Light It Up PV

@Adeline Hughes

Nicky was happily trudging behind her new friend, anticipating the adventure ahead of them. She had never participated in a prank this grand before and her heart was racing with excitement.
When her partner in crime peeked inside the Headmaster's office and gestured for her to come in, Nicky carefully followed in Addie's footsteps.
When the girl opened a huge bag she was carrying and started taking out the fireworks, Nicky had to hold back an excited squeal.
"I bet those yellow ones are going to look real pretty!" - she mused in a quiet whisper.
She got even more excited when she saw the matches. She hadn't seen anyone set things on fire the normal way since she left home before the school year started. Nicky remembered Frank playing around with his chemical experiments, how he always ran out of matchboxes and used up matches were always lying around his room. She sighed - she hadn't seen her brother for a month already and she missed him.
However, the excitement from their no-so-legal enterprise made her snap out of that sadness a moment later.
Grinning like crazy, Nicky took a matchbox from Addie and whispered:
"I think we should set up the ones behind the desk and in the corner of the office first and set off a few from the window, then light up the ones inside as we go so that when the professors or whoever else get here they see many pretty sparkles!!!!"
And she giggled mischievously, barely able to contain the sound so that it didn't travel beyond the office door.
She grabbed a few pink fireworks and stocked them behind the Headmaster's desk.
"You do the ones in the corner and then we can get started with the ones in the window!"

Addie nodded, acknowledging Nicky’s suggestions, and a smile spread from ear to ear as she grabbed one of each color of fireworks and tiptoed over to the far side of the room. Placement was very important for this particular prank. She needed the fireworks to be angled in such a way that they would shoot off toward the center of the room. It wouldn’t do any good if the fireworks just hit the ceiling and fizzled out. Addie wanted to make sure that anyone unfortunate enough to be in this room at the time of detonation would at least be able to enjoy the beautiful colors.

After grabbing a couple of stray books to prop up the fireworks, Adeline hurriedly twisted the three long fuses together to ensure that all three explosives would fire off simultaneously. As she worked, she took notice of the length of the fuses, which were relatively long, but the young Gryffindor knew that she and her accomplice would still need to move quickly after lighting them.

As she admired her work, Addie turned the matchbox over and over in her hand, feeling the itch to pull a match out and light the fuse. And she would, but there was more left to accomplish before she did. She took one deep breath, and as she released it, she stepped away and back toward the remaining piles of fireworks by the entrance.

As she walked, Adeline took a second to truly take in her surroundings: the large bookcases, wooden furniture, and various trinkets and curiosities. Something didn’t quite sit right with her--a sort of emptiness that hung in the air. But this brief pensive moment ended the second she reached her destination.

Addie scooped all of the remaining fireworks back into her bag and raced over to the window.

“Now comes the fun part,” Addie whispered to Nicky. Pulling the window open, she set one of the orange fireworks on the windowsill and offered the bag for her friend to choose which color she wanted.

“Are you ready?” she asked as she pulled out a single match. With one fluid motion, she struck the match along the sill, feeling the heat of the flame that appeared, and placed the fire directly underneath the fuse.

@ Adeline Hughes

Nicky finished the first part of the preparations, almost as fast as lighting. She looked up from the neatly positioned and perfectly aligned fuses and watched Addie finish her own task with admiration. It was clear she was very good at this.
When the fireworks were installed all around the room Nicky watched Addie grab the remaining fireworks and joined her at the window. After Addie picked her firework and set it on the windowsill Nicky looked into the bag to choose hers. However, she couldn't settle for just one colour (they were all so pretty!) so she grabbed one yellow, one orange and one pink firework and took the fuses in her hands. She pulled out a match and lit it up.
The girl was excited almost to the point of turning into a firework and blowing up into the sky in rainbow sparkles. However, Nicky knew that this time she had to contain her excitement, at least until the prank was completed and until they had gotten out of there safely.
"Are you ready?" - Addie whispered next to her.
And instead of the thousands and thousands of words that were racing through her head, she only responded with five.
"Born ready. Let's go!"

The moment the spark she had lit hit the base of the firework, a loud whining sound filled her ears and she watched a small stream of smoke hiss away into the night sky before exploding into a shower of bright orange sparkles. Three more loud pops sounded off, three more bursts of color--orange, yellow, and pink--the fireworks her friend had chosen.

Addie chuckled slightly at her friend’s obvious excitement, and silently, she wondered if Nicky had ever done something like this before. For Adeline, though she had played a great number of pranks in her 12 years, the adrenaline rush was always the same, whether it was something as small as setting off a dungbomb in the girls’ lavatory or shooting fireworks from the window in the headmaster’s office.

