they are immature imbeciles with raging hormones who only think about food and sex. If you mean as in am I straight, then yes, I am.'

'Have you ever had a boyfriend?'

'Have you?'

'Dear, this is about you, I repeat. Have you ever had a boyfriend?'

'Yes.'

'Would you want to elaborate on that?'

'Would you?'

'That doesn't make sense love.'

'Your face doesn't make sense!'

'Hmph! Well you are being completely unreasonable! How am I supposed to find out the source of your obsession if you refuse to cooperate?'

'There is no obsession.'

'Which makes it quite clear that there is.'

Which was when she finally got to the point.

'Dear,' she started, taking my hand, and I had to practically restrain myself from not snatching it back, seriously, first almost eating me, and now touching me, oh I so wanted to take legal actions. 'I'm afraid you've got a rather unhealthy obsession with eating brownies.'

I shook my head frantically, 'I'm afraid you are mistaken. There is no obsession with brownies!' I objected.

She gasped, 'Of course dear, its not the brownies you're obsessed with!'

I nodded casually, 'Of course not.'

'But then why do you explain your need to eat brownies constantly?' she asked me.

'Well I only ever eat them when I see James Potter,' I said defensively, before realising my mistake and mentally slapping myself.

Why had I just told this horrific horrendous absolutely untrue lie?

Unless it wasn't a horrific horrendous absolutely untrue lie and was in reality a very horrific horrendous absolutely true fact?

Naaaah.

'Come again? Did you just say you eat brownies because of a – boy?' the woman asked me in disbelief.

'I said no such thing,' I denied.

'But you did dear,' she said. 'So tell me about this James Potter. What's he like? Good looking?'

I nodded with a grin, but quickly regained myself, 'Absolutely not, he is an arrogant bullying toe-rag who means nothing whatsoever to me,' I stated.

'Carry on,' she said smugly.

'There is nothing to carry on about,' I said forcefully. 'James Potter is not worth talking about.'

'Why would you say that?' she asked me innocently, I wish I had realised then what she was asking me was no way innocent, and behind it was a trick for me to spill what I was really feeling.

'Because he goes around messing up his hair to look as if he's just got off his broomstick, and then playing around with that snitch in the corridors, hexing people just because he can, hanging around with his bloody big arse 'Marauders' and pranking anyone who they don't bloody like, he treats girls like flippin' toys, and then he's got this rotten habit of asking me out every bloody time he sees me! That James Sodding Potter!'

'I'm sensing a lot of aggression about this James Potter?' the woman carried on, making me want to scratch that smug look of her face. She knew she had gotten to me, and when you got me started, it was very hard to make me stop.

'Aggression? Aggression is an understatement! That boy gets on my each skin particle from head to toe!' I said aggressively. 'Why must he feel it necessary to tousle his hair every single moment? And what is with the damn strut?' I asked, not expecting an answer.

The counsellor nodded empathically, for a while I had actually thought she cared, she was just a counsellor though I suppose pretending to care is what she did.

I stopped then, my voice faltered, 'But – but then, he does the most amazing things – he'll stick up for me, and he – he leaves me, little notes in my books, though I hate the fact that he actually scribbles in them, it-it makes me smile. And he looks really nice when he grins, you know what sort of grin I mean? Like – the one that – like, he's got a dimple, and – whenever he smiles – I, I want to kiss that dimple. Really he's just – got the most adorable eyes you could ever fall for, the cutest smile that can take my breath away. And he's got the ability to make me laugh every time he speaks, even though I might not laugh in front of him and – whenever I look into his eyes, I find it really hard to turn away,' I finished, talking mostly to myself.

This was how it had started I realised. The so-called brownie obsession.

I think I might have been saying it out loud: I remember it quite clearly now, I think I had been trying to block it out, or perhaps I myself didn't feel it to be significant enough to be remembered, yet maybe my memory had closed it up some place, so that I would react to it, but I wouldn't know what it would be.

It had been a – nasty day. That was one way of putting it, truth was, I had never hated Hogwarts that much before. I felt like everyone was out to get me, schoolwork had been getting too much, I was sick of being called a 'mudblood' and there was too much pressure. But to add to all of that, I had gotten a letter from my beloved sister (not!). My parents had died in my third year, and this was not what was upsetting me that day, I had already grieved over them. What my lovely sister had written to me, was to inform me that she was getting married, and I believe her exact written words were:

So please don't bother showing your ugly face here, I want my wedding to be the happiest day of my life.

It was bad enough not having anyone, but if the one person in your life who you called family didn't want you there on the 'happiest day of their life', well that was the straw that broke the camels back.

And before I knew it, I was up at one in the morning, in the common room, crying my eyes out.

I had been sitting, leaning against an armchair, right next to the fireplace. And then a voice from behind me had nervously said, 'Brownie?' before a plate of brownies appeared in front of me, and with it, the legendary James Potter.

I had looked at him questioningly as I sniffed with dignity and wiped my tears.

He crossed his legs and leaned closer to me, 'I was ten,' he said to me, 'Bloody obsessed with muggle bicycles, and I could never figure out how to use it. Neither of my parents were experts either. Once, while attempting to ride my bike, I tripped over a rock, and practically sliced my knee open… okay so I'm exaggerating there, but I got a really bad cut on my knee. So I sat there, on my mum's lap after she had cleaned my knee up, tears on my face. And to cheer me up, she brought this plate of brownies. And she said to me "Brownies are the best cure", and –' he picked a brownie up and placed it into my hand, '- that reasoning has never failed me before.'

I had looked at the brownie in my hands, and without question I had eaten it. And I remember, sitting there till about three, exchanging childhood stories with James Potter and eating the best chocolate brownies I had ever tasted. And I had realised James's Mum was right:

Brownies were the best cure.

And we had gone up back to our dorms, and the next day, I am pretty sure I pretended like nothing had happened. Because I knew it would make life so much less complicated. And surprisingly, James had forgotten too.

What shocked me that this was the first time I had ever talked about this to anyone.

'- Maybe it was a dream, because it didn't seem real,' I finished looking at counsellor.

'Well it certainly explains your obsession with brownies,' she said to me.

'Thanks Pat,' I smiled at her. My face dropped into a painfully confused expression, 'I like James Potter don't I?' I asked her quietly.

Pat nodded, 'You do realise you have to talk to him right?' she asked me, and I nodded, excitement and nerves taking over me.

I said good bye to her, and walked out of the nurse's office, making sure that I wouldn't be noticed by Madame Pomfrey or McGonagall.

-

I tapped on his shoulder gently, and he swiftly turned around, it couldn't be plainer that he was surprised and in shock to see me there. I smiled at him, my hands still behind my back.

He looked at me questioningly, and I brought my hands in front of him, a plate of brownies in one of them. He was looking at the plate with a pleasant but surprised look.

He looked up at me, waiting for me to say anything.

'Someone once told me brownies were the best cure,' I said to him.

He continued to look confused but he didn't say anything, so I carried on 'But I have this really bad disease,' I said 'You see, I cant stop thinking about someone, and the brownies wont cure that. So I need you to tell me why the brownies aren't working.'

And James looked crestfallen, unable to come up with a solution to the weirdest problem anyone had ever told him.

And with impulse, I picked up a brownie and placed it in his hand, and then I reached over, looked into those amazing eyes of his which were full of surprise and hope, and I kissed him.

He dropped the brownie and wrapped his arms around my waist as I put my arms around his neck.

And when I kissed him it was blissful, better than any other brownie.

We broke apart. 'They didn't work because I didn't want them to,' I whispered, my lips still touching his.

-

Brownies can cure anything.

Unless of course – you don't want to be cured.