Of Pranks & Princes

That night, when the train arrived at the station, and the new first year students were welcomed into the Great Hall, decorated, as it always was, in shades of scarlet and gold and green and blue, something felt different to Emily. She couldn’t place it, but it was certainly different.

The Hall itself was chillier than usual, as if a brisk wind ran through it at regular intervals. Even some of the more hot-blooded of the students shivered against the bitter cold. Warm pumpkin juice in metal mugs helped a bit, but even that couldn’t fully warm the room, and Emily swore she could see her own breath as the new first years entered the Hall, several looking just as overwhelmed as she remembered having felt.

Even the Sorting Hat’s song was the same, mostly — though there were always slight variations to keep things interesting year-in and year-out. The students were Sorted in much the same way as usual, in an assortment that slightly favoured Slytherin this time around.

And it wasn’t until Professor Dumbledore spoke for the evening that she knew why it felt different. Dumbledore’s speech was nearly the same every year — with the same reminders about forbidden spaces and rules specific to the first years. But not this year. This time, his speech was only two words: “Tuck in.”

The thick smell of potatoes and ham exploded into the room, bringing with it a new warmth as the plates filled magically. Though Emily didn’t want to admit it, she was so hungry, and by the looks of it, so was everyone else. Each student dug quickly into the piles of food, ravishing the plates and leaving stray bits and pieces along the table on the way.

Once the students were sufficiently filled, Dumbledore stood again at the head of the room, bright eyed and beaming, as usual, and announced that perhaps now, hunger satisfied, he hoped everyone would be in a better state to receive the news that there would be no Quidditch.

On instinct, Emily’s eyes flickered to Fred and George at the Gryffindor table. She watched them pout, watched them comfort Angelina who would not get to be Quidditch captain this term. And then Emily glanced over to Roger.

He sat across the table from her, lips pursed, looking frustrated and angry and upset, all wrapped in one complicated emotion. But she shot him a sympathetic smile, and he mouthed back “Thank you,” and she could feel the warmth igniting in her body.

But good feelings only ever lasted so long — at least the last three years at Hogwarts — and the Hall went silent upon the slamming open of large wooden doors, revealing a scarred, gruff man with a glass eye whom Dumbledore introduced as Alastor Moody, the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. The Hall remained in a stunned silence as the man took his seat, scraping his chair harshly against the floor as he did.

“But as I was saying, let us not be so disappointed about the loss of the Inter-House Cup this term,” Dumbledore continued, his voice booming over the quiet that echoed through the hall. “Instead, Hogwarts will be the host to the Triwizard Tournament.”

“You’re joking!” a voice cried out, and Emily recognized it as Fred’s without a glance. The silence of the room cracked among the laughter that broke out.

Dumbledore shook his head with a dismissive chuckle in Fred’s direction. He continued to explain the Tournament for those, like Emily, who had not a clue what it entailed. A friendly magic competition, he explained. Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion from each school. Three magical tasks. Last held in 1792. Death toll mounted, and —

Death toll.

If there was one thing this school didn’t need any more of, it was danger. And a subsequent death toll. Merlin knew there were plenty of ways to die here — between the “Chamber of Secrets” that had attacked several students in her fourth year to Sirius Black and the Dementors that nearly killed Potter last year. The last thing Hogwarts needed was a “mounting death toll.”

Emily wasn’t the only one who was hesitant, and it took Dumbledore’s further prodding about gold and glory to engage more enthusiasm for the competition in the students, which all dissipated once he spoke again.

“However, because the Tournament is so dangerous, the heads of the participating schools, along with the Ministry of Magic, have agreed that only students of age — seventeen years or older — will be permitted to enter the competition.”

“That’s rubbish!” came the twins’ voices, and theirs were soon followed by dozens of others, shouting and complaining that they would not be old enough to participate.

There was a nudge at Emily’s arm, and she looked over to see Roger, his face glowing with excitement and pride.

“You entering?” he asked.

“Birthday’s not ‘til June,” she conceded and tried to feign disappointment. In truth, there was no way in hell she’d have entered, even if she could. And even if she did want to, there was no way Severus would have allowed it.

