Messy Little Menace PV Cecily + Amadea reopened

A mess involving spilt ink and a Hufflepuff? This who situation felt a little too much like déjà vu for Cecily's liking.

The Ravenclaw had been behind schedule on yet another assignment, although this was nothing new. The girl had a bad habit of making self-destructive choices-- namely, ignoring her homework quite a few hours too long. Now, she had class in less than an hour, and was starting to despise her past self and the poor decisions Past Cecily had made yesterday. There was definitely over and hour's worth of homework shoved into her bag. Although, she realised, if she BS-ed her way through the whole thing, she could probably knock out the essay in half an hour, which was really the important part of the assignment. After that, she could BS her way through the rest of the questions, squeaking out the finished project just before she had to be in class. It would be one hell of a study session, but having practiced this same scenario a number of times throughout her three years in this school, she was a seasoned bullshitter.

And so, finally focused on her work for the first time in a long while, Cecily was making her way to the empty classroom. There was almost never anyone else there-- the last time she had come across another student in this room was in her first year, when Amadea von Kluztowitz had gracefully knocked over an entire jar of ink and the two of them (plus Adam) spent all afternoon cleaning it up. So, after a year an a half of finding the room empty, she was fairly certain now that it would be a quiet place to put her head down and knock out her work. At least, she really, really hoped it would be. It was a lost cause for Cecily to even try to work in something other than dead silence. She was too easily distracted. Hence, she hadn't done her homework yesterday afternoon, or last night, or even this morning, and was now regretting all of her life choices up to this point. It was stupidly stressful to be on such a time crunch. It inevitably was every time she did this to herself. One would think she would learn to make better decisions to avoid the last-minute stress, but apparently the Ravenclaw learned very little from her mistakes.

Her hopes and dreams, though, were shattered with a single sound-- a crash, loud and clear, emanating from the very room towards which Cecily was heading, followed by a vaguely familiar screech and another crash. What the hell? The classroom was, clearly, very much not empty. The voice grew louder, more frustrated, as Cecily moved closer to the doorway. Did she even want to know what was going on? Probably not, but she was actively trying as of late to not be the absolute worst Prefect in existence. She might as well poke her head in and make sure no one was, you know, dying. If she left a student for dead, intentionally or not, that would go over so well with Equinox, and she wasn't actually trying to lose her job. Not that she deserved her job at all-- to be honest, she had no idea why she was even appointed Prefect in the first place. Maybe she just made an impression in her first year before she hit her, well, sophomore slide. But whatever the reason, she grew out of the Responsible Prefect role at least a year ago. And so, in return for a less guilty conscience, she was actually starting to make an effort in taking her role seriously.

Which is why she approached the door of the classroom and peered inside. Blinking once, twice, she took in the wild scene before her. A shock of red hair and rumpled boxers stood over a mess of black liquid splattered on the floor, holding a black cat that was rubbing off onto their tank top. Discarded layers of clothing sat in a pile next to the girl. Spilt ink again? God, she would probably end up having to clean it all up, too. Where were the elves when you needed them? Anyway, there was exactly one person in the castle who could manage to get herself into this situation. Cecily stepped into the doorway, one hand resting on the frame. The more she looked, the harder it became to hold in a laugh at the absurd sight in front of her. Finally, a chuckle burst out, and Cecily broke the silence.

"Ami? What did you do?" the Ravenclaw asked with a grin, desperate to hear this story.

If there was one thing that you should never, ever do to Ami, besides betray her or stab her in the back or insult her mother or her father, was scare her. If one were to sneak up behind the borderline insane Hufflepuff, there was no telling as to what would happen. Maybe she would turn angry and violent, maybe she was in a good mood and simply laugh along. Her actions varied as much as her mood, which seemed to range from up, down, and sideways these days. Surprises and shock were different, of course, because they still had the possibility of being good- but scaring? No, never. It was usually the worst and last mistake people tended to make around her.

So when Cecily suddenly appeared in the doorway, nearly silently, and completely unheard by the redhead on her knees and facing away from the doorway, who was muttering to herself as she tried to figure out a way to clean up the mess. There were, at the very least, three different ways she could possibly react to the surprise intrusion.

The first one was the worst, but also the least likely. After all, she considered herself to be pretty good friends with the blonde Ravenclaw, and there was no reason to hurt the poor little nerd. But, to be fair, it was almost impossible to predict how Ami would react- in fact, if this interaction hadn't been previously planned by some high powers, she very well might've been violent. However, I am obsessed with fourth wall breaks, thanks to Ferris Bueller, so now we have this sticky situation. If Cecily had caught Ami at a worse time, she could've abandoned Leo in the puddle of ink, stormed over to Cecily, and gone off on a tangent about walking louder and knocking first, because she had a right to privacy and all of that entitled-American stuff.

