Of Pranks & Princes

Emily trudged back up the stairs toward the Divination classroom in the North Tower, her feet scuffing against the stone with each step. Her hand was clenched so tightly around the strap of her bag that her fingers were going numb.

“Oi!” a voice called out, echoing through the stairwell. “Wait up!”

She could hear the thumping footsteps speeding up behind her, shoes slapping hard against the floor gracelessly, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop moving, lest she lose the will to move altogether. The clock had already rung out that she was late, announced it to the world, mocking her as she travelled from Potions.

Ugh, Potions. She felt anger-fuelled heat rise in her cheeks upon the thought of it.

“Hey!” the voice called again, much closer this time — he had nearly caught up to her from the bottom of the stairwell. “I’m talking to you, Princey; no need to be so rude.”

“What do you want?” she demanded as she spun around to face him, and the realization hit her quickly that her tone was harsher than anticipated.

At first, he looked almost afraid — his eyes a bit buggy, his mouth the slightest agape. But then he chuckled, and it melted away. “Wherever you’re headed, you’re late… and you sort of look like a car hit you.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She turned back and continued walking; he followed her. “And, by the way, I’m going to Divination, which is the only class up this way.”

“You can’t go in like this!” He moved his hand wildly through the air in front of her. “Trelawny’ll go batty!” He flipped his hands over his face like face spectacles and spoke in a breathy, strained voice. “Your aura! All of this negative energy… the spirits!”

His Trelawny impression, she had to admit, was pretty spot on — despite not having had Divination since third year. She wondered why it was he was even up this way in the first place, but she shook the question from her mind. It was just as likely he had planted a prank for an unsuspecting Slytherin fourth year to stumble upon.

Through breaks of laughter as he finally stopped mumbling mock-prophetic nonsense, she said, “She doesn’t talk about the spirits, you nutter.”

He rolled his eyes with a playful huff. “Whatever, it’s all rubbish anyway.”

They were nearing the landing now, and she felt a pang of disappointment that she’d have to leave to go to Divination.

“Well, what’re you doing that’s so much better?” she asked. She leaned casually against the stone wall at the top of the stairway once they reached the landing and let her bag slip off her shoulder with a heavy ‘thud.’ Very ‘devil may care’ of her, she thought…

His eyes twinkled with mischievous enthusiasm. “Anything I want.” It took a few moments of Emily’s confused blinking for him to clarify. “I’ve got a free period, so I’ll probably be developing product. And you’re welcome to join me… though skipping class wouldn’t be very prefecty.”

“I’d love to,” she said before she even realized the words came out. With a beaming grin, Fred moved closer to her, resting a hand next to where she stood on the wall as he stood in front of her, his neck craned over her. She looked up at him and composed herself, readjusted her bag on her shoulder. “…But I, uh, I can’t.”

Emily hadn’t noticed how excited he had become at the prospect until she saw his face fall.

She quickly added, “I’m sorry.”

“What? No, it’s no problem. Maybe later then, eh?”

She shook her head and ducked out from under his arm. “Patrols tonight.”

“Before then?” he asked, turning to face her.

With a sigh, she admitted, “Detention.”

“Already? Merlin, you should’ve failed out of Potions and avoided it like the plague.”

She raised a brow. “That’s what you did, and you’re there too.”

He shrugged and said, “There’s my luck for you.”

“On the bright side, Freddie,” she started with a beaming grin and tilted her head to the side, “it’s just another chance for you to see my lovely face.”

The corners of his lips upturned and he chuckled. “How right you are.”

She scrunched up her nose at his response. “You don’t have to be so sarcastic, you arse.” Her hand was resting on the doorknob to the Divination classroom, gripping it tight but hesitant to turn it. “I really do have to go now, though.”

He ruffled his fingers through her hair to muss it up before turning back to the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Princey.”

