Procrastinating PV Leonard & Alec Closed

Alec had been slacking off a bit today. Not enough to get into trouble. Just not giving his all. I mean, how could he? They were the talk of the school for a whole week! That's really something. Alec couldn't help but grin every time he heard the prank being mentioned. It'd only happened a few times, though. And things were starting to die down with this one. Which was good. Because you should be doing pranks when it's least expected.

Although Alec wasn't truly sure when that was. You could say 'boo!' to someone unsuspecting and make them jump. But the next time they'd be more alert. You wait an hour or so they're not even thinking about it now so you think you can do it again. But the second you walk past them, their on high alert again. It was a tricky subject. Like their pranks were, it wasn't exactly something to be taken lightly. And this was partly why they'd chosen to meet at the abandoned toilets. Nobody would suspect a thing.

Alec cleared his throat before walking in. Grinning when he saw Clifton. Time to plan out another prank. But first.. Alec looked around. Rusty knobs, broken mirror six years of superstitious 'bad luck', cracked floor. And just old looking in general. It was quite a sight.

Alec looked back at Clifton. "Now were just waiting on Leonard." Alec said leaning on the wall slightly. Careful not to dirty his robes out of habit. "Did you have any ideas for it this time?" Alec asked, tilting his head slightly as he kept his gaze on Clifton. "I'm all out of them" Alec said with a small awkward laugh.

@Clifton Troublefield @Leonard Oaksworth

To think, his parents were worrying about whether he was having fun. Leonard was having the time of his life, though that wasn't really a high bar. He was only eleven, after all.

He'd been putting off his work for a few days now. The adrenaline had aftereffects, it seemed, one of which was being unable to focus on anything but the next prank. Leonard was now a frequent visitor to the library, trying to find spells and hexes that could outdo a bunch of letters singing the Hogwarts anthem. Surprisingly, there wasn't much, at least for first years. While he wasn't completely inept at Charms, there were limits to what they could accomplish.

Eventually, he decided that the remedy to said aftereffects would be to actually do the next prank. Luckily, so had the other two. Thus began his journey to the abandoned toilets, which was quite the misnomer. Though it did have the general aura of something abandoned, like a creepy mansion, with the dirt and rust everywhere, it served as a meeting place for many students, which now included the three of SOATOP.

"Knock, knock," he said, not knocking. Leonard was fairly sure if he had knocked, the place would've caved in. It really did look ancient.

@Alec Mason and @Clifton Troublefield

Sorry this is so late. The character is a prankster, his writer is not. Took me a minute to come up with something.

“Hey Leo,” Clifton greeted with a smile. He was glad they had both made it. And even more glad no one else had. They had the entire, broken down lavatory to themselves.

“Alright, gents,” he said, folding his arms across his chest and leaning up against one of the sinks. With a loud creak, it shifted under even his small weight so he thought better of it and straightened. “I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking, but I might still need your guys’ input.”

“One of the boys’ dorms in Hufflepuff is based on this magic zookeeper named Newt Skim-something-or-other.” He knew his muggle-born was showing, but he was too excited to care. “And I guess when no one is at school the place fills up with pygmy puffs. So whenever students come back, the ones that stay there have to kick them out and clean the whole place before they can even unpack.”

“I only know this because some kid in my charms class wouldn’t stop sneezing. Anyways, some other Badgers and I went exploring at the beginning of the year and we discovered where some of them hide.”

“So I could corral them all up, but I was thinking we could either hide them in random places to surprise people, or release them all at once. I’ve been trying to think of which one would be better. Because I’m not sure where we would release them.”

He looked at his friends, trying to gauge what they thought so far. “How do you think we can perfect it? At muggle schools, I’ve heard of similar pranks with pigs. They release, say, twenty into the school but they paint numbers on them. And they purposefully skip a number so that everyone keeps searching for the nonexistent missing one.”

Of course, that idea might just be more annoying for people than fun. But he thought he might as well share it as part of the brainstorming.

“Thoughts?”

@Alec Mason @Leonard Oaksworth

Pygmy puffs. Leonard had heard of the little critters before, from a rather embarrassing incident when his younger cousin had thought that a poor girl’s was actually a bit of candy floss. Needless to say, Jacob had been wrong, and they were now banned from several magical pet shops near London. He couldn’t blame Jacob, though. At first, he’d thought pygmy puffs were a brand of cereal until his aunt had cleared it up with both of them.

