Huffily Puffily || Golden Trio

Pizza Hut Strut || lxi

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It was a fine morning for a little holiday mischief.

One would think that after such an eventful Christmas Eve spent in disguise, the youngest of the tree troublemakers would have been exhausted the next morning. Perhaps she might have slept a little more than usual or at least felt the weariness weighing on her bones. But before the sun had even made its way over the pure white horizon, Lucy Rochester's eyes snapped open, brown eyes scanning over the common room.

Anthony was fast asleep on one of the couches, his breathing slow and steady. Neither of the pair bothered changing out of their disguises from the day before, and there was something amusing about seeing Anthony Rickett— notorious for his messy hair and haphazard appearance— fast asleep on the sofa in formal wear, his hair still combed neatly back. She only half-envied his slumber. She was still tired, but her mind was awake, restless as most children were on Christmas day.

She had never been fond of the holiday before, in her distant past at Wool's Orphanage. Mrs. Cole tried to work with what she had, but even she grew tired of stringing up Christmas lights and poorly decorated trees, especially as the children grew older. None of the children liked it, either. Jennifer whined and complained every time they had to decorate the trees, and that was one of the rare occasions Lucy had to agree with her. The decorations were a sorry attempt at shielding a fact that was undeniably clear to all the orphans: they had nothing to celebrate for. There would not be any presents under the tree, nor cookies set out for 'Santa Claus.'

But it was very hard to dislike a Christmas spent at Hogwarts. The castle was always beautifully decorated, along with each of the common rooms. She'd never caught the House Elves stringing up ornaments but she knew they must have enjoyed the process. Their tree in the middle of the room, Cedric Jr, was nicely decorated with a glowing magical star at the top. She was surprised to see that there was a stack of presents underneath the tree. Normally she awoke with them at the foot of her bed. It was yet another mystery of Hogwarts she would have to look into, how the presents seemingly appeared wherever they slept.

The presents were tempting, but it was too early to open them and she'd have to wait for Anthony, anyway. She had a different mission in mind for the next few hours. Silently, she slipped away from the couch and headed toward her dormitory. Only after a few steps, she realized she didn't need to tiptoe at all. Anthony was dead to the world at the moment and she had a feeling nothing short of a cannon blast would wake him up.

She quickly showered and changed into more appropriate clothes for her task at hand— which was, to say, her most subtle clothing. She tended to wear bright colors like yellow and white most of the time but she wasn't keen on having Snape spy her from a mile away, and so she reluctantly picked out the dark green jumper that Tom had charmed out of spite. Lucy was tempted to feel sad about that, but she pushed those feelings out of her mind— she was on a mission.

In her attempts to make a cover story for herself and Anthony, she told Harry they were working on a grand prank for Christmas morning. Looking back on it she should have just disappeared mysteriously into the night instead of committing to a prank, but she was nothing if not dramatic. So what she had to pull a huge prank in the dead of night with a faulty wand? If she could somehow set a basilisk on students without getting caught, she could manage a simple prank!

Lucy realized about halfway toward the Great Hall that she ought to have brought the Invisibility Cloak, but she refused to go back and fetch it; and it seemed that she would not need it anyway. You'd think that since Sirius Black broke into the castle on Halloween, the professors might have been a little more willing to sacrifice their Christmas holiday by patrolling the castle. But she didn't run into or catch a glimpse of a single professors, not even Mrs. Norris. She questioned the morals of her teachers, but she couldn't complain too much. If it allowed her to go about her business without any trouble, mass murderers were welcomed!