Up to No Good (The Gang)

[Quentin Reuben Flack]

There were few people who could raise a complaint about dinner in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. Nobody ever went short of food, the long house tables heaving and creaking under the weight of a veritable feast of delicious variety. Whatever your dietary needs the house-elves had catered to it and more. There was soup and roasted meat, vegetables, warm fresh bread and mouth-watering pies. There was pasta, sauces, sausages and potatoes in any form you wanted. You could even have a salad if your heart so desired it, not that many of the students ever went for the healthy, green option.

The point was dinner was often a splendid affair, but that didn't change the fact that there was only so long Quen could spend stuffing his face before he began to wish something exciting would happen. After a tortuously long lesson of double potions he wanted entertainment, but unfortunately most of the other students were quite content to keep eating and any attempt to make conversation only interrupted valuable chewing time. After fifteen minutes drawing ancient runes into his left over mashed potato Quen sighed, dropped his fork onto the table and glanced over to the Slytherin table. Kale should have spent the obligatory length of time keeping his Slytherin cronies in line and that meant he could have his friend back.

A quick nod to the dark haired teen and the two of them rose from their respective tables, Kale shaking off a few hangers on who couldn't seem to do anything without somebody to lead them. They probably couldn't even use cutlery without direction, which was why Quen tried not to spend too much time at the Slytherin table. That and it was kind of hard to ignore the barely concealed coughs of 'mudblood', which generally made his cheeks go hot with embarrassment. Embarrassing Quen was never really a good idea, because it generally led to temper tantrums and things exploding.

”Hey,” He greeted once they were near the Entrance Hall doors, which was all that was needed between the two friends, they'd known each other long enough to know that the only reason they ever skipped out on the end of dinner was to go looking for trouble. They hadn't flooded the bathrooms on the fourth floor in a while or graffitied the stall walls in ages and Quen had a few choice phrases to say about Gail Sherman's pimples. That would teach her to beat him by a few lousy marks in the astronomy quiz.

Fortunately for Gail and all the girls in the school who wanted to avoid a soaking, tampering with the bathrooms became a paltry second choice in comparison to eavesdropping on the conversation he'd just heard floating from the Gryffindor table. Quen would recognise that voice anywhere, if only because Billie talked so fast she sounded kind of like she was permanently on pepper up potion. He'd been dying to tease her about showing up in the common room wearing the same clothes as the night before for days. Besides if Billie was there she'd be with her weird Gryffindor friends and there was nothing Quen liked more than annoying Gryffindors (except for maybe being right).

[Kale Greengrass]

Kale was bored. So incredibly bored that even the gossip about Gerald Hinckleford and Paddy Egret couldn’t entertain him. And the stories were very detailed. He half-covered his mouth with a yawn and then spotted Quen looking over from the Ravenclaw table. Perfect. His brainbox friend would have something suitably devious to do. Decorating the gargoyles in the Hufflepuff girls’ clothing or feeding the Gyrffindors’ owls laxative before the morning post.

He shook off the cronies who wanted to hang, grabbed an apple from the end of the Hufflepuff table (theirs were always shiner, probably because Kale had accidentally on purpose made a mess in the common room last week and the House Elves were punishing him) and jogged down the aisle to meet Quen near the doors. “Flack!” Kale gave the shorter boy a pat on the shoulder. “What have you got for me?” He asked as they started to leave. “Enchanting library books to chase people? Losing some Hufflepuff first years in the Astronomy tower? Oh! What about…” Quen wasn’t paying attention. Kale stopped and cocked his head, listening like a mildly stupid dog. “I hear girls.” He grinned, “Lead the way, brains.”

[Billie Ackerman]

  Billie’s week had actually been steadily improving. You know, ever since the ‘I got drunk and passed out in some guys house and woke up in his bed the next morning and oh yeah did I mention he’s a vampire’ thing. Yeah, that. There was a reason she’d pointedly neglected to talk about that, even though it just made it sound more incriminating.

  Billie had sat herself at the Gryffindor table again, a phenomenon so common that the teachers had given up trying to police it. Between greedily snatching for bowls of soup and cups of tea, Billie was harping on her latest topic of interest: Ame. Or, specifically, Ame’s new beau. Really, anything to get the heat off herself for a bit. The subject of Ame’s mystery lover was still new and deliciously juicy, so, naturally, Billie had decided that was clearly a massive deal that needed discussing.

  “Anyway, hey — shut up — as I was saying, I think it’s perfectly cool that Ame’s found an older guy,” she said a little louder than she should before shovelling some more soup into her mouth, the only time she’d quieten long enough for there to be a break in her incessant chatter. “Cause come on, let’s face it, most of the boys here at the school are morons — no offence to you or anything Alex but you guys kinda are,” she said, giving Alex an apologetic look, “— cough, Kale much — and guys outside school are usually hotter anyway.”

  Sugar. Where was the— tea needed sugar.

