The timing was perfect. It was already dark outside, but early enough that they were fairly certain no one would be in bed by now and they were still allowed to be in the halls since it was before curfew, if only just.
It wasn't until they got to the Hufflepuff Common Room door that Mandy realized the error in their plan. She stopped abruptly, pulling on Jess's arm to get her to stop as well.
"What?" Jess asked impatiently.
"We can't just walk into the Common Room," Mandy said.
"Yes, we can," Jess argued, pulling free of Mandy's grip and walking closer to the door. "We have the password, we'll just slip in. That's the plan."
"We're not exactly inconspicuous," Mandy pointed out, motioning to their all black spandex cat burglar clothes. "Not to mention that we were banking on the fact that he'd still be in the Common Room. He'll notice us."
Jess was quiet for a moment, going over the obvious mistake in their planning. "Damn it," she muttered. "Why did I let you dress us like this?"
"Me?" Mandy yelped. "It was your idea!"
Jess waved the thought away. "And how did we totally overlook that he'd be in the Common Room? That was so stupid," she groaned.
There was silence for a few moments while Jess bit her lip and Mandy tried to make herself as small as possible so that no innocent bystanders would notice her odd sense of fashion and her loitering outside the Hufflepuff Common Room. Personally, she just wanted to go back to her own Common Room and not deal with whatever new plan that Jess was cooking up, but she knew it was her duty as Jess's best friend (and Jess would totally owe her after this one, anyways) to stick around, so she did.
"Okay," Jess finally said. "I've got a plan. Come with me."
She led the way swiftly down the corridor and down the stairs. Not even breaking her stride, she flung the doors to the castle open and continued on her journey.
She paused at one side of the castle, glaring up at the windows as if judging something. "This is about where the Hufflepuff Common Room is, right?" she asked.
"I guess," Mandy hedged.
"Alright, good." Jess started looking around as if a teleport would happen to appear next to her any second.
"Why?" Mandy asked. "What are we gonna do, scale the wall?" At Jess's silence to the question, she backtracked wildly. "Whoa, hold it," she demanded. "We're not scaling Hogwarts."
"Why not?" Jess asked, conjuring some rope. "The Hufflepuff Common Room is only on the fourth floor. It wouldn't be much of a climb to get to his dorm."
Mandy spluttered. "Much of a climb? J, you're insane!"
"No, I'm practical," she said, lifting the rope and attempting to toss it to the fourth floor. It didn't work.
"How do you plan on getting it up there?" Mandy asked incredulously. "And securing it so we don't fall to our doom?"
"Easily," Jess replied. She pulled her wand out of her boot and waved it at the rope, making it float up to a window on the fourth floor. Once it was there, she waved her wand in an intricate way that had it tying around something inside the window.
"What–?" Mandy asked.
Jess grabbed a hold of the rope, tugging on it. "Seems like it'll hold," she commented.
"Seems?" Mandy questioned, just when Jess lifted herself off of the ground and let her body hang from the rope. "Don't do that!"
"Yeah, it's sturdy," Jess confirmed.
Mandy moaned. "You're insane," she said.
Jess shrugged. "I do what I gotta do."
"Why do I have to come with you?" Mandy asked as Jess started to climb, her feet placed against the castle wall to keep her balance.
"Because," Jess said, "I need you. I am in luuuh with you."
"Yeah," Mandy snorted wryly. "I'm in 'luh' with you, too."
"No, but really, I need you. First because I don't want to go alone. Second because I need to make sure that I get in and everything okay. And third because I need you to tell me what I'm doing wrong." She shook her head at herself as Mandy hesitantly started to climb after her, hoping the it would hold both of their weight. It seemed that it did.
"I mean," she continued. "I've done this loads of times. Stealing boys from unsuspecting girlfriends is my specialty. But there must of have been a class I missed on this one, because no matter what I do he never seems interested."
"Maybe you should wait out the school year for them to break up," Mandy suggested.
Jess shook her head again. "Too risky. What if they stay together forever?" She didn't wait for a response. "Anyways, if this works out then you don't have to stay hanging onto a rope the whole time. You can leave."
"Gee, how generous of you," Mandy sniped sarcastically.
"Come on," Jess said as she heaved herself into the window. "I'm–this isn't right."
"What?" Mandy called up to her.
"This isn't right," Jess said, peering outside to Mandy. "I'm pretty sure this is the girls dorm."
Mandy groaned. "Great," she said, looking around at the other windows.
"It can't be far," Jess commented, more to herself than Mandy, as she looked around at the other windows on that floor. "Hey!" she yelped. "Hey, hey, hey! Isn't that Will Applegate two windows over? Isn't he one of Paul's roommates?"
