(no subject)
Ardeliah stood at the back of the crowd and waited for the bouncy newbies to finish going over the freshly posted list of Gryfftoberfest events. They were pushing and shoving and giggling excitedly. Ardeliah just smiled and waited patiently as they squealed and pointed at things on the list. She remembered her first Gryfftoberfest and how excited she had been.
The crowd had finally dwindled to where she could get close enough to get a good look at it. Weekend games, song parodies, pumpkin carving contests and more were listed. She finally skimmed down to the bottom of the page and saw the event she had been waiting a year for. The Butterbeer Drinking Contest. Last years she had sucked at getting all of the butterbeer but she had been practicing all year long in anticipation.
She read over the rules and her smile fell. She had to find the butterbeer first! Her seeking abilities sucked big time and she knew she would never be able to find it all. She turned away dejectedly from the posted list and started accross the common room to go and mope in the comfy chair by the fire when she bumped into Rowan. Rowan landed on the floor with a thump.
"Oh! Ardeliah! Did you see which way she went? I need to keep up with Zee!" Rowan dragged herself up from the floor and gave her robes a quick shake. "Why Rowy?" Ardeliah asked as she tried to help Rowan straighten out the back of her robes as Rowan started towards the door again.
"I'm working on finding all the butterbeer and I have a few found already but I'm sure I'll find more if I follow Zee. And a few others." Rowan added with a wink. Following closely behind Ardeliah felt an evil idea start to form. "Well you know how good I am at finding things and how good I am at hiding things. How about you find all that butterbeer and I hide it for you until the end of the month. As a prefect I know places to hide things that you aren't even allowed to go and you know no one would suspect me." Ardeliah thought back to the Tops E Kret event of the previous month and how many people had asked her for help on finding out who Tops was without even suspecting her.
Rowan paused for a moment and grinned. "Ardeliah that would be awesome! We work so well as a team. Look, I have to keep up with Zee for now but can we meet up later?" Ardeliah nodded. "We can meet up in my room for now. Meet me there when you finish up." Then she gave Rowy a playful shove. "Just don't lose her!" she admonished.
She watched as Rowan followed Zee until she was out of sight down the hall. Then she hurried back into the common room. Walking swiftly, she hurried up the stairs to the prefects dorms and entered her room. Locking the door behind her. She giggled excitedly with a hint of evil and started moving the furniture out of the way so she could pull her bed out from the wall. When she had moved in this was a hidden space she had found where she had first stashed the Fat Lady before they could move her to Dunroot. Even the professors hadn't found her there when they were performing their sweeps of the castle. And she certainly hadn't told Rowan about it in case she had been caught and forced to talk.
She ducked her head and crawled inside. She pursed her lips as she worked putting up shelving for the butterbeer and some more lighting so she wouldn't trip if she had to come in here in the dark. Satisfied with her work she left and put all the furniture back where it belonged. Then she picked up her favorite book and waited for Rowan.
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A few hours later, Rowan knocked tentatively on Ardeliah's door. Ardeliah opened the door and welcomed Rowan in. "So were you successful? Did you find any more butterbeer or maybe where Zee hid her stash?" she asked as she led Rowan over to the desk by her bed. Rowan giggled as she brought another case of butterbeer out from under her cloak. "TA DA!" she exclaimed. And then went on to describe in the minutest detail how she had followed Zee for hours until she found some of her stash. 'Knowing Zee she has more than one.' Ardeliah thought as she listened patiently to Rowan go on and on.
When she finally wound down and finished talking, Ardeliah could get a word in edgewise. "Now Rowy, I had a thought. How about you casually mention to a few more students that you know a wonderful hiding spot? Don't mention me. Most people think I was just supervising the Dunroot thing and wouldn't know that I know what to do. That way we could get a few more cases and maybe even a line on where some more were hidden." 'And it wouldn't hurt that I would have lots of people finding me Butterbeer while I plan a little party!' She smiled pleasantly as Rowan agreed it would be an awesome idea and laughed to herself as Rowan launched herself off the bed and dashed out the room to recruit more 'helpers'.
So for the month of Gryfftoberfest things went along quite smoothly. Ardeliah smiled and relaxed and laughed quietly to herself on more than one occasion, as she watched the many butterbeer battles raging on between her fellow Gryffs. It got a little hairy at one point when Zenix caught Rowan trying to steal more of her Butterbeer. Literally. Zenix badly transfigured Rowan into a spider for a few hours. Ardeliah's little hidey hole was getting quite full by the time the 31rst rolled around. The night before Rowan and Ardeliah had worked hard organizing the hidey hole so everyone could get at their Butterbeer quickly. Now the time had arrived for distribution.
Ardeliah opened the door to her dorm room and ushered in the crowd of first years standing outside. "Quickly and quietly people. We don't want anyone to catch on to what we are doing here." The giggling horde of mostly girls entered as quickly and quietly as a group of 11 and 12 year old's could. Which wasn't saying much. 'My plan is going perfectly so far!' Ardeliah thought as the noisy bunch shoved each other out of the way.
