A Streak of Trouble

Not everyone is as smart as Merula.  They don't seem to realize how much work goes into being the Greatest Witch in Hogwarts, which she is.  In between her time of keeping the lesser wizards in their place and looking for ancient secrets others are too scared to dream of, she has to do homework.  Truly, she has no shortage of that, her second most hated thing at Hogwarts.
Somehow, even more impressive, she sometimes does work beyond that, keeping her skills sharp, and totally not because she doesn't really have that many friends to hang around with in the common room.  Tonight, like many of her nights, she was cementing herself as the Greatest Potion-Master (Potion-Mistress?) of Hogwarts.  She was in the laboratory well past nightfall, and it was getting late, even for her, but she was so close.  This new potion would help her locate any of the vaults in Hogwarts.  True, she had never made it before, but the concoction seemed simple enough to her.  She did pride herself on her potioneering.
Her face was buried in the book as she stirred her cauldron on the desk.  The soft glow of the fire beneath it bathed everything in shadow, and was probably not the best light for reading.  The candles had gone out a few minutes prior, but she wouldn't pause now, when she put so much time in.
Her hand dropped another ingredient into the murky green concoction. “Three leaves of rose...” Another glance at the book, “scrapings of cinnamon bark, aaand...” she fumbled for a bit in the dim light, hoping she didn't misplace it. She smiled as she felt the pinch of pixie dust she was looking for.  She sprinkled it in and continued to read aloud.  “Remove from the flame and stir briskly until ready.”
Merula closed the book and grasped both handles on the small cauldron, smiling.  Her pride quickly shifted to horror, however, as one of the cauldron legs got caught in the grate above the flame.

Before she had time to register what happened, the top of the cauldron moved as the bottom stayed where it was.  Momentum did the rest, and a cloud of vapors erupted as she spilled half of her mixture on herself.  She shrieked and cursed, trying to keep whatever was left inside.
“No!” she half-screamed, hopeful no one heard the commotion and would discover her well past quiet hours.  “No no no damn it no!”  She saved what she could, but the damage was already done.  She would worry if she had enough of her potion later.  For now she had to clean up, and fast!
At first glance, where she expected to find a large, puddle, oddly, was a clean floor; cleaner than the floor around it.  There was no liquid in between the brickwork, or reflection of light off the fluid.  The young girl reached in her pocket for her wand, and found nothing.  While worrisome  was the lack of her wand, the lack of her pocket was even more concerning.  She looked down and noticed why she had felt a chill when the potion had soaked her robes.  Her robes were gone, along with her pants, shoes, and underwear!
Even in the dim light, the red in her cheeks was radiant.  Merula began to scream, but clasped her hand over her mouth before she could really get going. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no,”  She looked around the room, hoping her belongings were still here. “Oh no oh no oh no oh no,” she checked under the desks and along the walls.  “Oh no oh no oh no oh nooooooo!”  Nothing was to be found.
Clean up would have to wait.  Finding her wand would have to wait!  She needed to get back to her common room, hoping upon hope that no one would be wandering the halls so late at night.  Covered in goosebumps from cold and nerves, she peeked out the door and into the dungeon hallways.  There was little light, and she prayed it would keep everyone else in the dark, too.  Time not on her side, she stepped out, heart hammering in her chest.

The Slytherin common room wasn't too far, and she hoped to make a quick run to it, but was foiled before she had gotten too far.  Peeves, the bloody poltergeist, was trying to wake the paintings on the staircase she needed.  The damnable ghost would never keep quiet, and would make it his mission to wake everyone up the moment he saw a chance to make someone miserable.  Merula hated bullies like him!  Why couldn't he be nice, like her?
Lacking another option aside from waiting naked in the hall and hoping he left, she turned around and headed for the next closest stairs.  They lead up, which was absolutely not what she needed, but she could go around Peeves.  The naked girl retraced her steps to the potions room, (she looked again for her clothes in a vain attempt) and headed upwards into Hogwarts proper.
Up here, windows filled the hall in dull moonlight.  She felt much more exposed than she had in the dungeons.  The suits of armor were shining in the gloom, and she could swear she could see her own reflection in them.  She covered her breasts with one arm and shivered again.  Scared out of her mind, her progress was even faster than it was before, a mad dash as quiet as she could.
Almost halfway there, she saw a glow coming around a nearby corner, and froze.  Who was it?  A student?  A prefect?  A professor!?  There was no time to wonder, and she turned around, and ran for a girls' bathroom she passed in the narrow hallway, all semblance of silence gone in her terror.  She rushed inside and was startled as the torches lit up when she entered, but the room was mercifully empty!  She put her ear to the door and listened, hoping footsteps would pass her by.
“What are you doing in my bathroom?”

