"Bubble, bubble, Umbridge and trouble."
Chanted the small girl.
She was standing in front of a giant cauldron in the center of the room, large enough for the girl to bathe in. A single beam of moonlight shone through the small window and straight into the dark red potion simmering inside.
Her face was hidden in a black hood.
She slowly lifted her arms like a priestess standing in front of a sacrificial altar.
"Blood, blood, blood from the rubble."
She chanted again.
The light strangely glinted off her hood as she took a small wooden bottle from inside her robe and poured in a shimmering liquid. The bottle had a big 'C' carved into its front.
The potion-or whatever-in it bubbled a girl stared into the cauldron and watched it shimmer, apparently mesmerized.
Just then, a sudden lightning bolt illuminated the room.
To tell the truth, there wasn't really much of a room.
It could only be described as a small but incredibly messy space connected to two more rooms with doorways, through neither actually had a door in them. Instead, there were pieces of respectively grey and charcoal veils draped in them, effectively covering the other spaces from view despite their almost ragged looking appearance.
The ceiling, walls and floor were all made of crude-looking bare stone.
But one could stay for an hour and not notice the fact, for they were all nearly completely covered with various bookcases, shelves, cupboards and papers(even the ceiling was wallpapered with moving posters and colourful papers).
The bookcases, shelves and cupboards in turn were filled with bottles, knick knacks, figurines, and mainly books. The floor had barely enough room to sit in, if one managed to get through the piles of books. Most of the piles had at least one teacup with a spoon in them balanced on top of them.
The cauldron had a small circle of clean surface around it, but the pushed-up mess was slowly spilling back into it.
The only kind of furniture in the room (not counting the aforementioned bookcases, etc.) was a small table. Only the table was completely uncovered.
The witch (for who else possessed broomstick servicing sets, cauldrons and pensives?) was floating a feet above the ground, and looking expectantly into the cauldron.
Few seconds later, there was a thunder clap and it began raining.
The witch looked startled for a second, then she began laughing like a maniac.
"It worked! It finally worked! It's aliiiiiiiive! Bwahahahaha-cough, cough-hahaha-"
"Hey, Dor. We're back! We came a bit early, with the rain and whatnot, and also because Nari went on a…."
The voice trailed off into silence.
The witch, aka 'Dor', slowly turned around to the direction of the voice, 'Shit' and other four letter words running through her mind.
In the darkness, the two figures standing in the doorway with the grey veil and one standing(floating) in front of the cauldron stared at each other.
"Hey, Nari. Hey, Ginny."
Dor said, trying to sound nonchalant.
"Yeah. Hi to you, too. Uh, not to sound accusing or anything, but did you do something to the Science project while we were out?"
The first witch, now identified as 'Dor', involuntarily glanced at the direction of the charcoal veil. It was the doorway to the toilet. Inside the toilet was the lavatory seat, in which the project had gone down.
Needless to say, 'did something to it' was an understatement.
"Wait, let me turn on the light first, this is creepy."
A third voice said.
The room flickered again, but this time it wasn't from a lightning.
Dor blinked owlishly at the sudden brightness.
Two more witches were standing in the doorway. They were both holding a stack of thick books, and they were dripping from the pouring rain. (The witches, I mean. Not the books. The books were wrapped in transparent plastic bags and completely dry.)
The three witches had, interestingly, the exact same face and body shape,like triplets. But the similarities ended there-for example, their headgear. One was wearing a forest green bandana on her head, another was wearing glasses, and the other was wearing a hood. Their voices were also different.
The light flickered again.
The bandanna-wearing witch frowned up at the ceiling.
The light was still flickering.
"I think we should get it fixed."
She said to no one in particular, and shuffled off, in search of a spare light stick. She was wearing a pirate outfit, complete with a sash around her waist and rings with giant gems on her fingers. She, too, was floating a foot off the ground to avoid the mess. She went to the ragged veil and disappeared inside.
The bespectacled witch-the second voice- paid no heed to her companion wandering off as she peered over at the cauldron. She was wearing a white dress shirt with black trousers.
"Dor, did you or did you not? It certainly looks unchanged, but I can never know for sure when you're involved."
Dor shook out of her black robe. Her straight, waist-long hair was several shades darker than the charcoal colored hoodie t shirt she was wearing inside. She opened a cupboard and chucked the robe inside, turning her back to where her friend was standing.
"Nari, you wound me."
Dor said over her shoulder with a mock-hurt tone.
Internally, she thanked her intelligence that she had managed to make her own little creation look exactly the same as the Science project for school.
"I was just reenacting 'Frankenstein'. You know, that iconic scene? The project is completely unchanged."
Technically not a lie. See, the things that went down the drain in the tower was all emptied into big containers at the end of the pipes.. They could usually fish out whichever object that they had belatedly decided that they still had use of, Especially because they mostly used the toilet as a particularly convenient bin.
Dor was going to fish the science project out on the day before the due date, after they finished her own project.
"So, well, I was just standing in front of it and doing the mad scientist imitation."
She finally turned around, a bit relieved to find Nari sitting on the table and not investigating the cauldron more throughly.
"Hmm. All right. Just remember it's due in a month."
"Yeah, yeah."
She said, good-naturedly.
She conjured another table beside the original one and plopped on it, it's legs not quite touching the ground.
"Hey, so what did you get about sorbothane?"
Nari handed her a thin book.
"Thanks."
She had barely read a few words when the room suddenly went dark.
"Oh, bloody hell."
Came a voice from the grey doorway.
Dor and Nari looked at each other.
"Uh, guys, can you help with this? I pulled the wrong one."
Dor heard a sigh, and a circle of light appeared.
Nari moved her flashlight around. The two of them went through the grey veil and into the main room.
"Where are you, Ginny?"
"Here."
The third witch-Ginny-was on the ceiling, perched upside down beside the chandelier.
"Nice to see you're using the spiderman shoes I got you for christmas."
Dor said as she was handed a flashlight.
"Yeah, it's very nice. Thanks again, Dor."
Dor aimed the flashlight at the open panel beside Ginny.
After a few minutes, the light came back on.
"Nice."
"Yeah. Speaking of nice, can we order pizza?"
It was another normal day at the tower, and Dor's project was slowly taking form.
A/N
Hey, guys. Meet my muses, Ginny, Nari, and Dor. They're the reason why I'm writing this. They live in my head and make up weird ideas. The main character will show up next chapter, and the real story will show up in the third one. At tgat point, this chapter will be moved to the back. Thanks for reading.