Saturday
14 November 2009
4:30pm

Figaro had cut through the Transfiguration hallway on his way in from the courtyards and was making his way back towards Hufflepuff.  It was Saturday and he had no big plans in particular because it was Saturday.  He loved the weekends for just moving from whim to whim, roaming about and sticking his nose in others business. 

He'd been outside without a coat on and so had his hands shoved in his pockets as he trotted in from the cold.  He'd get back to his dorm to grab some cottage cheese he had stashed (his favorite food), and then figured he'd go see if he could find Kiba. 

But as he rounded a corner he was greeted by a strange surprise.

Emile crouched, hidden in the shadows, awaiting Alice.  He knew she would be returning to her house soon.  He held a smoke bomb behind his back, clutching it tightly and preparing to throw it into the girl's path.  When he heard footsteps approaching, he got a bit too excited.

He threw the smoke bomb out from his corner, and into the wake of an incoming student who was most definetly not Alice.

A little marble-sized ball came plinking out from behind a pillar.  Plink. Plink. Plink. CRACK!

Suddenly, it gave off a sharp snap and out from the little sphere came a dark, acrid smoke that quickly filled the corridor!  Figaro immediately began coughing and fanning the air.  Soon he had his wand out and with a quick charm they'd learned from old Professor Kirchlehnor, a gust of wind pushed away most of the smoke.  Ugh, it reeked!

He took one look around to where the little smoke bomb had come from and saw a little boy, crouched there looking far too guilty.  He had to be a first year.  Figaro grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him up to his feet, and held on hard so he wouldn't go scrambling away.

"Looking to have a swim in the lake? Or is there some other reason you thought this charming little stunt would be a good idea?"

He wasn't in Hufflepuff - Figaro knew the Hufflepuff First Years well enough.  But he wasn't really up on all the others in the other houses - there were always new First Years, every year in fact, an it was harder and harder to keep them all straight.

An older boy coughed and hacked as the smoke bomb ommited its fumes.  He saw the teenager turn and look straight in the eyes.  The assumed Hufflepuff grasped Emile's shirt in a tight grip.  He struggled to escape, but his resistance was futile. "Looking to have a swim in the lake? Or is there some other reason you thought this charming little stunt would be a good idea?" "Uh, I uh..." he stumbled over his words in fear of the older student.  "I-I was go-gonna pr-pr-prank another Huffle-pu-puff.  I-di-didn't m-mean to."  He looked into the older boys eyes, attempting to read his expression. 

 

Aw damn, poor kid was genuinely penitent.  Fig shouldn't have been such an arsehole about it.  With a nicer smile, Figaro let him go.  Hopefully he wouldn't run off.

"Alright, calm down.  So what's your name? You know who I am?"  Figaro was actually curious on both accounts.  He had a little brother in First Year now, the annoying Frank Sellaphix.  Well, Figaro thought he was annoying.  But who was this kid to go tossing smoke bombs about all willy-nilly?  Pretty bold. 

"Alright, calm down.  So what's your name? You know who I am?" Emile could tell that the boy was genuinly curious.  He rubbed the back of his neck after he was released before stating, "I am Emile, and I have no clue who you are."  Now it was Emile's turn to be curious.  "But you make me wonder, who are you."

Emile.  Figaro nodded.  Maybe he vaguely remembered the name from Sorting or from the Hufflepuff First Years saying something, but he couldn't really recall anything solid.  Although Fig's bubble was a little burst that Emile didn't know who he was - he'd rather hoped he had a reputation.  Ah well, he'd learn quick enough.

"Figaro Sellaphix," he replied.  "And I'm the one who's going to teach you how to do this business right.  Otherwise you're going to find yourself in the Headmaster's tower or the bottom of the lake, understand?"

The older boy put out his hand and snapped his fingers.  "Show me what you've got.  Anymore of those things? Where'd you get them?" 

And just like that, Figaro had plans for the afternoon.  Instruct Emile here in the finer points of the art of bothering people.  L'art du farce, if you will.  It's not as easy as it looks, after all.

So, the older Hufflepuff was Figaro Sellaphix.  "And I'm the one who's going to teach you how to do business right. Otherwise you're going to find yourself in the Headmaster's tower or the bottom of the lake, understand?" "Uh, yeah." Emile replied quietly.

 Emile didn't like the thought of the Headmaster's office, although he was positive he wouldn't end up in the bottom of the lake for throwing a smoke bomb, so he was glad to accept Figaro's offer.

Figaro demanded to see what else Emile had with a snap of his fingers.  He reached into his pocket, dodging several coins to find his other smoke bomb.  He handed it to him.  "That's all I have, and I got it from a friend who refuses to tell me where he got them.  Maybe an old Marauder's Map location?"

