**A/N** Hi guys! So this chapter should be the first of many that are published today. (Not to spoil anything but I have big plans for the next couple chapters.) Anyways, keep an eye out for updates throughout the day so you don't miss anything. Much love and enjoy!
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"Ophelia's Day 'o' Fun," Lorcan reads the poster that we are all staring at out loud, "Hide yo kids, hide yo wives, especially yo wives. Pranks to come."
Leave it to my sister to put posters up around the school the day before her birthday warning everyone about the chaos that she's getting ready to entice. Not that anything else really happens around here during November. Students are tired of learning, teachers are tired of teaching, the only thing anyone can think of is their Christmas dinner. I guess the school needs a little pick me up and if that comes in the form of Ophelia destroying every centimetre of the castle then so be it.
"Can't wait to walk the halls with a full-body bubble charm so I don't get hit with flying goo or something tomorrow," Jordan says as me and my friends turn away from the poster and towards our charms class.
"Doesn't she do her best to leave you and your friends out of her pranks and stuff?" Lysander asks.
"Yeah but something as big as putting posters on the wall? No one is safe from something like that." Jordan says back.
"Honestly the posters and stuff just makes me think that she isn't going to do anything and then watch as the entire school is on edge for the entire day," I say.
Lorcan looks at me with one of his eyebrows raised, "Yeah? Does that sound like something your sister would do?"
"No, but it could happen," I say and all my friends laugh. Lorcan throws his arm over my shoulders as we walk. Jordan gives me a look but I don't pay attention to it all too much. I love Lorcan and Lysander the same way I love Freddie. Like my brothers. Jordan can go off and flirt with Lysander all she wants but I'm not gonna start doing that with Lor any time soon.
We stop by the charms classroom door, a few other students in our year are milling around waiting for Flitwick to open the classroom door for us.
"Question, if a Cyclops closes its eye, is it considered a wink or a blink?" I ask.
Jordan does her standard rolling of eyes and pretending that I didn't ask anything. Lysander on the other hand just says 'fuck Cyclops's' and pokes Jordan in the cheek.
"Winks are a forced facial expression, blinks happen naturally so if the Cyclops in question forced the movement then it would be a wink but if it just happened then it would be considered a blink," Lorcan responds. He's always the one that tries his best to answer any of my random questions without judgement.
"I've always wanted to learn how to wink." I sigh.
Lorcan looks at me sideways, "What do you mean you've always wanted to learn how to wink? Are you telling me you don't know how?"
"Nope. Mum tried to teach me for like five hours one day when it was slow in the shop but I could never get it."
"You just... close one of your eyes, like this." Lorcan winks at me, "You try."
I sigh but I play along. I contort my face to try and get just one eye closed. Lorcan watches me with an amused smile on his face. I stop trying after about two minutes, "See? Impossible."
"Here," Lorcan covers my one eye with his hand, "Now you're winking."
"Your hand smells like ham."
"I'm a vegetarian."
"That's why it's concerning."
Lorcan takes his hand off of my face and Flitwick opens the classroom door to let us all in.
"All I'm saying is that the Giant Squid can definitely communicate with humans. And you can't tell me that I'm wrong." Lysander says as we all take our seats.
"I can tell you that you're wrong because you are wrong. I've seen the Giant Squid and there's no chance that it can understand what we are trying to say like the mermaids can." Jordan says.
"Like hell you've seen the Giant Squid."
"Ly my common room is literally under the lake. I see whatever swims past."
"I call bullshit."
"Course you resort to swearing when you can't figure out a good comeback. Remind me why I'm friends with you again."
I roll my eyes, "Can we just have a normal day? One where you two aren't on the verge of killing each other and everyone is friendly? Please?"
Jordan looks down the line at me, "Annie I love you dearly, but shush." She turns back to Lysander, "I'll prove it to you. We'll camp out in my common room tonight and I'll show you that the Giant Squid doesn't have a single thought behind its eye."
"A whole night in that common room? You're mad." Lorcan says.
Jordan spins around to look at him, "Do you have a thing against the Slytherin common room Longbottom?"
The look in Jordan's eye translates to 'say the wrong thing and I'll hex you right outta your seat' so Lorcan just shakes his head no.
"Slytherin common room tonight then. Bring your pyjamas and blankets and stuff. We have a spare first period tomorrow so it won't be too awful waking up in the morning." Jordan whispers as Flitwick starts his lesson.
