warning: POTTY TALK

For the next stretch of time, the excitement in Ari's life reached a lull — and rightfully so. Nothing could have possibly even come close to the excitement of the glorious, chaotic poop fiasco with the incontinent Slytherins. So she spent the next few days working on her homework, which she'd seriously been procrastinating on.

Thankfully, she had the idea to invite Neville to study in the library together so she could copy off his Herbology notes and use it to work on the twelve-inch essay they had to write. They had to write about a particular plant called the Fecal Flower, which apparently gave off a very strong, pungent smell when it bloomed… a smell of POOP!

"I wonder why it smells like poop," Ari snickered to Neville as they worked on their essays together. "Aren't flowers supposed to smell nice? How come this one smells so bad?"

"I think it produces the smell so predators can't eat it," Neville answered, looking up from his textbook. "A lot of magical plants have some sort of defense system in place to protect themselves. And I guess the Fecal Flower's is to smell like poop."

"Oh, I see," Ari snickered even more heartily. "Guess what happened in my detention with Snape the other day?"

"Huh? What?" Neville blinked, looking unnerved by this sudden change in topic.

Ari smirked. "Oh, it was really fun. He just made me hack off a bunch of pufferfish eyes, but that wasn't the fun part. The fun part happened when Malfoy interrupted our detention 'cause Crap crapped the bed and Snape needed to clean it up."

Neville made a choking sound. "He what?!"

"Yeah, it's true!" Ari giggled, clapping her hands together in delight. "Crap pooed the bed and Malfoy made Snape clean it up. And Snape didn't even say anything about it. He seemed so whatever about it. Like he's had to clean up people's poo before in the past."

Neville gave a snort. He placed a hand on his forehead and looked at Ari with an expression between amusement and incredulity. "Ugh, yeah," Neville chuckled. "That must be awful. But like, who in the world just poos their bed in the first place?"

Ari shrugged. "Those chumps, apparently. I mean, it makes sense. They act like a bunch of babies. And they stuff themselves so much during dinner, I bet their stomachs can't hold the food and it just poops it out."

"Ugh, that's so gross!" Neville exclaimed, but he was laughing.

"It's dis-gus-ting," Ari agreed. "They'd make all the world's Fecal Flowers proud, I'm sure."

She looked at Neville, but he was laughing too hard to respond. He was laughing harder than she'd ever seen him, and seeing him laugh so much made Ari laugh too. Soon, they were laughing so hard the librarian heard them and she kicked them out for being too loud. But it was totally worth it.

"Well, guess that's it for studying, then," Ari said once the librarian flung them out of the library and banged the doors behind them. "What should we do now?"

"Well, I've got to go to the Owlery," Neville said. "I need to deliver a letter to my Gran."

"Oh, I need to deliver a letter to my dad, too!" Ari exclaimed. She had been writing letters but kept forgetting to send them. Mainly because she had been too lazy to go up to the Owlery. Plus, it was a hassle trying to get her annoying owl to come down from his roost and do his job properly. "We can go deliver our letters together!"

"Yeah, sounds good!" Neville said, brightening.

They headed up to the Owlery together, which was as noisy and smelly as she remembered it. The floor was covered with feathers and droppings, and all she could hear were the hoots and rufflings from the millions of owls.

"What'd you write to your Gran about?" Ari asked as they walked over to where the school owls were.

"Oh, just to send me some new quills," Neville answered, rather sheepishly.

"Quills?"

"Yeah," he said as he tied up the letter to one of the owl's ankles. "I lost most of them from the pack Gran gave me at the start of the year. Now I only have one quill left."

"Oh, I see," she said, prodding some feathers on the ground with her foot. "Well it can't be that hard to get some new quills, right? I mean, you could just pick up one of the feathers here on the floor and use it."

Neville chuckled. "Oh yeah, I guess I'll try that out if I get really desperate." He patted the owl's head. "Deliver this to my Gran, okay?"

The owl gave a low hoot of understanding before taking off. "Guess what I wrote to my dad about?" Ari asked Neville as they watched the owl fly out the window and off into the horizon.

"What?" Neville asked, turning back to her.