>>>

After Divination had finished, the Great Hall filled to its brim with students for lunchtime. As she headed to the Ravenclaw table, Emily saw Fred walk into the room with a roll of parchment paper balled into his fists — product notes to show George and Lee, no doubt. And she saw George and Lee heading in from the greenhouses accompanied by Violet and, though a bit further off and in a conversation of his own with Cedric Diggory, Roger.

Gosh, she didn’t want to have to tell him that she had detention, and she sure as hell didn’t want to cancel seeing him later. But surely it was only right…

She slipped past her friends and made a beeline straight toward Roger, greeting him with a stiff, awkward “Hey.” He was polite, as always, and matched her salutation, though his seemed less awkward than her own.

“What’s up, Em?”

“I… um, I have a detention.” She spat out the words as fast as she could, as if it could make them taste less horrible, even though it didn’t. She didn’t look him in the eyes as they both meandered through the crowd of students. Perhaps the noise might have drowned it out.

“You? A detention?” Roger set his books down at the end of the Ravenclaw table, the ‘thud’ punctuating his questions. “Who from?”

Emily sighed. “Professor Snape. Which I’m sure is completely shocking.”

“What for?”

She turned to him pleadingly and asked, almost in a whimper, “Would you believe me if I said I did nothing wrong?”

He chuckled and leaned his backside against the table’s edge. “I dunno; you’re pretty crafty…”

Emily jumped to her own defence. “Honestly I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yeah, no, I definitely believe you,” Roger replied with sarcasm coating his voice, and she caught a glimpse of his perfect teeth from behind his lips. She shot him a disapproving look as she fidgeted awkwardly next to him, and he continued, “It’s fine, though; detentions happen all the time, I guess… you know, to some people.”

She glanced back at him with wide-eyed surprise. “Are you trying to tell me that in five whole years you’ve never had a detention?”

“Not one,” he said with a proud beam.

“That’s just mad. Really, you’re joking.”

He shook his head. “Not a single time.”

Emily let out a playful scoff. “How is that even possible?”

“When you’re a good kid, nobody bothers you,” he said and winked light-heartedly. She chuckled, and then his features became more serious. “If you’re so embarrassed about it, though, why tell me at all?”

She could feel her face paling as she struggled to phrase her explanation. Had he already forgotten their plans? She knew it wasn’t terribly serious — just talking in the common room — but she now feared that she had placed too much stock in it all.

“I just… we had a… thing tonight, and I didn’t want you to think I blew you off.”

“A thing?” He looked at her with furrowed brows and creases along his forehead.

She corrected herself as she shifted her bag on her shoulder. “I mean, it’s not a big thing — y’know, not like a thing — but we were going to talk, I thought, and I didn’t want it in your head that I didn’t come because I didn’t want to come.”

“Ah.” Roger nodded, more to himself than as a response to her. Then his eyes flickered back over her face. “Who says it’s not a thing though? Who’s the keeper of the criteria for if something’s a thing?”

Nervously, Emily ran her hand through her hair. “Discussing schedules in the common room? That’s just — it’s not really a thing; it’s just…”

“Hanging out?” he offered, and when she nodded her head, he continued, “Well, why can’t that be a thing?”

She let out a big huff of air. “That’s not the kind of thing I meant.”

A flicker of a smirk contorted his mouth. “What’d you mean, then, like a date?”

“No!” She felt all of her breath leave her body at once.

“Like a date thing?” he repeated, and the smirk erupted into a full smile.

She was careful to keep her voice down, maintaining the discretion of their conversation, because although the Great Hall was loud, especially at lunch, all it took was a stray set of ears to cause some trouble.

“No, not a date thing; just a thing — not a date!”

Roger paused for a moment, looking pensive as he thought, his hand on his chin stroking facial hair he didn’t have. “Yeah, no, I’ve got to tell you, Em, this is going completely over my head.”

Emily ran her teeth over her bottom lip and bit down harder than she had expected. “I just wanted you to know that I would’ve been there if I could’ve been. That’s all. And if you’d be okay with it and if you wanted to, I’d like to maybe reschedule it… I’m free tomorrow after breakfast.”

