Hope - George Potter

25 - Detention

After George had sent the letter, he looked at his watch. "Only ten more minutes of freedom," he sighed dramatically. 

"You should probably get going. You don't want to be late for detention," said Henry, shaking his head at his friend with a small amused smile.

"You're probably right. The problem is just that my bed is going to be so sad when I leave it. Just look at it. My bed is so nice, I can't just betray it by choosing a detention over it," George said, while lying on his bed.

"It's fine. I'm sure the bed will understand."

"I don't think so. Bed's don't - I'm sorry my dear bed - have as high intelligence as humans. For them, there are just several different states they can be in and I can't just leave it there in an empty state. The poor bed didn't deserve to be left by me. It's not the bed's fault that I have to leave, but it's probably going to think that it is to blame for our sudden separation," George said in a sad tone.

"Well, then I suggest you apologize to your bed for leaving it and get going. You only have eight minutes left," Henry answered with a small smile tugging at his lips, but trying to stay serious.

George stood up and turned towards his bed. "My dear bed. I love you, but the bad Henry over there persuaded me to choose detention over spending time with you, which I do not appreciate. I am deeply shaken by our separation and I solemnly swear that I am going to come back as soon as possible," he said and the two burst out laughing. 

After another quick glance at his watch, George hurried out of the room and ran down the stairs, through the common room (which earned him quite a lot of angry stares) and through the corridors until he finally arrived in Professor Buckle's office, out of breath and the already usually very untidy hair sticking up from his head even more than usual. 

Professor Buckles looked amused at George for a moment, taking in his chaotic appearance, before he began to speak. "You know why you're here, right? Madame Hooch said something about you flying off to dangerous heights during flying lesson."

"Er...yeah. I know why I'm here," George said embarrassed. 

"Your task is simply going to be to clean the container that I usually keep my hinkypunk in for the third years. Obviously, I removed it, so you don't have to be worried about anything attacking you while you clean."

He placed a bucket of water and a couple of sponges in front of George. This would be easy. He often had to clean at home and had gotten pretty good at it over the years. But then, the teacher pointed to the container next to him. It was a huge container that George himself could probably fit in and the entire surface was filled with green slime. It looked disgusting and it smelled disgusting.

So he started cleaning with a slightly disgusted face, trying not to touch the slime that had a distasteful smell. Professor Buckles started a conversation with him, as he was probably bored, just sitting there and watching him.

"You're actually the first one of the first-years this year to serve detention. Must be a talent," he started with an amused voice.

"It's not like I desperately wanted to have detention in order to finally get the chance to clean this container," George said while rolling his eyes. He stopped soon enough though and his eyes widened because he realized that that probably wasn't appropriate behavior towards a teacher. 

"It's not going to take too much time though. It's just - I have to admit - quite disgusting," Professor Buckles said.

"Yeah I can see that," George said, wrinkling up his nose in disgust. He really hoped that the smell wouldn't stick to him.

It was silent for a while. Professor Buckles had gotten seated at his table and he sorted through paper work. The smell didn't seem to irritate him in the slightest. George, meanwhile, had managed to clean quite a large part of the container. Only once had his skin accidentally touched the green slime and the sensation of the slime on his skin had been horrible. 

When he was around two thirds done, Professor Buckles looked up to see his progress. "Oh wow, you're really fast. It normally takes me ages to clean it. Thanks for getting detention," he said with a smile.

"You're welcome. Don't expect me to come for any more detentions any time soon, though," George answered. 

Another little silence. Professor Buckles seemed to be back in his thoughts. "By the way, I asked Professor Flitwick, the choir and orchestra teacher, if they had a piano at school and apparently they do, so if you are interested in getting lessons, we could meet every once in a week or something."

George looked up from his work. "That would be great! Thanks."

George was nearly done and in the meantime they had arranged a date for the piano lessons. He soon left the office with a big smile on his face. Detention wasn't too bad! That is - until he met the first couple of students on his way back to the Ravenclaw tower, who wrinkled their noses and looked at him disgusted because of the horrible smell from the container. 

"I just had to clean a disgusting container full of green hinkypunk slime and it was NOT voluntary," he said in an annoyed tone to anyone who looked at him the wrong way. Well, at least to the first  couple of people. Afterwards it got a bit boring, so he stopped. 

The next problem on his way to his room - as usual - was the door in the entrance of the Ravenclaw common room. He already knew that he wasn't going to manage to solve the riddle, because he was extremely bad at it, but he tried anyway. After hearing the riddle, he just started hammering at the door in the hopes that someone would open it for him. He really wasn't in the mood to wait outside the common room for ages, when all he wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed. Thankfully, after a little while another student came and he knew the answer, so George could finally run up the stairs to the shower.

He spent around an hour in the shower, but still, parts of the smell sticked to him. It had gotten better but he still felt disgusting. George gave up and hoped that it would be gone before the next morning. Tiredly, he walked over to his room to see that it was empty. He was slightly disappointed because he wanted to tell Henry about his detention, but at least this way he would be able to sleep sooner.

Henry, meanwhile, was also sleeping, but not in his comfortable bed, but in the library with his head on the book he had been reading. 'Heegles spell book of cleanliness' was the name and it was opened on the section about hair. A couple of other books were opened around him, too. All of them relating to hair hygiene. There still had to be done a lot of research on his new project, but he was sure it was manageable.