It's really a diversion, you see...

Keith cursed quietly to himself, wrestling with the sticking solution as he applied it to the small crystal-esque ball.

He braced his knee on the wall, hopping up onto a small stoen outcropping that let evern somebody of his size reach a deserted corner of the dungeons, lifting his arms out and sticking the ball to the corner. It glowed green for a moment, dimming when he tapped it with his wand, and became nearly impossible to see as the shadows engulfed it.

By the light of the flickering torch a few feet down the hall, Keith pulled the last palm sized crystal out of his bag. He began rubbing the semi-solid paste onto the ball, coating it in a light, clear goo. Now holding the empty vial of sticking solution between his teeth, Keith began to scale the pillar that helped support the castle, planting the ball inside the ridges where it met the ceiling.

Keith dropped to the ground, sighing in relief. It was nearly three in the morning, and he had been out here since 12. He had never spent this much work on a project before, but all this work would be worth it tomorrow.

Jack was scouring the Marauder's Map, her most treasured possession. The gray streaked sky outside her window told her that she had been up for an hour struggling to go back to sleep before finally cutting her losses and entertaining herself by staring at the little black dots on the most epic tool of pranking that any troublemaker could ask for. So she had the passages memorized? Did not mean the little dots did not come in use.

She had only been reading the map for a few moments before she realized there was no movement on it. It seemed that the castle slept at three in the morning... But suddenly, movement caught her eye and she immediately bent lower over the map, her eyes narrowing on the name. A smirk burst onto her face as she read it. Keith Nicholas.

Without thinking, she turned and her feet came down on the shoes that were always ready. She pulled them on and her hand groped under her bed before fastening around the bag that she occasionally stored her books in, but was always full of her pranking devices. She was in her pajamas so she grabbed her jacket, which had been conveniently stored on the ground, and pulled it on, zipping it up. She pulled her bag on, held the map and her lit wand aloft and quickly exited her dorm as quietly as possible.

She made her way down to the dungeons, her breath beginning to gather in mists in front of her as she went. It was always colder in the dungeons, but the fact that she was only in pajamas and a light jacket, and the early hours made it colder, and soon her cheeks were pink and her lips were tinged with blue, though she continued on, carefully watching the map.

He was sitting on the ground, looking thoroughly exhausted, something that made Jack have a feeling she had chosen correctly to come and investigate. She smirked as she approached him and stood across from him, crossing her arms to keep herself warm. She smirked and raised an eyebrow, saying in a low voice. "My pranking senses were tingling... So..." She smirked wider. "What'd you do?"

Keith heard someone coming down the hall, the light pitter patter Keith had come to associate with girls. Guys and teachers walked with a steady thunk...but girls were always tip-toeing around. It annoyed him, but now in came in handy - he knew simply from the walk of the person approaching that he didn't need to run, or hide, or start coming up with a reason to be in the dungeons in the wee hours of the morning.

(Had he just said wee hours? The UK was getting to him. He needed to get back to the States.)

Sure enough, the person who came round the corner was a girl - and none other than Jack. Keith grinned faintly at her approach (he was too tired for much else) and made a small gesture that would've looked like a wave had it not died halfway through. "Hey Jack. Long time no see."

"My pranking senses were tingling... So..." Jack said, her smirk growing wider. "What'd you do?"

Keith cocked his head. "That's impossible," he muttered, looking up at the ceiling. "You're a Gryffindor. You're up in the towers. How in hell did you know I was down here? How long have you been looking?" He shrugged - it was a question for a later time, but he was too tired to deal with it now. "Guess it's just experience, eh Jackles?" He asked, a slight gleam returning to his eyes. "I set up a doozy, actually...don't want to give too much away, but if you like your eyes and eyebrows the way they are I'd avoid being here at about noon tomorrow."

Jack grinned. "Nothing is impossible. I though you would have learned that, young-ling." She smirked widely at him. "I may have been up in Gryffindor tower, I may have not. I may have a very convenient pranking tool that lead me here, I may have just had a feeling. You never know, and you may never know. The important thing is, you are here and I want to see what you are up to."

She smirked, feeling like a sensei or something. Keith was like her young liege, her apprentice, and she was eager to see what he had come up with on his own. At his words, her eyebrows went up. "That explosive, eh? Need any help or anything, or are you all set?" She thought for a second before saying, "Any particular reason for such a fun little prank, or is it a just-for-the-hell-of-it kind of thing?"

"Eh..." Keith said, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll figure it out sooner or later. preferably after a good nap. And breakfast. And a shower. It's dusty down here." He clapped his hands, sending up a cloud of dust. "Walk with me," he said, jerking his head towards the stairs to the main floor. "I'll explain on the way."

