This month was going by far too fast. Midterms were next week, the Yule Ball was next weekend, and yet the staff meeting with McGonagall felt like it had happened just yesterday.

Her office door ajar, Aileen began picking up her things, preparing to head home after the last day of classes. Sweet silence surrounded her. The corridors and the rooms were empty this late Friday afternoon. Even Moaning Myrtle had quieted with only the unsympathetic Runes professor around to hear her.

Then a yelp sounded in the distance. A loud clatter followed.

The Sha underneath the desk poked his head up. Aileen set her things down, and hurried as much as she ever hurried when she wasn't the one in dire straits - meaning, she walked with haste to the source of the noise. Winding through the hallway, Aileen stopped at the top of the staircase chamber. She looked down, stifling a gasp.

A red-robed man hung between the balusters of the handrail, his legs kicking. Aileen squinted. It looked as though one of the balusters had broken, and started to regrow as he was stuck there, stopping just short of striking his stomach. His hands flailed, too. Notably wandless.

And this wasn't just any Auror caught in the staircase. This was Eddie Pratt. Oh, how she remembered him hexing her green eleven or so years ago.

She leaned over the railing, enjoying the moment.

"Well, isn't this a sight," she called down, waiting until she had his attention.

"What happened, Pratt?" Her voice sounded cloyingly concerned.

"Did you think too hard while climbing the steps? Doing two things at once is difficult for you, I know."

Aileen had no idea what he was doing here at the castle. But she didn't care. He'd fallen into her clutches and there was no escape for him!

Auror Pratt had not wanted this assignment. It was something that a hitwizard or a less busy, more willing auror should have taken. Discussing security at Hogwarts Yule Ball had certainly not been atop of Ed’s list of priorities but Rosier was a twat and twats made their staff do nonessential things and waste their time.

This was why Eddie’s legs were currently stuck in the stairs. He’d been on his way down said staircase, planning to finally exit the castle where the step below him gave way for a moment and he let out a very manly yelp of shock. His body quickly dropped a couple foot and his hands flew to the banister, grabbing on before he fell any further down to the stair case below and probably ended up in St Mungo’s from a nasty fall. Holding himself in place for a moment, the staircase sealed itself and Eddie found himself staring down at the hard wood that had been ok to step on before now once more solid around his waist.

“What the-”
"Well, isn't this a sight," a voice called from above him and Eddie’s head shot up to see who sounded mildly amused at the situation. While he looked up, Ed’s reflexes shot to his holster for the wand to slam his fist into the wood and he cursed a word that probably shouldn’t have been used at a school as a pain throbbed in his fingers.

“Reid.” The auror muttered, looking back at the witch that had evidently never left school. Could this day get any better?

“Well I had a fleetin’ thought of you and the stairs revolted.” Pratt called back up to the blonde wench above him. It was probably not best to insult her when she could be his only chance of extracting himself from the staircase but she was a very unpleasant woman that only made him want to be mean. He still remembered her telling him so cruelly that he wasn’t good enough for Quincy. He remembered her pureblood snobbishness.

Green eyes shot down to the wood solid around his hips and the auror frowned. His right hand still clasped the banister in case of anymore funny business from the lively stairs but nothing seemed to occur for the moment. His right hand ran over the hard wood before he balled his fingers into a fist and pounded it.

“Shi-” the expletive escaped as he withdrew his once again throbbing hand. Yep, he was stuck.

Relucantly, Ed looked back up at the blonde witch.
“A little assistance, Reid?”

At Pratt's weak retort, Aileen raised her eyebrows. He wasn't such an asshat now that he was twenty feet away from decorating the floor with his blood splatters, was he? Of course, if he didn't break his hands first wailing on the balusters. Eddie mad! Eddie smash! Yes, that was quite effective.

Aileen's smirk widened. Oh, no. She was just getting started. He could reach for his missing wand all he wanted; it wouldn't do him any good.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Aileen cupped her hand over her ear and tilted her head. "Amid the expletives, you're actually requesting my help?"

She made a tsk sound. "Well, I don't know how much I can do for you. Healers haven't yet found a cure for your thick-headedness. Have you tried using your skull to break through those bars?"

Aileen scanned the area below Pratt, looking for his wand. It would be wise if she found it before he performed some Auror mind trick and wordlessly summoned the thing.

Even in her wrinkly, undesirable old age Aileen Reid was insufferable, rude and unpleasant. Ed scowled up at her as she questioned his request. Was she thick in the head? She was the only person within ear shot; of course it was her help he required. He didn’t want it but it would appear he needed it. And Ed knew that Reid wouldn’t give it without throwing out a few insults. Without trying to piss him off while he was stuck there without means of escape. His colleagues were never finding out about this.

