Disclaimer: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…

Placing:Fifthyear.

Challenge: 'Prompt of the day'. Prompt: (word) nap-time. 1842 words. Gryffindor, Hogwarts.

xXxXxXxXxXxNapxXxXxXxTimexXxXxXxXxTimexXxXxXxXxNapxXxXxXxXxXxXx

sSsSsSsSs

NAP-TIME TROUBLES

sSs

Susan Bones was staring at her new time-table in disdain.

"This can't be real!" She moaned while burying her head in her hands.

Hannah, her best friend in the world, took her time-table from her slack right hand to take a look at it as well.

"I fear, it is," she says, patting Susan on the arm in consolation. "Just know, that a lot of us are suffering with you."

Susan just moaned again.

"I should have picked Arithmancy," she said. "I so should have picked Arithmancy!"

"You wouldn't have fared better in Arithmancy at all," Hannah said, patting her arm. "What we're learning in it would have been child's play for you after being tutored by your aunt since you were five in that particular subject."

"Still!" Susan cried. "Arithmancy might have been dull – but like my time-table is now, it's more than horrible! How will I ever find the energy to do something on Mondays with a time-table like that?"

Hannah opened her mouth, just to close it again and thinking it over.

"Hmmm…" she said. "I guess I can see your point of view if I consider that question. It will be hard, really, really hard to do anything that day after classes…"

"Exactly!" Susan moaned. "The whole day just screams 'nap-time' to me! First DADA with Professor Umbridge –"

"You didn't even have any classes with her yet so why do you -?"

"No," Susan said. "But she managed to nearly put me to sleep with her welcoming speech yesterday. I've long since learned that the first impression normally is the right one when it comes to our DADA Professors, you know – and with an impression like that I will be sleeping in her class before the first five minutes are even over!"

Hannah snickered.

"Ah, yeah," she said. "Luckily, at least in class, there are no bowls of mashed potatoes to fall into."

Susan glared at her best friend.

She had gone head-on into a bowl of mashed potatoes when she had fallen asleep while their new DADA Professor was talking the night before and Hannah, instead of helping her to remove the stuff from her hair, had preferred to laugh herself silly at Susan's plight.

"I can bring a bowl with me for you to fall asleep in," she finally offered her traitorous friend. "It was quite comfortable yesterday, you know?"

Hannah just guffawed at that.

"I bet," she said and Susan rolled her eyes.

Then her gaze fell onto the time-table again and she returned to moaning.

"Still, after nap-time in DADA, did they truly have to follow it up with Divination?" She asked rhetorically. "I think it's devious to put those two classes after one another!"

"Well," Hannah said amused. "I don't have Divination after DADA."

Susan just rolled her eyes.

"And there's the reason why I should have taken Arithmancy in third year! Or muggle studies!"

"You would have been bored in both of them and you know it," Hannah returned. "In other words: You would have napped in those two classes as well!"

"It's not my fault that Aunt Amelia decided to teach me Arithmancy early," defended Susan. "And it's definitely not my fault that I'm living in a muggle neighbourhood and basically grew up around them! I wasn't the one who decided that to send me to muggle school even if I am not even related to any muggles would be a good thing!"

Hannah snorted, then she raised an eyebrow at Susan.

"Say," she said. "Are you still listed as a home-schooled student in their system?"

Susan nodded and sighed.

"Yes," she said. "And I'm still working through their education in my free time. Auntie insists. She always tells me that she would have had a far easier time if she had gone to muggle school and if she had had some of the education the muggles have. I don't have the heart to ask her to stop now – and I guess that some of the things like Math or English classes wouldn't be amiss if we had something similar at Hogwarts."

Hannah rolled her eyes.

"Whatever," she said.

Susan just glared at her.

"Yes, whatever," she said. "And my muggle school education doesn't help me at all with my Monday's plight! I still have DADA nap-time before Divination nap-time!"

Hannah looked at her innocently at that.

"At least you're well rested for lunch?" She offered and Susan groaned.

"Yes," Susan said. "And after lunch I go right back to sleep in History of Magic! What a fantastic day! I will be so tired from all the sleeping in the evening that I won't be able to even think about doing my home-work or work on my extra classes!"

Hannah snickered.

"I bet nobody but you would complain about having an all-day nap-time!" She laughed.

Susan just groaned again.