She smirked. "Just the things I did these past few days at school, that's all. I know Dad likes to hear about that stuff. You might like it, too. Here, I'll read the good parts to you" — and then she straightened out her parchment, cleared her throat, and began reading off it — "'Dear Dad, I had a great day today. I had detention cutting up dead frogs with Snape, but it was so dis-GUS-ting I couldn't stand it anymore and threw up on him. Don't worry, I'm okay; Snape, not so much. He screamed so loud he scared the frogs back to life. I splashed a lot of puke on him. Let's hope I got him sick enough so he won't be able to come to class.'"

Neville snorted. "Too bad Snape still came to class."

"Yeah, I know," Ari scoffed. "And I talked about it, too, in the next entry: 'Dear Dad, bad news: Snape ended up coming to class! Looks like he didn't get sick after all. I should throw up on him harder next time. But today was still fun because we got to make potions, only I had no idea what I was doing and added a bunch of random ingredients and made my cauldron explode out a big smoke cloud. I broke the ceiling and filled the room with black smoke. Snape threw another tantrum and it was so funny. He's such a big baby, isn't he? Sam could totally learn a thing or two from him.'"

"Sam?" Neville repeated blankly.

"Oh, that's my brother," Ari smirked. "He's super annoying and breaks the house with how loud he screams all the time."

"Ah, I see," Neville said, laughing.

"Oh, and here's today's letter," Ari said excitedly, looking back at the parchment. "'Dear Dad, I finished another detention with Toady Wart Face. He made me pull the eyes off pufferfish. They're these blobby-looking fish with spikes and big eyes. They were so ugly, not as ugly as Snape though. I accidentally popped one of the pufferfish eyes onto Snape's face because I pulled it too hard, oopsie daisy! He got mad, but it was totally worth it. Oh yeah, and also a dumb Slytherin boy named Crap pooed the bed. Yeah, you read that right, someone actually pooed the bed! And what's more, Snape had to go clean it off! HA! Guess he's the Slytherin's poop cleaner! As if me throwing up on him wasn't enough! I feel so bad for him! NOT!'"

"Ah, that's so funny!" Neville chortled, doubling over and clutching his ribs. Seeing him laugh so hard for the second time in a day made Ari laugh as well. "I'm gonna die laughing — oh, no—"

"What's going on here?" A cross voice broke them from their giggle party, and Ari whipped around. Hermione was storming into the Owlery, glaring at Ari and Neville in a very McGonagall-like way. "What's so funny? Why are you two laughing so much?"

"Oh, we were just having a fun little joke," Ari said hastily, stowing the letter behind her back as fast as lightning. Goodness knew if Hermione laid her eyes on that letter she'd be flaming Ari about it for days! "Anyway, what're you doing here, Hermione? Didja come to liver a deletter? I mean, uh, deliver a letter?"

Hermione continued glaring at Ari, not looking the least bit convinced by her sudden change in subject. "Yes," Hermione said tersely, clutching a scroll of parchment to her chest.

"Ooh, who's it for?" Ari asked.

"My parents."

"Oh, you mean Snape?" Ari said excitedly. "Get it? Because you're his long-lost daughter, so he must be your father!"

Ari laughed at her own running joke. Meanwhile, Hermione continued staring stony-faced at her, not looking the least bit amused. "For the absolute last time," Hermione said through gritted teeth, "Snape is not my father!"

"Oh, okay," Ari said. "So he's your mother, then?"

"No!" Hermione snarled so forcefully her hair jumped up twice its size. Ari burst out laughing again. "Stop it! Just stop it, okay? I'm not in the mood to deal with any of your ridiculous comments today, and I certainly don't appreciate these — these insinuations you're trying to make about us! Now if you'll please excuse me, I don't have any more time for this chit-chat — I need to go and get this letter delivered right now!"

And with that, Hermione stomped away to the other side of the Owlery where the school owls were perched at. Once she was gone, Ari turned to Neville. "Looks like someone's having a bad hair day, huh?" Ari snickered.

"Ah-ha," Neville gave a tense laugh. "Anyway, how about the letters? Are you ready to deliver them?"

"Oh, yeah," Ari said, pulling out the parchment hidden behind her back. "I just need to call my owl down, though — hopefully he'll cooperate with me this time."

"Does he not usually cooperate with you?" Neville asked as Ari craned her head and searched the conglomeration of owls above their heads.

"Oh no," Ari said, looking back at Neville. "He hates me. He's really mean and grumpy and always tries to bite my hand off. Then again, I did forget he existed, so I guess that could be why he hates me so much, too."

