7pm
27 October 2009

Figaro checked over his shoulder casually as he moseyed down the mostly empty second floor corridor on the east side of the wing.  His bag was slung over his shoulder and he was eating a mottled apple from the table at dinner.  No one was looking and with a practiced motion, he spun and slipped into the Girls' Lavatory. 

He could whistle, it turned out.  Despite the Silencing Spell cast upon him by his Head of House - who they were calling Old Dusty these days - and being unable to utter a sound or even sneeze with an audible tone, it turned out that Figaro could still whistle.  And this he discovered only two days before his punitive muteness was to lapse. 

And so as he entered, easing the door slowly, silently shut, he tweeted a short little 'yoo hooo...'

Was Kiba still there?  He trod softly in his sneakers back past the sinks to the bathroom stalls where he'd left his mate Kiba Attwood.  Sure enough, the door to the last stall was ajar and his friend was crouched inside.

Figaro smiled and let his bag down on the floor more carefully than he would have if there'd been just books.  Vials of glass and metal clinked against each other as his bag settled.  It was a brilliant plan.  If they brewed the potion right, all the water in the castle would come out purple and smelling like sausage for a week.  They'd cobbled together a potions recipe from some Weasley's products and some cooking spells, and then added enough armadillo bile and Quick Thistle to increase its potency by fifteen times - enough to affect all the water in the castle.  They figured. 

It was fool proof.  Right?

The muted Figaro looked at Kiba triumphantly.  He'd gotten everything they'd need. 

Kiba checked the long list of items again as he tapped his foot lightly on the cold floor. So much planning and effort had gone into making sure this went smoothly and he just hoped that Figaro had been able to get everything they needed for their great scheme. He bit his lip in thought as he peered into the toilet. Was it big enough to hold all the different ingredients? He wrinkled his nose. Was it clean enough?

Kiba jumped slightly as he heard the door swing open but returned back to reading his list at realisation that it was just Fig. Glancing from his notes, Kiba smiled at his friend and rustled the boy's hair like a father would to a son. "So, you got everything? Took you bloody long enough."

Hanging out with Fig was... interesting when he couldn't talk. For one, he was quiet for the first time in his life. But it also meant that Kiba could take the reins a bit with this whole plan. He was the master at this sort of stuff after all. Crouching down on his knees, Kiba opened the bag and rustled through it, checking the items off on his list before placing them down around him on the floor.

Once he had checked the list, he grinned at Fig and placed a hand on his shoudler. "You wanna do the honours?" He said, motioning towards the numerous vials.

This was going to be their greatest prank yet.

Figaro had all sorts of friends. He was a Hufflepuff and he took pride in his ability to connect with all sorts of people.  He had uptight friends like Sasha, wonky friends like Ligeia.  Scary folks like Xavier Tawse, Deus Deres, and even Devlin Matthews.  He was mates with Seto Spalding, and Nick Bevans.  And even crazy girls like Sophie and Cassie Flickwick, and Maddie Pratt.  But Kiba - Kiba was one of his coolest friends.  He was easy to hang out with and always up for something, even if his other friends were occupied with other things.  There was always Snap.  Always Quidditch.  And yes - always some scheme brewing to get them both expelled.

Of course they were never that bad.  And Kiba was more bold than Figaro, but Figaro was more crazy.  If he could be convinced, there was no telling what line Figaro wouldn't cross in the name of thoughtless tomfoolery.

He hated that he couldn't speak.  It made everything hard and somewhat more boring.  But Kiba's latest plan had been a welcome distraction from all the crap going on.  He was the new Hogwarts champion for flip's sake!  A wizard had to unwind.

Figaro clasped his hand over his hear with passion and bravado, making a silent oath to do his duty.  He was the son of an Apothecary and an Herbalist.  So what if he'd failed both Potions and Herbology?  This was in his blood!