The idea wasn’t too bad, he supposed. He hadn’t been able to come up with much, other than mundane things that were probably unrealistic, like posting sticky notes all over the walls. There was probably some sort of charm that rendered Post-its useless. As it turned out, his nature of forethought clashed with things primarily meant to be fun. No wonder he wasn’t a hit at parties. No matter, nurture would come in soon and whip his craft into shape.

“I’m pretty sure his last name rhymes with salamander, Clifton,” but for now, nurture was off in an island somewhere near the coast of Puerto Rico, taking a break from making him actually pleasurable. “But the idea’s pretty nice. At my old school, they tried doing the pig thing, but with hamsters. Well, the hamsters died because they were stuck in boxes without any holes for breathing, but we can just let them loose. It has to be somewhere where people would actually find them, though. Like, the bathroom, I guess? And it needs to be way more than twenty, since the castle’s way bigger, yeah? Maybe fifty, or so? I don’t know where we’ll get the paint, though. Or maybe we could skip more than one, like ten, so they’ll be searching all day.”

“My idea’s basically to post a bunch of sticky notes, like the ones in offices, on the walls, though it probably won’t work,” he turned to Alec. “What about you? Any other thoughts, ideas? SOATOP isn’t going to become the best group in the school by doing nothing, yeah?” He said with a grin. Look at that. Building confidence already.

@Alec Mason and @Clifton Troublefield

Alec rose a brow. "Sorry um.. S-sticky notes?" Alec asked. Poor him and his non-exposure to the muggle world. A lot like what happened with the whole backpack debate a while back. Or the whole baby shark song. Muggle things were rather interesting.. They tend to be very creative with what they have to work with. Which is great? I mean, it could be both the worst and best thing depending on how you look at it. Like failing a test, you could choose to sulk and worry about it. Which Alec did often. Or you could choose it as a learning experience and move on, deciding that you'll try better and study harder next time.

Could be why Clifton's energetic and mostly positive outlook on situations is useful. It makes you want to smile when you see him. Just that type of person.. With how much Alec worried he was right to assume that this wasn't the way people looked at him. Definitely not the type of person you'd want to cheer you up. I mean they wouldn't try to make you upset they'd just be absorbed in their worries about everything while trying to help out. It was kinda what happened when Alec first met Clifton. Probably not the best first impression.

"The Pygmy puff idea sounds interesting though" Alec said offering them both a small smile. "Maybe we could find some way to correlate SOATOP with it?" Alec suggested. He wasn't exactly sure how, though. Maybe some kind of note and or clue on one of them that led to a certain place and then that has a sort of poem of some sort and the SOATOP signature? It wasn't exactly the perfect idea but it was something.. If worse comes to worse it could be used?

Alec decided he'd just stay quiet about it till he'd heard everybody else's responses to the matter. Maybe they'd have a better idea for it. After the whole Howler fiasco, Alec's world view had definitely changed.. I mean who's wouldn't when they thought they were the 'good kid' but they were the one that had this crazy idea for the whole SOATOP thing that was probably going to fail and blow up in everybody else's even faces plus his anyway!

@Clifton Troublefield
@Leonard Oaksworth

Clifton grinned, loving Leo's and Alec's thinking. Gryffindors and Slytherins were a blast!

"The bathrooms sounds like lots of fun," he laughed, picturing all the surprised shouts overall chaos. "We could also set them loose in the library. Help wake up a few students, maybe. That way, a lot people would see them. And we don't have to paint them if that's too hard. I don't know if this school has any arts and crafts supplies. But if we do, I like the idea of skipping more than one number."

Then he frowned in thought. "But how to use SOATOP in it...'

All three of them fell into silent thought for a moment before Clifton smacked the edge of the sink with an excited, "Yeah!" causing both boys to jump and causing Clifton's hand to hurt.

He rubbed the pain away as he explained. "Alright, this might not work, but hear me out. What if we spelled out the letters in glue--you know, the clear kind that the janitor uses to post up notices--and then we made sure it was in a spot where most of the pgymy puffs would run around. Then, once everyone has chased them for a bit and they've shed all that fur, the fur would stick to the letters and everyone would see them. We would just have to be careful to not put too much so the pgymys don't get stuck."