“That sounds good,” Roger said.

She breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Great.”

“But here’s my question, Em. If it’s not a thing, why’d we need to schedule it at all?” A smile crossed Roger’s face as Emily stood silent, dumbfounded. He adjusted his books on the table and moved to sit down, clearing a spot for Emily until he heard a cacophony of voices calling out for her — coming from where Violet and the boys sat at the other end of the table. “I think your friends are looking for you.”

From over his shoulder, she saw them all, and she caught their eyes in return. “Oh, them?” A light chortle slipped past her lips with a huff of air. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“See you later.”

Passing a polite ‘bye’ to Roger, Emily made her way to the far end of the Ravenclaw table, where Violet had saved her a seat. They had all stared at her, been staring since they saw her talking to him.

“What was that?” While Violet’s face beamed with sheer excitement, the twins’ and Lee’s faces were contorted with confusion.

Emily rolled her eyes as her body filled the empty space. Her plate filled itself too. “We were just talking.”

“Yeah, but about what?” Violet’s eyes widened, and she looked almost manic.

Emily tried to fight the blush that crept into her cheeks as she shuffled green beans around on her plate. “Well, we sort of had plans to hang out tonight, and —”

“I thought you had detention tonight.” Fred’s voice snapped like a whip into the air.

“I do,” she said, and as she jerked around to face him, her hair slammed against her back in a cascading wave of auburn. “That’s what we were talking about.”

“Detention? Already?” Violet sounded disappointed but hardly surprised. “Really, Em, you’d do best to never stay after class anymore. It only gets you into trouble.”

Emily shrugged and swallowed a forkful of mash. “Don’t think I haven’t tried.”

“What plans did you have?” Fred asked. He looked as though he had been holding on to the question for a while.

She raised a brow at him. “What’s it matter? It was just talking schedules; that’s it.”

Violet smirked, stabbing her fork through a tender slice of chicken. “You all right, Freddie? You look a bit green.”

Emily’s eyes matched up to his, and she set a hand gently on his arm. “You know I wouldn’t have lied to you.” Then she smiled playfully and added, “It’s just not my way.”

He moved his arm, nudging her hand off of it, before draping it over her shoulder. “Yeah, yeah, your way.”

The space next to him was warm, and she fit snugly under the nook of his arm. She was tempted to rest her head against him, for just a moment — it was so comfortable, after all — but she didn’t. She leaned forward over the table and swallowed a bite of beans.

“You know,” Emily finally said, pushing her plate out in front of her, “it’s a pity you two didn’t manage a detention today. It could’ve been like old times.”

And the boys turned to each other with beaming grins.

“Oh, but Princey…”

“… the day is still so young.”

>>>

Unfortunately for Emily, the twins did not manage to get detention — though if Violet’s report was to be believed, it was certainly not for lack of trying. They had left dungbombs in the third floor boys’ lavatory and set off a firecracker in an empty classroom — all to the receipt of a lacklustre response from both Severus and Filch. Rather than detention, Gryffindor suffered a rather shameful deduction of all of the points they had earned so far this term.

So Emily suffered detention alone.

But even still, it wasn’t terrible — it wasn’t ever that bad, Severus made sure of that. Oftentimes it was an essay or a potion brew; sometimes she had to organize files and books and ingredients in the classroom or in Severus’s office. Today, however, she was told to study the Polyjuice Potion in preparation for the O.W.L. retake next class — essentially a mandatory guided study period with Severus standing over her shoulder for an hour. And after that, she had prefect patrols, which was arguably much worse than detention.

Emily had always hated patrolling the corridors at night. In the shadows of the moonlight, the castle looked especially old and eerie. The doors creaked more loudly when the halls were empty, and with each step further into candlelit darkness, Emily sucked more air into her lungs that she always forgot to exhale.