The second option was the complete opposite of the first. Considering that Cecily and Ami were pretty good friends, Ami wouldn't be inclined to hurt the Ravenclaw. Rather, it was more likely that she'd drop Leo in surprise, say something about how Cecily nearly scared her shitless, and then laugh about how easy it was to scare her. No violence, no yelling, just a little bit of poking fun at herself. She was easy to anger, yes, but this was hardly something she could get riled up about. Unfortunately, this rather peaceful and uneventful course of events would not be an option for the two girls, today.

And... the third event. An event that should not, under any circumstances, have happened. And yet, it seemed to be the only option left for Ami to do. Well, let's see, first. Did Ami roll okay on her perception check?


Ooh, not good. As Cecily's voice floated through the air, Ami nearly had a heart attack at the tender age of 14, terrified that it was a professor who'd come to lecture her about running around without proper clothes, or the mess of ink on the ground, or the dirty cat in her arms, or all three. Without a clearing of the throat or the noticing of the approaching footsteps, Cecily had Ami well and truly spooked, like in a haunted house. Screaming a few obscenities loudly, Ami shot to her feet, her eyes widened in terror.

But wasn't there something that the apple guy said? No, not Steve Jobs, someone older than him... way older. More like Sir Isaac Newton, and his whole spiel about motion and gravity... well, there was probably some fancy science-y, physics law that would explain what was about to happen next.

As Ami shot to her feet, her grip on Leo loosened. And as she spun around, rather violently, to face her Ravenclaw friend, Leo went soaring out of her arms, yowling angrily as he sailed through the air, ink flying everywhere. There was no possible way that Leo should've flown across the room like that, but then again, he'd been dieting. Plus, this was Hogwarts! Anything was possible at Hogwarts, especially when it's for comedic character development.

But, for Cecily's sake, Ami hoped that Leo would fall short of hitting the Ravenclaw prefect- right, she was a prefect. Ami could only pray that Cecily wouldn't dish out a detention after this terrible ordeal- throwing a cat at a prefect was definitely not the way to avoid getting in trouble at Hogwarts, even if there hadn't been any malicious intentions behind the action. Maybe she's get lucky, and avoid hitting Cecily full-on in the face? I mean, what kind of chance was there of that happening, right?


Well, as luck would have it, luck was not on Ami's side. Leo went flying through the air, as aerodynamically as a ink-soaked cat could, and hit Cecily full... on... in... the face.

Yowling in protest, Leo fell into Cecily's arms, inevitably soaking her skin and clothes with the black ink that he, himself, was already covered in. Clearly, the cat was upset, and was really just not having it today. And who could blame him? He had been covered in ink, catapulted across a room, and was now in the arms of a stranger. Even to the most insensitive of passerbys, he wasn't happy about being held by Cecily, and he would do anything to not be held by the poor Ravenclaw, who'd just been ambushed in the cruelest way possible. Really, it wasn't her fault at all that this had happened, and Ami wouldn't blame her if she just dropped Leo and left.

Of course, there wasn't really anything left for Ami to say, or do, after what'd just happened. Should she apologize? Run over there with her own clothes to try and clean the mess up? Beg Cecily for forgiveness and pledge three years of servitude to her in exchange for her silence on the matter? Or maybe the three most commonly said words by teenagers in America would suffice:

"Oh. My. God."

𝒯o say that Amadea was overwhelmed was an understatement. It wasn't surprising that missing almost six months of school led to a lot of assignments to catch up on. Luckily, she had started some of the work before she had returned to Hogwarts and many of her teachers were being lenient with her. Still, she had hours and hours of assignments to catch up on, not to mention all of her friends to catch up with, and other school activities that popped up.

Amadea was headed toward the empty classroom that she always went to when she needed a break from everything. Most of the time she did her work in the Common Room, but there were always people coming in and out, laughing and talking. She didn't mind the noise most of the time, but she was feeling particularly stressed about the amount of work she had to do today and didn't want to add any more noise to her already stressed self. She knew that if she went to the Common Room she would probably end up snapping at some poor first year that was just trying to have fun. Luckily, the trusty classroom was always empty. Maybe it was because people didn't know about it, or because they would rather study with friends, but she could always count on a little quiet time to work on her assignments in the room.

