Mischief Managed | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 82

Up until dinner time, Alice's new Bowtruckle pet remained seated on her shoulder, no matter where she went. The other students kept coming to her, telling her how adorable he looked. But Woody was so shy that whenever a crowd gathered around them, he would jump down and hide himself in her robe's pocket over her chest.

"Isn't he the cutes?" Alice said with a giggle as the girls left the Great Hall after their meal. She had a biscuit in hand from dessert and kept taking small pieces of it before handing it to Woody who was sitting on her shoulder again, taking the biscuit pieces from her with his tiny green hands and eating them eagerly.

"Al, I'm sure Professor Kettleburn wouldn't approve if he knew you had taken one of the Bowtruckles back to the castle," Lily said in a whisper to Alice, looking around to make sure none of the teachers was around to see the creature, knowing that they would get into trouble for having it.

      "His name is Woody, and I'm sure it's fine," said Alice, her attention on the little Bowtruckle who was nibbling on the last piece of the biscuit. "Besides, it's not like I've brought him here against his will. Woody wanted to come here with me. He wouldn't get back on the tree. I think the other Bowtruckles bullied him, cause... cause he was tinier than the rest of them," she whispered the last words quietly, as though afraid that Woody would understand her and feel hurt.

     Jenna and Lily shared a look, silently deciding that they better not say anything else to Alice, seeing how attached she had already gotten to the Bowtruckle.

     When they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady, Marlene said the password so they could get to their common room.

     "Okay, so we should better get started on our Charms essay tonight," said Lily as they climbed through the portrait hole and into the scarlet room. "Marlene, Jenna, can you please, for the love of God, not leave your homework for the last possible minute? You saw how bad it got last year and it all piled up. This year's even harder because of the extra classes we're t—"

     "Oi! You four!" A voice came out of nowhere, startling them.

     Lily, Marlene, Alice, and Jenna looked behind them, searching for the source of the voice, but there was no one there, leaving them confused.

      "Up here!"

      The four girls looked up at the high ceiling of the common room, but they all let out a loud gasp of shock at what they saw. Sirius was dangling in mid-air, upside down.

      "Oh, my! What are you doing up there!?" Lily exclaimed, her eyes wide.

      "Oh, nothing much. Just relaxing. It's my new way of meditating," said Sirius in a mock-cheery voice.

     "Really?" said Marlene, frowning.

     "No! I'm being sarcastic! Get me down!" Sirius snapped, red in the face from being dangled in the air for God knows how long. The other students in the common room who were older kept on sniggering.

     "Well, how did you get up there? We need know the spell so we can use its counter-curse," said Alice, looking extremely worried.

      "We were trying on a new jinx — Levicorpus — that idiot James used it on me and only after getting me up here remembered to tell me that he didn't know the counter-curse! Now could you just do something to get me down!?"

     Jenna grinned, crossing her arms. "What's the magic word?"

     "If I knew the magic word I wouldn't be stuck up here!" Sirius retorted.

      Jenna rolled her eyes at that. "You know what? I think it's good that you're up there. Maybe it will get more blood in your brainless head and then you'll realize how big of a git you are."