The Language of Flowers | Fred Weasley

4: P O M E G R A N A T E - folly

*Three weeks later*

"Ellie, quiet down!" Jo scowled, her dark eyes flicking towards me.

"I didn't say anything."

"Shh!"

I rolled my eyes at her, readjusting how I was seated. Joanna pulled out her wand, ready to strike. Her wand's a pretty thing, made of dogwood with a core of dragon heartstring. My wand was gorgeous as well. Made of laurel wood and a unicorn hair core, it was quite beautiful in my opinion and had always been faithful to me. One time Joanna had tried to use it and the spell backfired on her. It was the best prank Joanna had ever performed, in my humble opinion. I smirked, remembering her face when her hair became so frizzly that it took her days to calm it down.

"What are we doing again?" I asked but Joanna just glared at me.

"I already told you twice. Peeves is going to be right there and then we are going to hit him a hair growth spell. Come on, Ellie, pay attention."

Both Joanna and I couldn't sleep, which was a rarity for me, and instead of sitting around in the common room like I had wanted to do, Joanna had suggested that we go out and prank Peeves.

Joanna and I doing pranks together wasn't unusual, and as one of the groups of students who pranked a lot, we weren't bothered too often by Peeves. A few times, Peeves had even joined us in pranking Filch. Despite this, I still loved pranking Peeves. His reactions were absolutely priceless.

Joanna elbowed me in the side, bringing me out of my thoughts. She threw a wicked grin in my direction before jumping into the hallway. I followed blindly after her, my wand out. Seeing someone turning the corner onto our hallway, I whispered the words of the incantation faster than I could process.

All I could do was watch in horror as my spell hit Professor Snape full in the face. He let out a startled cry, as his hair began to grow rapidly. 

This was not supposed to happen.

Without even trying to see the effect of my spell, Joanna grabbed me so quickly that I fell to the floor. I scrambled up, unsure of what was going on. My heart was racing so wildly that I was sure even Snape could hear it.

Bloody hell. Peeves was supposed to be there. We'd been sure that Peeves would be in the one hallway around this time but we were very, very wrong. 

If Joanna's calculations had been correct, Peeves would've been growing hair rapidly. Of course, there already was chances that Peeves wouldn't have been in his noncorporeal form, but the chances of Snape being in the hallway? We hadn't even accounted for that; nevertheless, there he was, growing hair so rapidly that it now reached his feet.

I yanked myself to my feet, darting down the hallway after Jo. "No point in running, Ms. Hawksley. I saw you." Snape called calmly after us, but I didn't dare stop. He yelled an incantation and for our sake, I hoped it was just a counter spell.

Joanna narrowly turned down the hallways and I tried to follow her. That is, until I could no longer see or hear her. Once I realized I was too far behind Joanna to find her, I stopped for a moment, trying to quiet my rapid breathing. I heard Snape curse quietly somewhere behind me, and I quickly took in a few deep breaths.

Bollocks, this was going to end very badly. I began to jog again, trying to put distance between Snape and I.

I wasn't the best student in Snape's class, it just wasn't active enough for me. I was wonderful at Defense Against the Dark Arts, when we had good teachers, and I excelled in Charms. I didn't like Potions though, which made Snape such an easy teacher to prank. Though this wasn't meant to happen, it would be a fun story to tell the rest of my friends, if I survived. I'd either be dead by the end of this, or I'd have detention for months. Death seemed more ideal at the moment, but if I ran fast enough, Snape would be able to calm down before giving me my detention tomorrow.