The Avocado
or “Why Being the Only One Around Sirius Black When He is Bored is Hazardous to Your (Mental) Health”

“What is that?” Sirius exclaimed. Alone at their section of the table except for Lily, naturally he had to turn to her to pester to keep from being bored. A conversation would probably have been more productive, but less fun and besides, there was a chance Lily wouldn’t talk to him in a normal situation seeing as they had been fighting all day. So the only thing left for Sirius to do was insult Lily.

Lily looked down at the spoon in her hand. “It’s a spoon, Sirius. I know the concept of using utensils might be a foreign one to you, but it’s a widely accepted practice everywhere else in the civilized world.”

“Not that,” Sirius said, unimpressed by her attempts to be funny. “The avocado.”

“What is my avocado?” Lily asked.

“Yes.”

She gave him an odd look. “It’s an avocado.”

“I know it’s an avocado,” Sirius said sarcastically.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have asked what it was,” retorted Lily.

“You’re not going to eat it, are you?” Sirius asked.

“That was the general idea,” she answered.

“I mean, an avocado. Really!” Sirius shook his head mournfully.

Lily sighed and put her spoon down. “I will probably regret this, but then again, I regret many things when it comes to you. What exactly do you have against my avocado, Sirius?”

“Well, you know what avocado means, don’t you?” he asked.

Glancing at the object in question, Lily ventured, “A small green fruit?”

“No,” Sirius said in the same tone an irate professor used when explaining to the class that, not only were there stupid questions, but they were generally asked by stupid people.

“Then tell me, o mighty genius, what exactly does ‘avocado’ mean?” asked a sarcastic Lily.

“Testicle. Avocado means testicle in the Aztec language.”

Lily regarded him coolly. “Coming from you, that doesn’t surprise me in the least bit.”

Taking offence to that, Sirius demanded, “What? Don’t you believe me? Are you calling me a liar?”

“Nah, I believe you. I’m just not surprised that you know the Aztec word for testicle.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?” asked Sirius.

“You figure it out.”

“No! Tell me!” Sirius pouted.

Lily groaned at Sirius’ petulant tone. There were times when he could compete - and lose - with a three year old on his level of maturity. “What I mean,” she explained, “is that of all the words in Aztec that you could know, and Aztec isn’t exactly a common language, now, is it? The only word you do know is ‘testicle’.”

“Actually,” Sirius corrected her, “that’s one of the two Aztec words I know. The other one is ‘miasaco’.”

She probably shouldn’t have, but Lily rose to the bait. “Oh yeah? And what does that mean?”

“Irritating bitch who thinks she is clever and is named after a flower.”

“Cute, Sirius. Real cute.”

Sirius chose to take her words at face value. “Thanks. I rather thought so.”

Shaking her head, Lily did what she should have done in the first place: ignored Sirius and went back to her supper. She was just about to eat her avocado when Sirius interrupted her once again.

“What are you doing? I thought we agreed that eating avocados is bad,” he exclaimed.

“No,” Lily said with pseudo-patience, “you agreed that avocado meant testicle and therefore ... actually, I have no idea what the whole purpose of that was supposed to be. The only thing I agreed on was that I wasn’t going to listen to you anymore.”

She finished her speech by finally taking a bit of the avocado. Sirius winced. “I can’t believe you just did that,” he moaned.

“Believe it,” Lily said. She started to take another bite when Sirius lunged at her, knocking the avocado onto the floor, joined shortly after by Lily then himself.

They were perfectly still for several seconds, tangled in each other like lovers, while the rest of the Great Hall turned and stared. Then, realizing he had had gone just a little too far, Sirius scrambled up and ran off, nearly knocking over Remus, who had just arrived at the table with his food.

James, who was right behind Remus, had the good sense to step out of the way as his girlfriend went tearing after Sirius.

“You know,” commented Remus, “you would think we would be able to leave them alone for five minutes.”

“Don’t look at me,” James said. “It’s your boyfriend who started it, not mine.” Then he amended, “Girlfriend. Not my girlfriend.”

“What makes you think it was Sirius’ fault?” Remus asked. Even before James fixed him with a knowing look, he realized what he was saying. “Of course. Never mind then. Stupid question. Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

“You have no arguments from me.”

The End
Sunday, November 25, 2001