“Oh gee!” Pratt exclaimed; his voice saturated in sarcasm. “Why didn’t I think of that?” The pair of green eyes rolled at her stupid unnecessary comments before he opened his hand, fingers stretched, palm up and focused his mind upon his wand. He felt it move in his holster, struggling to free itself from the leather bounds beneath his uniform robes but nothing else happened. The auror’s weapon was stuck and he was going nowhere without the blonde professor’s help. If she ever got around to coming down from her throne and aiding him.

Ed’s hand still throbbed painfully as he looked back up at Reid with his plain auror perfected expression.
“Did ye hear I was comin’ here, Ailment?” Yes, his old nickname for her would make her happy, wouldn’t it? “Cursed the step just so ye could have a minute alone wi’me? I heard ye got divorced.” A smirk started to twist the auror’s lips. “Did he finally realise how nice and kind you are and run away?”

“Poor bloke really stuck out his sentence though, didn’t he?” He asked as if this were a regular conversation and he wasn't hanging from a staircase wandless.

Pratt seemed to be concentrating more than usual. Perhaps the strain of coming up with tepid insults was too much for him. Or, she supposed he might be focusing on the pain in his hand. His own fault. He hadn't been howling when she'd gotten here, and there'd been no sane reason for him to pound on the banister like a caged troll.

At least he hadn't managed to summon his wand. Aileen didn't see it below, but it could be hiding from its incompetent owner.

When he suddenly brought up her divorce, Aileen's gleeful expression dimmed just a bit. Pratt went straight for the gut, then. Ever so subtle.

"Old news, Pratt," she shook her head. "When did you realize this? Or has it taken you fifteen years to process?"

Just another example of his thick skull. He wasn't even trying to play nice to save his own hide.

"I suppose I can understand your unnatural focus on my divorce, if you're still bitter about Quincy," she punctuated each word with exaggerated concern. "It can't be easy, losing her." Aileen paused. "Again."[1]

1.	She's referring to the birth of his and Quincy's child earlier that year. Child out of wedlock and all, haha

Pratt should have known that when he brought up Reid’s failure to have a relationship, she’d bring up his own. Well at least his marriage had lasted longer! And he had kids out of it. Ed would never change that but he knew he definitely needed to stop at four. Children were extremely expensive, especially on an auror’s salary. Reid didn’t need to know this. She needed to come down and get him out of this mess so he could go home and change before seeing Viv. She never appreciated the auror robes.

“I’m not bitter about Quincy. My marriage didn’t fail like yours. I didn’t marry my wand up her ass pureblood cousin.” The auror plainly stated before his eyes assessed the area around him, the staircase above him where Reid stood being as unpleasant as ever. There was really no one else wondering around that could help him? Seriously??

“The only bitter person here is you. But that’s just your personality and upbringing I guess. The goblin piss ye dye yer hair with obviously infests yer tiny brain. But you should really learn how to be nice to people.” His eyebrows rose and he craned his neck just that bit more to see her. “Like say, getting me out of this. That’s nice.” Eddie could have said ‘helping’, but that meant asking Aileen Reid for help. He would never do that.

“Maybe then Merlin will finally shine on you and give you a heart that isn’t made of ice.”

Though Aileen realized the irony that she'd returned to school as a professor, it seemed that Pratt had never mentally left as a student. After so many years, Pratt resorted to the same insults. Accusing purebloods of marrying their cousins. His very odd issue with her blonde hair.

Oh! There was something new and exciting! Her ice cold heart. As if she hadn't heard the same criticism from one other pissant recently.

Aileen put a hand over her heart and leaned back. "You're absolutely right, that's what I want most in all this world. To be liked by ghouls like you!"

She leaned against the railing once more, enjoying the perspective it gave her. 

"I have to say, I'm quite impressed with your training. Clearly you know how to use your skill and expertise to escape tricky situations. I'm certain you're just waiting for the right moment to summon your wand, or speak like an intelligent human being."

She smiled, tapped her fingers on the banister. "Any moment now."

"Any moment now."

Pratt scowled up at the blonde haired witch gloating on the staircase above his trapped body. How easy it would be to hex her if he had access to his wand. He could fill her dress with slugs, make her hair fall out or turn her some foul shade of yellow or grey. Or something equally as immature. How easy, if he had access to his wand, it would be to escape this situation and not request her unwilling help.

“Speakin’ proper don’t make you intelligent, Reid. Look at you.” The very fact that Aileen Reid had failed to help Eddie out of this position with her presumably close to hand wand proved that she had an ice heart. Who wouldn’t practically leap to help the amazing Eddie Pratt? Only someone with no heart or at least one made of ice would stand there insulting them with their florescent hard to gaze at hair and pureblood stick up the arse attitude.

