Quick, Grab the Cheese Wheels and Run! by EntirelyToo

Hi ya'll! Yes, this is charmingly-holly from ff.net if you're reading this story over there right now. So no, I didn't steal this story, it's mine. For the most part anyways (see pointless disclaimer below...)

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. Nor do I own the Chiquita Banana Girl logo.

I jumped and hid the apple that had been mere centimeters from entering my mouth behind my back. Which was an exceedingly unintelligent thing to do, considering the circumstances, as the angry screeching was coming from directly behind me.

Therefore, the apple was immediately snatched from my grasp, thus denying me the opportunity to consume the juicy goodness and satiate my growling stomach. It was already rather cross with me for not feeding it anything that morning, and it held no qualms about telling me about it. But I had been in a hurry and breakfast had been the furthest thing from my mind as I’d bundled up in my winter clothes and fallen (quite literally) down the stairs of my London apartment and out the door to brave the snowy blizzard that consumed the city.

It was rather cold outside.

My stomach didn’t find this a suitable excuse, however, and it was forcibly reminding me that my extreme hunger was due to the fact that I’d unplugged the alarm clock from the wall the night before in the hopes that I’d accidentally on purpose sleep through the appointment the next morning…

And what a horrendous appointment it was.

I scrunched my eyes closed and turned towards the voice-emitter.

“Ummmm…nothing?” I tried, while cracking an eye open and peaking at the angry storeowner in front of me through my eyelashes.

She was glaring at me, one hand on her hip and the other waving the apple in front of my nose threateningly. I jerked my head away from the fruit-turned-weapon causing my hat, already tottering precariously atop my head, to slip down over my eyes.

Madam Malkin huffed and shoved my hat back into place with such force that I stumbled backwards and nearly fell off my pedestal and into a pile of what looked like rectangular lamp shades sitting to the side of my perch. Odd thing to find in a clothing store, but it being Diagon Alley, I wasn’t overly surprised.

“How many times must I tell you not to eat your HAT?”

I looked at her blankly and contemplated her words. Did she realize how ridiculous that question sounded?

Obviously not, as her hands were now flitting about above my head straightening the various pieces of fruit fixed to my hat and ranting about the atrocious behavior she was exposed to in her line of work.

“…young people today…no respect…always complaining…you would think they could follow simple instructions…but, noooo, they still eat their hats when I specifically tell them not to…honestly, what is the world coming to?...why, in my day…”

She continued along this same line of rantage until she finally found a suitable place for the residence of the filched apple and fixed it securely to the towering pile of fruit atop my poor head.

She stood back and examined her work with narrowed eyes before giving a nod of satisfaction, snapping her head towards me, and fixing me with an accusatory glare.

She jabbed a finger at me, “If I catch you eating your hat again, Miss Weasley, I will be putting a full body bind on you and using you as a mannequin until closing time!” She gave one last jab of her finger before huffing and bustling off towards a rather corpulent man who had just come out of the dressing room wearing a loincloth.

I wrinkled my nose at the sight and turned back to examine my attire in the demonic three-way mirror behind me. I sighed. There was no use trying to convince myself otherwise. It was simple fact.

I looked like the Chiquita Banana Girl.

No really, I did. Even the demonic mirror agreed. “Oh my,” it said, three dry and raspy voices emitting from it at the same time, “I hadn’t realized it was Halloween. I feel it’s my duty to tell you you’re costume is atrocious…”

I had scowled at the mirror and scrunched my nose at my hat, resigning myself to looking like the Chiquita Banana Girl. Or at least looking like her from the neck up. The rest of me was wearing normal robes as Madam Malkin hadn’t yet forced me into the remaining pieces of my outfit.

Of course, I didn’t exactly know what the rest of the outfit looked like, but I figured that if the hat was any indication, I wouldn’t be overly excited about adorning it.

My stomach emitted a loud growl, and I once again considered the advantages of stealing one of the fruits on top of my head.

On the one hand, I was starving. As I mentioned before, I hadn’t had breakfast in my hurry to get to the fitting, and at the rate this fitting was going, I wouldn’t be able to escape to get some lunch either.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to be mannequin for the rest of the afternoon. It would be exceptionally boring, and I didn't too much fancy modeling the newest line of Inflatable Underwear that had become popular among various adolescents looking for a laugh.

