Detention Window Cleaning

Serena sighed softly as she scanned the owl she had received to double check the location. Part of her Prefect duty involved helping out with the punishments for rule-breakers. Sadly, this included detention. She had no idea what this "Ava Silver" had done, to be honest. All she knew was that the Slytherin had broken some rule and got caught. Walking up the stairs, she turned and approached the assigned corridor. Today's task, it seemed, was window cleaning. Oof. A part of her felt bad for Ava. Window cleaning sounded incredibly boring. That too when you had to do it the muggle way. She approached the Slytherin who was already there, noticing Darren leaving in the distance. The Groundskeeper had sent her an owl earlier to ask her to come oversee the detention, as he did not have the time to do so himself. Perhaps he was out catching curfew breakers or students trying to sneak into the forbidden forest. 

Either way, Serena did not question it. She had been summoned here to do a duty and that was what she would do. Walking up to the lone student, standing in the corner, Serena began to speak. "You must be Ava Silver. I'm Serena Towers, I'm here to oversee your detention. I expect you've already been told what to do. Please complete your task, without talking and without use of magic." She instructed in a firm tone that clearly marked her seriousness, emphasising on the part where she encouraged the girl not to talk. With that, she sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall and pulled out a textbook from her bag. If nothing else, she could at least use this time to catch up on some reading. The enforced silence would at least help with that. Glancing up, every so often, she made sure that Ava was performing her task without cheating.

It was a pain being here, in all honesty. She could not concentrate on reading properly whilst half of her attention was focused on watching her fellow student. But sadly, she had no choice. This was part of the role that she had signed up for. At the very least, she expected sparkling clean windows to look through by the end of this. She would enjoy them in the morning, assuming Ava managed to complete this task swiftly enough for her to get to sleep and wake up in the morning that was.

Ava looked at the owl she had gotten earlier and then at the map in her hands. Please come to the Corridors on the second floor after supper tonight... she repeated to herself, looking around. Detention. That was something she both feared and was excited about. When she told her friends about detention, with her voice full of excitement when she got the owl, their reaction was either pitiful for her... or they looked at her like she was an idiot before explaining that detention was nothing to be excited about. She honestly did not care.

She looked back at the map. It did not even show anybody was here. She expected to be the groundskeeper and her overseer to already be here, even if someone would find it selfish. The girl looked around again, to see the groundskeeper was actually there and she was just being stupid and could not see him.  

"Hello! Ava Silver. I am here for detention!" she smiled. "I actually never been in detention before," she added, aware of the fact the groundskeeper did not care. It was true -  her school never had detention. Why? Ava had no idea. But most of the people said it was something bad. Not for Ava, she saw it differently. Just another experience, right? Not everything in life was happy. 

"You'll be cleaning the windows of the corridor without the use of magic. I expect you'll have a lot of time to reflect on any rule-breaking you've been doing. Miss Towers will be along shortly but you can get to work, without the use of magic." the groundskeeper said. What was his name again? Denise? David? Derek? Dar... Darren. Right. Darren. Darren Hurst. His daughter was a Hogwarts Student too, right? Also a first-year. Sabrina Hurst.  Rhea's new friend... She sighed to herself before saying something again. "Of course sir!" the girl smiled.  
 
The aforementioned Miss Towers came soon after Darren left. "Hello! You are a prefect, right? And my overseer too? What is your name?" Ava smiled, slightly jumping up, happy to see that her overseer was a student and not another professor. 

"You must be Ava Silver. I'm Serena Towers, I'm here to oversee your detention. I expect you've already been told what to do. Please complete your task, without talking and without the use of magic." the girl replied, ignoring one of her questions. Her voice was serious, the complete opposite of Ava's. "Why not talk? Am I breaking that rule now? What if something happens? Can I sing? Also, it's really nice to meet you. You were the one that hosted the snowball fight, right?" the girl bombarded Serena with questions, not really caring if she will answer. 