From the far front of the Hall, Emily could feel Severus’s eyes burning into her skull, as they always did at the start of term. And she was sure that the week, like the first week of every term previous, wouldn’t end without detention, what he called “a deterrent for troublemaking.” Despite her proclivity for good behaviour, despite high marks on her O.W.L.s, despite her Prefect status, he still saw her as nothing more than a nuisance.

Now, he looked at her as if to dare her to try entering the Tournament. As if he didn’t know her enough to realize she wouldn’t.

Then again, he really didn’t.

“And now,” Dumbledore continued, and his echoing voice caught Emily’s attention once more, “it is late, and you must all be well-rested for your lessons tomorrow. Bedtime now! Chop chop!”

The Ravenclaw prefects all stood to escort their House to the common room, and Emily remained in the back with Roger. On the Hogwarts Express, the two had agreed to take the morning greeting shift, with Allison and Duncan Inglebee taking on the night introduction.

As she left the Great Hall with the rest of her House, she waved to her Gryffindor friends, though they seemed much too enraptured in discussion — or rather, complaints — about the Tournament’s announcement.

The prefects walked the new Ravenclaws up the moving staircases and to the tight spiralled staircase that led to the common room. Standing at the door, Duncan explained why Rowena Ravenclaw had chosen a door knocker to guard her commons, and Allison began walking the students through the term’s first riddle.

“And if you ever have trouble with the door,” Roger said from the back with a beam that revealed perfect dimples as he put a hand on Emily’s shoulder in introduction, “Emily here stays to help you figure it out.”

All last year, Emily had waited outside of the door to the common room, collecting large groups of younger students who did not have the answer to the door’s question and keeping them company until it was answered. She hadn’t ever really gotten the hang of the door’s riddles herself, though, so the waiting wasn’t always for the benefit of the younger students. But she wasn’t going to correct him about it now.

Instead, she fought the blush that crept up her cheeks and pursed her lips into a polite smile before she and the rest of Ravenclaw House went off to bed.



Although the girls’ dorm was quiet — perhaps too quiet — Emily couldn’t sleep. The sound of her own breathing echoed in her ears, her pulsing heartbeat filling the room with deafening noise. Even after five years, the first night of school still did this to her, though she had learned her lesson about wandering.

Still, she wished she could talk to someone, wished Violet was awake, wished Fred and George and Lee weren’t all the way in Gryffindor tower. She wished she could read her book without a light that would wake the other girls up. And she wished, perhaps more than anything else, that she could blink and bring morning.

What she needed now was a warm mug of Butterbeer — that would certainly do the trick. Whether it knocked her out or woke her up was a different question altogether. Or perhaps a cup of her mother’s tea with just enough peppermint to lull her to sleep.

Yeah, that would be nice.

But all she had was the silence of the girls’ dorm past midnight, this four-poster bed with the same old scratchy bedsheets, and all the anxieties of the coming day as her eyelids grew heavy, and she finally fell asleep.



The next morning, Emily was up with the dawn, anxious for the start of term. Sixth year was, after all, the most important. It was the year that students made final decisions about what they wanted to do with their live, the year when their O.W.L. results confirmed or denied their career aspirations. It was the year that internships were determined and job connections were forged. And the first day of sixth year started with an all-important meeting with each student’s Head of House.

For Emily, that was Professor Filius Flitwick, Hogwarts Charms master. She had always liked Professor Flitwick. As an instructor, he was kind and fair—those things that Severus was not—and he gave off, at the very least the impression, that he cared about each student in his classes. Even the slightest positive attention, even just a called out “nice work, Miss Prince” following a successful conjuring made her feel worthwhile. And at the end of last term, Professor Flitwick had spoken with her, just a few hours before she sat for her O.W.L.s, and discussed her career options. She had what he called “a multitude of talents” which would surely lead to “a vast variety of options,” and it was one of the nicest compliments she’d ever been paid. Truly a much kinder accolade than Severus’s insistence that she do something worthwhile.

And even still more exciting was knowing she’d get her schedule at breakfast and that she could find out what classes she’d share with Roger. And Violet, Lee, and the boys, of course — but with the kindling of a fresh friendship with Roger, his seemed the most important.