The first thing.  Apple cider vinegar.  There was a gallon jug of it he'd nicked easily enough from the kitchens.  Figaro flipped the lid and seat up off the toilet and... galug, galug, galug into the shallow water went the potent-smelling liquid.

Oh woof!  Figaro waved his hand in front of his nose and stepped back.  Just that was already stinking up the stall.  His face was laughing though as he turned back to rummage through the bag for the next thing.  Newt paste.

Figaro held up the orange tubes with a happy little lizard logos on the sides.  He handed two to Kiba and handled two himself.  They'd have to twist of the caps and squeeze it all in.  All of it. He didn't know what part of the newt the paste came from, but it came out as orange as the bottle.  And spotted somehow.

That done, he snapped his fingers at Kiba.  The recipe.  Where was it?  The recipe called for some wand work at this point, one of the cooking spells.  They weren't nearly finished, but Figaro couldn't very well cast anything in his state.  He looked at Kiba.  Well?  Did he have the spell written down somewhere?

Noriko really had to go.

Normally, she would have stayed well away from this particular facility.  Even after a year at Hogwarts, the idea of ghosts still terrified her -- there was just something creepy about them, and one time when she'd been hurrying back to Slytherin House after Astronomy, she'd run into the Bloody Baron -- literally run into him, and he had walked right through her, and she had shrieked at the top of her lungs and collapsed to the ground in what would have been an epically dramatic faint if it weren't for the fact that no one else had been there to see it, and it had left her with a bruise on the side of her head.

So under normal circumstances, the prospect of encountering Moaning Myrtle -- especially when you never knew where she might be watching you from -- would have been enough to make her bolt for another floor.  But now she really had to go.  This was an emergency.  So Noriko crossed her fingers, hurried in, and rushed to the first stall.

And then slowly backed up.  Did she hear something?

Noriko gulped.  "Is someone th-there?" she called timidly.  If it were Myrtle, the flood of tears would probably give her away.  It was rare that Noriko, who had once been voted Most Likely to Splinch Herself Apparating, would ever feel the need to call anyone else a crybaby, but really.  Some people.

Kiba shook the cramp out of his hand after squeezing in the newt paste. Blimey, that stuff was thick. So far, the stall smelt funky, a sickeningly sweet smell with a hint of... what was it? Horseradish? He tossed the tube aside and patted down his pockets for the parchment that had the next instructions written down. Now, Kiba was not the greatest at wand work and with Figaro unable to perform any verbal spells, the responsibility was all his.

With suddenly sweaty palms, Kiba added a few more bits and pieces and pulled out his wand, reading over the parchment carefully. He mouthed out the words silently as if practicing, making sure he was getting them right. It was complicated, but that wasn't going to deter him. He glanced up at Fig sheepishly. "Sorry in advance if I kill us." He muttered the incantation and flicked his wand exactly like the recipe said.

As soon as he was done, Kiba peered into the porcelain bowl to inspect his work. It didn't look different. It didn't smell different. Had he even done anything? Kiba, with his head still inches away from the toilet, looked between his notes and the goopy mixture. "What the bloody heck?" As if on queue, the mixture started to foam slightly, green fumes swirled out from the toilet.

A hand flew to Kiba's nose as he tried to block out the repulsive odour that polluted the air around the two boys. It definitely not a natural smell. Kiba sucked in a sharp breath of air as the fumes stung his eyes, making them water. "We aren't even halfway, and it already smells like that! Imagine when we are finished with this bad boy."

Kiba sneezed once and rubbed his eyes again, trying to rub the irritating feeling away when he heard a small voice from outside the cubicle.

"Is someone th-there?"

Kiba punched Figaro, somewhat lightly, on the shoulder to get his attention and sneezed again, holding it in as best he could. "There's someone here, what do we do?" He hissed under his breath. Realising that asking Fig would be pointless due to the fact that his eyes were stinging and watering so much that he couldn't see, Kiba put on his best high-pitched girly voice (which was hard for a 17 year old boy).

