You Reap What You Sow Detention Finished

Ero trudged up the steps, heading to the fifth floor from her dorm. She dreaded moving already, and was beggining to second guess the worth of her prank. With a sigh she realized no one else was in the stairway, which was okay, but she had wanted to apologize to Ember again. She tripped on the step with a squeak and hurt her knee a little, but eventually reached the top step and begun down the hallway towards the lavatory. The smell of decay and mold reached her before she even went through the door, but stopped and leaned there. She saw Amanda filling the buckets and groaned silently, deciding to stay silent until Ember came, or atleast hide as long as she could. With another groan, this time audible, she went into the cracked, and now red-covered, room. Ero hitched her thumbs under the straps of her coveralls, which were nearly the same shade as her dark-brown eyes. She walked over and looked down into the buckets.
"This is what we're working with today? Where's Ember?" She surveyed what she'd made with pride, but now was her greatest dread. She clicked the heel of her boot on the tile, downtrodden.

Ember was wearing an old pinstripe T - shirt, slightly torn at the rims and splattered with droplets of dark blue ink due to a certain encounter in Transfiguration class, and her only old pair of trousers: leggings in a dark shade of crimson with a tiny hole above her right knee. The colour, as she thought, was a perfect match to the reason why she had gotten detention by one of the Ravenclaw prefects alongside with Ero in the first place.
Her heart sank as she dragged herself up the stairs. Detention.

She had expected a lot of things about the magical school. Not only good things. She had reasoned that there would probably be students acting annoying or rude, seeing the large number of young witches and wizards in the castle. She had prepared herself for having to do hard work during lessons. She had thought about how to cope with things such as the moving staircases and appearing or disappearing doors. And she had vowed to face and conquer them all.

Something she could not have imagined at all was getting detention in her second month.

Ember wasn’t the type of girl who was usually capable of acting like this in presence of authorities, like that prefect of her house who had given them the punishment. She was able to speak to them, to chatter with them, to have others be interested in her, to be “admirable” as one of her Muggle teachers had called her. But a situation like this had never arisen before.

And yet, Ember felt good. Like a rebel.

A rebel with top marks and great popularity within professors, the best of two worlds. This was a thought that lifted her spirit and made her smile; having one single prefect against her didn’t mean the termination of her entire school life.

Her face fell again as she arrived in front of the girls’ toilets, a place she had been dreading since the day before, when she had received the owl telling them time and place of their detention only shortly after Amanda had left the place. The door was halfway open, and the young witch peered in, trying to figure out if it was time to enter or if she should wait. To her horror, Amanda and Ero were already inside, talking. Ember stumbled in. “Um, sorry…”, she gasped. “Am I late?” She had an important meeting the next day and was afraid of her detention being extended.

While waiting for Amanda’s answer, she quickly surveyed the situation. Two metal buckets were standing on the floor, soapy water sloshing from side to side as if they had only been put there moments ago. “So… that’s what we have to do?”, Ember asked tensely. Her mimic visibly expressed that she didn't look forward to spending hours with cleaning up this mess without wands. 

“Um, sorry…”, Ember spoke timidly, and Ero turned her head over curiously. "Am I late?" Her fellow first year stammered, and Ero shrugged, looking to Amanda to be the judge of this. The Hufflepuff could see her discomfort, and cleared her throat quietly. “So… that’s what we have to do?”, they choked out, and Ero stood and pointed to the buckets.
"Pretty obvious, take the sponges, clean up the 'blood'" She made finger quotes, and gave Ember another apologizing look. With a sigh, she reached down and picked up one of the sopping bars with two fingers and let the excess run into the bucket. She was a bit distasteful of the idea, considering doing one thing for so long made her antsy already. She crouched and rubbed the sponge on a particular splatter on the ground, then dropped it back into the bucket and gave Ember and Amanda a despairing look.
"Why can't we use wands? Can't we just like- Scourgify or Terego this mess away? It'd be much quicker for all of us." The brownette groaned, her heart in her stomach again. She honestly was going to hang out with Oakley after words, and didn't want this to drag on any longer than it already had.

Amanda normally would have smiled at the girls when they entered the bathroom, but she didn’t want to be there just as much as them. “Yes, this is what we’re working with.” To be honest, she was rather ticked off with this whole affair. I mean, writing with lipstick on walls? Why on earth would you find that entertaining? But she kept her thoughts to herself.

Amanda did smile at Ember, though. She could tell that Ember was a usually kind person, even though she did slightly disrespect Amanda during the incident. “No, you’re not late. Actually, you’re right on time,” she replied, checking her watch.

Amanda clapped her hands together. “Alright folks, let’s get this show on the road,” she said as the girls reached for the sponges. She couldn’t help but grimace a bit, thankful that she was the one giving the detention and not serving it.

“If you used magic, it would be too easy. Consequences help you to think before you act next time you want to write with lipstick.” She smirked, shaking her head and leaning up against one of the stalls. “Maybe you should’ve thought about the consequences before you decided to play your little joke.” Amanda was in no mood to be nice, especially not when she had to watch these two delinquent girls scrub the bathroom walls.