Ava looked at the windows she was supposed to clean. They were not that dirty, but it still will be a lot of work.  The girl sighed, looking at the girl. She took out a textbook and was sometimes looking at Ava. She smiled at her and got to cleaning the corridor windows.

Serena internally sighed as Ava bombarded questions at her. She was deliberately ignoring the rules and breaking them by talking. The Hufflepuff just looked down towards her textbook, as though she was ignoring the Slytherin. She was not, however. She was listening intently to her words. In fact, she was listening so intently that she was trying to keep count of how many words the girl said after being told not to talk. Words that, as it turned out, were unnecessary. 

33, 34... I think that was 34 words. Perhaps take away 34 house points for that. 1 point per word. Maybe half a point per word, if she behaves... Let's see... The Prefect thought to herself. She wondered how many points Ava could afford to lose for her house. She doubted Slytherin would be able to take another cup if they lost house points every time she spoke. Either way, it was not her place to comment.

Instead, Serena just continued to ignore Ava. The Slytherin had a lot of cleaning to do - and from the looks of it, the girl had only just started. They were going to be here a while, it seemed. But hey, if the Slytherin was happy to be here then that was fine. They could sit here all night, if necessary. 

Ava was getting tired.

She still was optimistic and her point of view on detention did not really change. She still thought that while it was not the most pleasant thing she has done today nor the thing she would want to do in this moment, the girl coped with the fact that she deserved it and that it was a fair punishment - her attitude completely did not change. 

It was not anything with how she personally felt, having to clean all the windows - some punishments  could be worse. One time, her brother got detention and he had to clean the trophy room. Compared to what he described it as, this was vacation. She was just physically getting tired.

I wonder who normally does all of this work... as she went along to the next window, she tried to not talk to herself, as the prefect she was stuck in one room, or perhaps corrdior, ignored her. Which, Ava did not mind. Serena  was not here to chat with her, she was here to make sure Ava was not cheating. House elves, perhaps. Or the students just can't behave themselves and their punishment is... well, this.

Ava turned to see what the other girl was doing. Still reading, while taking occasional quick glances at Ava. She smiled at her, trying to be polite, before getting back to cleaning the window. She probably hates me. the girl continued her inner monolgue.  I talk way too much. And broke the rules. Do prefects dislike students that break the rules? And was breaking the rules by talking a couple of seconds before.

Another window. She looked at it, trying to see how much time it will take her to clean it. While she was scanning, she could also see the absolutely astonishing views. She looked at the grounds and thought of what she could be doing right now if she only did not go on an escapade 'because it looks pretty at night'. Jealousy. Gosh, they were right... she thought, reminding herself of what her friends - or dormmates, whatever you would like to call them - told her. 'Do not do it, it really is not worth it...' she frowned before finally getting to cleaning the window she stood by silently for the last two minutes.

The Slytherin looked around the room. Except her, the prefect that kept on ignoring Ava, and a couple of armors there were no people here - what you would expect, especially since it was already after curfew. Are any other students in detention right now? What if a bunch of students misbehave and the castle will run out of prefects? That would be pretty unlikely... But if that happened, would the professors be the overseers? What if the castle would run out of professors? House elves? Ghosts? Armors? her thoughts were completely random, like passing clouds. Maybe she will ask the prefect after detention is over. God, poor girl... she looked at Serena before moving onto another window.

Those darn Snargaluff! While digging around in the gardens, Darren had come across one of them. It took a while to take care of as they were more easily handled by more than one person. There hadn't been any time to send off an owl for help, nor did he think anyone would be able to come to his aid at such an hour. It was one of the unfortunate circumstances of being the Groundskeeper. He had wished to be back in the castle taking care of detention instead. On top of dealing with the thorny plant, an owl had come in saying that there were two more detentions on top of the Slytherin girl. 

What a big inconvenience to the Hufflepuff Prefect, but Darren would have to write the owls to the students either way. Best to get it over with since he had some help tonight. Another owl was sent off towards the corridors where he suspected that Ava would nearly be done with at least a section of the windows. Soon, she would be able to go and the others would take her place to clean them. Serena would hopefully receive his note just as the others were making their way towards her.

