Pranking hearts

"Have you guys seen the Daily Prophet today?" Alicia asked through a mouthful of toast. The group of friends were at the breakfast. Enjoying the first meal of the day. At least some of them were. Rhea seemed to be rather interested in her Potions notes. Trying to prepare for the double Potion class with Professor Snape the best she could. Now that their classes had N.E.W.T. level it was harder than one would have thought. And Professor Snape was especially hard on the chosen elite of students. Particularly on Rhea since he didn't favour her very much.

"Refrain from spitting your breakfast onto my notes, please and thank you," Rhea said, wiping her notes with the tissue that she found on the table. She sent an annoyed glare to Alicia who didn't seem to mind that she had been talking with her mouth full.

"I don't think I want to read it, that Skeeter woman is sticking her nose into everyone's business. A seriously nosey woman that is." Katie confessed, a frown on her face at the mere mention of the blonde-haired journalist.

"I'm getting fed up with her as well. She seems to be everywhere. Just yesterday I almost hit her face with the door when I was getting out of the bathroom." Angelina joined in on the conversation. Shivering a little at the memory of yesterday's encounter.

"She's always interrogating about my relationship with Cedric...I told her we are just friends and she just won't leave me alone about it." Rhea grumbled, writing down a remark to her notes.

"Diggory is not cool enough to pull our Rhea," Lee said when he swallowed down his food. Causing the other members of the group to laugh or nod in agreement while Rhea's face grew red.

"So much flattery this early in the morning," Rhea muttered, a soft smile on her lips as she tried to cover the blush on her cheeks.

"But he's totally right." It was Fred who confirmed Lee's statement, gently nudging Rhea with his elbow, being careful not to mess up her Potions notes just because he didn't want to disturb the peaceful morning by arguing with her.

"Mum sent me a dress?" That was a sentence that got the attention of the whole group and even some people from other tables. Everyone looked over at Ron who pulled out rather awful-looking dress robes out of a parcel. It definitely was traditional, but not the thing wizards wore nowadays.

"Well, it does match your eyes. Is there a bonnet?" Rhea chuckled, seeing Harry make fun of Ron. Who on the other hand looked majorly annoyed.

"Nose down Harry. Ginny these must be for you." He presented the robes to his sister who almost spat out the cereal she was eating. It was far from Ginny's style.

"I'm not wearing that it's ghastly." Some laughs and chuckles echoed after the comment, but Ronald mainly heard Hermione.

"What are you on about?"

"They're not for Ginny they're for you! Dress robes."

"Dress robes? For what?"

"I already dread an answer to that," Rhea muttered to herself, looking over at her friends who all looked equally as confused.

"Well, time for Potions, come on Rhea," Angelina said, finishing her pumpkin juice in one go before collecting her bag and heading for the door.

"Um, I guess I'm going. See you later guys." The others hummed, waving her goodbye. Fred watched as she sauntered down the corridor. Eyes spied on every movement she made, making sure the other boys weren't leaving their eyes on her. He noticed one Ravenclaw boy, checking her out. The smirk he wore on his lips and the hungry look in his eyes wasn't something that set well with Fred.

When Rhea left the boy turned back to the group of his friend. Chatting with exaggerated hand gestures and way too loud words made Fred's blood boil. He grabbed his wand from the table. Swishing it lightly one time in a circular motion. There was a silence followed by a yelp coming from the Ravenclaw table. Many heads turned in that direction, only to see the group of Ravenclaws drenched to the bone with pumpkin juice. Their goblets levitating in the air empty.

The Weasley boy grinned in satisfaction. Glad that he cooled the perverted thoughts of the other boys down. No one knew it was him, so he didn't have to take any responsibility for it even if teachers saw what happened. There wasn't any response from them. Maybe because nothing too serious happened. But if anyone were to ask, Fred would admit his responsibility for the simple yet brilliant joke. It was to protect his best friend, so his actions were more than justified.

Possibly the only one who had the idea of what was happening was George who sat next to Fred, now that Rhea wasn't there, and he saw his brother swishing his wand under the table. He wasn't about to say anything to him. Knowing that if he started questioning it Fred would just come up with some stupid excuse of why he did it. But in George's head, the answer was clear.

***

Rhea was just sorting through the rose thorns she was supposed to add to the potion that she and Angelina were brewing. Angelina was cracking the Ashwinder eggs and putting them in the cauldron while stirring it all together.

"Ugh, how did I even end in this class?" Asked the dark-haired girl whilst glaring at the substance that was gaining a faint pink tint to it. Rhea was far too focused on extracting the juice from the fresh thorns to answer her right away. But when she was finished she added a few drops into their concoction before turning to her friend.