She was on the fourth floor when a shadow sped past her, just out of the corner of her eye.

Shite, shite, shite…

Her chest pounded with the resounding flutter of her heartbeat as she struggled to catch her breath. Each step further in was measured, calculated, careful.

The shadow moved again, chilling the air around her in its wake, and for once curiosity got the better of her as she followed the cold to its source. She caught the shadow as it rounded another corner, coming face-to-face with her so that she could finally get a clear look at it.

“Boo!” it said, and upon hearing her terrified shriek, let out a fit of howling laughter.

“Peeves, dammit,” she groaned, clutching her chest in a desperate attempt to quiet her flooding pulse. Meanwhile, a pair of orange eyes stared back at her from beneath a bobbly, bell-tipped hat. The poltergeist’s sallow skin starkly contrasted the bright red of his knickers. “You scared the devil out of me, you bloody menace!”

“You’re too easy, Prince,” he hooted and floated down the corridor opposite her. “Too easy…”

“Don’t you ever get tired of being such a pest?” she demanded, and he about-turned, spinning to face her again.

“Me? Never!” He sneered at her with pointed, fanglike teeth. “Don’t you ever get sick of being a know-it-all do-good type?”

“Rarely,” she replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Heh.” He slapped a cold, calloused hand gently against her face. “Just between you ‘n me, Prince, I would not go down that hallway.”

She followed his outstretched finger, pointing at the corridor from which he had just come — the very one she was about to go down herself.

Emily stood up straight to challenge him. “Yeah? And why not?”

“You wouldn’t like it,” he said and grinned, crossing his legs in the air. “You trust me, don’t you?”

She didn’t, of course. Not one bit.

And she was smart enough to figure out it was either a lure to get her into that corridor or a lure to get her away — though which one, she couldn’t say with any degree of certainty. Either way, it was no good.

Floating in the air, Peeves leaned himself back, as if resting on a cloud in the shape of a sofa, and continued to laugh as Emily grappled with her options.

She waited until Peeves was out of sight before peering down the dark corridor opposite her planned route. It was difficult to see much of anything, even with the added illumination of her wand tip. Who knew what could be down that way?

She certainly didn’t want to find out.

So she turned around and went back to her course. With each step, she wondered just what it was that Peeves had up his sleeve down the other hall.

She thought about turning back around to the find out when her forward step triggered mini explosions ‘popping’ beneath her feet. An involuntary shriek escaped Emily’s lips as she tried to rush past the explosions, and she breathed a sigh of relief when they finally stopped until something — something sticky — fell atop her from the ceiling.

When she looked into the end of the corner, she caught sight of red hair — the obvious culprits, regardless of Peeves’s involvement.

She moved down the hallway toward them and demanded, her voice louder than any of them expected, “Honestly, do you two have any idea how dangerous this is? And in the middle of the night!”

George groaned, and Fred called out, “Peeves, you bastard — you got the wrong pratty prefect!”

“Tried to tell her she wouldn’t like it!” Peeves’s voice echoed at the other end of the corridor, “But makes no difference to me; I’m laughing either way!”

Once all of the immediate terror was over, Emily took stock of the results. She was soaked to the skin with a pinkish slime that slicked down along her figure and fell against the floor with a revolting ‘plop.’ It coated her hair and stuck thick against her skin — she could even feel it in her socks. Her shoes were slightly charred at the soles from having danced along the firecracker pods that erupted beneath her feet.

“What even is this?” she asked, wiping the slime from her face.

“Precautionary measures,” said Fred nonchalantly. He scooted himself into the main corridor, blocking Emily from the corner.

“Don’t worry,” added George as he moved closer to Fred. “It dries clear. Leaves no residue!”

But she was already bordering on furious. It was a miracle that the steam coming out of her ears didn’t dry the slime straight away. And whatever they were trying to hide from her…

Before she could open her mouth to yell at them again, they jumped in. “You’ve got to learn to loosen up, Princey.”