Arceus had no idea how he had ended up in detention, he had woken up a usual, gone to the Great Hall as usual and then while he was eating he looked up to find a letter had been dropped by a school owl and landed on his cereal. He had gotten some letters from his parents in the past but as he picked the soggy envelope out of his bowl he immediately realised that it wasn't from them. While examining it he saw the signature D.H written upon it, "Who could that be?" he said quietly to himself, "I've never heard of a D.H before.".

He carefully opened it since it wasn't the first time someone tried to pull a prank on him but as he ripped the top of it open squinting just in case something flew out nothing happened, he let out a small sigh of relief and cautiously slip the paper out of the envelope, just like before nothing happened so he relaxed and opened the slightly damp paper. As he read it a frown slowly set across his face, "Detention?" he said quietly, "How did I get detention?" it then hit him as he thought of when he went out late at night. "That must be it," he said sighing.

Arceus had been to detention a few times when he was going to a muggle school but both times was when one of the many people who hated him, for no reason, framed him for a crime that they committed, so at least he knew how it worked. As his eyes scanned over the next sentence he smiled Well that's going to be awkward now isn't it? he chuckled as he thought about how the encounter would occur before scanning the rest of the envelope and quickly memorized the date and time since it wouldn't be a good idea to be late for a detention. As he finished the letter he saw the same initials D.H, he still had no idea who that was which was a bad example since he was a Prefect after all.

The following evening after dinner he did as the letter instructed him and jogged on over to the 2nd-floor corridor pausing out of breath as he reached the top of the staircase he had just sprinted up. Then he took a deep breath, stood up straight and walked into the corridor, he instantly saw Serena who seemed to be trying to read a book next to another unfamiliar girl who he felt like he had seen somewhere before. Since it looked like he was already late he jogged up to the other girls and gave Serena a slight wave with an awkward face, as his eyes scanned the corridor he realised it was going to be a long detention, the corridors became a long dark tunnel and he couldn't properly see the end.

There were also big windows on either side that he guessed he was going to have to clean judging by the buckets and towels laid down in front of him, "Ok, where do I start" he asked his fellow Prefect wanting to quickly do his job with the intention of not becoming a nuisance.

Serena glanced up towards the girl who had fallen silent after a while. Apparently ignoring her worked like a charm. The Slytherin was silently working on the windows, like she was assigned to do. The Hufflepuff continued to read, wondering how long it would be until she could go to sleep. She really just wanted to go to sleep. Glancing up after a while, she noticed that Ava had worked her way down the corridor, almost finishing off one part of it. Nodding to herself, she decided that would be enough. However, before she could open her mouth, her gaze caught sight of a small owl flying through the corridor. The same owl that had previously told her to come here. It was likely from the Groundskeeper.

The Hufflepuff took the letter, scanned it over once before pausing. Wait- what? She blinked. Repeatedly. Fellow Prefect. That was the part that baffled her most. She didn't mind staying longer. It was better to get this all done tonight, rather than come back again tomorrow to oversee other students. But... fellow Prefect? 

As though on cue, the blond haired boy that she knew as Arceus Powers appeared in front of her. Serena blinked at him. Repeatedly. Well this is awkward. She thought to herself silently before slowly raising her hand to point to the window. "Uh, alright then... I guess you can take over from Ava." She replied back to Arceus, trying to suppress her awkwardness. 

Increasing the volume of her voice, she addressed the Slytherin. "Ava, you can stop now. You can leave the cleaning materials there. Please return to your dorm immediately. Don't wander around, unless you plan to come back here." She instructed, knowing that the other Prefects and Professors would be patrolling the floors around about now. She really did not want to stay here all night, "I'll report back to Mister Hurst for you." Serena continued before turning to Arceus, "You can use those supplies and start from that window. Work that way." She instructed him, pointing to the cleaning supplies and showing which windows had not been cleaned.