After dinner, we all split up to go back to our common rooms so we can get our stuff for tonight.
"I'm not saying that I'm scared of the Slytherin common room or anything but I mean they don't have any windows! And looking out into the abyss that is the lake all the time? Do you know how creepy that is?" Lorcan says to me as we walk down the corridor towards the Ravenclaw tower.
"I dunno, I sort of like it. It's calming in there, the hazy green light from the lake, the candles along the walls..."
"Yeah and standing right in front of glass that's hundreds of years old. One crack in that glass and the entire common room is flooded."
"Lor darling it's magical glass. It's not going to break."
When we get close to the entrance to our common room the eagle door knocker opens its eyes and looks down at us, "What is the one room that you can eat?"
"Kitchen," Lorcan says confidently.
I swat his arm, "You can eat a kitchen eh? You can walk into your Mum's kitchen and just start eating the cooker?"
"Oh... I heard the question wrong." Lorcan says shrugging his shoulders.
I think for a second, running a list of different foods through my head, "Mushroom." I say.
The door unlocks and swings open, Lorcan and I run inside making sure that we don't get locked out again and have to do another riddle.
"Why do we have the hardest common room to get into? I mean all the Gryffindors have to do is memorize a new word every month. And the Slytherins just have to touch a wall."
"And the Hufflepuffs have to... what even do the Hufflepuffs have to do?" I ask Lorcan.
He shrugs, "Alice never told me, she doesn't want me and Ly in her space. Says it's bad enough that she has to deal with us around the school and at home."
"Yeah, Theo said the same thing. They say that we're all too much to handle and sometimes they need a break from us all."
"Dunno how anyone could say that though, we're great company," Lorcan says as we start up the spiral staircase in the middle of the room.
"Honestly, I mean I think we're the best ones."
"Course we're the best ones. Anyone else that says otherwise is lying."
"Exactly. Everyone else has a hundred different problems running around their heads and all we do is talk about Cyclops's."
When we get to our floor Lorcan and I head in opposite directions, me into the girl's dorms, him into the boys.
I grab my pillow off of my bed and shove my pyjamas and toiletries bag into the pillowcase so I don't have to carry it all with my hands. Then I pick up some homework and shove it into my pillowcase too. Lorcan knocks on the dorm room door and stands in the doorway waiting for me.
"It smells better in here than it does in my dorm." He says looking around, "It's a lot cleaner in here too."
I take the blanket off of my four-poster bed and wrap it around my shoulders like a cape, "It's all Miryam's doing. If it was up to me this entire room would be absolutely trashed. You should see my room at home during the summer. Nothing ever where it's supposed to be."
We head back down the stairs, passing a few older students on their way to their dorm rooms.
"You ever think about the fact that soon we're gonna be the old kids that everyone moves out of the way for on the stairs?" Lorcan says once a group of seventh-year boys walk past us.
"Way to give me an existential crisis. I really needed that today."
"Anytime. Lorcan says.
When we get down into the dungeons, Lysander is standing in front of a wall with his hand on it screaming 'half-blood! Half-blood!'
"What're you doing?" Lorcan says to his brother.
"Ordering takeaway. What the bloody hell does it look like I'm doing?" Lysander snaps.
"Looks like you're trying to open the wrong wall that's what it looks like." I say walking past him a little bit and putting my hand on the wall in front of me, "Pureblood," The bricks under my touch shift and turn inwards, exposing the long dark hallway into the Slytherin common room, "You lot coming or are you just gonna stand there with drool on your chins?"
Lorcan and Lysander walk into the hallway with me. All the big portraits of past Slytherins stare down at us, a few of them yell at us for coming in here when we are obviously not Slytherins but times have changed since they were around. No one really cares if you go in other common rooms or what have you.
"There you three are, I was starting to get worried that you chickened out," Jordan says turning around on the couch to look at us.
"Ly almost did but we convinced him to come down here," Lorcan says.
"You idiot, I'm a Gryffindor, we aren't scared of anything!"
Just then someone grabs onto Lysander's shoulders from behind and he shrieks.
"Yeah, not scared of anything my arse." Ophelia says walking around us and down the little staircase into the common room, "What're you lot doing down here?"
"Having a sleepover in the common room. We're trying to see the Giant Squid." I say following my sister down into the common room.
She plops herself on the couch beside Jordan, "You're telling me that you four are gonna be in the common room all night?"
