Chapter 17

Adria woke the next morning just after five am, the sun had yet to rise yet and wouldn't for a couple of hours and Sirius slept soundly on the sofa bed in the corner. She was still rather tired but she had things to do, and now would be the best time to do it.

No witnesses.

She climbed out of bed, her bare legs hitting the cold of her room as she pulled on her slipper boots that sat beside her bed. She creeped over to the cabinet that her TV sat on and pulled out a tube of foot cream that had yet to be opened and hair dye she had bought on her last trip home at summer. Whilst she was fortunate enough to get one of the bigger rooms in her house, Benji and her parents both had en suites connected onto their rooms.

She crept down the hall, careful not to creak any of the floorboards as she opened Benji's door, his loud snoring was enough for her to creep into the bathroom un noticed. She was starting off their annual prank war with the easiest, but effective pranks in the book, she wondered how she always got away with it.

She grabbed the tube of toothpaste from the holder on the sink, and squeezed some of it down the drain as quietly as possible before squeezing some of the foot cream into the toothpaste tube to replace it, simple.

She was rather jealous that Benji had his own bathroom, and shower but it just made for quicker and better ways to prank him. She unboxed the dye, shaking it in her hands before reaching for his shampoo and dumping the dye in with his shampoo, and then proceeded to shake it once more.

She quickly set the shampoo bottle back where she found it, making sure that it was in the exact same spot before creeping out of the bathroom, and Benji's room. She rushed quickly, but quietly back to her own room, jumping on her bed before diving under the covers.

Adria turned on her side, closing her eyes and covering herself fully with her blankets and covers, and mass amount of pillows everywhere on her bed. She finally managed to get back to sleep after an eventful morning.

"Adria Hopkins!" shrieked Benji as he entered her bedroom six hours later when the clock was turning eleven, she tried to keep her giggles in when her eyes fluttered open, but once she caught sight of his hair which had turned a hot pink, she couldn't help it. Her hand flew to her mouth where she tried to stop herself, but seeing the pink clash with the redness of his face, she just couldn't help herself.

She was surprised that Sirius hadn't woken up from Benji's extremely loud voice, and seeing as she knew he wouldn't want to miss this, she grabbed one of the pillows and aimed it at his head, causing him to jump awake.

"Sorry," Adria giggled, "but look." Sirius, trying to be nice, snickered slightly, before covering his mouth with his hand much like Adria done.

"I think it suits you," Adria said, looking up at Benji with an innocent grin.

"Wait," Sirius said, his voice hoarse from just waking up, "you did this?" he asked Adria, who nodded.

"Yup," she giggled, "may the prank war begin!"

"You will pay Adria Hopkins, I will end you this year!" he growled, "I'm going to brush my teeth, but I'm not done here!"

Adria fell into a convulsion of giggles when he mentioned brushing his teeth, but Benji had already left the room before he could hear her, "Oh merlin, what did you do to his toothbrush?"

"I put...foot cream...in his tooth paste!" she said through a fit of laugher, resulting in Sirius laughing out loud, he felt rather bad for laughing but the hot pink was rather hilarious, "I can't believe shy little Adria is a prank mastermind."

"A muggle prank mastermind," Adria corrected, "I don't like wizard pranks."

"I know," Sirius chuckled, "they're cruel, and humiliating and I don't condone them!" he mimicked Adria's voice as she gasped, before throwing a pillow at him, which hut him in the face.

"I do not sound like that!" she huffed, glaring when Sirius repeated her, "we need to get up, there's lots to do!"

"Like what?" asked Sirius, raising his eyebrow as he lay on his bed.

"Well the gingerbread house competition is tonight!" Adria said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, "and I was thinking I could take you on a tour of the village!"

"Really?" asked Sirius, grinning when Adria nodded, "sounds good."

"First, I need food," Adria announced, pushing the covers off of herself and walking towards her door, she turned to see Sirius getting up, and waited until he was behind her, "I'm worried incase Benji is there." She whispered as quietly as he could.

"Why would B-" she cut him off with her hand for being too loud, pushed him back so that he fell onto her bed and crouched so she could peak under her door where she saw the bottom of Benji's feet. She rolled her eyes at the classic trick, motioned for Sirius to stay put before opening the door. In a few seconds, the place where Sirius and Adria once stood was drenched in water, but they weren't.

"Dammit!" Benji growled, she watched through the crack in the door that he pretended to walk away, and picked up another bucket that he had next to him.

"Benji!" Adria shrieked, slamming the door in his face so that he would think she fell for it, she motioned once again for Sirius to stay where he was before opening the door again once more, for the exact same spot to be drenched in water, once again.

"Ugh!" he huffed, she watched him actually walk this time and turned to look at Sirius, she pointed to the mirror on her bedside table to which he grabbed to give to her.

She positioned the mirror near her door, holding it in front of her to see if Benji was hiding next to the door, he was. She rolled her eyes, all she wanted was some food. She crept away from the door and too the cabinet which her TV sat upon, grabbed some whipped cream she had stored In there that wasn't out of date, surprisingly.

She scooshed a large amount onto her hand as quietly as she could, motioned for Sirius to follow her and crept towards her door where she could see Benji's legs in the mirror, she raised her hand and quickly brought it to the side where she heard a large "Ah!" from Benji, who let out a groan.

She grabbed Sirius' hand quickly, and pulled him out into the hall where Benji was waiting with props, but was too late when they had manoeuvred their way around them as he tried to get whipped cream out of his eye.

"That doesn't count!" Benji called down the stairs.

"Yes it does!" Adria screamed back as she made her way into the living room, she pulled Sirius along with her and almost groaned when she saw Abigail sitting on her couch.