Serena gave no further instructions. She figured he knew everything already and well, this was too awkward for her. With that, she turned the page of her textbook and continued into the next chapter. On the plus side, she would end up reading most of the book at this rate...

Like normal Eri sat in the corner of her house table at meal time. This dinner was the same. Eri took her normal spot at the table in the far corner away from everyone. Also like normal all she ate was some shepherds pie and water to drink. Unlike normal a letter dropped in front of her. Was it her Aunt who had written the letter? No her Aunt only wrote every other day and sent it so it arrived at breakfast. Upon further inspection of said envelope she saw the initials D.H. The only person she could think of was Darren Hurst, the keeper of keys and grounds. Why would she be receiving a letter from him? She shrugged and opened the letter. Frowning, she had detention. There were a few reasons she knew of that could be the cause of her detention. 1. When she accidentally castes diffindo on Kaegen and 2. When she was caught outside after curfew the few times she had been seen. Why of all things did she have to do detention with another person.?Ugh, it was one thing to recieve detention and another to have to do whatever you had to do with a stranger. 

Dinner was almost over. Eri had already finished her shepherds pie and her glass of water. Still a bit hungry and knowing she might be up late for detention the brunette grabbed a roll. As she slowly ate the roll she started contemplating detention. Why her? Well she had gotten caught doing something she tried to avoid getting caught doing or she was serving detention for hurting one of her used to be friends. She didn't know which but she liked the latter and it wouldn't be worthless if she was doing this to pay for actions which was an accident, but still her action.

Dinner was over so Eri stood up. Sighing the brunette started her long trek to the designated destination of her detention. On the way she started thinking about what she would have to do for detention. Maybe cleaning without magic, or running errands for some professor. In all honesty Eri just hoped she wouldn't have to write a paper. Being the Ravenclaw she is people would think she would prefer that over chores. No this Ravenclaw hates writing her hand gets cramps and she just hates the sound of quills scratching against a parchment in a silent room. It's fine if there is other noise but if the quill scratching goes on and on forever it drives her insane.

Finally Eri arrived at the corridors on the second floor. There were three people there. Two prefects and a Slytherin student. Eri knew Ava silver. There families hated each other. When Eri told Ava they didn't need to hate each other she only got mad. And she saw Serena Towers, Hufflepuff prefect who seemed to be in charge of watching their detention. Eri knew her from the snowball fight and other places. Then there was the other Hufflepuff prefect she knew who he was from when she met him in the Astronomy tower.

The brunette walked over to the buckets and picked up a sponge assuming this would be her task since the other two were also cleaning windows. Taking the sponge and a bucket of soap and water Eri walked to the oppiste side of windows that the other two were cleaning. Then she started to scrub the windows.

Eri Windstone... For some reason that name sounded familiar but she could not quite recall why. There was no indication of what the girl had done in Darren's owl, nor what house she was in. Yet the name was one that she had heard. Serena was convinced she was not a Hufflepuff but that was about it. She thought about it as she waited for her to show up. Luckily, she did not have to ponder for too long. The aforementioned girl arrived in front of her. 

Ah! Serena suddenly recognised the girl, realising why she knew that name. She had recently moderated several duels for the Duelling Club and the Ravenclaw was one that had been assigned to her. That was why it was a name familiar to her. The Prefect was about to open her mouth to give her instructions and repeat herself for the third time tonight. Luckily, she did not have to. She relaxed, leaning back against the wall as she watched Eri get to work. That made things a little easier for the Hufflepuff. It was getting a bit tedious saying the same thing over and over. Almost as tedious as watching the same thing over and over.

Serena looked at the three students. She wondered what each of them did to warrant this detention. It was even stranger for her, seeing her fellow Prefect there. Yes, Prefects could get detention - that was not the surprise. The odd part was that a Prefect was overseeing a Prefect in this. It was awkward. The Hufflepuff just internally sighed before looking back down to her textbook. [size=12.6px] [/size][size=12.6px]God, this is boring.[/size]

So incredibly boring. Hopefully they would be done with their tasks soon and leave. That would be good. She just wanted to get some sleep.