“Please, for our sake,” added George. “We get a bad rap being friends with you.”

“For your sake?” She was indignant with each step she took toward them.

“Yours too,” said Fred. “Could probably do your blood pressure a load of good.”

Emily narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw at them with additional step, and then she saw it.

“And what’s this?” The two were huddled over a lit cauldron on the middle of the floor of a fourth floor corridor. They had long since abandoned their sleeves rolled up. A Potions text was set between them, opened to what looked to be Chapter 13, and they were surrounded by various potions ingredients scattered about the floor. “What trouble are you getting into now?”

“Brewing an ageing potion,” George answered nonchalantly.

Taken aback by his honestly, Emily’s eyes widened. Then, she groaned. “Why can’t you ever lie to me? Sometimes I’d prefer it.”

“Because if we lie to you, then you can’t bail us out of trouble.”

“I don’t bail you out,” she argued. “I simply choose not to enact the full force of the punishment.” She paused, stuck with sudden realization. “Besides, what do you lot need an ageing potion for?”

“Because we ain’t seventeen yet,” George answered, and Fred nudged him hard in the ribs.

“And what does that —?” She broke her own thought and snapped, “Wait… you want to enter to Tournament.”

Both boys stared blankly at her.

“Yes.”

“We thought that was abundantly clear.”

For a moment, she lost herself in pensive thought, and her eyes focused on the cauldron. “But the Tournament’s not until next month. Why’re you—?”

“Because, you numpty,” Fred started, and Emily realized she’d never heard him sound so matter-of-fact. “You need to start brewing an ageing potion at the start of the cycle of the first full moon of the month. So we nicked Lee’s moon chart to check.” He waived the chart in his hand.

“And it turns out that’s today.” George pointed to the date on the chart.

“And since it takes a month to brew…”

Emily had to admit, though she didn’t want to, she was impressed. It was rare to see the twins work so hard on, well, anything.

“How do you know all of that?” she asked. “We won’t cover ageing potions until—”

Fred’s lips curled into a half-smile. “I read when I have to.”

“But why?” Emily sighed. “I mean, do you really want to enter the Tournament this badly?”

“Of course we do!” George admitted, stirring the cauldron twice anticlockwise.

“Everyone does!”

She glared at them with hard, serious lines etched into her forehead. “Not everyone.”

“Well then, you’re exceptional,” said Fred as a smile dawned across his lips.

“The phrase is ‘the exception’,” Emily replied. “Y’know, as in ‘the exception that proves the rule.’”

Fred shrugged. “Sure.”

“C’mon, Em,” George mused as he tossed a pinch of what smelled like garlic into the brew. “Think of it: the glory…”

“And the gold!” Fred added. He stirred the mixture again until it bubbled and turned a deep shade of burgundy. “A thousand Galleons!”

She set her hands on her hips and leaned against the wall. “I’ll give you a thousand Galleons if you promise you won’t enter.”

“And let all of this actual work go to waste?” Fred chuckled. “No can do, Princey.”

George looked up from the Potions text laid out in front of them on the floor. “Besides you don’t even have a thousand Galleons.”

Emily pursed her lips in brief contemplation. “Fair enough. But,” she said and put her hand over her heart to highlight her vow, “I swear that as soon as I start making that kind of money, I will gladly repay my debt to you — with interest!”

“We’re not stupid,” George argued.

Fred said, “And even if we were, we still want to enter.”

“Why?” Emily asked, exasperated.

“Whoever wins will be immortalized in history!”

“How wicked would that be?”

“Well worth the risk of lost limbs or, y’know, dying.”

Jeeez, she thought, if anyone knew reckless abandon, it was these two. She hadn’t seen anyone more eager to risk literal life and limb for a small fortune. No fear, no trepidation even — just an admirably stupid impulse to dive headfirst into the single most dangerous competition in centuries. But that was always true of the twins, Tournament be damned. They were kin with recklessness and related rather distantly to consequence, though they seemed not on speaking terms at present. And she’d bet McGonagall recommended them for aurors for the very reason she was essentially rejected.