Ed’s gaze quickly shifted from the unpleasant professor to the banister she leant on to get a better perspective of Ed’s apparently balding head (whoever had suggested that to him needed to die a painful and messy death). His eyes narrowed and the auror concentrated for a few moments before the banister in its entirety vanished, hopefully knocking Aileen Reid off her balance and therefore off her perch onto the stairs before him which he very quickly focused on making soft to catch her lead corpse.

Aileen raised her eyebrows, unimpressed with his insult. Who was the professor here?

As she looked down at him, his face scrunched in concentration (no doubt trying to come up with more insults), she entertained the thought of actually helping the pest out of his situation. She’d had her fun, and if she let him out now, the only thing she could be accused of later was outsmarting him. Not a bad deal.

But then the banister she was leaning on vanished. And she went tumbling down the steps.

The landing next to Pratt stopped her descent, but not before she let out a startled scream and suffered a few bumps and bruises. Aileen failed to notice the stairs were softer than usual. For a few moments she clung to the railing, breathing hard. Her left shoe rolled down the rest of the steps and then slipped through the banister, falling to the stone floor of the entrance hall.

Aileen glared at Pratt in stunned fury, hating his balding head, his Auror robes, the way his monkey arms flailed, his face, everything about him. Slowly, she stood and adjusted her dress. She took another moment to steady her knees, and then straightened to her full height, one hand still on the banister across from Pratt.

He could have killed her! The awful little shit. He could have escaped all this time, just by using his nonverbal magic mumbo jumbo. Yet he chose attempted murder instead!

“Expelliarmus!” Aileen hissed, her wand drawn. His wand struggled a bit, then zoomed from his holster into her hand. She smiled at him as she turned it over in her fingers. Then she tossed it over the railing. A few seconds later, it clattered next to her shoe.

Perhaps he’d exhausted his abilities – she hoped so. He could dangle there the whole weekend for all she cared.

Aileen’s scream was pleasant. It sounded nicer than her regular voice in Ed’s opinion. Even if that, too, gave him a torturous headache. And her body hit the landing before him like a troll’s corpse with a thud. And oh, she looked mad. Well that served her right for not helping him and irritating him instead! Ed had patience with his job, he dealt with criminals on a daily basis as well as annoying colleagues, but he had forgotten how much Aileen Reid grated him. She was one of the people to try to stop Quincy from going out with Eddie in the first place. She’d been the one to tell him how poor and pathetic he was and how she’d never stay with him[1]. She deserved a good scare.

“Expelliarmus!”

From the holster beneath the stair, Ed could feel his wand wiggling free, yielding to the power of Reid’s wand. It wiggled stronger than when he’d tried to summon it wandlessly. It wiggled free, shot around the banister and slammed into Reid’s hand. Her smile was sickening as she caught it. And before Ed could do anything from his position, Aileen Reid proceeded to toss his wand over the banister and to the floor of the entrance hall.

Ed stared at her for a moment, fully considering giving another wandless hex a go. Maybe this time he could hurt her. But he controlled himself. Such violence would get him nowhere and drag him back to being that moody teenage boy that had been so used to dealing with this wench.

“You troll!” he hissed, evidently furious. “What the hell did you do that for ye demented hag?”

1.	If I Break That Nose Ye Shan't Be Able To Look Down It No More

She glared at him for a long moment. He knew exactly why she'd done it.

If Aileen hadn't been so angry, she would have stood there and come up with a scathing retort, a little speech about how he was a terrible human being and she was going to report him until someone listened. But she was past the point of words. Images of Pratt dead on the floor still flitted enticingly in her head.

Thoughts of her job, of being better than he was, somehow kept her in check. That and immediate retaliation was not quite her style. She could wait. She could wait a long time.

Keeping an eye on him, Aileen turned and walked down the stairs, ignoring any bruises forming from the fall. She picked up her shoe off the ground, frowning at the cracked heel. With a final glance up at him, she slid her foot out, kicking his wand even further away.

And then Aileen left the entrance hall.

“Reid!” The auror hissed as Aileen Reid turned on her heel and began to walk away from him. “Reid! Get back here!” But the witch carried on walking, down the stairs and away. Edward watched in disbelief, his eyes wide as galleons and face suddenly paling as he realised he was stuck there, he couldn’t get his wand from the position he was in and Aileen Reid was being as selfish as ever and wondering off to mentally torture some poor child.

“Get back here you bitter hag!” Pratt yelled, his voice echoing throughout the enormous hall, bouncing off the walls to carry. “REID!!” But the sound of her heel dimmed to silence and Eddie found himself kicking his legs out and slamming his feet into the stairs in frustration before he cursed loudly.