"Uh, I'm not feeling well." He flinched at his bad acting, "Sorry for the smell?"

The new smell rocked Figaro back on his heels.  But something else was up.

Figaro jerked at Kiba's punch and was about to punch him back, but he heard it to.  Someone was there!  Crap on a crutch!  They'd only just started, and to have it ruined by someone taking a leak in an abandoned bathroom would be the worst failure.

When Kiba asked Figaro what they should do, Fig shrugged in a kind of panic and then made a cutting gesture across his throat to indicate that they should... kill them?!  He didn't know!

But Kiba had gone for it - bald-face deception.  Right out with it, a crazy lie.  In the most hilarious voice.  It was good that Figaro's voice was out, because he snorted out a silent guffaw that he otherwise wouldn't be able to contain.  He held his hand over his mouth trying to contain it so that he wouldn't crack up Kiba.

He gestured something vague at Kiba, that he should try to get her out of here.  Who was it?

Just as she'd asked the question, the smell hit her like a herd of hippogriffs with indigestion.  Noriko doubled over, nearly choking, coughing as she clutched at her nose and throat. 

"What did you eat?" she squeaked, aghast.  She tried to think back to dinner -- there had been roast, and potatoes, and she'd had a Pumpkin Pasty.  What else had there been?  Was this going to happen to her next? 

Suddenly, the implication hit her of what it might mean that she really had to go to the bathroom.  Was she going to sit down and then explode in some sort of awful, awful smell like the poor girl in the last stall?

"I mean -- are you okay?  Is it contagious?"  Noriko was backing slowly towards the door.  Her eyes were starting to sting, which she took as proof that she was about to burst into tears from sheer and utter terror.  In the face of such gastronomic catastrophe, even having to sprint to the W.C. on the next floor up was preferable to such a smelly fate.  Her voice rose with every anxious step.  "Was it something that you ate for dinner?  Or-- ...or something from Weasley Wheezes?"  She didn't know what was worse -- that she might be about to explode, or that she could indefinitely be in danger of exploding due to some new sort of wizarding candy.  Either possibility was terrifying. 

Kiba blinked a few times and backed a bit away from the toilet. No wonder his eyes were burning, he was practically putting his nose in the stuff... that had turned a strange shade of blue. He looked up at Fig through blurry eyes as he made a strange gesture. Or was it just strange looking because he couldn't see properly? "Don't you dare laugh, Fig." He whispered, "And you aren't telling anyone about this." No doubt that Fig would yell to the world that Kiba had put on a little girly voice, make him feel humiliated and such.

But he couldn't let his mind wander now, he had more important things to do. Kiba wondered if his 'acting' was good... well acceptable enough to trick the girl. What could he say? He was lost and fumbling for ideas and then the girl mentioned something about it being contagious?

"Ah! Bloody yes!" Kiba said, in a bit too deep voice, "Uh, I mean, ooh I feel so sick. It's certainly contagious, every  second you stay here, you are exposed to more and more of the bacteria. You should get out of here before you catch it too!"

He shrugged at Fig and mouthed 'Keep going?'

It seemed nearly impossible for the Slytherin's eyes to get any wider, but at every frightening, terrifying word, they seemed to encroach ever outwards in size.  Sick.  Contagious.  She didn't know what bacteria meant, but it sounded properly awful and scary.  The girl's voice seemed to be getting deeper as she spoke -- maybe it was some sort of dangerous potion ingredient?  Something that had been slipped into their dinner?  Maybe the house elves had even done it intentionally -- they'd learned about the Goblin Rebellions the year before in History of Magic, and house elves, with their bulgy yellow eyes that didn't blink enough to make Noriko comfortable looked an awful lot like the goblins she saw when she went to Gringotts with her parents.

But if the House Elves had turned against them, what could the students of Hogwarts do to resist?  Suddenly, frightening images of a desolate scene in the Great Hall exploded through her head.  Students being force-fed bacteria, which looked an awful lot like a cross between newt eyeballs and pickled dragon livers, were retching everywhere, while maniacal looking house elves dressed in tea cozies and dirty handkerchiefs cackled evilly as they massed on the head table.

