“Oh, Letty! That’s gross. Don’t put your gum there!” Andromeda whispered.
Letty grinned and stuck her chewed gum under the desk.
“Miss Branstone, please do not place your chewed gum under the desks. It’s unsanitary,” Professor Finch, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, said from the front of the classroom.
“Sorry,” Letty muttered, before putting her gum in the trash bin.
Professor Finch went back to the lesson.
“She must be a Seer or something,” Letty hissed.
“Well, it is gross,” Andromeda repeated.
Letty cast her a dark look and went back to her work.
*
Andromeda hurried down the hallway, eager to get to lunch. She had gotten mixed up in the door you had to compliment and the door that pretended to be a wall every second Tuesday and now she was afraid she had missed lunch.
She jogged across the Entrance Hall, not really watching where she was going. And of course, when you don’t watch where you’re going, you’re bound to run into something.
In this case, she ran right into Phoebus Walnut.
“Watch where you’re going, book worm,” he sneered.
Andromeda frowned. She didn’t even read that much. It must have been some subtle attempted at making fun of her because she wasn’t a Slytherin.
“Hey!” came an icy voice from behind them. “Watch who you’re insulting, Walnut.”
It was Bellatrix.
Phoebus scowled and stalked off, less then eager to get on Bella’s bad side.
“Thanks, Bella,” Andromeda muttered, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Bellatrix led the way to the Great Hall. “No problem. He’s a little sneak anyway. I’ll teach you a hex that will make his fingernails fall off, okay?”
“Sure,” Andromeda said, trying to match her sister’s light tone. “See you, Bella.”
Andromeda headed towards the Ravenclaw table while Bellatrix sauntered to the Slytherin table.
Apparently, Bellatrix had made it known that there would be no messing with the Blacks. As long as Bella was standing up for her and they were on friendly terms once again, Andromeda didn’t mind in the least.
*
“Excellent, Miss Black. Five points for Ravenclaw!”
Andromeda smiled down at her successfully transfigured water goblet, which had previously been Icarus.
“How’d you do that?” Letty asked, waving her wand around wildly.
Several tables in front of them, Jane Fenwick’s hat caught fire. Letty hastened forward to put it out, cursing.
A voice sounded in her ear. “Know-it-all.”
Andromeda turned around in her seat. Phoebus Walnut was leaning forward, smirking.
“Push off,” she muttered.
“I bet you’ve never even lost a point before, have you?” Phoebus sneered.
She glanced around. Professor Dumbledore was preoccupied by Jane’s flaming hat, the flames of which had now spread onto her notes.
“How, exactly, is that a bad thing?”
Be like Bellatrix. It can’t be that hard.
“Well, for starters, it makes you a brown-nosing goody-two-shoes,” Phoebus said in his annoyingly mocking voice.
“I don’t brown-nose!” she protested.
“She’d probably faint if she got a detention,” put in Adya Harper, one of Phoebus’ sneering friends.
“Well, I’ve never been caught doing anything stupid, so I wouldn’t really know,” Andromeda said boldly.
“Well, Black, I’ve got the perfect opportunity for you to prove yourself!” Phoebus adopted a disconcerting smile.
“Steal Pringle’s toupee!” Adya whispered dramatically. “And put it on the suit of armor outside the Great Hall!” She giggled at the prospect.
Apollyon Pringle was the caretaker. It was widely known that the great orange mass atop his head was not real.
Phoebus lifted his eyebrows challengingly.
“Miss Black, Mr Walnut, is there a problem?” Professor Dumbledore asked.
They had, apparently, managed to put poor Jane Fenwick out.
“No, sir. Everything’s fine,” Andromeda said, turning back around in her seat.
“Brown-noser!” Phoebus hissed.
Andromeda scowled.
*
“You’re going to do what?” Letty asked in amazement.
“We,” Andromeda corrected her.
Letty raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“Please, Letty?” Andromeda pleaded. “I need to show Phoebus up!”
