Mischief Managed | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 17

By the time the class came to an end, Lily's potion was the best one among the rest, and according to Professor Slughorn, it was the best one he had seen a first year student make in their first lesson, thus giving Gryffindor ten more points.

As soon as Professor Slughorn dismissed them, Jenna caught up with her brother on his way outside the classroom, with Sirius Black by his side.

"Oi, J.P!" Jenna called out, causing them to stop and wait for her.

"Oh, good you're here," said James when he saw his sister reach him, "I've got awesome news."

"What?"

"When you had gone up to the dormitories to get your stuff, I heard two seventh year Hufflepuffs talking about the Hogwarts kitchen and its whereabouts."

"Ooh, really?" Jenna grinned in amusement. "Where is it?"

"Apparently it's behind a portrait of a bowl of fruit. If you tickle the pear, the portrait would open up to the kitchen. From what I heard, there are more than a hundred house elves working here at Hogwarts."

"Cool!" said Jenna excitedly. "Where is this portrait, anyway?"

"No idea." James shrugged casually, though his lips then tugged up to a little smirk. "But we can find out tonight, after midnight when the common room's all empty."

"Hey, Potter!" James and Jenna both turned around at the voice when they heard someone calling them from behind.

Looking over, they saw Lily Evans walking briskly toward them, her flaming red hair flying behind her as she neared them angrily, her furious green eyes fixed on James.

"Well, this has gotta be good," Jenna said with a sly smirk as Lily finally reached them.

"Hello, Miss Evans." James grinned at her as Lily came to a stop, folding her arms. "How may I help you?"

"You think you're funny, don't you?" she snapped.

"Yes, very much," James said arrogantly, but Lily ignored his witty remark.

"I saw what you did to Severus!"

"I certainly don't know what you're talking about," said James, acting oblivious.

"You held your feet up, making him fall down!" Lily said sharply.

"Oh c'mon, Evans," Sirius interfered with a grin. "We were just messing around with Snivellus — ah, speaking of the devil..." Sirius gestured over with his head, and when they turned around, they saw Snape walking toward them.

"Leave them, Lily," said Snape as he reached them, wrapping a hand around her arm, trying to drag her away. "They're not worth it."

"Ooooh," James and Sirius said together in a lofty tone, bursting out with laughter.

But Jenna only stood in the back with her lips pursed together, not sure what she was supposed to do as she watched them go back and forth.

"You know what, Potter?" Lily said sternly with her finger pointed at James warningly, while Snape was still trying to get her away from them, "You're nothing more than a — more than an immature arrogant toe rag!"

She then huffed in frustration, rolling her eyes. "Let's go, Severus." And so with her head and nose up high, she left the corridor with Snape.

When they were gone, James turned to face Sirius and Jenna with a confused frown. "What's a toe-rag?"

"Dunno." Jenna shrugged with a grin. "But I assume it's your new name."

     James glared at her while Sirius snorted with laughter.

***

The rest of the day went by quickly as they spent their time in different classes. They still didn't have Transfigurations and Jenna had to wait for that until tomorrow.

But Herbology with Hufflepuffs wasn't too bad either, even though they didn't do anything practical unlike Jenna's expectations. Although as it seemed, Alice was already doing better than the others in the classroom as she answered all of the questions.

     Jenna was sitting between James and Alice in the greenhouse that day, who kept answering the old Professor's questions about the Devil's Snare.

Charms was certainly yet another interesting subject which was taught by a little wizard called Professor Flitwick, who had to stand either on a stool or a pile of books when he wanted to teach.

He made them extremely excited when he told them that they were going to learn Levitation, Lumos, fire-making spell, locking and unlocking, and many more charms until the end of that same year. But for their first class, they only listened to the lectures and covered the theoretical parts.

It was only the first day and yet the teachers had already given them homework. But Jenna just shrugged it off and decided to leave it for the weekend, telling herself that there was enough time for it later.

That night when Jenna returned back to the Gryffindor common room after dinner, she spotted Lily Evans in a corner with Alice and Marlene, explaining their newest Potion lesson to them again so they could do their homework together.

For a second, Jenna wanted to go ahead and apologize to Lily for her brother's behavior, but then she shook her head and just went upstairs toward the girl's dormitory.

I would talk to James about it. He's the one who needs to apologize, she thought to herself, but then grew rather worried.

In all those eleven years that Jenna had known her brother, James had never apologized in his entire life. How could she possibly expect him to apologize to Lily Evans, a girl whom he would probably never care about?

***

That night, Jenna laid awake in her bed and tried to prevent herself from falling asleep, so she could sneak out of the dormitory to meet up with her brother in the common room at midnight. She became more excited than ever when she thought about her first real adventure at Hogwarts.

While the other three girls were already asleep, Jenna kept reading her Transfigurations book to keep herself busy, but she grew bored of it after a short while. There was nothing interesting in there about human transformation. They would only be learning how to turn a match into a needle in the following year.

But at last, the moment she was waiting for arrived. After throwing a quick glance at her clock on the nightstand which showed twelve o'clock, Jenna put her book down and wore her shoes, tiptoeing out of the dorm.

She quietly sneaked down the stairs and into the common room, but then she almost gasped in disgust when she saw a boy and a girl on the couch before the fireplace, snogging.

The two older students hadn't noticed her presence, so Jenna took the opportunity and with a grimace on her face, she opened the portrait of the Fat Lady and left the common room, deciding to wait for James outside.

But as the minutes passed by, Jenna started to grow impatient when her brother failed to show up. She kept pacing the corridor up and down, afraid that the caretaker would show up and give her detention.

     It took ten more minutes until the portrait of the Fat Lady finally swung open once more and James walked outside into the corridor.

"Ugh, finally. Took you long enough —" Jenna was saying, but she stopped in her tracks and then frowned when she saw Sirius Black leaving the portrait hole behind James.