"You took the staircase to the left," Rhea uttered while scanning through the page to see what else they needed to do. The two long lessons of Potions were dragging by awfully slow and it was a miracle the girls managed to get the mixture to this state before falling asleep from boredom. Angelina was sending a glare to the shorter girl who didn't even have to look up to notice it. "Don't glare at me, you chose it as one of your N.E.W.T. classes."

"Worse mistake of my life, thanks for the reminder." The tall girl grumbled, ducking out of the way when Rhea added some more ingredients, otherwise, she would get splashed by the substance. There was no telling what it would actually do to her. In Rhea's case, she already forgot what she was even making. She was just going by the instructions. While Angelina wasn't too trusting of their potion skills yet. "I still don't understand why Ministry applicants have to go through so many tests."

"And I still don't understand how you of all people want to work at the Ministry," Rhea remarked with a dubious shake of her head. The position of some boring official at the Ministry just wasn't a job for Angelina. At least in Rhea's eyes.

Angelina presented herself as an independent person who didn't like to be told what to do. Someone who can handle more difficult tasks but would prefer working in an open space rather than in some dull office. Overall Angelina was very smart and talented with her wand and on the broom. She would be a right fit skill-wise. But on the note of her spirit, Rhea was sure Angelina would get bored easily in her new job.

"It's the money that runs the world sweetie, I can't do anything but adjust to it," Angelina revealed the sad truth, changing the direction of her mixing just how the directions told them to.

"Cheerful." Grumbled Rhea with a huff, adding some rose petals into the mixture which immediately gave it a bright pink glow. "Just a few more minutes of boiling and it should be finished. Keep stirring," Rhea requested, her finger running over the ink-stained page where she was reading.

"Why did you voluntarily choose this torture then? I thought you no longer strive to be an Auror. Or did something change?" Angelin broke the small silence break that they had between them. The blonde looked up from the notes on the table, eyes travelling up to meet one of her best friends.

"I maybe don't desperately dream of it anymore but one can never know. Might come in handy in the future, the more you know the more you...know." Rhea blushed in embarrassment from getting stuck in the middle of her sentence. She just ran out of words to explain herself anymore.

"The words of wisdom," Angelina said sarcastically a teasing chuckle escaping her. But that was quickly silenced by Snape who sent the two Gryffindors a glare while passing by to aid the Hufflepuff duo who were having trouble with crushing the pearls. It kept flying around the room, hitting other students whenever they tried to crush the round object.

It was quiet between the two after that. They had their streak of not getting points taken from their house in over a month. They were not about to break it because of their petty banter. Especially if twins are running around the halls testing their sweets on everyone without asking. That tends to get points taken from the lion house. Angelina stopped stirring the cauldron substance, just like the papers instructed. Letting it rest, untouched so it can savour everything.

Meanwhile, Rhea's eyes wandered around the dimly lit room. The fact that it was situated in the dungeons seemed to give Professor Snape an excuse to let it smell like an old cellar with a hint of mould and a slight stench of crushed souls and dreams of the students that he taught over the years. Now that description was quite dramatic but in Rhea's opinion very fitting. The room was very depressing looking. Even the people seemed to be losing their colours when they came in.

Her green eyes got stuck on the tall boy with dark hair who was cutting the leaves of mint carefully while his Slytherin comrade was lazily moving the stirring stick around in the cauldron. It seemed he was almost falling asleep there making the other Slytherin frown. Edmund's grades were at risk when he was paired with this dimwit who only scored such an excellent rating on O.W.Ls because he had guessed all the answers. It wasn't fair that Edmund's future was at stake because of someone with whom he shared a house.

It was obvious how much Edmund wanted to be with Althea. His girlfriend with platinum hair was a few tables away. Focused on her own potion that she was making with her friend from Ravenclaw. Rhea noticed the subtle looks he was sending her even if she wasn't looking, like a lovesick puppy, before he turned to see his classmate dropping the stick into the cauldron. The Gryffindor girl had to restrain herself from laughing because of the miserable face Ed pulled, but it seemed she wasn't quite enough as the boy with the mop of dark hair turned to her. Confused for a moment but once he noticed it was her he rolled his eye, visibly annoyed.

Rhea sent him an encouraging smile, which got a weak attempt for a grin from him. It was truly hard to appear happy when you were as tired as he felt at the given moment. Rhea pitied him, it was awful to see him do all the work by himself, especially on such a hard potion. Her thoughts of compassion were suppressed by the weird scent that travelled to her nose. Something very unnatural for the dull dungeons.