It was too much.  House elves were even scarier than Muggles!  She had to get away and warn everyone while she still could.  Letting out a shriek that would have pierced the eardrums of an ogre, a terrified Noriko bolted for the door.

Today had been another fairly average school day for Juni, and she had completed all of her homework for the next day. She had taken to walking around the halls, chatting with the paintings and trying to find secret places to study. But after awhile, nature called and she decided to make it into the next bathroom. The 2nd floor girl’s bathroom was never too crowded, though Moaning Myrtle could be a bit of a pain, the ghost never bothered Juni too often, and the Ravenclaw could trust that the ghost wouldn’t be listening while she was conducting her business. Juni was almost there when she heard a loud shriek.

It didn't take too long for  a cute little second year to run past her, screaming about house elves and… Bacteria? Now Juni was curious; she just had to know what was going on. The Ravenclaw ran the rest of the way to the bathroom and threw the door open violently, only to be overwhelmed by a rather pungent smell. A smell that should never come out of any human being. And house elves were involved? Her face scrunched up in disgust and she brought a hand up to her nose.

“Who’s in here?” She demanded, wondering if she needed to get her wand out. Obviously, something nefarious was going on in here. Something that caused a little girl to run away screaming. Was it a house elf gone mad? Was it a student picking on a house elf? Was a house elf picking on a student? Or maybe Moaning Myrtle was in a rather nasty mood. “And what is that smell?” Her voice was slightly nasally as she kept her nose covered. It didn’t seem to do any good, because she could taste the way it smelled.

Figaro was laughing (without a sound) so hard it hurt.  When the girl screamed and he heard her flee, Figaro collapsed against the stall divider, his face nearly tearing with delight and from the stabbing feeling in his side.  Merlin, what the hell? Mercy! Mercy!  It was too good!  Kiba's voice, the reaction of the girl.  And what was bacteria?

Fig gasped for air as he shook his head.  Oh god, he was dying.  Dead!  His laughing fit nearly over, he couldn't believe Kiba'd successfully chased her off.

Close one, he mouthed. 

He coughed, trying to comport himself and knelt down to get back in the bag.  Vinegar - check.  Newt paste - check.  Spell of Mixation - check.  What was next.  Right.  They had to stir in a whole pound of shredded dried blood kelp.  Figaro pulled out a large bundle of long reddish brown leaves.  He held them up to his face and smelled them.  They smelt like spicy bacon and made his nose burn a little.  He tested a stalk - it was so brittle, all they had to do was crumple it in their fingers to turn it into even flakes.  But it left a red residue on his thumb and fore-finger.  He wiped them on his pants, but it didn't come off. Huh.

Well. He looked at Kiba - best get on with it.  There was a lot to shred up.  Figaro untied the bundle and set it on the ground between them - they could take turns crunching up the blood kelp and stirring. 

Figaro was only crunching for a couple of minutes before his hole hand was a firey burnt red color, and the flakes were dissolving into the mixed, frothy toilet conconction.  The smell was strong, but more bearable as time went on. 

And then it happened again!  Another girl having a wee and demanding answers.  Shit! Was that Juni?  She was nosy as hell, she'd never leave.  Figaro looked to Kiba for help.  He had done it once?

Kiba was fuming. He could handle the first girl, she was gullible enough, but this one sounded a lot older and less inclined to take any of his bullshit. Was the whole world against them today? Why couldn't they do this in peace? Did they do something wrong? Kiba couldn't take it any more, he wasn't very good at being calm in situations like this. He had a bit of a short-fuse.

Ready to just stomp out of the stall and kick whoever it was out, Kiba pushed Fig to the side and banged his red hands on the door. "Can't a girl get some privacy?!" He squeaked in his girly voice, his voice cracking at the end. "I'm not feeling well, can't you tell from the smell? Now, if you don't want your clothes to have this smell for the rest of the year, I suggest you get out!"

