SS5

It was at that point, of course, that something had to go wrong.

## Summary

Rigel wakes up at 4 in the morning to her wand stabbing her in the ribs and attempting to bury itself in her ear. Her yelp and fall out of bed wakes Blaise up, while Theo and Draco remain asleep. Rigel tries to make him go back to sleep, but Blaise follows her out of the dorm. Rigel confesses that they will be setting up a prank for the next two hours and if he wants to enjoy it more, he should probably sleep in and be surprised with everyone else. Blaise disagrees, and Rigel agrees to him joining her if he doesn't turn her or her accomplices.

Rigel grabs the wind chime from a storage closet on the second floor, silences it and brings it along. On the first floor, she transfigures the talisman-like Hogwarts crest on a sconce to become a wind chime that she silences. Blaise offers his help, but as he doesn't know how to link transfigurations, Rigel asks him to cast the silencing charms. They proceed to spend the rest of the time before breakfast transfiguring the crest on every sconce from the first floor down to the dungeons (in the most commonly traversed areas), while the twins do the other levels.

That morning at breakfast, the second year Slytherins express how impressed they are with the wind chimes. Pansy asks if Rigel thinks the Weasley twins are involved when the owl post arrives with a letter from Harry-as-Archie. Included are notes on treating shattered bones, a topic Archie found difficult, an "interesting news" he got about Lily and that someone is asking around school about Harry. Draco steals Archie's notes in the envelope while she reads, and laments how much schoolwork Rigel does, and expresses concern that Rigel is overworked. She explains how she multitasks, works-out in the morning, has eight hours of sleep, three meals a day, and lives a "healthy lifestyle". Pansy calls her out on missing lunch, and Rigel explains she eats in the kitchen. She gets them to drop it on the condition that they can intervene if she is overdoing it.

Rigel stays busy over the next month, and as October starts, she is conscripted into hiding a little wooden wizard puppet by the Weasley twins and wakes up every morning at 4:30 to hide it. The puppet is originally transfigured from a spool of thread, with a conditional transfiguration to end after 24 hours. In the Great Hall, a bulletin board gets created so people who found the puppet can put up their photos, and the game progresses to the point that whoever finds it first receive a small prize. The second Thursday of October, as Rigel had hidden the puppet in the boy's locker room by the Quidditch pitch the day before, she decides to hide it in the girls' bathroom (for fairness' sake). While in disguise, with blonde wig, glasses, and Hufflepuff tie, she is caught by Professor Lockhart, who assumes correctly that she is the one hiding the doll. Professor Snape shows up and implies that Lockhart is attempting to do improper things to her.

Snape dismisses Lockhart and takes her to his office, not at all fooled by her disguise because of her lack of aura and his familiarity with her Occlumency shields. He first asks where she got the wig, so Rigel explains Madam Pince's ban and the need to wear disguises in order to use the Library. Snape seems to be involved in Sirius' burning of a section of the Library. She defends the prank, saying that it doesn't impact her studies. Under Snape needling, she confesses it doesn't interest her at all, but that it means something to her family and particularly Sirius. Snape then asks if Sirius knows about his tutelage, and proceeds to ask if she feels ashamed, which she denies, but says that if her family found out the truth, "they would pull me out of Hogwarts so fast it would be as though Rigel Black never existed". Snape is shocked. Asked what her father thinks she wants to do, Rigel explains her plan to become a Healer, that she's been learning from her cousin in AIM and that Harry is also learning potions from Rigel. Snape schedules a detention on Friday with him for Rigel and says he will talk to Madam Pince about the Library situation.

Snape arranges for Rigel to see Madam Pomfrey every two weeks to assess her progress and correct her mistakes, and Rigel can now borrow books from the Library.

The day before Halloween, Rigel is struggling with a Runes' assignment for Flint that asks for a good theoretical knowledge foundation she doesn't have, so she returns to the common room. Millicent asks her for potions help, and Rigel is surprised to find that her friends have been meeting in the common room every day to work on their assignments. Rigel helps Millicent with her Potions' assignment, and they offer to help her with any homework she has difficulty with. She asks for Runes help, and Blaise offers Rigel his in exchange for being taught linked transfigurations. Draco is also interested, so Rigel teaches both of them.

## Characters (by order of appearance)

* Rigel Black
* Theodore Nott
* Draco Malfoy
* Blaise Zabini
* Pansy Parkinson
* A Slytherin fifth year
* Millicent Bulstrode
* Gilderoy Lockhart
* Severus Snape

## Settings

### Hogwarts

* Slytherin's second year dorm
* The dungeons
* Great Hall
* Third floor lavatory
* Snape's office
* Library
* Slytherin common room

## Potions

* Film-developing potion
* Polyjuice Potion
* Swelling Solution

## Trivia

The wind chime prank was influenced by a Naruto fanfiction in which Iruka is a "pranking daredevil", but Violet doesn't remember the name of it.

The puppet prank is based off elf on a shelf.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Serpentine Subterfuge: Chapter 5 Author's Notes