M&Ms [Angie]

[mina pandora oliveira]

@angie

03.18.2018 - year three

The common room was empty, spare a few first and second years wandering in and out as the day wore on. Everyone else was at Hogsmeade, as she should have been, but there was something called academic probation keeping Mina away from her freedom, something she absolutely despised with every fiber of her tiny body. But this was her penitence for slacking off last term. The meetings between the school and her parents had finished up last month, and the slight improvement in her grades and homework seemed to have done the trick. However, that wasn’t enough to allow her to go back on Hogsmeade on the weekends. Those visits were a privilege, and privileges were only allowed to students in good academic standing, something she most certainly was not. Whatever. The only loss by not going these past few weeks was that her candy supply was in a severe state. It was dwindling closer to nonexistence today, mostly because all of her work for the weekend was already complete and there was nothing to do aside from lounging on the couch and munching away on sugar.

So that was exactly what Mina was currently doing, legs dangling over the edge of the arm rest as she stared up at the ceiling of the common room and poured another mouthful of candy into her hand. The last hour or so had been spent lazily dropping one piece at a time into her mouth. Callie would kill her if she saw the amount of candy wrappers laying on the table next to the couch or on the floor all around her. No one had been bold enough to tell Mina otherwise yet, so she simply tossed them wherever she pleased. They would be picked up eventually. Just not right now. There had to be at least one thing she could be rebellious about right now, since all of her normal methods had been taken away from her. By being kept from her friends, she was being forced to resort to these more drastic measures of forcing chocolate down her throat in inordinate amounts. If her studies didn’t kill her first, death by chocolate most certainly would. But that was something she was fine with.

[Deleted]

Angie wasn’t exactly thrilled with her form to detention for the week. She had been caught after hours out on the lawns with a cigarette in her hands, nothing new, necessarily, but definitely something that the school frowned upon. Her professors had enough with her and had banner her from this Hogsmead trip. She wasn’t given another punishment, she wasn’t being forced to clean the classrooms, or polish trophies, she was sentenced to isolation, a punishment that they knew got to her. Angie wasn’t a solitary girl.

She had spent a bit of time outside, but with no one around to talk to or watch, that got boring quickly. And she wasn’t about to interact with those who were too young to even go on the trip, where would that leave her reputation? So she went back to her common room. She wasn’t going to do homework, that would be too easy. However, she did have a few news shades of nail varnish that her mum had sent her, so she figured she could kill an hour playing with those. Upon entering the common room, the pile of wrappers around one of the sofas caused the girl to turn up her nose. “Looks like the house elves are slacking today.” she commented.

[mina pandora oliveira]

@angie

03.18.2018 - year three

Another wrapper was tossed over the arm of the couch, behind her head, in what she could only assume was a gently glide to the ground. The novelty of watching the plastic wrappers that came on the hard candies, the twisty sort, spin in circles briefly before coming to rest on the floor, had worn off an hour ago. Now Mina sent them every which way, without a care in the world. The last one must have just landed as a voice from near the entrance to the common room grabbed her attention. House elves slacking? Mina glanced at the floor around her couch before looking back up at the girl that was standing there. Was that a dig at the mess she had made? She wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, Mina didn’t like the tone that accompanied it. She didn’t like most tones, or anything directed at her or what she was doing. Whether the older girl actually meant it to be passive aggressive, authoritative, or was simply commenting on the mess didn’t matter to her. The fact was that it was about her, and Mina had to stick her nose into now. Plus, this was the first interesting person that entered the common room all afternoon.

“I shooed them away,” Mina stated as she tactically unwrapped a lollipop, popping it into the corner of her mouth. “Told ‘em the first years could do it later tonight. They didn’t like that idea,” she shrugged, adding the lollipop wrapper to the growing pile on the ground. She could care less about the cleanliness of the common room. Little of her time was spent here, and the only reason she was here today was because she was practically forced to be. That and it was warm in front of the fire place. Popping the lollipop out of her mouth and observing it for a few seconds, Mina’s eyes flicked up to the girl. “Got a problem with that, blondie?” If she couldn’t antagonize the younger students or her friends in Hogsmeade, why not this older girl? It would certainly kill time.