Merula turned around at a breakneck speed, trying her best to shrink into nothingness.  In front of her, floating in mid-air, was a bespectacled ghost girl she had never seen.  The ghost got a good look and amended, “Why are you NAKED in my bathroom!?” louder than Merula would ever wish.
“Shhhhh!” the Slytherin put her finger to her lips.  “Please!”
The ghost, for her part, either didn't notice or care, and was now covering her own eyes.  “WHY are you NAKED in my bathroom?  This is the WORST joke!”
Merula shushed her again, pleading with her eyes.  “It was an accident, I swear!”
“How is being naked an accident?”
The young girl tried to shrink herself down even further than she had been before.  “It was a potion!  I was trying to brew a potion and it spilled on my clothes!  They're gone, please, I need your help!”  How low had she fallen, the Greatest Witch of Hogwarts, to have to beg for help from someone she just met.
The ghost, however, seemed willing to listen.  “What do you want?”  Her hands still covered her eyes, though, being translucent, how much it helped was debatable.
“I- I don't know,” Merula started.  “Do you know of any secret or quick passages to the Slytherin common room?  Preferably secret?  I'll take any help I can get.”
The ghost floated, thinking.  “I don't know much outside my bathroom.  I don't ever go too far from it.”
“Then, can you, maybe, poke your head out and tell me if there's anyone in the hallway?  I'll leave as soon as the coast is clear.”
The ghost gave a huff.
“What?  I- uh...please?  Pretty please?”
The ghost huffed again, “Everyone wants to leave as soon as they meet me.”
“I'll come back!  Promise!  I'll do anything you want, b-but I-“ Merula began to stammer. “I n-need help.  P-please.  I d-don't want anyone t-to find m-me...”  Tears had started to form in her eyes.

The apparition floated backwards in a mockery of the living motion of being taken aback.  “Alright, I didn't mean... Here, see?”  She floated halfway through the door and popped back in.  “No one's there, alright?”
“T-Thank you.”
“Hurry!”
The living girl turned towards the door, causing the ghost to shield her eyes at the sight of her bare bottom.  “Thank you!  T-Thank you miss...”
“It's Myrtle.  Now go get dressed, girl.”
Merula saw herself out while she wasn't looking with another whispered thanks.  Mortified, she resumed her mad dash, slightly more cautiously.
Her trip was as uneventful as could be hoped for in her situation, until she neared her common room.  Once again, there was a glow around the corner, just in front of her entrance to what she hoped was safety.  She stopped her sprint and tried to hold her breath.  She couldn't go forward or back.  Oh please, she thought, please move and I can get inside!
The light, however, did not move.  It was as though the owner was standing guard in front of her common room.  Unwilling to wait outside much longer, Merula poked her eyes around the corner, hoping it was a new torch or some nonsense.
No such luck.  It was a person, another student.  He was waiting there, with a bundle underneath his left arm, and his wand was billowing revealing light as he looked around for something.  As he turned, Merula recognized him.  It was his stupid potions partner, the goody-goody Gryphondor!  Just her luck!
He just continued to search, looking this way and that, and showed no signs of leaving.  As her luck this evening would have it, however, she had enough of her head poking out that he caught her out of the corner of his eye.  “Who's there?”
She ducked back behind the corner with a barely audible gasp.  Did he see anything?  It was just her head, maybe, right?

