CHAPTER 8: WIZARDING MOUNTAIN DEW

The next morning, the girls went out early for their run, as usual. After getting back, Ella went back to her own dorm room to get dressed before meeting up with the gang for the walk to breakfast.

Refreshed from her shower, Ella skipped ahead of the others on the way to the Great Hall. Analese just laughed as Ella sang her ABC's in the worst voice she could possibly use. They laughed and joked and tried to stop Ella's singing/skipping.

Finally, in the Great Hall, the group split up and Ella sat alone at the Slytherin table with her Muggle headphones on. She turned the volume up on her favorite obsession at the time, 'His Infernal Majesty' a.k.a HIM. As 'The Sacrament' pounded in her ears, she dreamed of Ville Valo and munched on a chocolate muffin and pancakes with maple syrup. The music was so loud that she didn't hear her white owl, Satan, squawking in her ear.

Feeling Satan's talons on her arm, she ripped her headphones off before pushing his claw away.

"What do you have for me?" she asked the bird she so adoringly referred to as 'Devil's Spawn'.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted saying them. There was a bright red envelope in his other claw.

"Oh, bugger.." the words seemed to activate the Howler.

"ELLA HARMONI SINESSTRA! YOUR FATHER AND I ARE EXTREMELY OUTRAGED BY YOU." the envelope screeched at her. "HOW DARE YOU! HANGING OUT WITH MUDBLOOD LOVING GRYFFINDORS?! POTTER, GRANGER, EVANS, WOOD, AND THOSE DISGUSTING, BLOOD TRAITOR WEASLEYS, NO LESS! YOU HAVE ONCE AGAIN PUT A BLACK MARK THE SIZE OF ITALY ON OUR REPUTATION! THEY ARE FILTHY, AND YOU WILL NOT, I REPEAT, WILL NOT SPEAK TO THEM. SO HELP ME GOD-"

After those words, Ella merely flicked her wrist, making the envelope burst into flames. Ella shook her head, used to the action, and put her headphones back on, turning the volume up as loud as it would go, drowning out the laughter of her own house.

"Idiots…" was all she said.

After breakfast, Ella ran to her room to get her books and homework. Then, she ran to the Potions classroom. Sitting in her seat just in time, she pulled out her homework.

"Your homework was to research and write a seven inch parchment on the process of making, advantages and disadvantages of Energy Potions. As well as the effects and creator of them. If you didn't do it, it's minus two points from your house each."

Automatically, the Slytherins came up with 'reasonable' excuses. Snape, of course, accepted these and moved on.

"Now, pair up and proceed in making an Energy Potion." The slimy professor ordered.

The students groaned, but did as they were told. Ella paired up with a shy and clumsy Hufflepuff and tried to explain the process. The girl just looked utterly frightened by her, so Ella backed off. She smiled and began working on the potion. After she had measured all the necessary ingredients, she let the Hufflepuff, Susan Bones, mix them into the cauldron, while she read the instructions aloud. After the last ingredient had been added, the solution turned neon green.

"Professor, we're finished." Ella called to Snape.

"Perfect job, Ms. Sinesstra. Ten points to Slytherin. And ten from Hufflepuff for laziness." He glared at Ella's partner.

"Now, all you have to do is test it…" he walked away, sneering. The Hufflepuff girl leaned over and the cauldron and sniffed. She quickly jumped back having learned what she would have known if she had completed her homework. Energy Potions smell disgusting, and taste even worse, despite the fact that the ingredients matched those of the Muggle Mountain Dew drinks in America.

Ella smiled at the girl and drank the correct amount of potion from their ladle. Suddenly, Ella felt an explosion of adrenaline. She began hopping up and down.

"Snape!! You should wash your hair. Letting it get all greasy will give you lice!" She began laughing hysterically and knocked over a jar of Wolfsbane. "Whoopsie-daisie!" she giggled and ran around the room a few times.

"NO!! The pixies are going to pickle my sanity and someone will eat it. NOOO!!!" she got an expression of horror on her face. Then it changed to an 'I-know-something-you-don't' look.

"Sanity's green, you know." Ella stood proud of herself for knowing that fact, but fell over into an empty cauldron. "Ow." She once again began laughing hysterically.

"Greasy Snape, can't get a date, in the dungeons there he stays, it's not like he can get shagged anyways." She laughed at her little rhyme and sang it over and over again, her voice echoing in the cauldron.

"Someone get me out of here!"

By this time, the class was laughing at Ella, stuck upside down in the cauldron.

"Idea!" The adrenaline-high girl called in a sing-song voice similar to Peeves'. "Mr. Lice, he ain't nice, stick up his arse…uh-oh, what rhymes with arse?" she pondered into the cauldron.

"How about this," Analese walked in right then. "Brain cells are sparse!" she sang.

Ella laughed and repeated both rhymes, one after the other, multiple times.

Snape rushed over and tugged Ella out of the cauldron. He shoved a vile of a pink solution down her throat. Slowly, the effects wore off and everyone looked to Snape to see what he would do.

"Ten points to Ms. Sinesstra for a perfect demonstration of the effects of the Energy Potion, and ten from Hufflepuff for not knowing the counter potion."

Ella, although nearly drained, glared at the professor, not being able to collect enough strength to point out that none of the Slytherins knew the counter potion either.

"And ten points from Gryffindor for disrupting my class." Snape went on, planning to give Ella no credit for the day.

"Well, sir, Professor Lupin sent me with this." Analese passed him a sealed envelope with an unreadable expression.

"And this is no excuse to interrupt an important lesson, Evans." Snape snatched the parchment from the fifth year's hand.

"See you soon, professor." Analese turned from the oily man. She sent a wink to her energetic sister.

A shared smirk between the siblings showed mutual agreement: a prank was in order, and had been for years.