It came out of nowhere and its source was hard to place. But it felt somewhat familiar to her. As if she already smelled it somewhere. It took a second before her senses kicked in, suddenly making an image of what the scent could represent in her long memory. But it still made her want more. Just a small simple whiff wasn't enough. She felt like she needed to inhale it all. The essence was so alluring it made her desperate.

"Merlin's beard, your nose sniffs more than the one of Hagrid's Fang when there is chicken for dinner," Angelina commented, slightly alarmed by the fact that Rhea almost bumped into her whilst trying to find the source of the smell. "What is it?" Rhea finally woke up enough from the trance to collect all her thoughts. Her rational thinking was lost for a moment but now she got it back, hopefully. But the fragrance was still attacking her brain.

"I smell...smoke..." Rhea answered confused. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed her weird behaviour.

"Well, there are about five cauldrons with open flame under them so..." Angelina tried a logical approach. Trying to see why her friend would be smelling smoke in the classroom out of nowhere. Once she checked all the cauldrons, making sure none of them had caught on fire she turned back to Rhea who was shaking her head.

"No, no, this is different. More like fireworks smoke. A filibuster perhaps." The answer made Rhea beam since she was finally able to connect it to the right thing. It smelled exactly like the Filibusters she had seen lit up so many times in her life. But Angelina wasn't sharing her enthusiasm.

"I seriously doubt that anyone would be stupid enough to bring Filibusters in here. Not after Fred and George did it in our third year and we all had to evacuate the classroom and stay behind cleaning it for the whole day." The unpleasant memory caused Angelina to shiver. Still hearing the terrible booming sound when the whole plan of the twins went wrong.

Rhea on the other hand merely chuckled at the memory. Not at all bothered the outcome it had in the past. Even the cleaning wasn't all too bad since they were able to get out of the Herbology test they were supposed to write. With another breath, she could detect another smell. This time a sweeter one. One that beat through the smell of the Filibuster smoke for a moment.

"Yeah, yeah, terrible. I can also smell something sweet. Like the sweets from the Honeydukes. Oh and something caramelly. Butterbeer indeed. I can almost taste it. Merlin, I would kill for a Butterbeer." For a second there Angelina was so lost. Her friend seemed to be losing her mind. But then again her nose was also detecting some strange things that surely didn't belong in Potion's classroom. Her eyes wandered towards the notes on the table. Surprised expression crawling onto her face being followed by amusement,

"Huh, interesting."

"What?" Rhea asked distracted by the overwhelming scent still.

"I would understand sweets and Butterbeer, they are quite nice. But girl, smoke?" Angelina asked in mock disbelief shaking her head slowly. "Seriously you're weird."

"Why? What's so wrong with it? Weird is that you don't smell it. It's practically all around the room. Your nose must be broken." The shorter girl defended herself. Crossing her arms over her chest in an offended manner. The other girl wasn't fazed. She just shrugged her shoulders and started collecting her things since Snape had dismissed them for the day, promising to take a look at their potions and allocate points in the next lesson.

"Or it might be because Amortentia smells different to each person and there is nothing wrong with my nose." The dark-haired girl said, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. Leaving a perplexed Rhea just stare at the rosy pink liquid in the cauldron with her notes right next to it, having the big name of the potion as the headline. Her cheeks grew red, in both embarrassment and realisation of what all the scents meant.

The smoke was the scent of the sheets on Fred's bed at the Burrow which she laid on every time she visited. It was also the same scent that seemed to be soaked into Fred's robes every time she was near him. It was safe to say that the scent was implanted into her mouth. Sweets were from the twins' joking confections. And the caramel was in fact from Butterbeer, which was a drink she and Fred regularly enjoyed on each of their Hogsmeade visits. It was their signature beverage. Also, it was the flavour she could taste from Fred's lips that day he kissed her. Just to taste her chapstick.

Now that she had the full image of what each of the scents meant and how they were all tied to that one person it made her blush even more. She was seriously in love. Which was becoming an issue.

***

All of the Gryffindor students above year four were asked to come to the Transfiguration classroom after the end of the lesson. Once Angelina and Rhea came in they noticed the strange arrangement of the room. The usual desks that were in the middle of class to serve as the place for sitting for the students were now pulled to the sides along with chairs. What was even stranger was how the students had divided themselves. There was obvious gender division in the room. The boys looked unusually uncomfortable as if they were back at the stage where they were worried that girls had cooties.

It seemed like there were two utterly different words created, only separated by an invisible line. The world of girls and the world of boys. It was strange, to say the least. But even the invisible barrier wasn't enough to keep the twins from waving at her enthusiastically from the other side of the room. It made her feel slightly less worried about the current strange situation.