Mandy glared up at the windows. "How can you tell?" she asked. "I can't see anything."
"I can tell," Jess insisted, climbing out of the window.
"How do you plan on getting over there?" Mandy asked, her hands started to hurt from holding onto the rope.
Jess breathed loudly, placing her feet on the window sill and getting a hold of the uneven castle wall. "Now," she told Mandy, "I'm really going to scale the wall."
—x—
"Do you think this matches?" asked one of Trish's many self-centered roommates, Kara.
"Yes," was Trish's automatic reply without even looking up from the magazine in her hand.
"You're not even looking," Kara whined. "How can I tell if you're not even looking?"
Trish looked up, a bored expression on her face as she took in the red blouse and purple skirt. "Matches perfectly," she lied, before looking back at her magazine with a sigh.
Kara stared at Trish for a moment before putting down the clothes and coming closer. "What's wrong?" she asked.
Trish shrugged. "Nothing," she mumbled. She rolled over onto her back with a sigh before posing a question. "Kara, what would you do to get a guy to skinny dip with you?"
Kara gave her a sympathetic look at sat down on her bed. "Tom?" she asked.
"No," Trish snapped, sitting up. "Not Tom. God."
"It's alright," Kara replied, patting Trish's leg. "I heard about what happened. But do you really think it's wise to be asking such personal questions? Maybe you should find out what you're comfortable with before you jump in the Lake with someone, so to speak."
Trish made a noise somewhere between a growl and a frustrated breath. "Thanks," she mumbled, not meaning it. "I think I'm going to go for a walk."
"You do that," was Kara's sympathetic reply. "And think about what I said, sweetie."
Grumbling, Trish exited her dorm and walked slowly through the halls of Hogwarts. It was late and almost curfew, so not many people were out, which was just what she needed. She didn't want any of the judgement anymore. Really, you'd think that one measly little question had been asked of everyone in the school, the way they were acting. Couldn't they just mind their business?
Not in Hogwarts, Trish thought to herself, knowing that if there was even a slight possibility for a rumor, it was circulated and over exaggerated in the next hour. The only thing was, her story didn't need to be exaggerated, and half the school had seen it first hand.
She made her way outside and gravitated towards the Lake against her better judgment. Now it would seem as if she really was a skinny dipping hussy, but what else was she supposed to do? If she didn't go through with it, she'd have to do something horrid like kiss Snape, and knowing Jess she would have no mercy if she backed out. So the only thing to do was bite her tongue, hold back her pride, and go through with it.
"Need some company?" a deep voice asked from behind her.
Trish screeched, jumping at least three feet in the air. She turned around and saw Benjy Fenwick, a Sixth Year Gryffindor, behind her, ducking under some branches to get to her.
"Sorry for the scare," he chuckled.
"It's okay," she gasped, clutching her heart. "I just...wasn't expecting anyone out here."
He shrugged. "Neither was I." He settled down next to her, looking out at the Lake rather than at her. "I hope this is okay," he added, leaning towards her a bit and then leaning back.
"Yeah, it's fine," she assured him. "I'm Trish."
"I know," he told her, giving her a sideways look as she blushed. "Sorry," he laughed. "But you've kind of been the talk around school today."
"I know," she groaned, burying her face in her hands. "I'm really not as big of a slut as that makes me sound."
"Hey," he said softly, pulling her hands away from her crimson face. "It's okay. I know you aren't. I'm Benjy."
She gave him a small smile. "Good to meet you," she muttered shyly.
He grinned back and nudged his shoulder to hers. "You too."
—x—
Eliza was sitting in her Common Room innocently. Her homework was laid out before her as she diligently worked her way through it, eyebrow twitching every now and then at the noise level, but she couldn't very well go back to her dorm seeing as all the girls were still mad at her for snapping at them.
The Bible girl was sitting next to her again. Every now and then, she'd glance up from what she was reading and stare long and hard at Eliza before going back to reading. It had happened eight times since Eliza had come into the Common Room, and if she didn't stop soon enough, she really thought she might–
"Eliza?" someone asked.
Her head snapped up at the sound of her name, relieved that someone had snapped her out of it before she'd taken the girl's Bible and ripped it to shreds.
That is, until she realized who it was that had called her name.
She groaned loudly, gathering her stuff up in her arms and shoving it into her bag. "What do you want, Robert?" she asked, slinging her bag over her shoulder and continuing on her fast escape from the Common Room.
"I wanted to apologize," he said, following after her. "Again. I didn't know about your..." He glanced around the empty hallway they'd just entered. "Condition. If I had I wouldn't have been so insensitive."
Eliza looked up at him, taking in his sincere eyes. Did guys like this really exist? She wondered. She had been the one who was the jerk and yelled at him inappropriately and then fed him lies, and yet here he was apologizing.