Ember breathed out in relief when Amanda said she wasn't running late. Determined to get this over with, she carefully listened to Ero, who had apparently been already instructed. It was the task she had expected, regarding the two buckets. "Pretty obvious, take the sponges, clean up the 'blood'". Ember grinned at the quotation marks Ero drew into the air with her fingers when she reached the word blood. 
A sudden clapping noise in the room startled the young Ravenclaw; she quickly turned around, searching for its origin and found it in the prefect. "Alright folks, let's get this show on the road", Amanda said, grimacing a little. Was it really that awful for her?, Ember wondered. After all, she had been able to choose time, place and nature of the detention and didn't even have to do it herself. But the student had to admit that "let's get this show on the road" was a nice way for putting it: that they were going to spend a pretty long time scrubbing at this mess. 
Standing there unsure if to start the tedious work already, Ember watched as Ero bent down and wetted the sponge, squeezing out part of the water afterwards. Then the Hufflepuff girl kneeled on the floor and started dabbing at one of the red stains. Ember took a step towards the buckets and reached out for the ugly yellow sponge settled on the rim of hers when the other student suddenly lifted her head. "Why can't we use wands? Can't we just like- Scourgify or Terego this mess away? It'd be much quicker for all of us", she enquired. "It's Tergeo actually. But apart from that, I've asked myself the same question." Ember looked at the Prefect with interest, waiting for an answer. “If you used magic, it would be too easy. Consequences help you to think before you act next time you want to write with lipstick. Maybe you should’ve thought about the consequences before you decided to play your little joke.”, Amanda told them with a smirk. Everything in her was crying out that she hadn't done it, that it wasn't her joke... She had to struggle to not blurt out with it, but she had decided to go through this with Ero. And Ember was the kind of person who stuck up for her decisions. 
She nodded curtly, grabbed a sponge and half-heartedly scraped at the lipstick dried on the mirror. The Ravenclaw was surprised how hard it was; the lipstick she used - on rare occasions - mostly came off her face easily. She stopped a moment to regard the spell Ero had scribbled. To her surprise, it was Scourgify. What irony, she thought. 
Ember struggled for some kind of conversation. Her mind was empty of things to say, and she wasn't even sure if you were supposed to talk during detention. She decided to give it a try. Smiling hopefully, she asked: "How are you all?" Before even having ended the "all", she realized what a dumb question this was. Ero, same as her, had to spend her evening cleaning up this mess, so she was probably not too well. And Amanda definitely looked as if she didn't want to be her. Blushing bright red, crimson red - again, the Fate of Detention or whatever had to have a certain sense of irony - she turned back to her work. 

Ero rinsed her sponge and went to a new puddle of the red liquid, using both hands to scrub it as deeply as she could. It seemed to scrape and flake around, causing even more frustration for the real culprit. She'd shoot a side glance to Amanda as she scrubbed, but honestly knew that she was only doing her job.
"How are you all?" Ember spoke, then became visibly uncomfortably. She smiled and shrugged off the probability that they shouldn't be speaking.
"Pretty good, this'll be done quick, I'm sure." The Hufflepuff looked over the mess again and second guessed her words, realizing that they both will probably be there for hours atleast. With a huff, she picked up her sponge from the, now tainted red, water again, and squeezed it to begin on the mirror a little bit away from Ember, despising the idea of bumping into one of them and dirtying the clothes, even if they were worth maybe a few knuts. She managed to scrub off a little bit of one line, and dreaded finishing the entire word. Ero glanced at the watch she'd stashed in her pocket, just so she'd be able to count down the minutes until Amanda had to let them go.

Amanda daydreamed idly while the other girls made some small talk. She thought about Quidditch and becoming an Auror. She would be content to occupy either of those careers when she graduated, but she wasn’t sure which one she wanted. Oh well. I suppose I’ll just figure that out after I take my N.E.W.T.S. in a few years. Quidditch was loads of fun to play, but being an Auror was an awesome accomplishment. Plus, her dad would be very proud of her if she became an Auror. He’d probably be proud either way, but seeing your child follow in your footsteps was the dream of many parents.

The time ticked away, slowly but surely. Around 9:00 pm, Amanda surveyed Ember and Ero’s work. They had scrubbed off every last bit of lipstick writing. In spite of the dreariness of the whole affair, Amanda couldn’t help but smile at the girls’ hard work. “Fantastic job, guys. Looks like your detention is done. Try not to pull any more stunts or you might wind up back here with me again and believe me, I don’t want that either.” She laughed lightheartedly. Amanda

hauled the buckets over to the sinks and dumped out the water. “I’ll take care of the rest. You two are free to go now.” She picked up the sponges, dropped them inside of the buckets, and walked out of the bathroom, waving to the two girls.

"Pretty good, this'll be done quick, I'm sure", Ero answered her question. The young Ravenclaw furrowed her brow. Quick? She hadn't expected getting this detention over with that soon. Staying here for hours and hours, that had been what she had believed. Ember was grateful when she realized Ero had been right, apparently. Despite the great amount of the mess, the only half-dried lipstick could be wiped from sinks, tiles and mirrors easily, and after a few scrubs with the sponge the water-blush-mixture designed to looked like blood swirled down into the drain easily when she dumped water over it. "True!", Ember smiled happily. "That's quicker than I thought." Every now and then, the first-year student glanced at a small pocket watch. She hated going to bed late, but apparently, there was no great danger of that. 
A little more than one hour after the girls had begun their detention, Amanda spoke up again. Nearly all the dirt and crimson splatters were gone, Ember hastily jumped towards one of the mirrors to dab at one last lipstick letter. The lavatory was... well, not exactly clean, it hadn't been before anyway, but Ember was proud of what they had managed. "Fantastic job, guys. Looks like your detention is done. Try not to pull any more stunts or you might wind up back here with me again and believe me, I don't want that either." They had to chuckle a little at the prefect's words. While Amanda took the two buckets and emptied them into one of the now white basins, Ember quietly opened the door and walked outside. Finally, it's over. Her career as bad student, as one who got detentions, seemed to be over. Or... she just wasn't going to get caught with anything again. She laughed at this.