She could hardly eat at breakfast that morning, taking only sips of her pumpkin juice and a few small bites of a muffin. Even Fred and George noticed a difference in her.

“Hey, Princey,” Fred began, mouth full of oatmeal as he leaned on Emily’s shoulder, “what’s got you so twitchy this morning?”

“Eating like a bird,” George noted, almost to the side, as Lee nodded.

Emily chuckled and with an offhand shrug of her shoulder, shaking Fred’s hand from it, replied, “Doesn’t everyone still get nervous on the first day of term?”

“Only prats, really.”

She pouted for a moment before conceding, “That’s me then, clearly.”

The boys forced some space open at the Ravenclaw table and sat next to her, facing backwards with their legs outstretched in front of them. “Clearly,” they replied in unison.

“You’re not the least bit anxious though?” she asked and pressed her lips tightly together. She looked more serious now, sterner. There was a worry line that had carved its way across her forehead over the summer holiday while she worried about her O.W.L.s scores and pre-emptively agonized about the upcoming N.E.W.T.s. “It’s the start of N.E.W.T.s, after all.”

George scoffed. “They’re not ‘til the end of next year, Em. It’d drive us batty to worry that far out.”

“We didn’t even worry about the O.W.L.s when we took ‘em!” Fred added with a chuckle as he slouched against the table.

From next to Emily on the other side, Violet jeered, “Surely that’s because you studied and were aptly prepared, yeah?”

“If that makes you feel better, Mauve, then sure.” Fred and George both shot her a wink as an impish grin passed between them, and Lee let out a snort of laughter.

Despite the noise erupting from their part of the Ravenclaw table, the Great Hall seemed notably quieter than usual at the first breakfast of the year. Dumbledore had already spoken again, given his reminders about classes and schedules, punctuated, this year, by another mention of the Tournament, which prompted more whispers and mumbling. It seemed that everyone wanted to compete, despite stern warnings about the risk-to-reward ratio — even Roger who was talking with Duncan Inglebee, imagining aloud what it would be like to be the Hogwarts champion.

But there was still time before the Tournament was scheduled to begin, and there were far more pressing issues at hand.

Emily brushed her hair back behind her ear and turned to face them. “How did you guys do on your O.W.L.s?”

“Sheesh,” Fred began, throwing up his hands, “we’re not back at school for two minutes, and she’s already on about grades.”

“What more could you expect from a second year Prefect?” Lee replied, off-handed, before stealing a gulp of Violet’s pumpkin juice.

“Prefects are prats; that’s what I always say.”

“None of your answered my question, to be fair,” Emily replied with a half-smile.

“I passed all of mine,” Violet replied, beaming proudly, and when Lee mumbled that it was no surprise, she rolled her eyes. “Os in Muggle Studies, Potions, Defence, and Herbology; Es in everything else. That’s nothing too crazy.”

Lee went next, raising a finger for each class on the list as he went through them. “Herbology, History of Magic, Defence, Astronomy, Creatures, and Arithmancy. So that’s…” He counted on his fingers. “Six.”

“We got six too!” said the twins in unison again, and they passed high-fives among them.

“I’ll admit, I’m impressed.” Emily’s pursed lips spread wide into a grin across her face. “Which ones?”

Fred started, “Charms.”

“Herbology.”

“Transfiguration.”

“Charms.”

Emily interrupted George with a gentle touch to his arm. “You said Charms twice.”

He smirked. “No, I didn’t.”

There was a brief moment of silence, ephemeral, as Emily pieced together the conversation. “Wait… you got six O.W.L.s combined?”

“What? Like that doesn’t count?” Fred asked with a shrug.

Violet was quick to shoot back, “Generally, no, it doesn’t.”

“Well, it should.”

Emily stared at them both from beneath raised brows. She blinked rapidly as if the motion would change something.

“Quit looking at us like that!” Fred snapped, turning the slightest shade of pink in the ears, though he pushed his bright orange hair down to cover over it. “And what’d you get then, anyway?”

She had studied her O.W.L.s results for the last week of holiday, memorized the paper in its order. She could recite it as if she were reading it. “I got nine.”