"Uh yeah?"
She groans and rolls her eyes, "The seventh years were planning on playing some games in here tonight."
"Well, why can't you just play the games anyway?" Lysander asks as he sits down on the floor in front of the fireplace.
"Cause me and Jordan are here." I say sitting beside Ophelia, "You don't want us to see what you've got planned do you?"
"Not that. I don't want you two to go running back to our parents talking about how you watched us play strip spoons." Ophelia says.
I scrunch up my nose, "Spoons? That game that Mum banned in the house because you shoved Freddie out of your way so hard that he fell into the table and chipped his tooth?"
"That's the one. Mum always played it so the spoons were just in the other room. We're going to play it that the spoons are at the entrance of the common room so we have to sprint to get them. Whoever doesn't get one has to strip a bit of clothing. No wands allowed."
"Sounds barbaric," Jordan says.
Ophelia looks at her, "Sounds like Uncle Wally and Uncle Lee didn't raise you right darling."
"We'll be quiet," I say, "We can just go over to that corner and pretend not to be here, and then we can also have a view of the lake."
Ophelia shrugs and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, "Works for me, just don't tell Mum and Dad what you see here."
At eleven fifty-five at night the seventh year Slytherins are all high and half-naked sitting in the middle of the common room while Ly, Lor, Jordan and I are curled up in the far corner watching them with amazement in our eyes.
"That girl is gonna lose I can feel it," I say pointing at a girl with black hair.
"Georgette? Nah if she thinks that she's gonna lose then she's gonna pull a fit and convince either her boyfriend to lose for her or one of her friends." Jordan whispers back.
"I dunno that one looks like he's gonna lose. I mean last round he could barely get up from the floor let alone run to get a spoon." Lysander says.
Cassiopeia jumps from her spot on the couch and sprints down the corridor, everyone else follows her in a fit of screams and laughter.
"If I see someone's whole ass dick I'm dropping out," Jordan says as the screaming continues from the other side of the room.
"I'm gonna ask to be transferred to Beauxbaton or something because there's no chance I'll ever be able to look at them in the face ever again," Lorcan says.
The older students walk back into the room out of breath and laughing. The girl that I thought was gonna lose is now wearing one less sock and is holding onto the guy that Cassiopeia can't stop looking at.
"Wait, wait guys! It's midnight!" Chandler says looking at his phone, "Happy birthday Weasleys!"
"Happy birthday Weasleys!" The rest of the group shouts before breaking into a horrible rendition of For She's A Jolly Good Fellow. Ophelia hugs Cassie tight before she hugs her other friends. Cass on the other hand doesn't hug anyone but Ophelia but she makes eyes at the guy who's got the sockless girl in his lap.
I don't really remember the rest of the night, I think I fell asleep a little after they all celebrated Ophelia and Cassie's birthday. All I do know was that we didn't see the Giant Squid and Lysander's mad about it.
"I'm just saying that next time you lie to me at least admit that it was a lie before I spend the night on some cold dungeon floor," Lysander says to Jordan at breakfast.
"It wasn't a bloody lie! It was because of the party that was happening last night I swear. The squid could hear the noise they were making through the glass." Jordan snaps.
"Right because it could hear through all that glass," Lysander says, clearly annoyed by his lack of sleep.
Someone taps me on the shoulder and passes me the big book that McGonagall passes around to see who's staying at Hogwarts for Christmas or not. As Lysander and Jordan argue I flip through the book to the second year section then find my name. I take out one of my muggle pens and check the box that says 'going home' and sign my name beside it before handing off the book to Lorcan.
A loud bang from above stops Jordan mid-sentence.
"Was that... thunder, inside?" Jordan asks looking up at the sky.
I cast a protective bubble around me and my friends just as soon as rain pours from the ceiling of the great hall, drenching everyone to the bone almost instantly.
"Leah left a list of pranks and what time they're gonna be happening on my pillow this morning," I say to my friends as everyone around us screams and tries to cover themselves from the rain. Theo and their friends are under a different bubble on the other side of the room. Same as Cass and Darcy. "Lightning storm at eight," I look at my phone, "right on time."
"It's gonna be a long day isn't it?" Lorcan says as we all watch as Ophelia and Chandler stroll into the chaos that they've created with big colourful umbrellas over their heads.
I turn back to my breakfast,
"You have no idea."