#it's hard to find yellow stuff on this hellsite when you need to- man a pain in the ass for sure

[aaaa-mpersand]

Just Use Your Hogwarts House Traits...

DISCLAIMER: I wrote this like, 2 years ago, when I was way young. Obviously, now we know that JK Rowling is a jackass, so I want to clarify that I don’t support her or her work. The story itself isn’t about harry potter, but it does use a harry potter reference as a punchline. Anyway, summary is that this is a funny vent story I wrote about interviews, because they’re awkward and there’s a lot of pressure and I never know what to say. It’s an urban fantasy about a young witch who’s just as pretentious as Holden Caulfield but funnier (I hope?) and a demon in the woods who does her math homework for her. They’re at an interview. This is basically a crack fic. ––––––––– "How would your friends describe you?" 

I tilt my head to the side as I consider his words, hyper aware of his gaze. You’d think they’d transfigured hawks, put ties on them, and told them to run interviews by how he’s looking at me, occasionally making notes on his clipboard even though I’ve yet to say a word. The fluorescent light above us continues to hum with electricity, bathing the room with glaring light that make the walls even paler. I tap my fingers on the stainless steel desk, thump my dirty sneakers against the perfect blue carpet. I can see the notes he’s scratching into the notepad, even though the wooden back of the clipboard is faced towards me. I can see it like someone hooked up a spy camera behind him and linked it up to my head. Dyed red hair––obviously symbolises her secret affiliation to secret organizations. Wholly unprofessional, and she fools no one. Trekked half a forest full of dirt into my office with those mismatched shoes––no respect for property and communal spaces. Hair uncombed, bad posture, chipped nails, and fidgeting suggests poor work ethic and unpreparedness. Denim skirts went out of fashion two decades ago. The obviously hand-knitted scarf she’s wearing looks like the crap I gave when Melissa told me was late because her car broke down suspiciously close to the nearest Starbucks. I think she’s trying to use it to cover up the horrendous pimple on her nose–– “Excuse me ma’am,” he says, his voice bleeding irritation leashed back by iron-willed politeness. “Would you please answer the question?” “What?” I ask, jerked from my thoughts. His thin lips crease into a brief frown. It’s an honest question, but people with ties and clipboards hate it when you say ‘what.’ He sighs through his nose instead of his mouth. It fools no one. “The question, Miss Chant.” “What was the question again?” A vein I hadn’t noticed before in his neck bulges. I can’t blame him. We’ve probably been here for longer than he expected. “How would your friends describe you, Miss Chant?” I lean back in my seat to consider it again, and he almost looks like he’s about to turn into a ball of flames and burn a hole through the floor. It would be funny if I were doing this on purpose, but I’m wracking my brain like a senior five minutes from the end of their final exam. Hard-working? Too generic, and Aunt Way would hold it over my head every time she wanted me to do laundry. She has a way of knowing these things. Team player? Absolutely no one in my life would let me live that one down, and I doubt he would believe me either. “Miss Chant.” I can feel his annoyance and anger rising like a storm, and my thoughts turn frantic. Unique? No one cares about that. Expressive? Just about the worst way to sell yourself to someone like Mr. Hawk Interviewer. The solution dawns on me, and I almost knock my chair over in my haste to get up. Wordlessly, frantically, I motion for him to wait, pulling out sharpies and tealights out of my coat pocket and accidentally dropping a few colorful hair bands in the process. He opens his mouth to protest, the same way he did when he was trying to stop me from wearing my big bulky coat into the interview in the first place, but I’m already out of my seat and crouching on the floor. “Miss Chant, what are you doing?” “One second,” I say, and before he can say anything else, I pop the cap off the red sharpie and start drawing symbols I’ve doodled and traced since I was a toddler. He splutters––they always splutter––but I pay him no attention as I place the tea candles in their respective spots. “Miss Chant!” He gets up. That’s always a bad thing in an interview, but I can’t think about it now. He wouldn’t listen even if I tried to explain. You can always tell what type of people wouldn’t listen even if you tried to explain, and Mr. Hawk is one of them. Before he can take another step, I pull a lighter out of my pocket and quickly light all of the tealights. He pauses, as if scared to accidentally knock over a candle and set the whole place ablaze, but his efforts are futile, because I mutter a few words under my breath, and the whole room is engulfed in flames. Or at least, that’s what it looks like. Mr. Hawk makes a strangled sound (I take it back, he’s not a hawk, he sounds like an ostrich who smoked too many cigarettes when he was a teenager) but I barely blink. You get used to the room being swallowed entirely by harmless, piercing white flames after the first twenty times. It’s barely for 2 seconds, however, before the flames disappear with a crack, and in the place of my messily scrawled symbols, there is––