  “I just wish you had’a told us before,” Billie lamented, finding four little packs of sugar and lining them up like stacks of paper. “It would’a saved us a lot of guessing. Or, me a lot of guessing anyway. You didn’t think you’d be able to sneak away so often without us noticing did you? I mean, pfft, no one has to go to the bathroom that often.” She ripped all four sachets at once in a move borne from too much practice before upending the contents into the flat white sitting in front of her. “I think it’s really sweet actually, and I promise not to pry too much.” Billie stopped for a second, clearly realising what she’d just said. “Or, as much as I am capable of not prying.

  “But yeah, that just begs the question of when we get to meet the guy. I mean, like, we’re your friends and everything and it’s not fair not to give us the chance to be all protective and complain he’s not good enough for you.” She was stirring the tea a bit more than she had to in order to buy more time to keep rambling. “Don’t worry, I won’t be totally embarrassing or anything. He sounds nice and my bark is worse than my bite. And you know that for sure because I really, really gotta learn when to shut up so nothing could be as bad as listening to me ta...

  “—But look, point is, I’m trying to be supportive.”

  Something caught her attention. Jo, who was sitting on the opposite side of her, was suddenly looking over Billie’s shoulder with an expression that was either horror, hatred, or a mix of both. Billie risked a look as to what was going on behind her. It took a moment, but she eventually spotted the forms of both Quen and Kale making their way towards them.

  Billie hurriedly turned around again, her shoulders hunching slightly. “Oh bloody hell. I’m going to need coffee.”

[Amelia Pace]

Amelia should know better than to give Billie Ackerman a piece of gossip. Then again, if you wanted people to know something without repeating yourself, you could trust her to do it for you. It had gotten to the point where Amelia had given up wanting to keep her whole relationship a secret, it would be nice to once in a while hang out with all of them at once and not have to keep hiding Connor away. She didn’t have to tell them everything, and she sure as hell wasn’t telling them anything remotely related to the full moon.

”He’s not-“that much older than us,’ Amelia tried, only to have Billie carry on over her. Now she was started she never would stop. She did have a point though. The guys in the school could be complete arseholes. Nice guys were few and far between. ”I wanted to but-“ the lame excuse died on her tongue as Billie carried on. Amelia waited as Billie remained quiet for a second. Seeing it as her chance she went to speak. She opened her mouth, only to have Billie start talking all over again.

”Thanks Billie,” Amelia said dryly, rolling her eyes. She ran her finger over the residual jam on her plate. She licked her fingers, waiting for Billie to finish off her new tangent, ”He’s plenty good enough,” Amelia defended, her declaration going unheard by her blue haired friend on account of her own voice. ”Honestly Bill, supportive or not, I’m scared you’d frighten him off with the amount of talking. He’s a pretty mute guy. I tend to do most of the talking and he offers nuggets of thoughts.”

Amelia noticed the two boys, the last time she’d conversed with one of them had been when she’d sent a bludger flying in his direction and it wasn’t something she was going to apologise for any time soon. The little creep needed to learn a lesson.

[Alexander Muritorè]

Blah, blah, blah. It was like that song that some chick his mum had liked had sung like the year of his birth or around that time but it was all Alex could think as he kept his head down and filled his plate with as much food as he could. Grabbing at the food was not only to satiate an incredible hunger that had taken hold of him but it was also a tactical move. By having mountains of food to focus on the girls’ persistent, non-stop chatter about Ame’s new BF would become less prominent and he wouldn’t be dragged into the conversation since they’d see he was far too busy eating to talk. Win, epic fucking win.

Hunched over his tactical genius, the only boy in the sea of girls tuned in and caught bits and pieces of the conversation out of curiosity. As he could have guessed it was mainly only Billie doing to talking; asking, probing about the mystery man of Amelia’s. He was pretty sure Billie had insulted him too in the boy talk but Alex had been far too busy hoovering down mashed potato to catch it fully. For a moment the Gryffindor boy watched his Ravenclaw friend line up packets of sugar like they were packets of crack cocaine –Lord knew they had the same effect on the girl- but he did not stop eating. He stopped eating they’d ask him his opinion. It was like death, only worse.

He eavesdropped on some of the questions Billie was interrogating Amelia with just to see how his fellow Gryffindor would handle the other girl’s barrage. There were the generic questions of what he was like, how old was he yadda yadda, none of which interested him. One question in particular did however. When were they going to meet the mystery man? So interested in the answer was Alex that he even stopped eating for a moment to listen to Amelia’s answer. ”Ame’s right Bill, you scare most people off,” the boy chimed in. ”Anyway when do we get to meet this mystery BF of yours? Or is there something going on between you and Greengrass that we should know about? I always said you and that Neanderthal would make a good couple.”

A bludger was definitely finding its way into the crowd to find him after that but the laugh he got out of it was worth it. He was too busy laughing at his own comic brilliance to notice the scowling look on Ame’s face announcing the arrival of some unwanted guests, one of whom Alex had just insulted within earshot.