I weighed the options in my mind and came to the conclusion that being a mannequin for a few short hours would beat starving to death on my pedestal and collapsing in a heap of malnutritioned human into the pile of lamp shades beside me.

I snuck a quick glance at Madam Malkin. She was attempting to minimize the obviousness of the man in the corner’s excessive girth by expanding the back of his loincloth. She wasn’t having much luck, especially since the man seemed none-too-happy about his current situation and wasn’t holding back on telling her about it. He was turning with her every time she attempted to get around him to point her wand at his back-end and shaking a sausage-like finger at her, going purple in the face.

She finally disappeared behind his rotund belly, giving me a chance to make the steal. I quickly turned my gaze back to the mirror and reached my hand up to grab the previously-filched apple.

However, just as my hand was closing around the blessed juicy-goodness, a soft, dreamy voice sounded from behind me.

“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you. It might be infested with Linklenorgs,” it said. I squeaked and spun around, my hand still grasping the apple.

Luna Lovegood was standing behind me, staring dreamily at the pineapple residing in the center of my Chiquita Banana Girl Hat.

I removed my hand from the apple and gaped at her in shock.

If I thought my hat was big…

Luna was also wearing a Chiquita Banana Girl Hat, only hers was about three times the size of mine. While mine consisted of a straw contraption with a pineapple in the center surrounded by a few varieties of fruit, Luna’s was in the form of a massive blue bowl overflowing with grapes, apples, oranges, two entire pineapples, pears, bananas, and even kiwis, all surrounding a perfectly sliced, quarter of a watermelon.

It had to weigh at least twenty pounds.

Well, it was her wedding. She could wear whatever she wanted.

She could even make me, being the Maid of Honor, wear whatever she wanted. Which was, of course, why I was a human fruit basket on a pedestal.

I slowly shut my mouth and moved my gaze to her face, “Linklenorgs?” I asked, too used to her quirkiness to comment on the hat.

She nodded, “They infest fruit and cause the consumer to fall into a deep slumber that may only be broken by the kiss of a handsome prince.”

I stared at her again, “Um, Luna? Isn’t that Snow White?”

She nodded again, “Where do you think they got the idea?” she asked before smiling vaguely and slowly wandering towards the fitting rooms, her arms outstretched and her head bobbing to either side as the hat swayed and teetered on it’s perch on top of her head.

It was conversations such as these that made me understand Luna’s choice to have a Luau for her wedding. What else should I have expected?

I stared after her for a while before sighing and turning back to check on the whereabouts of Madam Malkin. I was hoping she would still be busy with the loincloth-bedecked fat man so that I could attempt a repeat of the filching of the apple.

No such luck.

Madam Malkin was just completing her role as a Good Samaritan and was adding the finishing touches to her rather excessive expansion of the back-end of the man’s loincloth, and it was now completely covering his hefty posterior. Thank Merlin.

She gave one last flick of her wand before shooing him away and turning to scan the room for her next victim.

Her eyes, of course, alighted on my face before shooting up to my fruit basket to inspect for any missing produce. Finding none out of place, she narrowed her eyes and turned to a rack of robes beside her. She shuffled through them quickly before picking out a hanger and bustling over to me with her selection. I assumed it was the remainder of my attire.

She reached me and grabbed my shirt collar, yanking me from the pedestal and dragging me across the room. She opened a fitting room door and shoved me inside, once again causing my hat to fall over my eyes.

She stuffed something in my hands, “Now, put these on,” she ordered. And then added, “And don’t you dare eat them too!” before slamming the fitting room door with a bang.

My stomach filled with a leaden ball of dread at her mention of even more edible clothing. I freed one hand from the bundle she had given me and pushed my hat back from my eyes, blowing at a stray piece of hair that had fallen in my face. I looked down and slowly raised my hands in front of my face.

I blanched and my mouth fell open at the sight.

In one hand I grasped a hula skirt and bright pick lei.

But that wasn’t what was causing my dismay. No, that wasn’t it at all.

My dismay had arisen from the simple fact that there, hanging loosely from my fingers and knocking against each other softly, were two highly polished halves...of a coconut.

Luna Lovegood was having me wear a coconut bra at her wedding.

Her outdoor wedding.

That was in February.

Sweet Merlin, help me.