As soon as he was finished, Kiba's eyes widened and he bit his lip anxiously. "Too much?" He said almost silently to Fig, his voice rough from the exertion of his little rant.

Ligeia was fresh from some work with her experimental brew in a private lab in the potion dungeons. On the way up to the Ravenclaw dorm she decided to relieve herself at the second floor girl's bathroom, to see if Myrtle was haunting. She was still wearing her lab goggles, apron, and a bandana to catch splatter wrapped around her face. Complete with her sewing kit bag with all the needles sticking out she must have had quite the appearance.

Did the bloodstains on her apron get mentioned yet? Freshly applied but not a fresh source; salamander blood at a low temperature, one of the ingredients for her brew.

So nearly having Noriko Wakahisa crash into her made Ligeia pause mid step. Poor girl, she must have been trying to face some of her fears. Ligeia removed the cloth from her face, giving Noriko a friendly black lined smile and wave. If she had noticed during her flight.

There was a noxious order she could smell, one that filled the bathroom. It smelled as if someone had been up to using the abandoned bathroom to dump improper potions again. She took a deep breath to appreciate the stench further. Then, from her bag, she extracted something like a perfume bottle but it was empty. She held it in the air and squeezed the bulb...entrapping some of the smell into her bottle for her later enjoyment.

"Can't a girl get some privacy?!" demanding a high pitched voice from a stall Juni Zamperia was standing before. "I'm not feeling well, can't you tell from the smell? Now, if you don't want your clothes to have this smell for the rest of the year, I suggest you get out!"

Oh splendid, an unidentifiable illness! When Ligeia was done she should offer to escort this girl to an infirmary. Perhaps Madam Nadge would let her watch the proceedings. Would a quarantine be needed?

Juni’s eyes narrowed. This was suspicious. The other student was a bit too defensive, and had obviously done something to traumatize the poor second year Slytherin.  But then, the next thing she knew—Ligeia had come in as well. Juni wasn’t aware that this girl’s bathroom had gotten so popular. “Relax, there’s no reason to yell.” Even if the student in the stall felt horrible, it was no reason to freak out and tell anyone else to leave. Other people had every right to use this bathroom, even if smelled horrible.

When Ligeia took out a spray bottle, Juni felt relieved until she realized… Nope, Ligeia wasn’t spraying anything. In fact, it looked like she was saving the smell.  The Ravenclaw’s expression showed that she was feeling deeply disturbed by that little action and she took a couple steps to the side, away from her.  Generally, Ligeia was pretty okay, but saving a nasty smell was just a little bit too much for Juni to take in. It wasn’t normal, it was just plain weird. She shook her head and focused back on the stall.

“Seriously, if you’re sick—I’m sure Ligeia and I could help? One of us could stay with you and one of us could get Tulojow.” Juni knew that when she was sick, she hated being alone. “Who is in there anyway?”

Kiba mimicked the girl silently, moving his mouth in an exaggerated motion as she spoke. Just my luck, he thought glumly, what's with everyone using the bathroom today? In an effort to gross out and deter the girls, Kiba made retching noises while slopping some more ingredients in the bowl, not bothering to look at the instructions. He could get it right. Couldn't he?

"No, don't get anyone, I don't need help. I'm okay, it's just something I ate. I have... allergies? Yeah, allergies." Kiba said, smiling at his quick thinking. He nudged Fig and handed him a few bits and pieces, motioning him to add them to the toilet. The mixture went through bouts of fizzing, foaming and color changes, spewing strange smelling fumes into the air. Blue cheese, burning plastic, dried newts, wand varnish, whatever gross smelling thing there was, they could smell it.

After hastily adding a few more things the mixture started smelling like spiced raw meat and turned a strange bluey-purple color. They chucked in a few more things and the mixture bubbled violently until,

KABOOM!