As Amadea rounded the corner, entrance of the classroom in her sight, she heard voices and a loud howl. Her spirits immediately dropped. Of course, it was just her luck that the one time the classroom wasn't empty was the time she needed it the most. She quickly started brainstorming other options: she could go back to the Common Room, but that would not end well. She could always try to find a nice place outside on the Grounds underneath a tree or something. Maybe she would do that, she thought to herself. It seemed like a nice plan B. She would get some fresh air while completing her assignments, and when she was done, she could go on a nice walk.

She was about to turn around and head toward the grounds when she heard more sounds, this time recognizing the voices. She sighed, the curiosity getting the best of her. She really needed to get to work and finish up assignments, but she also really wanted to know what the heck was going on inside of that classroom. Sighing, she promised herself she would stay up late tonight and block off all of tomorrow to dedicate to her assignments. Amadea walked over to the entrance of the classroom, peeking her head in and assessing the situation. As she looked into the classroom, all thoughts of assignments immediately left her mind. She had so many questions but she didn't even know where to start. The two voices Amadea recognized belonged to her two best friends Ami Procoppio and Cecily Quinn.

Amadea's eyes first found the ink on the floor of the classroom. It was almost ironic, she thought, remembering her first year when Adam Harringtom and Cecily found her in a classroom with a spilled bottle of ink. Next, her eyes landed on her redheaded Hufflepuff friend, who was standing in only her undergarments. Finally, she looked at her other friend, Cecily who was clutching an ink-covered cat. Amadea realized that the yowl must have come from the cat.

She cleared her throat and stepped into the classroom, ready to hear whatever the story was. "Hey guys," she said slowly, looking around a few more times. "What the hell happened in here?"

As soon as the words left Cecily's mouth, the grin on her face fell away. Because while she was absolutely certain that there was an explanation for this event that would allow Cecily to mock her friend until the end of time, quite a different situation seemed to be afoot. Or, rather, aface.

Clearly startled, Ami spun around towards the doorway, clutching her ink-stained cat. Cecily's mouth dropped at the absurd sight-- the Hufflepuff, tank top stained deep black, with a cat equally as dark and disgruntled-- but had only a moment to take it in before chaos took center stage. Whether by a higher power that just wanted a laugh, but more likely by the ink slicking Leo's fur, Ami's grip on the cat loosened as she spun around, and with spookily impeccable timing. The cat slipped out the the redhead's arms just in time to be sent on a flying projectile course...directly towards Cecily. The Ravenclaw had just enough time to recognise the look of horror covering Ami's ink-splattered face before her eyes instinctively closed, and it wasn't until she felt the heavy weight of the creature land in her arms that her brain caught up with the insanity that had just taken place.

Ami had just. thrown a cat. at her face.

For indeed, Leo had somehow managed to escape his owner's grip at precisely the right moment to, against all odds, collide directly with Cecily's head. She could still feel the moment of impact on her face, the fur and ink invading her still-open mouth, as her brain processed the moment. As Cecily stood, paralysed in shock, Leo's yowling quieted down for just a moment, leaving the room silent, save for the soft sounds of ink dripping off of the two girls and the cat. She could feel the black liquid running down her face, dripping off of the tip of her nose. She slowly opened her eyes, and simply stared at Ami, who was gaping back at her. She had no words for this moment. She was, for the first time in her life, truly speechless.

"Oh. My. God."

Cecily's mouth slowly closed as the words fell out of Ami's mouth, the taste of ink seeping across her tongue. Her brain was reeling, trying to make some sort of desperate sense out of what had just occurred. There was no way this was simply fate, or destiny. For one, Cecily strongly believed in making her own luck. But also, there was simply no way that this could ever have happened. It was absurdly, infinitesimally likely, and yet here they stood, ink dripping down their bodies and staining their clothes, their hair, their skin. Cecily was stunned, still at a lack of words. There was nothing she could say that would make this situation anything other than it was-- a stupidly ridiculous character development device accident with a friend. She simply held Leo in her arms, blinking, as her brain tried to solve the problem. It was always trying to solve the problem.

Breaking the silence, however, a new voice entered the room, startling Cecily out of her stupor. Unfortunately, it also appeared to startle the cat in her arms-- again. "Oh shit," Cecily muttered as the cat jumped to life with a screech, claws out. She juggled him for a moment as he tried to squirm away, not wanting to drop him on the hard stone floor. Would a cat get injured from that? She didn't know a lot about the creatures, and was not interested in finding out and hurting the thing, even if it was a monster that deserved to be damned to hell. But she gave up the struggle as he leapt his way out of her grasp. His razor-sharp claws pierced through her sleeves and into her skin, and her fingernails sharpened into claws of her own for a split second, the shock of the entire situation taking a toll on her mental stability and shaking lose her control on her metamorph powers. Her instincts once more took control as the pain reached her brain and, in an act of self-preservation, she shoved out her arms, dislodging the cat from her grasp. He once more was sent flying through the air, ink flying in all directions. How was there still this much ink left in his fur? Cecily was positive that it had all been relocated to her skin and clothes, and yet here it was, droplets still hitting the walls, ceiling, and...Amadea?