"You forget he existed?" Neville echoed, looking nonplussed.

"Yeah," she said casually. "But not anymore. Hagrid took care of him and told me to go talk to him more. So here I am." She looked back at the collection of owls above them and called in a singsong voice: "here, Princey, Princey! I'm here to talk to you! Aren't you happy now? Come on, I remembered you existed! Can't you come down and say hi to me? I need to send this letter to Dad, and I'd really appreciate it if you could come down and deliver it for me!"

She clicked her tongue a few times, but there was no answer. She groaned and stamped your feet. "Ugh! You're so annoying!"

"Maybe he's out hunting?" Neville suggested.

"Maybe," she shrugged. "I have a feeling he's just ignoring me, though."

Neville craned his neck and stared up at the owls. "What does he look like?"

"He's black," she said. "Really small and round-looking." Then she screamed up at the owls some more: "Come on, Prince! Don't be annoying! Come down already! If you're not going to come down, I'm just gonna use one of the school owls! Do you want that, huh?! Do you want me to use one of the school owls and forget about you?"

She put her hands demandingly on her hips and glared at the mass of hooting owls above. Some of them were now opening their eyes and glaring at Ari for disturbing their rest, but she ignored them. "Come on, Prince!" Ari tried again. "If you don't come out, I'm gonna have a nice talk with Hagrid and tell him all the ways you've been disrespecting me! Do you want that, Prince? Do you want Hagrid to know what a bad owl you've been?!"

At once, a small black blob descended from the ceiling and flew toward Ari. She gasped and stuck out her arm for him to perch on, but Prince ignored her arm and dropped down right on top of her head instead!

She screamed. His razor-sharp claws dug right through her skull, and she could practically feel her hair being ripped out of their roots. "EEEEK!" she wailed, jumping and flapping her arms around wildly like she was doing the chicken dance. "HE'S ON MY HEAD! GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!"

"Ari!" Neville gasped beside her. His face was flushed, and he seemed at a loss on what to do, and kept holding out his arms. "Hold — hold on!"

He tried to swat Prince away, but Prince just flapped his wings in violent protest. A few dust bunnies and feathers got in Ari's mouth, and she spat them out. "BLECCCCH!" she howled. "FEATHERS IN MY MOUTH, FEATHERS IN MY — MMMPH!"

"Hold still!" Hermione screamed as she raced toward them, her eyes wide and wild. "You're just going to provoke him! Don't move!"

And both Ari and Neville froze in place, only for Prince to take the standstill to his advantage and attack her with a renewed vengeance! Ari could feel Prince's talons scraping against her arms and hear the sound of her robes ripping. Hermione's screaming in the background was a nice added touch.

A moment later, there was a huge cawing sound, and then Ari felt Prince extricate himself from her. Ari spat the feathers out of her mouth and watched as Prince soared away and out of the window.

"Oh my goodness!" Hermione shrieked, her wand outstretched. Meanwhile, Neville stared on with a stupefied expression. "Are you all right?!"

"Yes, I'm fine," Ari said, plucking a stray feather off her head.

"Your hands!" Hermione suddenly squealed, putting a hand over her mouth. "They're bleeding!"

"What?" Ari said, turning her hands over. And then she realized they were covered with a bunch of cuts that were oozing with blood, and screamed. "Eek! It's so bloody!"

Neville's face turned white while Hermione leaned over to inspect Ari's hands. "Well, at least the cuts don't look very deep," Hermione said briskly, straightening back up. "You'll be fine. Still, you should go see Madam Pomfrey and have her patch you up. It's easy to get wounds like that infected, so you'd better get them treated properly as soon as you can."

"Okay, okay," Ari said, feeling slightly woozy. "But I've got to deliver my letter first. Prince was so busy attacking me I didn't even get to deliver it."

"All right, you do that," Hermione said, checking her watch. "Well, I've got to go down now — I'll see you two soon, okay?"

"Okay, see ya."

And then Hermione left, leaving Neville and Ari behind. Since Prince was gone to goodness knows where, Ari had to borrow one of the school owls instead. Which, honestly, she should have just done from the beginning. They were much more well-behaved, and she was able to tie the letter and get it delivered in a wink. What a relief. Now all she had to do now was wait for her dad's response.