A/N: I'm so freaking sorry that this has taken so long. This one is also mostly about my OCs. More emphasis will be placed on our canon children in the upcoming chapters. I've also been dealing with some health issues recently – the most prominent one being coughing phlegm every other second. I'm getting better though, so don't worry about me.

P.S. Once again, in Design and Technology class, but it's my last one. Oh well. Might as well make do with these computer-usage privileges while it lasts...

Chapter 7: Intervention V – The Prank War Begins

Lyrical Title: I Don't Need Your Authority

Date of Writing: Before 28 November 2018

Date of Typing and Editing: 4, 6 and 13 December 2018

Warning: *Not much, really. Yay!*

Note: Rome's song is canon, not mine. However, the Nokia 232 was indeed a 90s phone and paintball was invented in the 1980s.

That night, Gale was talking to her home Nation (on her father's side) when she was…rudely interrupted by a loud crash.

"Maple! What was that?"

"Uhhh…gimme a moment, Mr. Canada," Gale said hurriedly, "I'll be back soon. Talk to you later! Bye!" Her finger shot up to the end call button. Her Nokia 232…they thought that electronic devices couldn't function around magic…what a load of hippogriff dung. It did cost her quite a small fortune, but it was completely worth it to carve three runes onto it so that it ran on magic instead of on battery.

She tugged open the door and found…

…What in the name of Isolt Sayre are these desks doing here?

Indeed, there were three or four wood-topped desks with metal support and legs – the kind that one would find in a classroom – stacked up on top of each other, blocking her way to the corridor. She levitated the stack aside (they were stuck together, one on top of the other, with a Sticking Charm, and she couldn't be bothered to remove them one by one)…and next to that 'structure' was one almost identical to it on all the sides that didn't lead into her office/living quarters.

"Holy moly, what the spell is going on here?" she asked rhetorically as she resisted facepalming in frustration. She had only been teaching for less than two weeks! (Though it was a truly frustrating prank…she grudgingly admired whoever that thought this up.)

"Professor Heathers? Is that you?" A voice managed to make its way around the desk stockpile to her ears.

"Yes, it is me, Miss Shafiq." She could practically hear the teenagers glance at each other. She knew that she never addressed students by their surnames (last names) unless they were in trouble, and she had made sure that the kids kew that too. "What are you doing out here in the halls after curfew?" Gale immediately Banished the desk piles between her and the students. "Lumos." Her wand tip lit up immediately.

"Well, these two idiots," here she finally noticed Marcella "Marcy" Shafiq pointing at the girl and boy on either side of her. There was another girl – one of the exchange students – standing next to the other girl, "thought that it was a good idea to prank the Defense Corridor by stacking desks in front of the classroom door. Then they decided to do that to every corridor possible and dragged me and Chelsea along with them."

"Thank you, Marcy. Forty points from Gryffindor for violating curfew and causing general inconvenience." Geez, now she knew what her Professors felt that time when she dumped hot chocolate, marshmallows and whipped cream all over the girls' bathrooms on the second floor. "Now who made that loud crash?"

"Uh, me, Miss-y. I make that fall down," admitted the exchange student, Chelsea. She was pointing at a collapse set of medieval steel armour.

"I can see that," Gale pointed out, then it seemed as though a light bulb had lit up in her head. "How many halls did you prank so far?" She flicked her wand – applewood and shadow wolf fur, the wandmaker had told her – and the set of armour reassembled itself.

"Only the Charms Corridor, the Defense Corridor and yours," replied the third girl in the group – the one next to Marcy, whose copper hair was tied into a pair of braids (pigtails in British English). Her cobalt eyes were glinting with regret under the light of the Lumos of their wands. Tansy Hayter, her colleagues had told her of. "Always causing trouble. Like a miniature girl version of the Weasley twins."

"Alright," Gale straightened herself to her full height, "Imma help ya, eh?"

"What?" asked the only boy in the group. She swore that he looked like a bemused Golden Retriever in human form, with his golden blond locks and wide dark eyes. Of course Gold's confused – no teacher does that. I mean, other than Professor Maddox, but he's always been a weirdo. Remember that day when he set the training dummies to shoot paintballs instead of spells?

"Yep," she finally responded, popping the 'p'. "Don't you wanna see that Toad of a High Inquisitor regret her decision to return to Hogwarts and start talking trash?"