Cecily's mouth dropped for a second time as she took in the scene, as if in slow-motion. Leo catapulted through the air, on a beeline towards the door, and, unfortunately, the figure standing there. Who just happened to be Amadea, her best friend and the last link in the trio. Oh. Hell. No. What were the odds? Minute. Miniscule. Microscopic. And they had just managed to make this already real good time simply wild.

Cecily leaned forward, arms outstretched, as if she could catch Leo and pluck him out of the air, saving the new arrival the torture. But she barely had time to cry out a warning to Amadea before the cat collided with the girl, inevitably soaking her with ink just as the demon cat had done to Cecily and Ami. And Cecily could do nothing but stand, rooted to the spot, and stare, just as Ami had done. Her fingernails reverted to their normal state as all emotion fled her body save for pure, unadulterated fear. This was it. This was the story they would tell their grandchildren. Not the Blossom Balls, not the summer camps. This, when they threw a cat at each other because they were all incompetent at living like normal humans.

Was it too much to ask for a normal day? She had homework to do, although it was likely ruined by the ink. Not that a professor would ever accept this as an excuse, even if it was the truth: "Yeah, so, my friend's cat rolled around in some ink, and then she accidentally threw it at my face. No, the cat. Yeah. Sorry." It sounded absurd because it was. It was insane.

And so, because there was nothing else to say as the Ravenclaw stared down her ink-soaked friends and Leo, Bearer of Chaos, Cecily uttered just one word:

"Shit."

── ❋ ──

𝓦hatever Amadea had initially thought she walked in on was nothing like what actually happened. She wasn't sure her imagination could even fathom such a turn of events but nevertheless, the events played out whether or not Amadea could imagine them or not. Amadea stood in the doorway, still perplexed, as she looked back and forth between her two friends. Neither of the girls were providing any explanations and both of them looked completely shocked, which left Amadea the task of filling in the details herself.

Before Amadea could assess the situation further, her eyes widened. Her question still hung in the air, but Cecily and Ami must have been startled by Amadea's presence, as the cat slipped out of Cecily's grasp and went flying through the air, his trajectory going straight toward Amadea. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, and as much as her brain was yelling at her to get out of the way, her feet were rooted to the ground as she watched Leo, covered in ink, flying toward her. She went to put her hands up, trying to catch the cat, but wasn't fast enough. Leo hit her directly in the face and Amadea stumbled backward as the force of the flying cat collided with her. He scrambled to find a hold and not fall, unfortunately digging his razor sharp claws into Amadea's cheeks. She yelped, grabbing Leo by his ink-stained fur and pulling him off of her face. It was too late, though. She could already feel the cuts starting to bleed, mixing with the ink that had transferred from Leo's body onto her face. As Amadea looked over at Ami and Cecily, she wondered how much ink could have possibly traveled through the air. It was everywhere. From floor to ceiling, ink decorated the entirety of the room and the entirety of the girls as well. Was Leo a sponge? It was almost incomprehensible how much ink there was.

Amadea fought the urge to scream. It wasn't like she was angry. It didn't seem like this was anyone's fault, not really. It seemed like a crazy turn of events that Amadea would have never expected. Even at a magical castle, she didn't know how this was possible. To be honest, Amadea still didn't even know what was going on. She had wanted to spend the day studying and catching up on her work. She had been gone for almost six months and she had needed the time today to work on her assignments so she could, you know, graduate. But now here she was, standing in an ink stained room with her ink stained best friends and covered in ink and cat scratches. The ink had seeped into her robes; Amadea was lucky they were already black because her Hufflepuff tie now had black blotches on it that she was sure would be a pain to get out. Her hair was even stained black; she couldn't imagine what her face looked like and her arms were covered in ink as well.

She grasped Leo firmly and lowered him to the ground, not caring if he got ink anywhere on the ground. The classroom was already so dirtied that a few more ink stains wouldn't do any more harm. As Amadea surveyed the room she took a few deep breaths. This was going to take forever to clean up, not to mention cleaning up herself. All she had wanted was a quiet day to do her schoolwork. Was that really too much to ask? With a sigh, she turned back to her two friends as she reached up to wipe the blood that was dripping down her face and again repeated the question that had been left unanswered before, this time much more slowly, the exasperation clear in her voice. "What. The hell. Happened. In here?"