Letty thought for a moment. Andromeda waited with baited breath. “Do you know how difficult this will be?” she asked. “Pringle’ll catch us for sure.”
Andromeda smiled, happy she didn’t have to complete her task without Letty. “We won’t get caught. Anna’s coming too!”
“So you’ve enlisted poor Anna to help you with your newfound fondness of rule breaking and humiliation as well?” Letty grinned.
“Hey, I’m not fond of rule breaking!” Andromeda protested. “And Anna volunteered to help. She’s managed to learn a Sticking Charm!”
“Okay, fine. But do you think you’re ready to taint your saintly reputation?” Letty asked through a grin.
Andromeda laughed and flicked a gobstone at her.
*
Andromeda, Letty and Anna crept stealthily across the empty Entrance Hall. Llewellyn, Letty’s brother, who got into trouble with the caretaker frequently, had told them that Pringle generally made his rounds around eleven-thirty or do. His office was just off the Entrance Hall.
“Alohomora,” Letty whispered, her wand pointed at the lock.
Amazingly enough, they heard the click of the lock and Andromeda opened the door. She had thought Pringle would have some kind of security features on his office.
“We probably shouldn’t go in,” Andromeda said. “He might have some kind of wards.”
Letty nodded and pointed to a round box on Pringle’s desk,
“Levitate it over,” Anna suggested.
Andromeda pointed her wand at the box and levitated it towards them. The box floated over to where the three girls waited on the threshold and fell into Letty’s outstretched arms.
Silently, they peered inside. An old, moldy patch of hair sat at the bottom of the box.
“Must be a spare,” Andromeda giggled.
Quickly, Anna placed a Sticking Charm on the underside of the toupee and stuck it onto the suit of armor next to the doors of the Great Hall while Andromeda levitated the empty box back onto Pringle’s desk.
“C’mon, Pringle’ll be back soon. He shouldn’t be able to see it from here.” Letty ushered them towards the stairs.
Andromeda was grinning broadly. She was sure that she would feel reasonably bad for Pringle the next morning, but she was thrilled by the fact that they had not been caught.
“And why, may I ask, are three second years out of bed?”
Andromeda looked ahead of them to find Professor Green, the Astronomy witch, looking at them with her hands on her hips.
“Oh, we’re really sorry, Professor. But Andromeda couldn’t get to sleep and she figured a glass of warm milk would help her. And I kind of already knew where the kitchens were anyway because my older brother told me,” Letty invented quickly.
Professor Green raised an eyebrow and looked at Anna expectantly.
“Oh…I was… studying in the library and lost track of time... I was just on my way back to Gryffindor Tower,” Anna said lamely.
“Well, I don’t know what you three were up to, but I suppose it couldn’t have been too bad,” Professor Green said.
She sent a discreet, half-smile Andromeda’s way. Since Andromeda excelled in Astronomy, Professor Green considered her one of her best students, and if she indulged in favoritism- which she most certainly did not- Andromeda would probably be one of her favorites.
“So I won’t dock any points. But rules say that I’ve got to do something… You three meet me in my office at seven tomorrow evening for a detention,” Professor Green finished.
Andromeda’s eyes widened in horror.
“Now, ladies, off to bed! Next time I will dock points!”
Professor Green gave them a rather silly look (somewhere between a scowl and a grin), continued down the stairs and strode across the Entrance Hall and out of the castle, thankfully not seeing the faux hair stuck on the suit of armor.
*
The next day Andromeda got up extra early so that she was one of the first ones in the Great Hall.
Phoebus and Adya entered wearing matching scowls.
For detention, Professor Green had gotten them to help her chart the revolving planets, which Andromeda rather enjoyed and didn’t consider as punishment at all.
Apollyon Pringle had tired to remove the toupee and failed. Since he had many others and because the students and staff found it very amusing, the suit of armor in the Entrance Hall continued to have a full head of hair during the rest of Andromeda Black’s stay at Hogwarts.