"Oh yay it's Abigail." She muttered sarcastically, mostly to Sirius who looked around the living room until he found her, and although she was rather pretty, he thought that Adria was much prettier, but of course, he would never admit that.

Adria let go of Sirius' hand as she entered the kitchen where her mum was drinking coffee and her dad was making pancakes, "you're making pancakes!" Adria grinned, her parents had a routine that her father would cook breakfast and her mother would cook dinner, and whoever said they were hungry first would have to cook lunch.

"Well they are your favourite," Douglas smiled, "do you like pancakes, Sirius?"

"Yeah, the Hogwarts pancakes are great," Sirius said, Adria nodded in agreement as she sat at the wooden table at the other end of the kitchen, Sirius followed her, and sat beside her, he didn't know what else he could do.

"My dad makes better pancakes than Hogwarts," Adria grinned, watching as he placed two plates down in front of the two, "so why is Abigail here?"

"She was here when I woke up," Judy said, sipping at the coffee whilst her face screwed up.

"Mum, just put sugar in it!" Adria exclaimed, "you don't need to change everything you eat!"

"It's healthier!"

"It's caffeine, if you're going to drink coffee you may as well do it the way you like it or it's pointless!" Adria laughed, her mother glaring at her when she realised it was true.

"Doug will you pass me the sugar please," Judy said innocently.

"I made new friends on the train!" Adria announced, remembering her two friends Milo and Finn.

"You're making friends left, right, and centre nowadays!" Douglas laughed as he took a seat at the table, "what're their names?"

"Milo and Finn," Adria said, "but I don't think I told you about James, Peter and Remus, did i? I haven't written to you much because of your terrible care of owls."

"You told us of Lily and Remus," Judy commented, flipping through the newspaper in front of her.

"Oh, yes!" Adria nodded, "Remus is one of Sirius' best friends, so is Peter and James. Then there's Mary, Dorcas and Marlene, they're my dorm mates with Lily, and they're great!"

"Mary's a bit of a gossip, though," Sirius piped in, and Adria realised he was talking about the rumour Mary heard of him fancying her, she rolled her eyes.

"So is James, he hears everything." Adria scoffed.

"Who's the mum of the group?" Douglas asked, "I know it wouldn't be you, you've always been a trouble maker." Sirius scoffed, wide eyed as he almost joked on his pancakes.

"Adria is the exact opposite of a trouble maker!" he laughed, "at school, anyway."

"We sent Adria to a muggle school, of course, before she got her letter, we got phonecalls all the time about her distrupting the class!" Judy laughed, shaking her head at the memories.

"You laugh now, but those where terrible." Douglas pointed out.

"He deserved it!" Adria exclaimed, a frown on her lips as she fought her cause, thinking back to one of the times she was sent home from school, in her defence she was rather young at the time.

"He was seven!" Judy laughed.

"What happened?" asked Sirius from beside her.

She sighed, "I may or may not have punched a little boy in the face."

"And sat on him so he couldn't run away!" Douglas added, earning himself a glare from his daughter who scowled.

"You did what?!" Sirius exclaimed, although he couldn't help but laugh.

"In my defence," she huffed, "he said I couldn't hit because I was a girl, I was just proving him wrong!"

"Well," Sirius said after a moment, "I'd do the same."

"See!" Adria exclaimed, "It was the right thing to do!"

"We didn't say it was wrong," Judy laughed, "we said there was better ways to handle the situation."

"No, you said that," Douglas said to his wife, "I said, Hell yes!" Adria grinned as she high fived her dad, resulting in Sirius laughing whilst Judy rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to take Sirius on a tour of the village today," Adria said, sipping on the orange juice her dad poured for her, it was a bit odd against the pumpkin juice she was so used to.

"Oh, that sounds exciting." Judy said, closing over the newspaper she had finished reading and handing it to her husband.

"Yeah, I'm taking him to the house." She scoffed, earning a smack on the arm by her mother.

"Don't you dare, that's dangerous." Judy warned.

"What's the house?" asked Sirius.

"The muggle version of the shrieking shack, it's through the woods at the top of the village and everyone thinks some old creepy witch lives there, so I'm going to see if she went to Hogwarts." Sirius smirked at her sarcastic answer whilst her parents rolled their eyes.

"Wonder what house she was in." Sirius piped in, earning a high five from Adria who grinned.

"Remember not to talk about magic in front of Abigail," Douglas said to the two teenagers, "she doesn't know anything, obviously, and we don't need that Ministry of whatever knocking down our door."

"I wanna prank her," Adria huffed, "subtly..."

"You can't," Douglas chuckled at his daughter, "for starters, that's morally wrong or whatever," he rolled his eyes, "secondly, Alfie would kill you."

"I am not a morally right person, so therefore, I don't play by the rules," Adria smirked, "and secondly, Alfie will get over it."

"We are not allowing you to do this," Judy said, "but, if you do it and we aren't there, then technically it didn't happen."

"Exactly, so just avoid Abigail for the rest of the day, or holiday, it's a sneak attack I gotta prepare." Adria watched as her parents laughed, and moved from their seats, leaving Sirius and Adria in the kitchen alone.

"Your parents are so cool," Sirius muttered, "If I talked to my parents like that, I'd get slapped."

"Really?" Adria asked quietly, "I mean, have your parents ever hurt you before?"

"Sometimes," Sirius muttered, "but not too much anymore." Sirius was caught by surprise when Adria threw her arms around him in a hug, she felt terribly sorry for him, seeing as she had such great parents and he was stuck with terrible ones.

"I'm sorry, Sirius." She whispered, tightening her grip around him when he finally wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," he mumbled into her hair, "Christmas hasn't even been and it's already the best I've ever had."