Third Floor Common Room, Sunday Morning

[noonedecidesmyfate]

Belle had, as promised, looked for books on time travel and on symbiotic abilities for Five. The latter was proving more difficult to track down but she had found an interesting treatise on spells to travel through time (which came with rather a lot of dire warnings about the terrible fates that befell unwary magic users who went in to such things unprepared). She'd hand it over to him eventually, after she was done reading it.

She'd brought the book with her into the common room but had set it aside for the moment in favor of the television which had apparently decided to show cheesy Netflix Christmas movies.

Time travel could wait. Or maybe it already had, since it was time travel. So Belle was going to enjoy her mug of tea and bowl of cereal and a very silly movie and then get back to reading.

[Open common room is open and I should be around most of the day!]

Comments

[imawizard]

"What's this?" Harry asked, frowning at the tv when he came in.

Poor kid had missed out on cheesy holiday movies his whole life.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

Belle had also missed out on cheesy holiday movies but then where Belle came from they didn't have movies at all. Or electricity.

"Good morning, Harry! There's a girl who's pretending to be someone else." That didn't narrow down the movie options much, did it? "And I believe she's going to fall in love with the prince." Still not narrowing it down.

[imawizard]

Not at all.

"...There's a prince?"

[white_oleander]

A mix of boredom and curiosity brought Astrid upstairs that morning, peeking in to see who was already there before cutting in toward the kitchen to grab some breakfast.

"Christmas movies already, huh?" she asked.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"Royalty makes it more exciting," Belle told him. "I'm not sure it would be nearly as interesting if she were pretending to be someone else and say, a bookseller found it. What would the consequences be?"

But tricking royalty might be treasonous! All sorts of things could happen.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

Only 34 shopping days until Christmas!

"It seems to be a day for it. It's amusing so far."

Belle was totally into this princess and mistaken identity stuff, Astrid. Totally.

[imawizard]

"What are the consequences here?" he has to ask.

He was still taking a seat, though.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"It's treason, lying to the royal family!" Was it really though, if you weren't a citizen of that country? Did real legal rules apply to fictional countries? Who could say!

"They could have her thrown out of the country, at the very least. Jailed, perhaps"

[craic_killer]

"Ooh, is it holiday movie time?"

Clare was so excited for this, Belle. You have no idea.

[imawizard]

"That feels like an overreaction," Harry said, and added, "Though I've heard about Meghan Markle."

[not_harmless]

"Oh!" Terra exclaimed. "Is this... a Christmas film?"

She'd heard of them, of course, but seeing as Christmas wasn't an Otherworld holiday, the movies themselves had never caught on.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"It seems to be," Belle agreed. "Are there many more like this, then?"

Belle. Belle, there was a whole multiverse of cheesy holiday movies out there for you to enjoy when you needed a break from reading.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"It is! And there's a prince and mistaken identities and it's all very compelling."

Too bad the common room hadn't seen fit to provide Christmas cookies to go with the movie.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"Oh, did she offend royalty where you're from?" Belle asked, intrigued.

She didn't keep up with Earth news outside of Fandom. She had no idea.

[craic_killer]

"So many," Clare said. "I've heard. Me ma won't let me watch more than one because she says it'll rot my brain and we only have the one telly and da wants to watch anything else."

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"Oh, they can't really do that, can they? Rot your brain?"

Dangerous thing to say in Fandom, Belle.

"Do you have a favorite one?"

[imawizard]

"She was an actress who married a prince so I guess everyone's supposed to hate her for that?"

There were worse reasons people hated her but he hasn't really gotten into the nuance of things like racism with respects to royalty and all.

"I don't get it."

[craic_killer]

"We have to watch the cartoon one with the little boy and his blanket every year," Clare said.

[not_harmless]

"That does sound compelling," Terra had to admit, coming in to the room and settling in on a couch. "Even if I'm not terribly sure what princes or mistaken identity have to do with Christmas."

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"That's an absurd thing to hate someone for," Belle said firmly. "Why would people do that?"

Because people were terrible, Belle. Obviously.

"I think it sounds very romantic."

[white_oleander]

"Got a good plot synopsis to catch me up so far?" Astrid asked, finding first some cereal, and now to take care of the rest.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"I haven't seen that," Belle admitted. "But I haven't seen many yet. Is it good?"

Belle would love it. It was adorable.

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"It's near Christmas where they are," Belle said. "Other than that I'm not sure yet."

[noonedecidesmyfate]

"The girl is pretending to be someone else to get close to the royal family," Belle said having decided this was A Christmas Prince and not The Princess Switch or something else. "She's a writer. Only now she cares about them."

[white_oleander]

"So was the original subterfuge for a project she was writing?" Astrid asked with a grin. "And we're about at the point where either her alias is untenable or she wishes she could reveal her true self or possibly both?"