"Well, the reason there's often water in that corridor is because there's a ghost who often haunts that particular girl's bathroom," she continued. "She's constantly doing things such as blocking up the toilets and hand basins and turning all the taps on."
"Sorry, I'm still not see - Wait," said Tracey. "That's Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, isn't it?"
"Yes. Moaning Myrtle," replied Hermione. "The ghost of a young witch wearing near-modern Ravenclaw robes."
"Well, Susan, Hannah and I have Astronomy tonight and an early nap to look forward to," said Harry. "Do you others think you can go and have a bit of a chat with her?"
"Errr - umm..." blushed Neville.
"It's okay, Neville," said Hermione. "You can stay outside and keep an eye out."
He sheepishly nodded trying to get his embarrassment under control.
The next afternoon, Harry met with Tracey and Daphne at lunch to go over a prank idea against the blonde woodpecker. As Lockhart was fond of using the Teeth Flashing Charm, and probably the Hair Coiffuring Charm, that was in the book of which Harry owl-ordered two copies early last year, he decided it might be a good idea to turn the tables on the man.
"So, which ones do you think we need to use?" asked an eager Tracey. "I'm going with the Teeth Glint Charm, Eye Sparkle Charm and Hair Volume Charm," said Harry. "Might I suggest one of you girls go with the same teeth charm and the Windblown Charm?"
"That's me," said Daphne. "I think my blonde hair will look better in the limited light in the classroom."
"And, I'm going for the Moist Lips Charm, Hair Volume Charm and Blush Charm," said Tracey with a grin.
"Right," said Harry, taking mental note of all that. "Now, I'm going to go tell the Devil Twins what I'm up to. I have a feeling they haven't thought of doing something like this, so they might want to do the same thing when next they have a class with him." With a grin he was up and across to see the Weasley twins. "Gred, Forge," he said as he found a spare spot opposite them to sit.
"Harrikins!" they said in stereo.
"What can Gred and Forge..."
"... pranksters extraordinaire..."
"... do for the Great Harry Potter..."
"... slayer of ladies hearts?" "Oh-kay!" said Harry, not knowing what that last bit meant. "Daphne, Tracey and I are going to prank Flophart in DADA straight after lunch. We're going to be using a lot of those little beauty and photogenic cantrips out of my copy of that book I bought the two of you."
Both twins grinned and said in gleeful stereo, "Harrikins!" "I just thought you'd like to know in case you were about to unleash a Weasley prank on the woodpecker," said Harry
The twins looked at each other and, coming to a decision, turned back to Harry. "We have one ready to go..."
"... but not until tomorrow night."
"Excellent," said Harry. "Now we just need to keep the pressure up."
He was just getting up when they both reached out and pulled him down again.
He looked at them questioningly.
"Are you aware that the student body believes..."
"... you to be the one who petrified Mrs Norris?" Harry snorted in disgust and said, "Snape tried to claim I did it, too. Dumbledore shot him down fast, though."
"So what..."
"... really happened?"
"I will not attend a feast that celebrates my parent's murder," replied Harry firmly. "I would have liked to have been asleep in my bed. However, I couldn't sleep. So, I went for a walk.
"I was heading down to peer into the Great Hall to see if I could get an idea as to how long it had to go when I heard - noises coming from within the walls. I tracked those noises to that second floor corridor and found exactly what you saw; water all over the floor, and Mrs Norris hanging petrified from the torch sconce."
"Thank you..." "... for telling us..."
"Harrikins," they solemnly said together.
Harry returned to his group and let them know about the twins' prank of Flophart the next night. Their pranks that afternoon, were on.
Leaving the DADA class later that afternoon, Harry and the two girls walked quickly down the corridor and turned the corner before they suddenly stopped and all three burst out laughing. They were laughing so hard Daphne and Harry had hold of one another while Tracey was leaning with her back against the wall.
By the time they got themselves back under control, all three ended up with tears running down their cheeks. Others walking down that corridor gave them a very wide berth. During class, every time Lockhart looked in their direction, all three would strike a heroic pose in their seats and flash the man a winning smile.
In response, Lockhart quickly lost his own smile. There was no way he could not recognise the Charms the threesome were using. After all, he had the same book and had made very good use of it.
His biggest problem was he could not accuse them of using the Charms and Cantrips out of the book, as it would also be an admission he had made use of the same book.
With a chuckle, Harry asked, "Do you - do you want me to cancel the Spells?"
"Merlin, no!" said Tracey. "I want you to reapply them."
"Huh?" he asked, confused. "Oh, well said, Potter," smirked Daphne. "You have such a way with words."
Harry blew her a raspberry and looked back at Tracey to continue.
"I want to go into the Great Hall looking like this for dinner," she explained.
Surprised, Harry said, "Oh! That's a good idea."
Daphne shook he heard and said, "An even better idea is if our whole group of friends do it together."
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