“Hey, are you a Slytherin?  I'm looking for someone.”  Footsteps were coming closer.  He had seen her!  He was coming!  Merula was paralyzed, her feet taken root in the stone!
He rounded the corner.  “I'm looking for-”  They locked eyes, his concerned and hers abjectly terrified, “Merula?”
She wanted to slap him, cover up, scream, cry, vomit, and disappear, all at once.  All she did was the second.  His wand bathed her in uncomfortable light, and she started to shiver and tear up, redoubled from everything before.
“Merula!  I-” He looked to her, his wand, her body, and back to his wand, before dousing the spell.  Darkness returned as he went back around the corner.  He stopped and started a number of times while Merula silently wept.  “I-  Your- I- Uh-... I, uh, came looking for you.”
She sniffled, “You f-found me...  I b-bet you're h-happy...”
“I'm, just, uh, surprised.  I didn't think you-” his memory smacked him mid-sentence.  “Oh!  I found these!  I figured they're yours!”  He poked his held possessions around the corner.
Merula held stock still as she hiccuped her emotions in check, and was brought out only by him raising the items up and down.  She reached out, defeated, and grabbed a handful of cloth.  A robe.  The tears stopped.  “My...” she began before terror shame was replaced by need.  “Give me my clothes, you pervert!”  She snatched the entire offering at an impressive speed, not careful at all.  Boots and pants cluttered to the ground.  “Why did you take my clothes!?  How?”
“Take them?” He sounded indignant.  “They showed up on my bed while I was getting ready to sleep!  Your big stupid boots landed on my head!”

“Good!  I hope it hurt!”
“Well, you're welcome for bringing them back, Snyde!  I figured you might need them, but I didn't need your attitude, you bitch!”
Merula blushed.  “How did you even know they were mine?”
He sighed.  “Do I know anyone else with such holey leggings, Snyde?  I came looking for you to return them.  I didn't know you needed them that badly.”
They were both silent for a spell as she pulled her robe around her shoulder and held it together.
Both parties spoke at once. “Sorry.”
He snorted a laugh as she continued.  “Sorry for snapping at you.  Thanks for bringing them back.  It was...nice.”
“And, I'm sorry I had to get an eyeful.  That was real rude of you, you know.”
Merula's face reddened further with anger.  “Are you serious?  You are such an arsehole!  You should be thanking me!”
“Thanks for waking me up with your big stompy boots.”
“You're an ogling pervert!”
“You're the pervert streaking around the school!”
“Well you're a dirty-”  Her snide retort was cut short by cackling coming down the hall.  Someone seemed to be coming to see what the fuss was about.  Merula's voice became a whisper.  “Peeves!”  She was still undressed, only covered by her robe, open in the front.
The Gryffindor jumped into action, snatching something from the floor and running by her, towards the laughter.  “Oh, Peeves!  You startled me!”
“Oh!  I diiiiid?  Maybe you're startled because you're out past cuuurfew!”
Laughter, again.  “Yep!  I had to teach a bully a lesson.”
“A leeeesson?”
“Uh-huh.  Snatched these from her.  Going to hang them up somewhere in the morning.  I can just see the look on her face.”
“Ooohhhh that's soooo meeeaaan!”
“You like it?”
“I lllllove it!  C'mon!  Let's pick out a spoooot!”

And with that, footsteps resumed, heading away.  Merula took a shaky breath and sank to the floor, her back against the wall.  Calmed down, she looked through her belongings to see what he grabbed.  She found everything she expected, and, thankfully, her wand, but was missing a pair of panties.  She wasn't sure if he would follow through with his plan to Peeves, but after everything else, she was just happy to get dressed.
As she laid down in bed, minutes later, and her mind stopped racing and her heart stopped pounding, she thought back to that blasted potion.  It was supposed to help you find what you wanted.  She convinced herself that she must have gotten it wrong.  Even the Greatest Witch of Hogwarts has to make a few mistakes now and then...
Right?

The next day, she told herself, will be better.  How could it not be?  She can clean up the potion after transfiguration, and hopefully get her underwear back stealthily from him after class.
Oh, and of course, she needs to pay a visit to a ghost.  She wondered if Myrtle would like her to bring anything, maybe something to get rid of that bathroom smell.  Can ghosts smell?
She rolled onto her side.  She'll ask tomorrow.  It's been a long night.

Her counterpart had to do a lot more walking to appease Peeves, eventually losing him when he mentioned having to place the panties in the morning, else the house-elves grabbed them when cleaning. Tired, but feeling good, headed upstairs to turn in for the night.  Lying in his bed, he relived the image of her as he dashed away towards Peeves.  Awestruck, thankful, and, he was slightly happy to notice, robe still open.  It was interesting to know that, like her hair on her head, she was two-tone on bottom as well.