How in Merlin’s name was he supposed to get out of this now? Reid wasn’t coming back. That meant someone else would find him, seeing an auror trapped in a staircase unable to free himself would be hilarious. For the auror? A lifetime’s worth of embarrassment.

“REID YOU STUPID HAG! COME BACK! YOU'RE A DEAD WOMAN!”

Second year Astronomy had just gotten out and Mairead was exhausted from a long day of ignoring lectures and goofing off in the back of class.  They had exams coming up and, at some point, Mairead would have to start worrying about that but right now she had a whole week's worth of classes to unwind from. 

The soles of her second-hand shoes clapped against the stone steps as Mairead made her way down towards the Entrance Hall.  She'd been humming to herself and had phased out most of the ruckus.  Halfway down the stairs, Mairead spotted the unfamiliar adult wedged in the staircase like a lamb with his head stuck in the garden fence.  It was a peculiar scene and an intriguing one.  Mairead watched the fellow for a few moments before trotting down towards him and stopping, two steps above.  She plopped down on the steps and tilted her head. 

"What'chya go and do that for?  Innit that uncomfortable?" Mairead asked.  The Gryffindor fished out Ailill, her pet (stolen) puffskein from one pocket and a leftover lunch roll from the other.  She recognized the man's attire and the man's 'official' nature made her even less motivated to do anything more than make him uncomfortable.  Mairead set the puffskein on the step just above the man and started munching on the roll. 

"Don't seem very smart.  Getting stuck like that." 

Sasha had been at the bottom of the stairs when he heard the yelling from up above, just as everyone else in the staircase must have heard it.  He flinched, sympathetically, but then bristled at the unveiled threat nestled in the yelling.  It was obvious who the yelling was being direct at and Sasha felt a welling so empathy towards their Runes professor as he started to climb the stairs.  One could always be infinitely braver in one's head so as the Ravenclaw climbed the stairs, he could envision himself chiding whoever the man was on his lack of propriety and insisting an apology was necessary. 

Whether, under normal circumstances, he would have done so would remain a mystery.  He'd reached the trapped Auror only a few moments after one of the more unfortunate examples of Gryffindor House.  The girl was displaying her usual crass side with all it's lack of tact and sensibility.  Despite what the man might have said, no one deserved that. 

"Zum Teufel!" Sasha muttered waving a hand as if he'd be able to shoo the second year away.  "Leave him alone, you aren't helping."  It was little surprise that the second year just scoffed and pointed out she wasn't trying to help.  Despite his annoyance with the man, leaving the Auror was lower than even he was willing to stoop.

"I ... um, sir ... you shouldn't have said those things.  She doesn't deserve it."  It wasn't quite the dramatic scoffing he'd envisioned in his head, but it was something.  "Are you alright?"  Okay.  It was a dumb question.  "I mean, is there ... what can I do to help?  Do you know if it's safe to use magic?  On the stairs?"  Somehow, Sasha suspected the answer was 'no.'  Surely, if it were that simple, the man would have gotten himself out by now.  The stairs were magic.  Sasha had no idea what casting a spell on them would do.  And, if the spell backfired, he was sure no amount of explanations or excuses would get him out of harming an Auror. 

"How'd you get in there?  I can go get some butter from the kitchens."

Things definitely got worse. Apparently now was the end of classes. Now every student in Hogwarts was being set free to roam the staircase and two students roamed towards the trapped and angry auror.

First a girl appeared from behind him, making her way down the stairs and proceeding to ask the incredibly intelligent question of why Eddie had decided to get himself into such a tight spot. Eddie’s temper slowly eased as the girl asked another ridiculous question. Ed may have been stuck in a staircase contemplating how to get away with the murder of Aileen Reid, hated blonde hag from Slytherin, but at least he was not a moron. This kid was thick as a troll and the auror was about to tell her just that, when another sprog showed up.

This made a horrible thought leap into Ed’s mind. What if Noah showed up? What if his son saw his Dad stuck in a staircase? Or heard about it? Noah had made Ed promise not to ever come to the school while he was there. He’d threatened something or other. And now here his father was, legs dangling from a wooden step, threatening to kill one of his professors.

"I ... um, sir ... you shouldn't have said those things.  She doesn't deserve it."

The set of green eyes multiplied in size as the auror stared at the teenager as if he’d grown antlers and a snout. Had this kid met Ailment Reid? Was this kid missing something?

"How'd you get in there?  I can go get some butter from the kitchens."

Question answered.

Ed’s mouth opened to say something.

It closed again. He frowned and took a deep breath.

“Hogwarts is really failin’ you ‘ent it?”