Today was a good day.

It was a good day because today was the day Deus was ready to try out his prototype potion-enchantment combo. Odd fellow that he was, Deus had gotten the notion at the beginning of the year that certain Ravenclaw prefect needed to lighten up, and so he had a plan. And that plan involved, among other things, a soundtrack. Now, Deus didn't do many things. But when he did, he liked to do them right--it meant less work later. So he needed a guinea pig. Since an enchanted cape would be a bit, well, obvious, he'd selected another object. Of course, the real enchantment would be a bit more complex and not merely tied to the gramophone, to prevent a quick 'finite encantem' ruining Deus's fun--and anyone who tried it was in for a surprise jinx or two, as Deus had gotten quite good at booby-trapping with runes and other enchantments. Bit of a hobby. He'd layered the enchantments carefully in the sort of tricky, slippery sorts of ways only a clever criminal with too much spare time would bother with, to delay the inevitable as long as possible. The project had been in the making since early September, and Deus hadn't been wasting that time.

The potion and spells would take a bit of time to take hold, which suited Deus just fine--harder to track back to him that way. And this way, when an enchanted gramophone showed up in his victim's dorm blaring mood music, it would probably be in the middle of the night where no one could be entirely sure where it came from or why.

But who to be his guinea pig?

Hufflepuff was the obvious choice, given that Sasha was likely to avoid it like the plague and thus not spoil the final surprise once Deus tested everything out, but they had enough tension to deal with, and Deus--because he could have sympathy, if rarely--didn't feel like adding to it.

Ravenclaw was out for obvious reasons.

Slytherin too--mostly because Deus didn't feel like dealing with having it around.

So Gryffindor it was.

Making sure Sophie was nowhere to be seen, Deus sidled up to a pretty blonde fifth year, sliding in to sit on the table with his feet on the bench.

Being a criminal had its perks--the sleight of hand he used to dump the orange, shimmering potion into a nearby mug of pumpkin juice was quick enough that only the most attentive would catch it. He didn't know whose it was, just that they weren't looking.

And with that, Deus winked at his new friend, scooted back off the table, and left the Great Hall.

Whistling dixie, of course.