Sneak, Part II


A/N: It feels so weird to not have anything to say.




"Who didn't used to be like what?" Woah, I didn't need the voice, I recognized those legs. Juliana Blaise, the only female prefect. "Am I late?" Seems like I'd stumbled into some kind of prefect meeting.

"We were talking about Charlie, Bill's brother."

"Oh, the cute trouble-maker I busted for trying to break into the teacher's lounge last week with the skinny kid?"

Me, cute? Well, devilishly handsome, I could see, but cute?

"I was saying, he used to be a good kid. I think Luiz is just a bad influence on him. You'll notice he never does bad stuff on his own. I try to get him into Quidditch, but he just blows me off every time."

"Maybe you're just jealous that Luiz, a lil' fourth year, influences him more than big, bad Bill." Juliana reasoned.

"Who actually calls me that?" Bill asked.

"No one...to your face." Juliana added the last part quietly.

"Am I annoying? Do I have bad breath? What is it that makes him not like me, at all?" Bill was starting to digress. He sat down heavily on the bed, bouncing my head against the floor.

I'll tell you right now, things like that don't make me like him any more.

"It could have something to do with that." Great, someone else is here now. Why doesn't McGonagall show up, and we'll have a party? Well, there was already a rep from Gryffindor, Slytherin, and Hufflepuff, so I was guessing this was the Ravenclaw prefect.

I couldn't see what the new guy was talking about, but I had a good idea when Bill went "Being a prefect is an honor."

"To people like us." Juliana said bluntly. "Have you not noticed that nobody likes us when we wear these stupid badges? They either fear us or blatantly ignore our authority. Take the cases of your brothers. In them, we have the two extremes. On one hand, we have Percy, who worships the ground we walk on."

"If more prefects looked like you, I would worship the ground they walked on too." Steve said, prompting laughter from Bill and the other guy.

"If more prefects looked like you, maybe we could scare them into behaving." Juliana snapped back. Damn, the girl's good. Bill and Newbie double over laughing.

Oh, shit shit shit...Bill actually fell over laughing. If he opens his eyes, I'm so busted.

I'm so busted.

Bill looks shocked, to say the least. I put a finger to my lips, then put my hands together like I was begging. He stood up again before I could see how he reacted. I tensed, ready to spring out from under this bed and book it for the door.

"So," Bill swallowed so hard, I could hear it. "You were saying about Percy?"

"Yeah, Percy's main goal seems to be to make prefect or head boy, or both. Then there's Charlie."

"The delinquent trouble-maker?" Bill asked, nonchalantly swinging his foot back and forth, kicking me in the knee repeatedly.

"Exactly. He totally disrespects us everyday, and on the off chance we do catch him doing something, he relies on you to bail him out."

"Hey, I don't bail him out." Bill sneered. "You know what happens whenever Steve catches him and Luiz cutting."

"I hate it when double-D tells me 'There's no evidence they were here, Mr. Quag, and you cannot disprove someone having a very bad headache and deciding to stay in bed all day.' Man, I hate that. Just once, I want to bust his ass. No offense, Bill." Steve added, as an afterthought.

"Hey, why would I care, he's only my brother." Bill snapped crossly.

"This is what Juliana was talking about, Bill." Newbie said. "You're so defensive about Charlie, you end up covering for him more than you should. How many times do you think Charlie's said that sentence about you, and meant it? Maybe not in those exact words, but-"

"Shut up Frank."

Frank. That was his name. I knew it. I mulled over what Frank had said for a few minutes. Bill didn't seem defensive about me; on the contrary, he was always the one picking on me, telling me to do my homework, go to sleep, eat my vegetables.

The only time I could remember him being defensive was when I was first learning to fly, and some Slytherin's had set the bludgers on my class. He had been patrolling nearby during his free period, but when he saw me sitting there, frozen fifty feet above the ground, he grabbed a broom and literally dragged me back down.

"Hey, look, it's Twiggy's cat." Steve announced, breaking the tension.

Uh-oh, it was Waffles. She had snuck in and was coming straight at me. There was no note attached, so that meant Luiz had sent her to find me. Crap.

"How's a skinny kid like him get such a fat cat?"

They were all still laughing when Luiz burst into the room, shouting, "Finally!" Then he stopped dead.

"What's the matter?" Juliana asked calmly. Steve stood up and started towards Luiz, but Bill stepped in front of him.

"There's a-a-a big fight going down by the Quidditch pitch. Something about how the last game ended. Hurry!" Luiz disguised his stammer by pretending to be out of breath.

Steve and Juliana raced out of the room, Frank on their heels.