Reason 1, Detention 1.
Setting fire to your homework in front of a teacher- and burning off their crazy eyebrows no less- does not bode well with them, and will usually lead to double assignments and detention. I blame Albus for that one.
Let's go back to the first week of the school year.
It was just a normal day so far. I never saw anything coming. Which was stupid. Something bad is always coming with those two. Albus and I are both in Sixth, and Slytherins and Gryffindors share most classes together, so Albus and I sit together. Now, I know everyone says Albus is a quiet boy- which he is for the most part- but that doesn't make him any less of a trouble maker. Sure he's not nearly as bad as James, but still pretty bad. And when you put those two together, you have a deathtrap. Add me to the mix and you get- whats's worse than a deathtrap? Hell, I guess. Breakfast and the first two classes of the day went by without any incidences, which is usually a good sign. Potions is where everything went wrong. We had a double, and since Slughorn is quite lazy these days- because he's an old fart and all- he only taught the first half and let us start our homework so he could supervise. Albus and I are quite good at Potions, so it wasn't difficult. We were writing a three parchment paper on the negative effects of making a love potion. (Some of the girls had gotten caught trying to make one, and that didn't go over well with old Sluggy, so he pretty much tortured us all.) I was just about finished when he waddled over to mine and Albus' table to check on us.
"Miss Scott, Mr. Potter, how are we doing over here?"
Slughorn loved Albus (what a shocker), so I was in the old crankpot's good graces, thank Merlin.
"Fine. Almost done, Professor," I said quietly.
"I am done," Albus bragged.
"Splendid, Mr. Potter!"
"Yeah, little Miss Scott here is a slowpoke," Albus laughed.
"I am not," I grumbled. I mean come on! How many other students were even close to done with theirs?
"Yeah, that's why I finish everything before you," he teased as he pinched my cheek.
This is where bad things happened. I just wanted to hit him with my wand a little and maybe turn his hair bubblegum pink, but after the third smack on his head, the stupid little piece of wood malfunction and- you guessed it- set my almost complete homework into a blaze. As if that wasn't bad enough, good old Horace was leaning over our table, and the bloody explosion caught his crazy, disturbing, magical brows aflame. He looks much better without them, let me tell you. They irk me so much. I swear in his extreme old age, they just get longer and freakier every year. And on top of that, I swear they defy gravity. Anywho, Albus burst out laughing like a hyena while I sputtered how sorry I was- trying to hold back laughter of my own.
"Miss Scott..." he said sternly after he extinguished his browflames, "Not only will you re-write that whole essay, you will write one- the same length- of why you should never hit a fellow student with your wand. And detention for both of you. Tonight."
"What?! Why me?" Albus whined, sobering up.
"Because you pushed her to it, Mr. Potter. I'm very disappointed with the both of you. 7 p.m., right here please," he said pointedly as he walked away.
"I hate you, Albus Potter," I sneered as his picked up his jaw from the floor (since teacher's pet just got detention and all).
"No you do not, you love me," he said with a smirk as he threw his arm over my shoulder.
"I'll get you back Al. I swear to Merlin," I promised as I shrugged his arm off of me.
"Sure you will," he laughed.
And I so would. Really.
As soon as class was over, I gathered my things quickly and rushed to lunch, not even bothering to wait for Al. I was still mad at him. I slammed my stuff in the bench next to me and sighed heavily, not even noticing James walking behind me.
"What did Albus do now, Nikki?"
I almost jumped out of my skin.
"Bloody hell, James! You can't do that to me!"
"Sorry," he said with a grin as he sat next to me, "So what did Al do now?"
"What makes you think it was Al?" I sneered at my plate as I stabbed the fries with my knife. Me? Subtle? I think not.
"One, I recognized the sigh and the slamming of your stuff onto the bench. Two, you didn't even notice me, which means you went into Potter-hate mode. Three, you're stabbing your lunch. Four, I know you just came from Double Potions with him."
Stupid observant prat. Just so you know, Potter-hate mode is when I don't notice a single one of them- no, not even Rose- because one of the others, or both James and Albus, have done something extremely git-ish that irritates me to no end. It's like my brain ignores anything with the Potter gene. So much so that I don't even realize when I do it.
"Your stupid git of a brother got me not only a double assignment, but a damn detention," I grumbled.
"Wow, it's only the fourth day of school. You even beat me," he laughed, "What the hell did he make you do?"
I mumbled under my breath. I don't need the rest of the school to hear about it. Oh, wait, this is Hogwarts. They already did know.
"I'm sorry, Nik, I didn't catch that seeing as you were mumbling and all."
"I may have started a little fire."
"What kind of fire, like, a cauldron explosion? Cause that shouldn't get you a detention, I used to do that all the time."
"More like a... 'Horace Slughorn's creepy eyebrows gone ablaze' fire," I flinched.
He burst into hysterics.
"How in Merlin's name did you manage that?" He managed to choke out.
"Well, we were working on our homework, since Sluggy is too lazy to actually teach us something, and I was almost done when that good old Professor of ours decided to drop in on Albus and I. Of course Al starts bragging about how he's faster than me, so I had it in mind to beat him with my wand a little and turn his hair pink. Yeah, it didn't work like that. Stupid think malfunctioned, set my homework on fire, and stupid Horace was leaning over our table. So his eybrows went bye-bye. As did my 3 parchments of homework. My work load suffered a heavier loss than Sluggish did. And as punishment I have to re-write the assignment, do another one the same length on why I shouldn't have beat your brother with my wand, AND serve a 7 p.m. detention."
"What about Albus?"
"He just got detention," I sneered.
"We'll fix that. No way is he getting away with just a detention when you have double work," James smirked.
I like the way that boy thinks.
"Of course, it could end up in a detention for us," he pointed out.
"Bring it on, Potter," I grinned.
"Okay, bring me all the pineapples you can find on the table," he chuckled as he motioned to the fruit platters.