"A cat,” he says, finally, looking as if the purring ball of fur on the carpet floor was about to sprout wings and laser eyes. “That’s a cat.” “Yes,” I frown. The cat’s coat is a pure white. The only one of my cats who’s even close to this color is Timothy, and I sold him to the man next door last week for seven AA batteries. “And it’s not one of mine.” “You mean…” he clutches his clipboard tighter––I’m surprised he’s even still holding it. “It wasn’t supposed to be a cat?” “Well, it isn’t,” I say, deciding to answer him honestly. “Just give it a moment. Sometimes these things are finicky.” I squint at the carpet around the cat, trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong. (It’s a little bit like math sometimes. You stare at the problem until you figure out what simple mistake made the whole thing give you a completely inaccurate answer.) This time, it only take a few sweeping glances before I notice the issue. “You’ve knocked over my tealight!” I say, irritated, scampering over to the candle at the interviewer’s feet. In his terror, he must’ve flipped it over. He mumbles an apology, but I barely hear it as I pull the tealight right side up, grimacing at the spot of wax that had stuck to the navy carpet. The janitors would have a hell of a time cleaning that up. Looking back just in time, I see the cat stand up, suddenly alert. Ordinary at first, and then its back legs bulge to the size of a basketball, then to the size of a table. The interview visibly pales––I almost feel bad for him, but it’s what you get when you mess up a simple summoning––and the cat pivots upright. Fur turns to leathery skin and scales, claws elongate, horns push out of its scalp like a plant sprouting in fast motion. The whole cat––or well, not really a cat anymore––swells ten times their size, turns a dull, bluish grey, and then opens their slitted gold eyes.

Their lips curl into a wide grin, revealing yellowed fangs. “Colin!” “It’s Kerin,” I correct him, politely. They squint at me for a very long time, bending down so their curled horns don’t scrape at the ceiling. They only stop when their face is inches from mine, and I struggle to keep my face straight when they breathe lightly on my face. It smells like a boy’s locker room after a three hour long football game. "Long time no see!” they say after a long moment, straightening and then banging their horns against the ceiling so hard it leaves cracks. They barely seem to notice. “What do you need today, Miss Colin. I have this week’s math test already completed, answers verified, if that’s what you––” “––No thank you,” I cut in quickly. My not-so-honorable testing habits were not something I want to flaunt in the present situation. “I just need you to tell me how you would describe me.” Their brow furrows in confusion, and they peer around the room, gaze falling on the interviewer, who is clutching his desk to keep from fainting. “Are you at an interview or something, Miss Colin?”  “Yup. Internship.” They frown. “Are you sure you’re allowed to summon me around here? “They said they wanted interns who were good problem solvers and could think out of the box,” I reply, which is not really a lie. They seem satisfied with the explanation, however, and tap at their chin with one large, scaly finger. “What question did he ask you, Miss Colin?” “How would my friend describe me,” I say. They crack a bright, genuine smile at my implication, but it’s hardly old news. Supernatural creature or not, they’re the only one that can stand me. "Just use your Hogwarts house traits!” They say, throwing their hands up and accidentally carving deep scratches into the ceiling. The interviewer chokes out a small scream––I almost forgot he was there––and swallows in terror. They carry on as if they hadn’t even noticed. “I found that advice on tumblr. It’s crazy how much useful stuff you can find on that such a freakish hellsite." “I don’t like Harry Potter,” I say, but when both the interviewer and my friend gape soundlessly at me (though, probably for different reasons), I quickly amend my words. “I mean, I liked the books and all, those were great, but the movies were terribly done. I mean, the whole ‘did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire scene? And don’t even get me started on the Cursed Child––” “But you’ve got to have taken the Pottermore sorting quiz before, right?” they asked, the words almost sounding like a plea. I sigh. “Yeah,” I say, “I got ravenclaw.” “That’s great!” They say, breaking into another grin of good intentions and rotting teeth. “I got hufflepuff. It’s too bad we’re not house buddies––” “Yeah, but I need you to tell me how you would describe me,” I say, my patience growing thin. It was only a matter of time before the interviewer stopped staring at me like I was an alien species and started yelling about the scratches on his ceiling and the wax on his carpet. “That’s why I called you here.” “Well,” They tilt their head to the side, tapping their finger against their chin. “You’re funny.” “This is an internship. They don’t care about my endless wit.” Though I had to agree it was one of my best traits. They press their lips together. “And you’re kind. You come to visit me every day, or whenever you can. You’re really smart because you like to read, especially about space and stuff. You’re really brave, cause one time you got stuck in a fairy circle but you didn’t even panic, and all you did was tell the fae that you would rip out her perfect teeth from her jaw and make her eat every single one of them like cough medicine. And you’re really sensitive––” “––I’m not sensitive––” “––Because one time High Witch Way Chant told you to stop wearing mismatched shoes and walking around in the forest so much, and you came to my place and cried for three d––” “––Okay that’s enough,” I said, starting to regret my decision. I glanced over at the interviewer, who still looked like they’d been forcibly shoved into cardiac arrest. I decided to count that as a blessing. “Thank you for your help. You can go now.” They frown. “But you haven’t paid.” I roll my eyes. “Do I have to?” They wave a finger in my face. “You know the rules, Miss Colin. If you’d come over to my place, it would’ve been different, but because you summoned me––” “––Yeah, I couldn’t exactly run to a cottage in the middle of a forest in the middle of an interview––” They shook their head. “You know the rules, Miss Colin.”

Sighing, I search my pockets, finally finding what I’m looking for in the back pocket of my denim skirt. I pull it out, and then, one by one, I toss them seven AA batteries.

"Thanks," I say again. They nod to acknowledge my words, their large, coiling horns glowing white with heat as they do. The interviewer makes himself even smaller, struggling to stay upright on his wobbly legs, but it doesn’t make a difference. In another flash of light, they’re gone. All that’s left are a couple crushed tealights, bleeding broken sharpies, and a lot of wax stuck to the once-perfect navy carpet. The clipboard lays forgotten on the floor.

"I'm very intelligent, curious..." I tap the side of my chin, turning back around to face him. "And creative." 

The interviewer manages to choke out just enough words to tell me I'm fired.