[Deleted]

Angie plopped herself down into a chair nearby. She didn't plan on sitting with the girl already lounging about, but she hadn't yet decided what she did want to do and figured the common room belonged to them both, plus, Angie was older and felt that she had seniority anyway, whether or not she'd try to use it, she couldn't decide. The younger girl opened another sweet and let the wrapper fall to the ground. Angie watched it fall and honestly, she couldn't care less either. She normally didn't spend a lot of time in the common room either, but she couldn't really go do any of the things she normally would while being watched and in the middle of a punishment. She didn't really want word to get home to her mum or dad about her behavior and decided not to push it...today. "No problem, it's rather brilliant. First years need to earn their keep." Angie said with a lame shrug. Truth be told, she was slightly jealous that she hadn't thought of something like that. She was always fine with letting the little wrinkly elves clean up after her and everyone else.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@angie

03.18.2018 - year three

Blondie sat down in a nearby chair as Mina finished talking, her eyes following the older girl as she took her seat. Finally someone was going to stay longer than a few minutes. She had been dying for this to happen all day. The younger students didn’t really get it yet. They thought that because everyone else was out of the common room, they ruled it. It was stupid of them to think that way. Hell, even she didn’t rule the common room. But today she did, and she had way more say than any of them did. “Isn’t it? I think all of the house elves should be replaced by first year labor. What happens when they graduate and don’t know how to clean dishes or take out the trash? They’ll be useless,” Mina shrugged again, her lollipop being placed back into her cheek as she finished talking. Not everyone was subjected to chores at home. She was. There had been quite a few new ones over Christmas break, after the school had notified her parents of the academic probation thingy. Way to ruin Christmas, Hogwarts.

“So why are you here?” she asked, head tilting back over the arm of the couch so that she could stare at Blondie. “Boyfriend run off with another girl? Fail a test? Friends forget you?” Mina could go on and on if she really wanted too – she had an endless amount of scenarios to spout off, perfect for encounters like this. As long as Blondie didn’t say she chose the stay back. She would be gloating without even realizing it. “I’m on probation,” Mina continued, deciding that her life was more interesting to talk about. “Did you know that we’re supposed to do homework and take tests here? Amazing!” A short burst of giggles escaped her as she finished talking. It was funny now, but it hadn’t been that way in the Headmaster’s office. She was pretty sure the professors didn’t know what it was like to have parents that were werewolves. They were scary when they were angry, and even more terrifying when they gave up. One more screw up and she would be just like Sarah. She didn’t want to be the second failure.

[Deleted]

The girl went on to explain that all house elves should be replaced by first year labor and Angie nodded along, pondering the thought. She surely wouldn’t have enjoyed it as a first year, but every other year of her time at Hogwarts she definitely would have gotten a kick out of it. First years were fairly useless and just a waste of space until they developed any sort of personality or learned anything anywhere near useful. It made sense to put them to work. “Good luck getting the school board to agree, though.” Angie said with a sigh.

Angie gave a bit of a laugh when the girl started asking why she was here. “I’m being punished.” Angie admitted. “Apparently getting caught with illegal substances on school grounds equates to being kept back from a Hogsmeade weekend.” she shrugged.She didn’t feel the need to go into the whole story, but she would much rather this than suffer her time in detention anyway. She hated doing chores for the castle as a punishment, it didn’t make her want to stop doing things that would get her in trouble, it just made her get more creative about how to do them without getting caught. “Oh yeah i’ve heard that. Personally, I do just enough to keep the professors off my back.” she explained. Her parents were always lecturing her about her grades, but that didn’t bother her. She personally couldn’t care less about her marks. She was way more interested in the experience that school brought, rather than the educational opportunities in the classroom.

mina pandora oliveira

[mina pandora oliveira]

@angie

03.18.2018 - year three

Mina hadn’t thought about passing the idea onto the school, she had meant it as a hazing ritual put on by the older students. Why did everyone here always assume that the school needed to know what was going on at all times? That was why they were all boring. Even her friends did that, and she liked to think that they were more of the exception than anyone else. Now obviously there were rules to obey and lines that shouldn’t be crossed, but pushing those boundaries rarely hurt anyone and if the professors didn’t put a stop to it then there really wasn’t anything wrong with it. In her opinion, they all needed to learn how to fend for themselves at some point or another, and doing manual labor for the older students was the easiest, most humane way to do it. Deciding not to respond to the older girl’s silly idea of bringing it up to the school, Mina shrugged it off.

Why the girl was here was more important anyways, and she didn’t hold back when sharing her story either. Illegal substances? She was interested in hearing more about this, despite initially not caring about it. “What were you doing?” she asked, the pique in her interest coming out in her voice as the pitch went up. Her body matched it, moving from her back to a sitting position, attention all on the older girl. “Okay true, but when they give so much out, I don’t understand how they expect us to do it before the next class,” she said hurriedly. The goal was to hear the whole story. “But that’s not important,” Mina waved her hand, as if that would actually push that part of the conversation to the side, “Because I bet I wouldn’t have gotten caught. I know a lot of good places y’know.”