“That’s great, Emmy!” came Violet’s overzealous response. And the general consensus was that nine wasn’t half bad at all — even though it didn’t stand anywhere close to Violet’s twelve.

But Fred was less impressed. “Hold on a second.”

“What?”

“You took eleven classes last term,” he said with a quirked eyebrow.

Emily didn’t look him in the eye as she brushed her fingers through the split ends of her hair, fiddling with the frizz. “Yeah… and?”

“And that means you failed two.” His voice was taunting, challenging, as he leaned closer to her. “So spill it. Which ones?”

She could feel his breath on her face. Hot, sticky, and stinking of cinnamon. And her cheeks were burning red with embarrassment as she stared at the floor and mumbled her reply, “Well, History of Magic, but that’s rubbish.”

“… And?”

She curtained her face behind the waves of her hair. “And Herbology.”

George looked personally affronted. “How’d you fail Herbology? I even helped you study that one!”

“I tried,” she said, her voice more pleading than she intended it to be. “But I was so awful at it.”

“Wasted effort, Georgie,” Fred said with a dramatic sigh. “That’s what you get in the academic world.”

Emily tried to throw in a retort, but her breath caught in her throat, and she choked on it, trying to force any words out. Violet quickly interjected on her behalf, “How about you two though? You failed Potions.”

“Because we didn’t try — we never try, but her — her of all people! She tried, I’d imagine, but obviously not hard enough.” Fred paused for a second and indicated toward George who still seemed a little disappointed, though the feeling looked to be dissipating quickly. “Look at him — he’s heartbroken.”

She glanced up with teary eyes at George who shrugged. “S’not that big a deal, Em.”

“No, no,” Fred interjected. “Don’t understate it, George. We can all tell you’re devastated.”

“You’re a right git, you know?” Emily’s throat was dry, and the words scratched along it as they slithered up her neck and out her mouth.

Violet reached over Emily to whack Fred’s arm. “She feels bad enough.”

“Jeez, Princey, I was just taking the mickey — you know, to make George feel better.” He thrust his hand onto her back with a ‘thud,’ probably harder than he had intended, and she jolted from the impact.

“Miss Prince,” the small voice came from behind her as a parchment envelope gently floated onto her plate at the table. She turned to see Professor Flitwick, as tall as she was sitting down, standing at the Ravenclaw table. Without moving, he dropped schedules to Violet, Patty, Amina, and Roger as well. Violet tore hers open rapidly, as if it were food and she had been starved.

“Thank you, Professor,” Emily replied, and she slipped a fingernail into the edge fold of the envelope to pull it open.

“And Misters Weasley, Mister Jordan,” Flitwick continued, shooting them a look that was friendly but stern. His voice was so squeaky and small that it was sometimes hard to take him seriously. As the twins had said before, it just had not threat to it. But respect was how Flitwick got his students to listen to him — and then threat was just not needed. “I would recommend that you three make your way back to your House table to receive your schedule from Professor McGonagall. She’ll likely not be happy to go looking for you.”

Lee Jordan promptly disappeared back to the Gryffindors while Flitwick continued down table Ravenclaw. The twins moved as if to get up, but then sat back down, more slouched and comfortable than before.

“What’ve you got?” Violet demanded, peering over Emily’s shoulder at the parchment in her hands.

Emily looked it over, eyes wandering over each class and Professor. Of course she had Charms again, N.E.W.T. level this time, and Transfiguration too. Arithmancy, Astronomy, Defence Against the Dark Arts. But most unexpectedly of all was the class that opened her week.

“Potions,” she said, and the words popped off her tongue like a surprise. Just to make sure she hadn’t misseen it, she looked again. “Double Potions, actually.”

Her Potions O.W.L. had been nothing short of a disaster. Where she usually succeeded — at least for the most part — in practical potion-making, the exam had required them to brew a successful Draught of Peace, and she barely stumbled her way through it. She added the powdered ingredients in small pinches for fear of throwing in too much, basic instructions be damned. Each was measured, calculated, careful, though that didn’t stop the potion from flashing through each colour of the rainbow until it settled at a deep shimmering turquoise. She’d be damned if she knew whether or not that was right; it sure didn’t help her anxiety any, nor that the Ministry Official who oversaw the exam made a face upon glancing into her cauldron. And that wasn’t even considering the written portion, where she had completed blanked about the Polyjuice Potion. Truly, there was no way she could have even passed the O.W.L., and she had expected the O listed on her results to have been in error.

