Crookshanks | 𝘚𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘶𝘴 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬

Chapter 39

The next day, Sir Cadogan was fired from his job and they had to persuade the Fat Lady to return to her portrait at the entrance of the Gryffindor common room.

     Sir Cadogan who had been the replacement for the Fat Lady in the past few months claimed that he had indeed let Sirius Black in, because the man had the whole week's passwords written on a piece of paper and had read them all aloud to him.

    After it was made clear that the paper belonged to poor Neville, he got into so much trouble and Jenna felt extremely guilty for it. But then again, if it hadn't been for Pettigrew, Alice and Frank would've been safe and sound right now.

     No one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night, including Jenna. They knew that the castle was being searched again, and the whole House stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught.

     Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell them that he had again escaped and Jenna let out the breath she wasn't aware of holding in relief.

     The next day, they had tightened the security. Professor Flitwick could be seen teaching the front doors to recognize a large picture of Sirius Black and Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes.

      A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs. The Fat Lady had returned, though she still felt extremely nervous to be back.

Jenna wanted to go and see Sirius, but she held herself back. She feared that if she went after him, someone would somehow see him, even though it was almost impossible to recognize him in his dog form. But she just wanted to play it safe, for his sake.

She hadn't been to see Remus either ever since they'd had a small talk. As it seemed, both of them rather forget what had happened that night by the Black Lake.

But all of this had caused Jenna to get extremely bored as she spent day and night either in the girls' dormitory or in the Gryffindor common room, napping. It wasn't in her nature to stay quiet somewhere for too long, and so she was desperately in need of an entertainment.

But it was just a few days before the final Quidditch match that she finally came up with an amusing idea.

Since she had returned back to Hogwarts a few months ago, Jenna had kept a close eye on the mischievous Gryffindor twins, Fred and George Weasley.

The two of them reminded Jenna oddly of herself and James, in their earlier years at Hogwarts when they were carefree, reckless, and a pair of troublemakers that drove Professor McGonagall crazy.

She noticed how the two red-heads joked around and pranked everyone, but to her amusement, no one had yet dared to prank them.

And Jenna wanted to change that.

It was the week before the final Quidditch match of the year, between Gryffindor and Slytherin. The twins — who were both Beaters in the team — had gone down to the Quidditch pitch for practice.

After the Sirius Black incident and Buckbeak's trial nearing, Hermione didn't pay too much attention to Crookshanks, and so Jenna took advantage of this change and left the Gryffindor common room that day.

Jenna turned the corner and entered a deserted corridor. After making sure that no one was around, she turned herself into Argus Filch and made her way down toward the dungeons and entered Snape's office.

She knew that he wasn't in his office now, because he had an advanced Potion lesson with seventh years, to prepare them for their upcoming N.E.W.Ts. And so, using this to her advantage, Jenna entered his office after breaking the protective enchantments he had set for students, entering his personal storage.

Still in Filch's form, Jenna got a move on and took a few ingredients out of their shelves and carried them toward the cauldron on his desk, having a great idea in her mind.

***

After an hour of preparation and getting everything ready, Jenna went down to the Quidditch pitch in her cat form to reduce the chance of being seen by Filch himself. So with that, she hid herself behind a bush outside the changing rooms after the Gryffindors were done with their practice that day.

Jenna watched carefully as they one by on left the changing rooms, until she finally saw one of the twins leaving the place, deep in a conversation with Oliver Wood.

It was rare to find one of them alone and without the other, and so Jenna seized the moment and sneaked up behind them as she turned herself into one of the Weasley twins, approaching them.

"Oi, Freddie!" Jenna called out in George's voice, catching up with Fred and Oliver Wood.

"What?" said Fred as the two came to a stop.

But without explaining, Jenna grabbed a hold of Fred's sleeve and dragged him away, suppressing a grin as she whispered in George's voice, "What do you say we pull a little prank on old Filch?"

By those words, Fred's grin widened. "You know it's against our religion to say no to pranking Filch. Count me in. What's the plan?"

"I've found a way to lure him up to the second floor by tipping him off falsely," said Jenna in George's voice. "You go and wait for me in the Ancient Runes classroom on the second floor. It's empty. I'll be there in ten minutes. I'll explain the prank then."

With that, 'George' dug into his pocket and took out a Dungbomb and handed it to Fred. Jenna had nicked it out of the boys' dormitory earlier that day.

"Yeah, all right." Fred smirked as he put his trust in his twin brother and so without questioning the matter any further, he left to walk up to the second floor.

With a satisfied grin, Jenna turned back and walked toward the changing rooms again and on her way she saw George, talking to Angelina Johnson.

"Oi, Georgie," Jenna called out in Fred's voice and so she dragged George away, stopping only to say, "What do you say we pull a little prank on old Filch?"

***

As his brother had told him, Fred had gone up to the Ancient Runes' empty classroom with the Dungbomb in his hand, waiting for his twin brother.

But to his surprise, George showed up in the classroom five minutes later, holding a similar Dungbomb.

At his sight, George frowned in confusion. "How did you get here faster than me?"

"What are you talking about?" Fred questioned. "You told me to get up here and wait for you to bring Filch, so I did."

"No." George scoffed. "You just told me to come here and wait for you to bring Filch."

"No, you did!" Fred protested.

"No, you did!" George argued back.

The twins went back and forth, unaware that Jenna had enchanted a big cauldron full of green slime to float above their heads.

And then, the next moment, the two boys shrieked in shock when out of nowhere the cauldron turned above of their heads, only to pour all the stinky green slime upon them.

Out of surprise, they accidentally let go of the Dungbombs in their hands, causing them to explode in the classroom, filling the space around them with the nasty gas as they shouted.

Meanwhile, Jenna stood behind the wall outside the classroom, sniggering to herself at the sound of their yells.

"Nice one, J.P," she muttered under her breath with a smirk, before turning into a cat and strolling away.