Angelina tugged on her arm, leading her over to Katie and Alicia who were sitting on top of the tables. They took their seats next to their friends, who just so happened to be behind Hermione. None of the students seemed to know why they were there. Nevertheless, they were sitting patiently, waiting for the head of their house to speak finally.

Once she was sure everyone was in the room, McGonagall stood in front of the hoard of students, in the large free space that was created by the lack of desks. A strange-looking device was behind her, which Mr Filch was trying to operate somehow. It looked like the old record player that her dad had at home. But this one was much bigger.

"The yule ball has been a tradition of the tri-wizard tournament since its inception. On Christmas Eve night we and our guests gather in the great hall for well-mannered frivolity." McGonagall explained, her voice loud and informing. "As representatives of the host school, I expect each and every one of you to put your best foot forward, and I mean this literally because the yule ball is first and foremost... a dance." Rhea's eyes widened while a roar of groans erupted through the room, mainly from the side of the boys.

The girls started whispering amongst themselves. Most of them sounded pretty excited about the mention of the dance. Alicia especially was practically beaming with happiness. Rhea was sure the tan girl was already thinking of the ways she would style her hair and what dress she would buy for such an occasion. But foremost there was the question of who she would go with. Rhea was sure she already had a few tips in her mind, there was just a question if any of them would ask her.

Angelina also looked relatively happy about the news. It was slightly making up for the fact that there was no Quidditch this year. Katie looked like she wasn't yet sure of what to think, but was trying to stay positive about the matter. Just like Rhea. The blonde glanced over towards the twins who were joking with one another, bumping into each other while grinning teasingly. Surely speaking of who they will ask to the Ball.

A longing voice inside Rhea was practically begging Fred to choose her over the hundreds of girls that he could choose from. Sure they were friends and if Fred didn't want to be romantically involved with anyone this year he would prefer her over anyone. But no one could be sure in what mood Fred Weasley was this year. Whether he was in for a flirt, a relationship or just fun. That was questionable.

"Silence." The professor said loudly, causing deafening silence to spread in the room. The eyes of all the students once again focused on the elder professor. "The house of Godric Gryffindor has commanded the respect of the wizard world for nearly ten centuries. I will not have you in the course of a single evening besmirching that name by behaving like a babbling, bumbling band of baboons." A not-so-lady-like snort managed to escape the Black before she could cover her mouth to silence herself.

"Manners Black," Angelina whispered to her, nudging her with her elbow. But the girl herself was silently chuckling at the tongue twister the professor used. Rhea saw how preoccupied the twins were with repeating the tongue twister over and over again, causing the girl to shake her head with a smile plastered on her lips.

"Now to dance is to let the body breathe, inside every girl a secret swan slumbers longing to burst forth and take flight," McGonagall explained further. Getting very into it.

"I'm probably as graceful as an elephant in fine china, do we want to risk me on the dance floor?" Katie whispered to the girls who giggled quietly at the remark. Not loud enough to interrupt the lecture of their professor.

"It will be fine Katie," Rhea assured the worried girl, sending her a smile.

"Says the most beautiful and graceful girl in the whole school," Katie muttered with slight irritation in her tone but that was all fake.

"Now, now, don't get too carried away." Rhea dismissed them. Still feeling like her appearance couldn't even match the other girls of the school

"We are not talking about Beauxbatons Rhea, those girls are practically trained to be perfect, without thinking of course," Alicia commented with an eye roll. Her annoyance with the French school is quite obvious. But no one knows why.

"Try not to be so obvious about your dislike of the school. They did nothing to you yet." Angelina muttered to the other girl. Not liking the way Alicia was talking about them every time they stumbled upon the topic of Beauxbatons during their conversation.

"You wouldn't understand," Alicia grumbled, looking away from the girls. Angelina just rolled her eyes.

"Inside every boy, a lordly lion prepared to prance. Mr Weasly, will you join me." McGonagall requested the boy, who was making fun of one of the girls quite loudly. Even Rhea could hear him poking fun of the girl's appearance and she wasn't at all happy with him. So when she saw McGonagall about to serve him his punishment in a whole new way, she couldn't help but grin. "Now, place your right hand on my waist." The professor instructed the ginger, who looked up at her, utterly horrified.

"Where?"

"My waist." McGonagall deadpanned, giving Ron a look before grabbing his hand and placing it on her waist. At the action, a wolf whistle sounded from the boy side of the room from the twins while Rhea brought her hands to her mouth to amplify the sound of her taunting cheer. Ron went to show the twins his middle finger before McGonagall stopped him and placed his hand back. "Now, bend your arm. Mr Filch..." The music started playing. As the Transfiguration professor started counting the steps. Leading the whole dance with Ronald who was just clumsily following orders.