As soon as the first round of sparks faded away, Addie snatched up a couple more from her bag, set them up in the windowsill, and lit them as well. As this round exploded, she noticed the way the colors reflected onto the buildings and rooftops below, and she hoped that any students (or professors, I suppose) who could see them were enjoying them as much as she was.

“This is brilliant,” she muttered to Nicky. She glanced down at her backpack to take stock and saw only two more small fireworks inside; perfect for one more round.

“Okay, there’s one more for each of us. Last round, let’s make it count!” She smiled widely, her heart beating ever faster with the knowledge that a professor could walk in at any moment. They were probably cutting it close, but she wasn’t about to duck out early. After all, her parents were the ones who had always told her to see things through to completion...though when they said it, they were typically talking about homework or primary school.

@ Adeline Hughes

The fireworks shot off into the dark blue sky with a loud whoosh. Nicky watched with her mouth wide open while they covered the skies in various shades of pink, yellow and orange. She hadn't seen a firework this big in her whole life because her grandparents never allowed them to launch more than one firework each on New Year since it was too dangerous for little kids to play around with explosive toys and matches. She had imagined that this huge firework would be quite a sight but she didn't expect it to be so beautiful.

When the explosions stopped and the sparkles slowly faded away from the night sky Nicky was still standing by the window, adrenaline coursing through her veins, her eyes glinting. A few more fireworks launched by Addie lit up the sky once more, causing her to snap out of her excitement.

"This is brilliant" - Addie whispered next to her. Nicky nodded in excitement, staring at her friend in awe. She didn't have any words waiting to skip out of her mouth and this didn't happen to her often.

There was one more firework left for each of the girls, so Nicky picked up the yellow one and lit another match, carefully setting the fuse on fire. It bolted into the sky like a golden arrow, sparkles glistening across the blue depths. The girl climbed onto the windowsill, holding on to the frame, the wind blowing in her face. For a moment, it felt like she was flying. She laughed merrily.

Nicky took one last look at the sky before the last sparks vanished completely and jumped back into the room.

"This is AWESOME but we probably have to go, no, we definitely have to go, somebody is definitely going to see this, I hope they like it even if they give us detention it will be totally worth it, have you ever been in detention before? I bet it is fun, I love trying new things like detentions and fireworks and going to the Natural History museum, I should definitely do that when I go back home. But this is the funnest thing EVER".

Nicky jumped up and down barely containing happy screams, then managed to get ahold of herself and set the rest of the fuses on fire. Judging by their lengths, they had approximately two minutes to get out of the office before it went up in sparkles. It wouldn't be lit on fire, of course, since they planned the placement and the number of fireworks very carefully, but the office would be an extremely loud place to be in if they stayed there to watch the rest of the fireworks explode. Nicky laughed again, reliving the thrill of their spectacular prank in her mind, then rushed to the door and opened it.

"Come on, Addie, we better leave quick!"

The moment Nicky jumped down from the windowsill, Addie quickly closed the window and locked it up tight. Her friend was chattering on and on, obviously over excited and, by how many times she used the word detention, perhaps a bit nervous at the idea of being found out.

“So, number one: just breathe, okay?” Adeline couldn’t help but smirk as she attempted to calm Nicky. “And two: detention is for people who get caught. I’ve never been caught, and I don’t intend on starting now, so let’s get a move on.” The words came out a bit more harsh than she had intended, but she had a reputation to uphold.

The two Gryffindors got into position at their secondary stashes of fireworks. Addie crouched down, and as she pulled out her last match, she tossed the empty matchbox aside. They had left a bit of a mess with all the charred firework casings lying around, but Addie didn’t really care.

With a flick of her wrist, she struck the match against her pants leg and lit the twisted fuses.

“Come on, Addie, we better leave quick!” she heard Nicky call out from the door. She sprinted over to the entrance, no longer concerned about stealth, and glanced back, admiring her work. This was by far her biggest escapade, and also the first time she had chosen to work with someone else. There was no doubt that teamwork made larger pranks like this much easier, and as much as she hated admitting to it, it was nice to have gained a friend.

As a final smile crossed her lips, she backed out of the room. The excited panic, which had disappeared momentarily, now returned in full force as she leapt down the spiral staircase which led up to the headmaster’s office. As she approached the bottom step, she hesitated. With a quick sidestep, Adeline moved behind the large stone gargoyle at the base of the stairs and crouched down. She had to be sure the final explosives went off before she could consider this mission complete.