Pairing: Joey and Howie
Words: elaborate; plod; fumigate; complacent
The owl dropped its package into Joey's waiting hands. Six years out of wizarding school, and six years in, and it still kinda felt cool and magical when an owl arrived for him.
"What's that?" Chris asked, nodding at the brown paper wrapped bundle.
"Let me get it open first, okay?"
"Well, hurry up. Some of us aren't getting any younger."
Joey made a face at him. "For the last time, there is no fountain of youth in Florida, and there is no anti-aging spell either. Give it a rest."
"Says you."
"What, you don't believe me?" Joey opened the package. There was a note on top, and he picked it up while Chris swooped down on the contents. "Chris, don't touch..."
Chris turned into a rabbit.
Joey sighed and picked him up. "How many times do I have to tell you that Howie knows better than to send something to me without protecting it against you?"
Chris kicked him.
"Keep it up and you can stay that way," Joey warned him.
Chris kicked him again. Joey dropped him on the floor. Chris immediately hopped over to the book Howie had sent and started nosing at it.
Joey picked the book up, tucked it under his arm where Chris couldn't get at it, and opened the note.
Dear Joey,I thought you might like this. Not all Hufflepuffs are dull plodders, despite what you might think.
P.S. I've put an anti-rabbit spell inside; you'll have to actually read the book to find it.
He opened the book. It was "The Diary of Anais Nin". He didn't get it. It sounded like the kind of boring thing a Hufflepuff like Howie would read. Not that he'd ever said anything bad about Hufflepuffs to Howie. Howie had graduated before Joey started school, and when they met up again in Europe, in rival bands, they'd found things in common that had everything to do with being naked. Unfortunately, even with Apparition to help out, they only rarely found the opportunity to do naked things together. Howie said it kept them from getting complacent about things. Joey thought maybe Howie was screwing AJ on the side, which was fine with him, since he was hardly the most faithful boyfriend around.
Chris disappeared under the bed. Joey had never been all that great at Transfigurations, or any of his classes, for that matter. It looked like he was going to read the book if he wanted to get Chris back to being Chris.
Hopefully, Joey picked the book up by the spine and shook it to see if anything would fall out. Nothing. So Howie had either written the spell in the book or fastened the piece of paper with the spell into the book.
Hell. It looked like a long book too.
There was a knock on the door, and it was flung open. Justin barged in. "Hey, Chris! You gotta--- ew, man, it really stinks in here. You're going to have to fumigate this place or something. It's worse than your bus."
"Chris is under the bed," Joey said gloomily.
"He is?" Justin laid down on the floor. "The only thing under the bed is a-- oh. Hey, Chris."
He stood up with Chris cuddled in his arms. "You turned Chris into a bunny? That's not cool, man. You know he doesn't like rabbits ever since that thing with the E-A-S-T-E-R bunny."
"I think he knows how to spell. And it wasn't me, it was Howie."
Justin looked around suspiciously. "What'd you turn him into? A frog?"
"No. Howie sent me this," Joey hefted the book in demonstration, "and Chris opened it first. Howie must've put a hex on it, 'cause he turned into a rabbit. The note says there's a spell to reverse it in the book, but I gotta read the book to find it."
"You? Read?" Justin snorted. "We've got a concert tomorrow. No way are you going to have that done before then. Even if he skipped the interviews and everything."
"I know. But what else can I do? It's not like I can give the book to Lance and make him read it for me -- it might still be hexed, and then it'll be Joey and the Four Rabbits performing live at Tulsa tomorrow."
"I think we're in Texas."
"You know what I mean."
"Yeah. But I wasn't gonna touch the book. I got a better idea."
"What's that?"
Justin grinned. "Please. A Hufflepuff outwit a Slytherin? Never." He picked up the phone, and dialed. "Hey, Lance, can you come over to Chris' room? And bring your wand. Chris is a rabbit." A pause. "No, I didn't do it. Stop threatening me. Why would I do that to my best friend? Okay, so I would do that to my best friend, but it wasn't me this time, it was Howie. Yeah, I know he's a Hufflepuff. And a Backstreet Boy. Joey says it was him. Sure, I believe him. Since when do Gryffindors lie? That doesn't count. That doesn't count either. Look, Lance, just get over here, okay?" Justin hung up. "That guy has got to get laid. He's way too uptight."
"Sex is not the cure for everything."
Justin smirked at him.
"Sex is not the cure for Lance," Joey said, backtracking.
"No, because there is no cure for Lance."
Lance arched his eyebrows as he walked in the door Justin had left flung open. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" He closed the door behind him and locked it.
"Good."
"Bad."
Lance shook his head and ignored them. "Put Chris on the bed."
Justin set the rabbit down. It twitched, and looked as though it would jump off the bed. Lance glared at him, and Chris sat still.
"All right. This should work."
Five minutes later, Chris was still a rabbit, only now he had another rabbit to keep him company. The black-haired, floppy eared rabbit nuzzled the light-brown rabbit, who bit him. Chris gave Lance a reproachful look.
"Now what?" Justin asked. "'Cause, y'know, I ain't doing nothing that gets me turned into a rabbit."
Joey sighed. "No, that's probably smart. I'm just going to have to read the book. I'll skim through it or something. Can you, um, entertain Chris and Lance while I read?"
"Entertain them?"
"You know Chris."
Justin eyed Chris thoughtfully. Chris stared back, unblinking. "Yeah. I see your point. I'm gonna stay here though. I don't want to contaminate my room with rabbit-funk."
"Yeah, good idea." Joey picked up the book and started for the door. "Oh, and Justin?"
Justin was already playing with Chris' ears. "What? C'mon, Joey, I think I can be trusted with a couple of rabbits for a few hours."
"You get to tell JC about this." Joey smirked. When Chris put the band together, he hadn't been trying to form an all-wizard group. It had just kind of happened that way. Justin had been an obvious choice -- the Slytherin in the kid just shone through, even if correspondence school meant he lacked all the Slytherin indoctrination. He was blonde ambition, 100%. That Joey had attended the same school as the both of them was mere coincidence; none of them had been there at the same time as the other two. And neither JC nor Jason had been a wizard. Which, in the end, had been the reason Jason had left the group. Not musical differences. Not work ethic. But because he couldn't handle being divebombed by owls.
JC, on the other hand, after Jason had finally gotten him to notice that there were owls following them everywhere had just taken it as inspiration to start wearing feathers on his outfits. Joey wasn't sure whether JC knew the rest of NSYNC were wizards or if he just thought they were all very very gay. He was leaning toward the latter theory, based on JC's Christmas gifts from last year of flavored lube.
"Hey! Not fair!" Justin squawked. "Why do you get the easy job?"
"Trust me," Joey said, looking at the thick book. "If I could trade, I would."
![[Powered By MySQL]](/images/mysql-04.gif)
Copyright Notice: All entries are copyright (and the responsibility of) their respective authors.