"I doubt your dancing can be worse than that Kate," Angelina commented, biting her lip to prevent her from bursting into a fit of laughter. Rhea wasn't so subtle about it. Letting her chuckles escape her.

"This will be my new favourite memory. I so wish I brought my camera here." She giggled louder, not noticing the way the professor looked at her. The elder lady got another brilliant idea, seeing many of the students laughing at the misery of the ginger.

"Everybody come together." The professor instructed causing the girls to stand up except Rhea who almost choked on her laughter. She stared wide-eyed at the professor who forced all the boys to stand up as well. "Miss Black you are not an exception. Please join Mr Weasley over there. He looks far too content." The professor instructed, pointing Rhea towards Fred who thought he was hiding well enough behind the column. But once he heard his name mentioned he groaned silently, stepping onto the makeshift dancefloor to join Rhea.

"Old Minnie found me an exquisite dance partner." Fred teased winking down at the girl who had to try so hard not to blush.

"We should get to it, she is already glaring daggers at us," Rhea commented, stepping slightly closer to the boy so they could start dancing. Her movement seemed very stiff and awkward, but Fred decided not to refer to it. Taking it as anxiety from having to dance in front of so many people.

"All right m'lady. Come 'ere then."

"I'm here," Rhea said with a shrug. Not minding the fact that there was still a big space in between them. Fred rolled his eyes, his heavy hand lapped around Rhea's waist, pulling her closer in one swift movement. A small gasp left the girl, from the sudden movement. Her chest was suddenly pressed tight against Fred's. The boy had a triumphant smile on his lips as he looked down at her.

"This is what I call close."

"It will be very uncomfortable to dance like this Weasley." Rhea shot back with a slight annoyance lingering behind her voice since she had to try with all her might to keep herself from stuttering or blushing. Basically, she was preventing herself from showing how much the closeness was affecting her in real life.

"Watch and admire, Black. Watch and admire." He said with a determined smirk as he put his foot forward, taking Rhea by surprise. The first few steps of their dancing were quite clumsy. Rhea was tripping against Fred since she wasn't sure where he wanted to go. And her mind was fighting with her natural instinct. Head was telling her to go according to what McGonagall showed them. While instinct told her to follow the beat her heart was making.

"This is ridiculous Fred." Rhea frowned when she tripped over Fred's foot for the third time. The tall ginger groaned, throwing his head back. His hair flew around and he had to blow it from his face when he looked back down at the girl.

"It would work better if you would just let me lead. It feels like you are fighting with me." Fred said. His fingers, ran up and down on Rhea's back in slow circles, to soothe her a bit. "Just, relax. And for once in your life, let the thinking to someone else, all right love?" He whispered to her. His lips were close to Rhea's ear, causing goosebumps to appear on her skin. Her breath seemed to have left her lungs as she only managed to nod in agreement.

And just like that. As if by the snap of the fingers, Rhea's brain got turned off completely. Letting Fred guide both of their steps. It felt so natural. Her feet moved by some miracle, so lightly along the dancefloor. The support of Fred's hand on her back was giving her confidence. One of her hands was on his shoulder while the other was gently grasped in his.

The ginger spun her around, a small laugh emitting from her, while her blonde hair flew around her, creating a veil that gave her an almost fairytale look. The twirl was their great finish as the music stopped playing just when Rhea and Fred got close together once again, slightly breathless from the dancing.

"Very well, you are all dismissed." Just as McGonagall said that the crowd started dispersing, mainly the boys wanted to get out of the classroom as fast as possible.

"See Black, I told you it would be fine," Fred said cheekily, winking down at her before his hands left her body, causing Rhea's body to suddenly feel cold for some reason. The cheeky grin of the boy was still inside her mind. She only watched after him as he left along with George. Angelina, Alicia and Katie jumped over to her quickly, Katie looking slightly disgusted as she wiped her hands along her body, disgusted by the fact that some boy was touching her.

"Now that was a right show there Rhea. Didn't know you were professional. However, the beginning was a bit painful to watch. Almost like looking at Katie when she was dancing with Lee." Angelina chuckled. The four of them started leaving the classroom while Rhea was still trying to get over what happened before.

"Hey, I just don't get it, why it has to be the man that leads when dancing? I could easily lead a man."

"You were leading Lee quite well, only managed to fall over like four times." The three girls laughed while Katie frowned.

"Oh shut up."