"Okay, ma'am! What do we do?" Tansy asked eagerly.

"Get all the desks and chairs and stack them in the Defense Hall and that alone. Fill the room wi' 'em. Stick 'em to the ceiling, the walls, anywhere except where it's s'posed to be. Oh, and let toads loose in the room. Let everyone know toads are taking over the school."

"That's genius," whispered Gold, "but where do we get the toads?"

"Bin ying lor," muttered Chelsea, frowning. "I dun wanna do dis wor."

"We'll be fine, Chelsie," Tansy reassured, patting her Buddy's shoulder. She was wearing a golden lion t-shirt and jeans. "We have a naffing professor's permission this time!"

"Okay," Chelsea monotonously sighed after several minutes of Tansy making puppy dog eyes in her direction. "Wingardium leviosa."

As they hurried to the Defense Corridor, stacks of desks shakily trailing behind them, Tansy asked once more, "Just curious, but how much pranking experience do you have?"

Gale wryly grinned. "Some. Everyone plays senior pranks at Ilvermorny, 'specially those raised by no-majs. When I was a freshman, the seniors – Seventh Years – Transfigured all the bedside tables into baby tapirs and let loose capybaras labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 in the halls. It took a week for the spell to be reversed and our Defense Professor, Professor Evelyn Wilson – I heard that she taught here for a year before coming to Ilvermorny – got squished to death after casting Accio capybaras. The Dorcuses that planned the pranks were arrested. I remember the Aurors storming the school and prosecuting them for murder at dinner that day. Last time I heard of them was in the news. They 'scaped from jail when I was in Fifth Year and have been on the run since then." She sighed.

After taking a deep breath and setting down the first desk pile, she continued, "Senior pranks were banned after that, but it's one of those rules that aren't really reinforced. My bestie, Tessa, and I stuffed non-Vanishable balloons filled with Stinksap in the staff room and turned all the floors into chess-square pattern. I'm pretty sure that the floors were still checked black-and-white when I graduated six weeks after that."

Let me just conclude that from the day after that, DADA lessons had to be held in Class 31 on the second floor instead of Classroom 3C in the Defense Corridor from then on…due to its inaccessibility. Toads hopped all over the corridors, which the Fifth Years in Transfiguration had to use as Vanishing practice…only because the Transfiguration classroom was also stuffed with suits of armour with Sticking Charms (and Professor McGonagall just happened to be running low on time and couldn't afford to use extra minutes to undo the Charms and Banish them out of her classroom)…and that it did make good practice.

Of course, the day wasn't complete without the patrician known to some as Romulus Vargas being summoned down from the Afterlife to blast a song on European stereotypes through the corridors. On repeat, to the point that everyone and everything in the school premises had memorized all the lyrics before he was sent back to the Afterlife at sundown.

"IN HEAVEN, THE POLICE ARE BRITISH, THE LOVERS ARE ITALIAN, THE CHEFS ARE FRENCH, THE ENGINEERS ARE GERMAN AND THE BANKERS ARE SWISS. IN HELL, THE POLICE ARE GERMAN, THE LOVERS ARE SWISS, THE CHEFS ARE BRITISH, THE ENGINEERS ARE FRENCH AND THE BANKERS ARE ITALIAN."

(This led to the amusement of Gale, Professor Dumbledore and the Hongkongese visitors, yet also triggering – in the fanatical SJW sense – the offended sides of most of the Brits in the school. A certain Englishman was also heard spitting out heinous curses in multiple languages – including Latin – behind the performer's back and about how he was "ashamed to be [his] son" – most likely 'cos this is one of the main reasons why he had to endure so much bulls**t "like this".)

Somehow, that didn't end up in the Daily Prophet. Probably because Cecelia Stori was Obliviated of any memory of getting said news from anyone at Hogwarts.

Translation:

Bin ying – Transfiguration [Cantonese]

A/N: I know that this is much shorter than last chapter, and I have a lot to deal with these days. If you are wondering about the identity of Cecelia Stori, I'll give you this hint – she has everything to do with the Daily Prophet. (Anyone that can guess her identity gets a shout-out!)

And yes, I know I'm breaking my review thing, but who the Nether cares? Just leave 'un, 'kay?

-Talons

P.S. Chapter 8 has more Personification involvement, but Chapter 9 is definitely mostly canon character territory. Just you wait and see.