Mountain Fold (Oliver Wood)

Chapter Eight

Anna dragged her feet as she made her way towards her detention. This was first ever detention, so she had no idea what to expect, she hoped it wasn't too bad. She was glad that the Weasley twins would there, she didn't know who would be there or what they would be doing but she would rather not be alone with Professor Snape or Filch for a long period of time, they weren't good company.

She made it to Snape's classroom to see Fred and George already there. They didn't seem too bothered to be there and smiled when they saw her.

"Hello Anna."

"Hello."

"Is this your first detention?" One of them asked her, she had no idea how to tell them a part and it felt rude to ask which twin was which.

"Yeah."

"It probably won't that bad," one of the twins said.

"What did you do to get in trouble?" The other asked.

"Um I- I tripped Professor Snape over," she replied and quickly added, "on accident."

"Wow, wish we had of been there to see that."

She nodded not really knowing how to reply. Anna wanted to ask how they were so calm but decided not to. The silence was getting a little awkward just as Filch decided to arrive, looking and feeling as grumpy as usual.

"Looking as cheery as ever Filchy."

"As stunning as usual."

Anna did her best hold back a smile at the twins teasing. She also had to block out Filch's irritation as he scowled at them.

"You won't be making jokes when your scrubbing the floors without magic."

Anna felt her mood drop. That would take hours. Boring hours that could be spent with her friends, having fun. Instead she would be scrubbing floors. Great.

"Get moving," Filch hurried them along. He led them to the to a deserted long corridor on the third floor, "you'll be cleaning the floor of the entire corridor."

Anna was horrified. That wouldn't take hours, it would take days. She could tell the twins were mortified as well but were trying to look nonchalant, most likely to annoy Filch more. There was a small pile of rags and brushes on floor along with a bucket of water for them each.

"Get to work," Filch ordered.

The twins mumbled, groaned, and whined a bit before all three of them sat on the floor and started to clean. Anna was silent and sat a distance away from the twins, they sat close together muttering to each other as they scrubbed.

It was tedious work, usually she might find it a little relaxing, but she doubted she would be able to relax with Filch watching them like a hawk. He was making absolutely sure they weren't using magic or slacking off at all.

"Stop whispering."

The twins gave Filch a nasty look but stopped talking. They started scrubbing the floor more vigorously as if they were taking their anger at Filch out on the floor. She had started to zone out, thinking about the homework she had to do. She had started a plan in her head, deciding how to order her information, she was halfway through her plan when Filch's voice caused her to jump.

"Quit daydreaming."

She realised that she had been scrubbing the same stop for five minutes, she focused on cleaning again. The only thing she was grateful for at that time was that the floor they were cleaning wasn't as dirty as entrance hall could get, also that the corridor was deserted and that there weren't students stepping all around them. Having Filch watch them was bad enough.

She heard Filch swear behind her and she turned to see him warily watching the pile of rags and brushes that they weren't using. The pile was shaking, Mrs Norris was hissing at it. The three students, caretaker, and cat watched as two paper elephants fell out of the pile. Everyone was silent for a few seconds.

Then chaos broke out.

Out of nowhere paper animals begun streaming. Birds flew overhead. Cats, elephants, horses, and everything in between were racing all over the floor. But there was method to their madness. Surprisingly. Two elephants ran past Anna pushing a brush, an eagle and hummingbird was soaring low to the ground with a rag dragging along the floor.

They were helping her clean.

Some of them were also teasing Mrs Norris. She would chase one of them only to get distracted by a different one, too overwhelmed to catch anything. Fred and George thought it was brilliant, they were grinning at the chaos around them. Filch looked like he didn't know how to react, he was furious, but he wasn't sure what to do, he couldn't stop them, and he didn't know they were Anna's creations.

He started to turn red in the face when a peacock that Mrs Norris was chasing led her over a slippery spot and she fell over with a screech. The twins snickered at her. Anna felt a bit sorry for the cat but didn't want to get a scratched hand. So instead of checking on the cat (who was up and about again already) she turned back to the floor and started scrubbing quickly, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible.

"Get back to work!" Filch growled at the twins who had taken to playing with a few of the paper animals. They started cleaning lazily, not looking particularly bothered anymore.

With the extra help they cleaned the corridor much quicker than they would have by themselves. Filch dismissed them still looking intensely annoyed, they quickly left before he could change his mind and make them clean another corridor.

Anna had noticed that the paper helper had disappeared once they were finished and she had the felling that they would be avoiding Filch for a while who would be looking to catch and burn them.

"Did you make all of them?" One of the twins asked her when they were a safe distance from Filch.

"Yeah."

"They could be quite useful," The other twin told her with a thoughtful expression. When they parted Anna went to hurry back to the common room. Her detention had been shorter than she expected so she would still be able to spend her afternoon with her friends.

In fact, her first detention hadn't gone how she expected at all.