Chapter Seven - Scheming
"Lumos Solem," Tabitha shouted angrily at the plant pot with the seed that was supposed to grow instantly with the rays of light created by the spell. It wasn't going very well for her.
"Wait, so you made the Forgetfulness potion..." Skye clarified.
"Perfect, it was!" Adam nodded along.
"Deserved an award. Obviously, Snape was jealous about my Potion-making skills and stole the sample I put in the vile for him!" Mikey mourned for his lost potion.
"You didn't sample the thing and forget where you put it did you?" Skye laughed.
"Honestly, this seed is defective!" Tabitha complained with a huff.
"I think you're too angry. Gardens are supposed to thrive with love, right?" Skye's hearty advice was met with a death glare from Tabitha. At her fourth attempt at the spell, sparks emerged from her wand, setting the soil on fire. Professor Sprout bustled over and used her wand to extinguish the flames immediately.
"Sorry," Tabitha muttered as she tutted at her attempts at the spell. After the Professor's attempts to guide Tabitha on where she was going wrong, they were left to their own devices once again. Skye took another one of the seeds they were using and planted it into a fresh pot of soil, setting it on the work surface of Greenhouse One for Tabitha to try again.
"Hey, you know I've got an idea how we can get the Weasley's back," Mikey chirped in an attempt to brighten Tabitha's mood.
"Better than the cunning of Miss Knight?" Tabitha raised her eyebrows at him and smirked. She was under the impression that Skye was the real evil genius here since her suggestion had been to use 'Wingardium Leviosa' to float the Weasley's beds down to the common room area or the Great Hall. Unfortunately, Mikey had pointed out they'd only managed to do the spell with a feather so far. A bed might be a bit more complicated.
"Well, you know what I said about entering our common room?" The girls nodded. Apparently, you had to tap a certain barrel in a certain way. The girls didn't know the specifics, but neither did he when it came to the password used to enter their common room. "Well, turns out if you do it wrong you get squirted with vinegar!".
"That's gross," Skye scrunched up her nose.
At the same time Tabitha cried, "that's brilliant!". Skye raised her eyebrows in question to her excitement. "Don't you see? If we can lead the Weasley's to the common room entrance and they try to get in, the charm does all the work for us!"
"How are you going to do that?" Adam inquired.
"Secret evil genius, activate!" Tabitha tapped Skye's head with the end of her wand.
"Don't do that! You just set a plant pot on fire for goodness sake!" she scolded. This was followed by a sigh as her three Herbology partners stared at her, waiting for an answer. "Well, they need a reason to want to enter the common room first and we need to leak to them the way to get in that they wouldn't be suspicious of," she explained.
"So, we make them really mad until they chase us in there?" Mikey suggested.
"They're not really the angry type though," Skye pondered the dilemma. "They'd do it as a dare, but it'd be really suspicious coming from us."
"What about Katie? She hangs out with Angelina, Lee and those two quite a bit right?" Tabitha was getting very excited.
"Ok, so she dares them to enter the Hufflepuff common room…" Mikey began.
"No, it would be less obvious if she dares them to enter a different common room. But, we make sure that they've already obtained the 'knowledge' to enter Hufflepuff's, thinking they can get in easily," Skye schemed with a smile.
"What if they already know how to get in another common room?" Adam pointed out.
"Well, even if they know how to get into Ravenclaw's, or where it is, there is no guarantee of success, right?" Skye glanced at Tabitha.
"It's always some knowledge thing, which I doubt they'd pick it with confidence," she confirmed.
"I think if they could get into Slytherin's common room we'd already know about it, wouldn't we? Or maybe if they already had, then it wouldn't be impressive if they'd done it before." Skye nodded in agreement. The plan was coming together well. Tabitha seemed to think so too as she gave Skye a bright smile before returning to the spell at Professor Sprout's watchful gaze.
"Lumos Solem," she pronounced resulting in a beam of sunlight to protrude from her wand, causing the seed to grow into a tall sunflower. She smirked at the results and crossed her arms as if to say 'take that' to no one in particular.
XxX
"Ready, movie star?" Tabitha grinned at Skye as they stood outside the entrance to Gryffindor common room.
"We both know who's going to win an Oscar after this," Skye shook her head as Tabitha bounced around from excitement.
"Oscar? I don't need amateur dramatics to win a boy's heart, Skye," Tabitha winked. "Come on, let's do this while we know they're in there." Tabitha said the password to the portrait before Skye could even explain about the Oscars and stepped through, entering the room like a raging storm cloud. "Honestly, as if I'd even want to enter his stingy common room!" she huffed.
A lot of people had turned towards her outburst, but noticing Tabitha as the source of the commotion most had already resumed their conversations. Everyone was already used to her mood swings. However, from the corner of her eye Skye could see two red headed twins smirking at each other. Luckily for the plan, winding up Tabitha whilst she was in a rage was a great pastime for them and was perfect for dropping in crucial information.
"It's his business, Tabitha. It's not like we've invited him in here, have we?" Skye's voice hinted at her amusement of her friend's dramatic flare.
"That worm doesn't deserve to step into this hallowed ground!" Tabitha raged while her eyes glinted.
"Hallelujah," shouted one of the twins, Fred, Skye guessed.
"And amen," George followed up. Tabitha gave them her best death glare to date, which caused them to begin grinning again.
"What's this about worms, Tabby cat?" Fred's use of her brothers nickname for Tabitha had Skye glancing at the girl. The last thing they needed was for Tabitha to fly off in a real rage and forget their objective. She certainly looked more annoyed about the situation.
"Michael," she breathed in real annoyance. Skye guessed that was more about the nickname than anything.
"Are you telling me that our Golden Boy has done something wrong?" George mocked shock at the notion.
"No, she's overreacting," Skye had taken a seat in the common room and started flipping through a book to hide her face.
"I am NOT!" Tabitha countered with a stomp of her foot.
"He said that you knock on the top barrel near the kitchens to the rhythm of the password, what more do you want?" Skye sneaked a glance at the twins from behind her book. They looked interested now.
"The password." Tabitha crossed her arms.
"Why would he tell us that? We didn't tell him the password to our common room, did we? We just said that you say the password to the portrait of the fat lady," Skye stated.
"I asked first. If he had told us, I'd have told him!" She grumbled and stormed off towards the stairs leading to the girls dormitory. Skye closed her book, shrugged at the twins and headed off after her with a smile. Upon entering their room, Skye was graced with the sight of Tabitha's celebrations. The girl appeared to be giving her bed a good pounding with her hands and feet with the occasional 'woop'.
"I don't think your bed springs are going to thank you for that," Skye pointed out.
"Who cares. Stage one is complete and soon we'll wipe the creepy little smirks right off their faces." Tabitha mused with a final punch towards the sky in celebration.
"Amen," Skye chuckled.