But there it was — clear as crystal. Double Potions on Mondays, first thing in the morning, taught by Severus.

“You know what, George?”

“What, Fred?”

“Best thing about failing Potions is now we won’t have to see ol’ Snape’s greasy head anymore.” The two laughed to themselves, and Emily was secretly jealous, though she’d be loath to ever admit it.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mister Weasley.” A schedule floated onto Fred’s lap, and he slowly looked up to catch the harsh glare of Professor McGonagall. “Mister Weasley.” And there was a schedule for George as well.

As they each opened the envelopes and read through, their faces fell. “What?!”

“But we failed Potions!” George argued.

Fred added, “George got a Troll, even!”

McGonagall cleared her throat. “Since your practical results were, admittedly, astonishing, and since your failing the theory portion came from submitting blank written exams, Professor Snape has kindly, and begrudgingly, agreed to permit the both of you to take Potions this term.”

They groaned in protest, and Fred crumpled up the parchment into his hand.

With a wave of McGonagall’s wand, the paper was good as new. “You didn’t honestly believe you would be able to avoid taking any classes, did you?”

The two grumbled. “Well, this one yeah.”

Emily chuckled, covering her face with her hand to prevent the eruption of full-fledged hysterical laughter. As Professor McGonagall walked back to the Gryffindor table, with Lee’s schedule in tow, Emily wiped tears from her cheeks. “Serves you both right, you know.”

“Guess the bright side is you’ll finally have class with us!” came Violet’s pleasant suggestion.

“Bright and early,” Emily added, exaggerating some of the twins’ least favourite words.

“I can assure you now,” Fred began, a mischievous gleam in his eye, “that you two are going to love class with me and George.”

“That a threat or a promise there, Fred?” Emily leaned with an elbow on the table as her eyes flickered up to meet his. “Because it’s not recommended to threaten a Prefect, you know.”

He rested his hand on hers. “Don’t let all that power go to your head, Princey.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s big enough already. You’ve said it before.”

“Won’t be enough room for your oversize brains.”

“Oh, hush, Fred; you’re so mean.”

From Emily’s left side, Violet cleared her throat. “So… what time are you boys meeting with Professor McGonagall?”

George peered down at his schedule before he replied, “Mine’s later today; middle of Herbology, by the looks of it.”

“Really? They stuck me with lunch. Don’t even get to miss classes.” Fred folded his arms across his chest with a dramatic, infantile pout.

“Pulled me this morning, so you’ll all miss me in Potions today.”

The group groaned in response, and Fred pulled a sickle out of his pocket.

“Give you my life savings to switch.”

Emily snorted. “You want to meet with Flitwick about my career prospectives? Honestly?”

By this time in the morning, the Great Hall was beginning to clear out. The first years, far more nervous and overwhelmed than the older students were the first to go, hoping to have plenty of time to wander the castle in search of their classes. They were fortunate not to have the stricter professors so early. Snape was saved for sixth year N.E.W.T. students, and McGonagall had fourth year Gryffindors and Slytherins. But even still, Emily’s nerves may have rivalled theirs — at least today, at least for this.

“Sure, if it gets me out of Potions,” Fred replied with a flippant shrug. “I’m thinking Burlesque dancer. Maybe a human target for Auror training.” He turned to Emily with a trademark shite-eating grin. “Stop me if anything strikes you.”

“I’ll strike you,” Emily replied and moved to whack him on the shoulder. “Arse.”

“I’ll strike the both of you if you don’t cut the flirting.” As Fred moved to rebut, Violet stood at the table and pushed her plate and mug forward. “C’mon now; time for Potions.”

And as the three walked toward to the dungeons, Emily left in the opposite direction towards the Charms classroom. But in the distance, she could hear Fred hiss, “It wasn’t flirting!”