Ardeliah nodded to Rowan and nudged her to the entrance to the hidey hole. "Ahem! Now that I have your attention, I need you all to remain calm as the hidey hole is awfully full and any strong vibrations could cause it to collapse. I don't need to tell you what would happen to your Butterbeer then do I?" Rowan said with authority. Ardeliah had given her the password to the hidey hole and Rowan was so pleased that the plan was going off without a hitch.
The group all nodded back quietly with big grins on their faces. As they lined up to receive their Butterbeer. Ardeliah stood to the back of the room and waited until everyone had their focus on Rowan. Then she quietly pulled her wand out and poked at the cauldron of beetles she had sitting on the edge of her dresser. They poured onto the floor silently as she edged to the other side of the room. "Engorgio!" she whispered as she pointed at the front of the pack of beetles.
It only took a moment for the group to realize there were rather large beetles crawling over their feet. Pandemonium erupted as they started screaming and climbing over each other in an attempt to get away. Rowan was panicking. "CALM DOWN!" she hollered. "WE NEED QUIET OR THE ROOM WILL COLLAPSE!"
As she said those words the roar of a ceiling caving in came from the wall where the hidey hole was located. Drowning out the sounds of screaming first years. As they all looked in horror at the clouds of dust pouring out of the hole in the wall where the hidey hole was, Ardeliah quickly reversed the engorgement charm and started sweeping the beetles back into the cauldron, apologizing as she went.
"Oh I'm so sorry, how clumsy of me. I must have forgotten to secure the lid to the cauldron. I hope no one got too frightened. I mean after all they are only beetles." She rambled on like this for several moments as the group slowly realized all their butterbeer was gone and turned to look at Rowan, who was looking very worried.
"Guys, it was an accident. If you had kept calm we would all have our Butterbeer right now and be on our way to the contest." Rowan explained as the crowd looked like it was out for blood.
Murmurs of "It's Rowans fault" and "How could she!" were starting to rise over the crowd. Rowan started working her way towards the door as first years started pulling their wands and pointing them at her. Ardeliah opened the door to her room and stood quietly behind it as Rowan gave one last look at the crowd and tore off running as fast as she could. Closely followed by the massive group of angry first years.
When the last one was gone, Ardeliah closed and locked her door. A few flicks of her wand had her room back to its original condition. She walked calmly over to the wall opposite where everyone believed the hidey hole was and opened the real hidey hole, filled to bursting with cases and cases of Butterbeer. She pulled out 20 of them and sat down on her bed to await her next visitor. Not even paying any attention to the far of screeches of Rowan as she tried to out pace her pursuers.
She heard her visitors "Well?" before she saw her. Ardeliah had known there was no way she could pull off a theft such as this without arousing suspicion and had enlisted her own help. "It went well. Here are the 10 cases of premium Butterbeer we agreed on with a 10 case bonus. I couldn't have done this without your help." 'That and I figured bribing her was the only way to keep her from stealing the entire stash.' Ardeliah thought with her grin intact. "Do you need any help getting it out of here?"
"No, I'm quite capable of doing that myself. Enjoy your party." With that the Butterbeer and Ronja vanished from Ardeliah's room even more quietly than when she had entered.
Sighing with pleasure at a plan that had gone like clockwork, Ardeliah stretched and reached for the bag she had bought last year in Diagon Alley. It was a quiet unassuming bag that she had linked to the hidey hole behind her. She sealed the entrance and checked out her clothes in the full length mirror on the back of her door. Satisfied that she looked good enough to party, she calmly left the room and headed out of the common room. Dodging the spells flying about aimed at Rowan. She paused in the doorway, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt as Rowan tripped over the rug in an attempt to avoid another canary cluster that had been thrown at her. "Protego!" she whispered as she aimed at Rowan. 'At least now nothing will actually hurt her. she thought as she noticed that the Gryfftoberfest party seemed to be turning into a food fight free for all.
On and on she walked through the castle, passing partying Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs who were enjoying the Halloween festivities. She smiled and nodded as she passed, even waving hello to some of her better friends. Finally she reached the dungeons. Knocking on the door she smiled as Prof Miette Bynnay opened it wide. "Everything go as planned?" Dee asked her with a grin.
"Perfectly!" Ardeliah smiled back. "Did you get the chocolate?"
"Yep. Come on in, we have everything set up in my room. We wouldn't want to share the spoils with any undesirables." Miette winked as she allowed Ardeliah entrance to the Slytherin Dungeons.
The party in the main Slytherin Common room was going just as strong if not a little cleaner than the one in the Gryffindor tower, as a food fight hadn't erupted here. They wove their way across the room to Miette's private quarters and entered to a smaller crowd.
Miette called for everyone's attention. "Listen up Peons! We can get this party started now. The Butterbeer has arrived!" Cheers went up around the room as Ardeliah set up the bag on the table. She grabbed one for herself and Miette and wandered over to an observation mirror that showed the main part of the Slytherin common room.
"A toast. To sorting to soon!" Ardeliah smiled and clinked her glass with Miette's. Turning to the scene in the main common room she pulled her wand out and started toying with the first years. A well placed jinx here, a minor curse there had them scurrying about in annoyance.