── ❋ ──

Somehow, because apparently the iconic trio were just gluttons for punishment, bad turned to worse. Ami's mouth hung open in surprise as Cecily managed to catch Leo in her arms, frankly floored by the near miracle. She'd never seen anyone actually catch a cat in their arms before. Was Cecily a secret cat whisperer? She was even ready to applaud the Ravenclaw's good luck, but turns out, that good luck was a curse in disguise. A wolf in sheep's clothing. A nightmare dressed as a daydream. Sometimes, Ami wished that she'd just left Leo in her dorm, and this was definitely one of those times.

Both Cecily and Ami seemed to be startled by Amadea's sudden appearance, and clearly, Leo seemed to react to that energy in a negative way. This exact scenario had happened before, actually— well, not with ink, and not with Leo flying across a classroom, but there'd been many times where an unsuspecting dormmate had stumbled upon Ami cradling Leo on her bed, and Leo had disappeared to who knows where for a few hours. Both owner and pet were high-strung individuals, which was never a good thing. So when the tension in the room got ramped up even more by Amadea's appearance, it was with a sinking heart that Ami knew: things were about to go straight to hell.

Because as the situation seemed to illustrate, the three of them really wanted to play hot potato with a live cat. Leo went flying out of Cecily's arms, soaring through the air and landing on unlucky victim number three. Thankfully, Amadea seemed to have some actual common sense as she gripped Leo tightly before lowering him to the ground. The gray tabby seemed to want to escape from the crime scene as quickly as possible, but a scathing glare from Ami stopped him dead in his tracks, and he meekly returned waited by Amadea's feet as his owner quickly strode over to her two friends.

She bit her cheek at Amadea's question, wondering how she'd manage to explain her way out of this one. The actual story seemed too ridiculous to be believable, but she'd have to try. "It was an accident, Dea!" she exclaimed, her eyes pleading as she bent over, quickly gather Leo back into her arms. She'd get more ink on her, but at least Leo wouldn't try and spread ink throughout the castle. The last thing she needed right now was a professor or another prefect (besides Cecily, of course) to stumble upon the three girls covered in scratches, blood, and ink. "I swear this was an accident! I promise!"

Shifting Leo into the crook of her arm and pointing back to the primary location where this whole mess had started, Ami explained, "I knocked over my inkwell while I was doing homework—yes, homework, don't laugh—and before I could scourgify it, Leo decided to be a stinky little bastard and jump into the ink. That's why he's so dirty, you know, although to be fair, he's always a dirty little kid. You know, when we go outside for walks, all he likes to do is roll around in the bushes and try to kill whatever tiny little creatures he sees on sight, which is why his breath stinks, too... I've been meaning to give him a bath lately, you know? But..." Ami finally trailed off, glancing from Cecily to Amadea, then back to Cecily. "That's not on topic," she concluded, a defeated tone in her voice.

She thought that she'd been getting a lot better at keeping her thoughts in order, but she figured that stress and stressful situations, in general, tended to get her mind spiraling. Clearing her throat awkwardly, she continued, "I picked him up and was gonna clean up the whole mess, but then Cecily came in and scared the living crap outta me, as one does, and I got freaked. And since I got freaked and I was holding Leo, Leo also got freaked. And, like you two, Leo wanted out, so I let him. But I guess I got a little over-excited, and him too, because he flew across the room at Cecily! Total freak accident, I swear! Then she caught him, which was like a complete miracle, and well... you know the rest."

At this point, the tale was sounding more and more like a comedy sketch than a real-life occurrence, which could easily sum up Ami's entire life. Grimacing at the unsightly scene that the three of them presented, she wondered just how much she'd be able to explain away if a professor happened to walk in on the three of them. Probably not much, they looked like they just killed someone and attempted (very poorly) to hide the evidence. One thing was ultimately clear: they needed to clean up. They just couldn't leave the classroom in its current state, but that also meant that they'd have to set Leo down, which was a terrible idea.

.... which sparked another terrible idea in Ami's mind. "And we're using magic to clean this up, of course," she said reasonably, "There's no way we'd be able to clean it all by hand. But you, you little monster..." she said, turning her attention towards Leo, "You don't get to participate."

Glancing at her friends helplessly, she pleaded, "Could one of your scourgify him? My wand's by my bag." She nodded at her book bag with its contents spilled across the floor, thankfully further away from the ink spill. "Then we can get to cleaning the rest of this... well, mess." Pausing slightly, she added grudgingly, "But I won't blame you if you decide to scram and pretend you never saw this. It's mostly my fault, anyways."