Clearly she had a lot still to learn.

“Where’s Lee? He was supposed to be quick!” George asked his brother in a hushed whisper that sounded more like a hiss. It wasn’t meant for Emily to hear, but George was loud enough that she did anyway. Fred walloped his brother hard with the back of his hand in response, but it was too late — the jig was up.

“Yes, where is your first mate?” asked Emily, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood over top of them.

The twins wore matching shite-eating grins. “You mean our best mate?”

“We’re looking at her!”

“Flattering,” she replied, shooting a stern look to each of them, “but really, where’s Lee?”

The twins looked between each other and then back to Emily as if they were guilty children caught with their hands in a cookie jar.

“Well, you see…” George struggled to find the words. “An ageing potion requires a long list of ingredients…”

“… Some of which are,” Fred continued, “difficult to acquire…”

Neither one said anything more about it, but they didn’t have to. Emily had already pieced together what had happened to Lee. She could only imagine that her detention, even the worst one she’d ever got, would be nothing in comparison to what Lee would receive for getting caught stealing from Severus’s stores. She could hardly believe the twins letting Lee be so reckless.

Reckless.

The word stopped her in her tracks. This sort of stupid plan was just the sort of recklessness she often avoided and, frankly, lacked. And she could be reckless too. She could prove it.

Lee wasn’t careful. Lee didn’t know how Severus kept his stores. But Emily had organized and reorganized them in several rounds of detention last term. With her eyes closed, she could pick out gillyweed or Graphorn horn from their spots on the shelves, distinguish a dragon egg from a Runespoor egg, find a Billywig sting and its slime in the back corners of his office. But it wasn’t very prefecty, as Fred would say, to attempt stealing from a professor’s private collection.

Still, maybe this was her chance to prove it, to herself and to anyone else who cared: she could so be reckless.

Finally, she said, “I’ll get them for you.”

“Excuse me?” George’s eyebrows rose in surprise while Fred lowered his.

“What’s the catch?” he demanded.

“You’ve got to make enough for me too,” she said and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her robes.

“Are you serious?” George asked. For a moment there was a twinkle of excitement in his eyes.

Fred, less so. He jumped up from his seat on the floor to meet her eyes. “Are you mad?”

George stood up too, though he glanced quickly at the bubbling cauldron before he did. “I thought the Tournament was stupid…”

“It is,” she said, and when they both moved to cut her off, she continued, “but it’s just the sort of stupid that will help me develop a proclivity for reckless abandon.” As she finished talking, she beamed.

“A… what for what?”

“It’s apparently a requisite for becoming an auror.”

Fred studied her and then moved to set a hand on her shoulder. “As your friends, we can’t let you do this.”

“No way,” George agreed.

Emily let out a frustrated huff. “Why not?”

“You’ve clearly gone batty,” Fred replied, “and we can’t take advantage of you in this state.”

George nodded in solidarity with his brother. “And we won’t let you steal from Snape, though I’d rather you than me; Merlin knows we don’t want that job.”

With pursed lips and a furrowed brow, Emily asked, “Aren’t you the ones who just told me that I’m too uptight?”

“Yes,” Fred replied. “That was us.”

She stood up straighter, got further into their faces. “That I take things too seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“That I need to loosen up?” Her nose was mere centimetres away from theirs as she stood on her tiptoes to reach closer to their height.

Fred threw his arms up wildly. “But at what cost?”

“This is terrifying,” said George, and he pat her on the back, “even to us.”

“We’ve got to draw the line somewhere.” Fred bent down and closed the Potions text, while George condensed their ingredients to one small pile.

“So it’s here. Now.”

The two ushered Emily down the corridor and towards the stairs, swearing up and down that they would stay out of trouble, and the last thing Emily saw was the light flicker of flame from beneath the brew of their ageing potion.