"Luma balls," he said to Jack as they walked. "I stole them from this kid in my house. They contain light, and can release them whenever I want - like a magical lightbulb, or a flashlight. Except I found out that you can really crank up the voltage on them, so to speak, and they're blinding. I set up a lot of them to trigger after a certain amount of time so I can uh...well, sneak into the potions storeroom."

Jack laughed, eying the cloud of dust with a little bit of caution. She did not to start sneezing and draw attention to the fact that they were out of bed. "You don't say?" Her words were cut short when the dust moved into her lungs and made her cough. She clamped her mouth shut, nodding as he said to walk with him, smirking slightly as she fell into step with the younger boy.

Away from the dust, she swallowed and regathered her breath. She raised an eyebrow as he explained, impressed. Stealing was not much of her style- only doing it when absolutely necessary, or at least more convenient- but she was not one to step up as the moral police. And then... he said it was to steal something from the potions storeroom.

She could see why he had set up some precautions. It was troublesome enough to steal from a professor of any sort, but from the headmaster as well... It was cheeky and dangerous, which made the reason he was doing it even more intriguing. She knew she had some spare Decoy Detonators in her bag, though she could offer those later. She needed to know the reason. "What do you need?"

Keith shrugged. "You know, basic stuff. Just belladonna leaves, pixie blood, and crushed snake scales. I guess I could request it, but people might get suspicious...especially after the shrinking solution incident last year." Keith made a face and shuddered. "They didn't even need to punish me for that one. I learned my lesson."

He kept walking, checking around a corner before heading around it. "Remember that potion I was screwing with last year? The first time we met, and James got all pissy at us? I've got something big here Jack," he said, a bit of excitement creeping into his voice. "I talked to Amelia about it, and from what she was saying I've almost perfected it - everything revolves around those three ingredients. I just don't have enough of them."

She nodded as she walked, feeling a little our of sorts without using her Map; she figured she would show Keith the Map soon anyway, but for now she liked it to be her little secret. Chase and Andrew didn't know about it, Vito didn't, any of her associates... She knew she would some day crack, and for now she felt edgy without it. Though, if any two people could weasel their way out of trouble, it was Keith and Jack.

"Yeah, that might be a little suspicious," she said. He mentioned the first time she had met him and she grinned widely, it being her first of many fun experiences with Keith and James, though James certainly would not call it that. She listened and she felt Keith's excitement radiate from him. She turned her head to look at him with raised eyebrows. "And that potion...what would it be?"

"Welll..." Keith said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. It wasn't that he didn't trust Jack - far from it. Jack was really the only person in the castle he'd think of trusting with information like this. And yet he hesitated. Why?

Did he really want all the glory for himself? Was that what he was afraid of, the Jack would hog the spotlight when he finally finished with this? Saying it to himself, it sounded ridiculous. Jack would never do that. She wasn't like that. So why, why, why, why, why wasn't he telling her?

Because she could get in trouble.

Despite being the most ridiculous theory of all, Keith knew that it was true. Jack had put herself on the line countless times before (certainly more than he had) but he still didn't want her to risk getting into trouble. What if he got caught? He didn't want to drag Jack down with him.

Wait, what am I saying? I won't get caught! I'm me!

Keith grinned. "Well, at first it just sped people up. But now it just gets them really really happy - I managed to isolate the "feel good" part of the rush and then cut everything else. But it isn't quite strong enough, so that's the reason for...that," he said, waving his hand behind them.

Jack continued to walk in silence for a bit as she waited for him to answer her, and she could feel his hesitation, having always been a rather good judge of character. For someone who never really understood her own emotions, Jack could read other people with no problems. However, she was not sure why Keith hesitated. She had always been clear that credit went to the right people and she never pushed her way into a project.

Whatever seemed to be holding him back, he must have dismissed though, because he began to explain to her what exactly the potion was. It sounded a lot like muggle drugs she had heard of. Though she did not advocate drugs nor exactly approve of them, she did not condone them or discourage others from using them. And lately, she had been in such a hell-raising mood that she had little reservations about... well, anything nowadays.

"A 'feel good' potion, eh?" she said thoughtfully. "Well, good. I can think of quite a few people who need to lighten up." She grinned. "Good luck on that. And hey." She reached into her bag and felt around, pulling out a Decoy Detonator and a small, sample ouch of Peruvian Instant-Darkness Powder. She held them out to him. "Just in case someone tails you and you need a quick escape. Don't need my apprentice getting expelled, now do I?"