Another troublemaker to mentor him... He knew the rest of the day would be interesting.

Figaro took the glassy little orb carefully and held it up to the light.  There it was.  A faint little WWW etched into the side.  He looked down at Emile with an all-knowing, you-poor-kid glance of adult worldly knowledge.  Marauder's Map?  That old thing? Had to be in a museum somewhere, right? 

"It's Weasley's," he told him, referring to the joke shop in Diagon Alley.  Figaro got a great deal of fun crap from there and most of it was really good.  "You can do way better.  Let's go, I'll show you."

With that, Figaro began to walk away with the smoke bomb, just assuming the First Year would follow.  And why wouldn't he?  Figaro had many wondrous tricks to tell, including how to make a better smoke bomb. 

"It's Weasley's." He felt a little bit foolish after Figaro's clarification, but he could get over it.  Sellaphix began to walk off, Emile's smoke bomb in hand.

He caught up to him and began to walk a little faster to keep up.  "Where are we going?"  His curiosity won out as the two boys walked through the halls. 

He was wondering what the boy was ready to teach him, and in his thoughts couldn't come up with anything.  Emile thought he knew everything there was to know about pranking, but he was obviously dead wrong.

Figaro smiled - the kid followed him.  To be honest, Figaro was already having fun.  It was nice to have a chance to be helpful, especially after all the drama of telling the whole school his roommate was a werewolf, and totally fouling up the quidditch match against Slytherin.  Maybe if he could put some positivity in the world by showing this kid the best way to wreck havoc, he could balance out his cosmic scales.

"Just to get some supplies.  Weasley's is fine, but it's actually not that hard to make something better.  You take Potions right?  Not much harder than that.  Hell, I trolled my Potions O.W.L. and even I can make this.  But you have got to pick your target better!  You're lucky I'm nice; someone else might not have taken it so well.  Got it?"

Figaro looked over at him with a smile, not being hard on him anymore. 

"Just to get some supplies.  Weasley's is fine, but it's actually not that hard to make something better.  You take Potions right?  Not much harder than that.  Hell, I trolled my Potions O.W.L. and even I can make this.  But you have got to pick your target better!  You're lucky I'm nice; someone else might not have taken it so well.  Got it?" "Yep." Emile's simply put reply to Figaro's small speech.

He was excited to get started with his new teacher, even though he probably wasn't the smartest Hogwarts student.  Troll in potions?  Potions was a hard class, but Emile couldn't imagine getting a troll on his O.W.L. test.  He didn't have any more questions, his curiosity deflated, but not down for the count.  Smoke bombs 101, nothing more.  Or was it something more? 

A man of few words apparently.  He smirked at Emile.

"No really, who were you trying to smoke up?"  he asked as they walked.  Figaro led the way down a flight of stairs off the Entrance Hall and then took a left. 

"You didn't seriously plan on getting me with that thing, did you?  You didn't even know who I was, so who were you aiming for?  Don't worry, I won't rat you out."

Figaro was genuinely curious as to who the kid was targeting.  How many enemies could a First Year have - it was only November.  Well, he supposed he had gotten himself hexed his first fall, but he'd earned it with his big mouth.  Figaro had always talked a lot, and if you can believe it, he'd actually gotten better about it as the years wore on.

"Well, you see, there's this girl, Alice, who I happens to live in the same town as I do, and she's pretty easy to pull a prank on, so I figured I could smoke her while she came back to her commonroom.  There was an interesting prank a while back with mixed outcomes, so I figured that I should keep up the spirit." 

Emile was being honest, but he wasn't sure how Sellaphix would reply.  Alice was a first year who was one who needed someone to help her along, and he knew that some of the older puffs would probably take her under their wing.

 "Oh, and what else are you going to teach me, other than an improved smokebomb?"  He wanted to have more tricks up his sleeve than a silly puff of air. 

"Alice?"  Figaro knew her.  She was a mousy Hufflepuff firstie from Oulton Broad, if he remembered.  He didn't know her well or anything - he barely had reason to speak with a First Year and the girls tended to stick together.  Figaro might have felt protective if he had any sense that Emile was sinister.  But it was just a smoke bomb.  Alice could probably sort that out on her own.

And then Emile asked what else Figaro was going to teach him.  Figaro laughed and skipped a little.  "Ha! Wouldn't you like to know! I'm a proper font of knowledge, I am.  Brimming with secrets! My brain overfloweth and leaveth marvelous puddles.  What? Didn't you know?"

He laughed again.  By now they were in a corridor near the kitchens.  Crates and storage closets and pantries were down here.  "Wait here."

Figaro left Emile for a moment and disappeared around a corner.