Tintinnabulation by Pookah

Tintinnabulation by Pookah

Thank you to my invaluable beta, sweetflag!

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As she watched the end of Robin’s ‘performance’ in Potions class, Vera Sappleton felt a vibration in her pocket where she had been carrying those horrible truth or dare cards since the pajama party. She knew what that meant; it was her turn. She surreptitiously pulled the vibrating card out of her pocket. It stopped vibrating, and she peeked at it.

Glowing yellow letters read: Hide a bunch of alarm clocks in the Potions room. Set them to go off at five-minute intervals during class.

Okay, she thought, I can do this!

Vera slipped the glowing card back into her pocket for the time being. She would think about this after class. After all, she didn’t want Professor Snape catching her with a silly glowing card telling her to sabotage his classroom!

~o~

At dinner that evening, Vera asked Marianne Brandstone to do her a favour. After the meal she caught up with Jemima Wilkinson and Sally Locke. Vera liked the red streaks in Sally’s hair that showed the girl’s Gryffindor pride.

All three of the girls had agreed to go to Snape and ask him some questions the next lesson day during his office hours. Vera would use the time to set up the prank.

Two mornings later, all went as planned. Right after breakfast, Vera’s friends hurried to the dungeons to ask Professor Snape some questions in his office while Vera let herself into the Potions classroom with a handy, “Alohomora.”

The alarm clocks had already been wound and set. She had spent part of the previous evening, transfiguring clocks until she found one that had the most irritating sound. Then, she had made twenty-four more just like it.

Now, she hurried to stick the clocks under desks, hid them in cupboards; she even stuck one under Snape’s desk chair. This was going to be great! It was a funny prank that wouldn’t hurt anyone, and they would all go off while she was in class later that day.

Locking the classroom door behind her with a locking charm, Vera walked swiftly past Professor Snape’s office. Outside his office door waited Jemima, who fell into step with Vera as she walked past. Marianne was inside, and when she left the office to see that Jemima had gone, she’d know that Vera had finished her work.

After they were beyond earshot of Snape’s door, Jemima said, “I hoped you’d finish before I had to go in. When Marianne comes out she’ll know you’re done because I will be gone.

“Marianne was going to knock on the classroom door and tell me to hurry,” Vera explained. “I had it all planned out.”

Jemima nodded approvingly. Vera might be naïve, but she was organized.

“Gosh! It was terrifying!” Vera said. “I'm not cut out for adventures and such. I hope he doesn’t catch me. I think he won’t unless I do something stupid… like confess.”

~o~

That day in Potions class, as the students were about fifteen minutes into their brewing, a ringing began in the classroom. Margarite Black grabbed her bamboo sprouts and tossed them into her cauldron, thinking the noise was her timer.

“NO!” shouted Professor Snape as he almost flew across the room to Banish the contents of the cauldron before it had a chance to explode.

“Your potion must simmer for twenty-one minutes before you add those! Turn that thing off.”

“It’s not my timer, Professor,” Margarite said boldly, holding up a timer that still had fourteen minutes on it.

Meanwhile, another alarm clock went off, and Domina Arcanum, whose chair the offending alarm clock was under, reached for her bamboo sprouts before jerking back her hand when she realised it was not her timer.

There were now two alarm clocks going off in the room. Snape found the first one (stuck under Miss Black’s table) and tried unsuccessfully to turn it off. Finally, he blasted it to pieces with his wand.

“Continue brewing!” he demanded. “You will be graded on today’s work!” He headed over to Domina’s table, following the sound of the ringing.

By the time he had found and destroyed that clock, two more were ringing. He spent several minutes like that, finding and destroying clocks until finally, no more noise intruded on the blessed silence.

He stalked angrily to his desk and threw himself into his chair, closing his eyes against the headache that was threatening.

Quiet reigned; the students were too frightened to laugh. For five minutes nothing happened except students carefully chopping and stirring. Only the quiet dinging of school-sanctioned timers (and an occasional giggle) broke the silence – until the alarm clock stuck under Professor Snape’s desk chair went off with the mother of all irritating rings.

Snape bounded out of his seat like a madman, turning to blasting the entire chair into kindling. The alarm clock gave a feeble, final ring and went silent. Snape’s eyes were blazing with anger – and perhaps a little insanity – when another alarm, this one muffled, started in the back of the room.

One nervous giggle (no one ever knew who from) started up, but one nervous giggle became two and then three and then seven. Then, someone guffawed and stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep quiet. Another alarm clock went off as Snape opened each cupboard in the back of the classroom, searching.

He found one clock that wasn’t ringing. When it went off in his hands, he dropped it.

It was too much; all the nervous gigglers began laughing, and soon, the entire room was roaring.

All that time, Vera had waited in fear, and all that time, Snape had not looked her way once. She was never any trouble; why would he suspect her? Vera was laughing now (she had been one of the nervous gigglers, truth be told). But now, most of the class was laughing, and a furious Snape glared bootlessly at them.

“Finish your potions, bottle them and get out!” he hissed furiously. “You will be counted off double for any mistakes!” He turned and left the increasingly noisy room full of laughter and hideously ringing alarm clocks.

As he slammed the classroom door, he comforted himself with the thought that someone would pay!

~o~

“I thought I’d die if he looked at me!” Vera said as she ended her tale. “But he told us to finish up and bottle our potions and he left.” The girls who had not been there were laughing as hard as the ones who had witnessed it. The Room of Requirement was ringing with the sound of happy, girlish laughter.

“Slammed the door like a madman!” added Bernise enthusiastically.

“I felt terrible when it turned out I almost caused an accident. Sorry, Margarite!” Vera said.

“No worries, Vera,” Margarite replied. “It’s worth being in Potions class to get to see this stuff!”

“I’m grateful I didn’t get caught, thanks again to my helpers, Marianne, Jemima, and Sally!” Vera said. “And good luck to you, Catherine. You’re next.”

And the fun continues…

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Author’s note:

I wanted to write about this prank because in the 1940s, my father did something similar in his high school auditorium with only one hidden alarm clock. He knew an assembly was scheduled, so he hid an alarm clock, set to go off as the adults prosed on. He and his friends in the student audience were delighted to see the teachers running about on stage, looking for the hidden clock.