"It's alright," she said coolly, hiking her bag higher up on her shoulder. "I'm, you know, used to it."
"You shouldn't have to be," he insisted. "You handle it so well, and I shouldn't have been so harsh about it when I didn't know what was going on with you."
"It's fine."
There was silence except for the sound of their shoes on the stone floor. Robert looked over at her nervously. "Are we friends?" he asked. "I don't want us to lose our friendship because of my stupidity."
She sighed, turning towards him. "I guess," she said as if grudgingly. "I mean, you didn't know."
He breathed out in relief, pulling her towards him in a hug. "Thanks, Eliza," he mumbled against her hair. "I didn't want us to lose this. You mean a lot to me."
She hesitantly wrapped her arms around him as well. "You mean a lot to me, too," she answered.
Well. In an 'I have to have sex with you' kind of way.
—x—
Mandy huffed impatiently. She'd been hanging on this rope for at least ten minutes since Jess had found her way into Paul's dorm. Now, Jess was waiting for Paul to come back to his room, but in the mean time, Mandy was expected to hang around and wait while Jess lay naked on Paul's bed.
"Naked," Mandy muttered angrily. "That is so juvenile. Honestly, what ever happened to innocent and wholesome fun?"
"I can hear you," Jess called out of the window a few down from where Mandy was hanging.
"I can hear you," Mandy mimicked in a horrible imitation of Jess's higher voice.
"You know, it's not very–" Jess was saying, but Mandy suddenly could not hear any of it.
The rope was giving out from under her fingers. She could see it fraying from what it was tied around from the weight of her body as well as Jess's previously. It was going to snap any second, and then she was going to fall, and–
"Jess," Mandy called out, "Jess, the rope is ripping!"
"What?" Jess asked loudly.
"The rope is ripping and I'm going to–"
The rope ripped. Mandy screamed as she fell a few feet before her hands miraculously found home on an uneven part of the castle wall.
"M?" Jess yelled. "M, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Mandy gasped. "But I can't get down."
Jess didn't answer.
"I don't know how long I can hold onto this ledge," Mandy told her. "I'll fall any second."
"It's not that long of a fall," Jess commented lightly. 'You'll probably just break your arm or something."
"Jess!" Mandy yelled.
"What? Pompfrey can fix that in a second."
"I don't want to break my arm! What if I fall on my head? Come help me up."
"Ooh, shush–Paul's coming!" was Jess's giddy reply.
Mandy squeaked in indignation as she heard her best friend flirt a few floors up and to the right of her while she was hanging from a small ledge on the wall of a castle. It was only after the indignation wore off that she realized that it was a long way down and there was nothing she could do about the fall.
Her grip on the wall was starting to slip. If Jess didn't hurry up, she was going to fall to her death. Or, at least to her broken arm. Either one didn't sound particularly appealing.
"Oh, God," she muttered under her breath. "I can't believe I did this. Of all the crazy things Jess could cook up in that wacko head of hers, I had to go along with this one. I am and idiot...and oh, is it a long way down."
"Thomas?" a skeptical voice called out.
Mandy tried her best to turn her head to see who was there, but she couldn't manage it without falling to her doom. "Who's there?" she asked. "Better yet, how are you there?" She heard a chuckle. "Listen, buster, I have a wand and I'm not afraid to use it."
"While hanging onto a wall?" they asked wryly.
"Yes! Even though I don't know how you're talking to me, so you must be like, a giant or have super ninja powers, or, ooh, maybe–!"
And that would be the precise moment her hands slipped and she started to fall.
"Hooolyyy fuuuck!" she screamed as she fell.
And then she wasn't falling anymore. Prying her eyes open, she looked around curiously. What she was met with was the sight of Sirius Black holding her while they hovered in the air.
"A broom," she said faintly. "You're on a broom. Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you were hanging onto a wall for dear life?" she guessed.
"No," she said, lost in thought. "I don't think that's why..."
"What were you even doing, hanging onto a castle wall for fun?" He slowly started guiding them to the ground.
She sighed, slumping against him as she crossed her arms grumpily. "Something to do with being naked, innocent boys, and stupid Slytherins." At his startled and amused look, she added, "You don't want to know. And why are we going so slow?"
He looked at her oddly. "Well, I thought you wouldn't want to go too fast, considering–"
She sighed loudly again, turning herself so that she had a leg on each side of the broom and Sirius was behind her. Grabbing a hold of the broom, she yelled, "Here we go!"
She shot the broom towards the ground, laughing as she heard Sirius scream in surprise and scramble to grab a hold of the broom. Once he did, instead of slowing them down, he sped up, going around in a circle, now laughing himself as Mandy screamed in joy.