@Alec Mason
@Leonard Oaksworth

Really, who was it that said Hufflepuffs were only meek and mild, the middlemen of mischief while not engaging nor creating any of their own? Whoever it was, despite their commendable flair for alliteration, was completely wrong.

It was the perfect idea. Annoying and disruptive, but not harmful enough to cause any actual hurt. Except to the little pink fellows, unfortunately for them. It was the equivalent to putting gum in somebody's hair, just for the fun of it, and then forcing them to stick it onto the wall to spell out meaningless letters (meaningless to them, at least). Though, it was considerably less cruel than doing it to a human, according to law, and the animals wouldn't be stuck to the wall if they did it right. Hopefully, they would.

"Depends on what type of glue it is. We could also use double-sided tape, but it might be too sticky. I could get my dad to send us the glue, though I need an excuse. I mean, we don't have science fairs here, and we're not making any pinatas anytime soon. I think, anyways. You never know with this place. Do any of your relatives have a birthday coming up? I could tell him it’s for that, wrapping presents.”

@Clifton Troublefield and @Alec Mason

Alec bit at his lip in thought. "It could work.. As long as they actually don't end up getting hurt" Alec said. Alec couldn't stand being the cause of anything or anyone getting hurt. Even if he did occasionally lose his temper and let things get out of hand. His intentions were never in that direction. Although Alec assumed most peoples weren't either. You don't usually just try to go around hurting people unless you have a reason for it. Or your crazy.. that could work as an excuse as well.

"-ence fairs here, and we're not making any pinatas anytime soon. I think, anyways. You never know with this place. Do any of your relatives have a birthday coming up? I could tell him it’s for that, wrapping presents." Alec had only caught half of that. Something about fairs and pinatas. Alec knew what a pinata was, or at least he thought he did. It might've been different judging by odd muggle terms. Not that Alec had a problem with them. It was just confusing. It made it worse that certain muggle-borns were correcting him with muggle terms Alec had never even heard.

There were seriously some kids who could not just deal with the fact that wizarding world terms sounded 'odd' to them. If they sound odd use your terms and Alec will use his, it's not that hard. And did Alec know any relatives that had a birthday coming up.. Oh! Atticus! They hadn't owled for a while in fact he'd only gotten two letters from his cousin so far apparently Atticus was busy with work and 'other things'. Alec had already made Atticus's present. As well as a howler to go with it as an inside joke. Alec knew Atticus wouldn't mind a howler. He used to tell Alec all about how he took pride in the howlers he'd gotten, whether it be just a joke or because he'd done some stupid prank that got him into trouble. It meant that he'd 'done it well' if he didn't get a howler for a reaction especially for a prank he'd sort of failed with that one.

It was interesting to hear from different perspectives. How he dreaded getting howlers and his cousin was proud to have them. A walk of confidence as he strode into the room opening one then high-fiving his best friends. Alec could imagine it now.. And little did Alec know, but he looked up to his cousin a lot. Literally. "I do.." Alec said eventually as he pulled away from his imagination. "I already made their present. But either way, it's not technically lying if you pose it off by stating the facts.." Alec said.

@Clifton Troublefield@Leonard Oaksworth

"It won't hurt them. The glue will just catch all the fur they shed when everyone's chasing them around." Then he laughed a little. "I mean, it might pull off a few hairs, but I doubt the little guys will notice with all the prefects trying to bring order back."

Clifton knew if they did it right, it wouldn't hurt them. Besides, if he were that kind of prankster, he'd skip the pygmy puffs and go straight for catching everyone's shoes. Then socks. Then stuck feet. Then stuck hands. It'd be like watching an extreme version of Twister.

Anyways. He wasn't.

Alec volunteered a relative with a birthday and Clifton grinned. "Perfect. Then we'll do it honor of your relative. Not that he has to know of course. All contributors of SOATOP--voluntarily or unknowingly--shall heretofore remain anonymous."

Heretofore? He needed a nap. He was hitting that weird point of tired where he only got more hyper--something he was sure neither of his friends needed. But at least he'd been able to turn in his Herbology this morning.

"So what'll it be? The bathrooms or the library? I think there would be more people in the library, but what do you two think?"

@Leonard Oaksworth
@Alec Mason