"Well," she said sullenly. "I do have my aunt after me if I don't do any home-work or any of my extra muggle classes in the evening, you know? She always awaits my owl with my work by nine o'clock. I don't think that you would be happy to have an all-day nap-time if you had to do your home-work to my aunt's satisfaction afterwards!"

Hannah shuddered at that thought.

"Naw," she said, looking a little spooked. "I wouldn't want to do that at all!"

"Exactly!" Susan moaned. "How in Merlin's name will I manage to be awake enough to do my home-work thoroughly if I sleep all day away before that?"

Hannah thought that over.

"You'll just have to make sure that you keep awake in two of those three classes," she suggested. "With the practical part of DADA you at least shouldn't have that much of a problem in at least one of them!"

That evening, Hannah changed her tune at that.

"The class is horrible!" She moaned. "You're right, Susan! It's nap-time!"

Susan just stared blearily at her best friend. She had slept all day and didn't feel awake at all right now.

"Said so," she finally settled on and Hannah groaned.

"Alright," Hannah said. "We're doing something that will help us in DADA to stay awake."

When Susan raised an eyebrow, Hannah pulled out her DADA book and her potion's book and then proceeded to glamour the potion's book to look like her DADA book.

"There," she said satisfied. "We'll just glamour the books we want to read and read them instead of that useless drivel."

Susan's eyes lit up.

"And since we're reading she can't say anything and if we're taking notes than we just explain to her that we make sure we remember what we read! Brilliant, Hannah!"

"And like that, you've just a two classes nap-time on Monday," she said.

Susan looked at her glumly.

"It's still way too much," she said.

"So… do the same for Divination?" Hannah suggested.

Susan grimaced.

"No," she said. "There's just so much reading I can take for a day."

In the end, the resolution presented itself in a quite unusual way.

The next Monday, Susan fell asleep in Divination. The class after lunch instead, History, was a whole different matter. Instead of taking a nap like the rest of the class, Susan ended up staying awake per chance.

She had been about to fall asleep when her neighbour, the Slytherin Blaise Zabini, had dropped his quill and jostled her unintentionally when he picked it up again.

"Sorry," he mumbled and Susan waved him off.

And maybe she would have just gone back to her nap, if she hadn't registered that there was something odd about the situation – sometimes it really paid to be the niece of the Head of the DMLE.

"Why're you sitting next to me?" She asked confused. "Shouldn't you sit with the other Slytherins on the other side of the room?"

Blaise Zabini snorted at that.

"Yeah," he said. "And listen to them snore? No thank you! You're at least quiet while you sleep."

Susan wasn't sure if she should take that as a compliment or not.

"Er… thank you, I guess?" She settled on and Blaise Zabini snorted in amusement.

Then Susan's curiosity got the better of her again.

"You're actually listening to Professor Binns?" She asked, half in disbelief, half-amused.

Blaise looked at her as if she was insane.

"Naw," he said. "Definitely not! If I did I would sleep like the rest of the class! There's just one ambitious enough to listen to that ghost without falling asleep in our year – and that's definitely not me! Except you believe me to be a bushy-haired, female Gryffindor?"

Susan snorted in amusement.

"No," she said. "You definitely don't look like that."

"Good," he replied and Susan leaned over to him to see what he was doing instead of listening.

"What are you doing?" She asked him.

He shrugged.

"Mostly home-work," he replied. "It isn't as if the class itself is interesting, you know?"

Susan grimaced at that.

"Well," she said. "I'm already using DADA to do my home-work. I don't think that I have enough home-work to do to also use History…"

"You're doing your home-work in DADA?" Blaise asked surprised. "How?"

So Susan pulled out her 'DADA' book and showed it to him.

"Brilliant!" He whispered. "I didn't think of that! If I had, I would have done it last week already!"

Susan raised an eyebrow at that.

"I thought that the Slytherins like the new DADA Professor," she said.

Blaise just rolled his eyes.

"The most of us: no," he replied. "But the most of us at least act as if they do because they know of her political clout, you know?"

Susan nodded at that while Blaise started to examine the glamour on her book.

"And she hasn't noticed the glamour?" He asked her. Susan shook her head.

"I even took notes and told her that I do that to remember the things I read better. She didn't even question me."

Blaise's glance turned thoughtful at that.

"You know," he said. "With a little bit of tweaking this spell, we could even manage to hide what we're writing. We could actually write our essays without her noticing anything…"

Susan thought that over.

"It would take some time. We would have to pick the spell apart and then calculate the difference between what we have and what we want," she said slowly.

Blaise looked at her in surprise.

"I thought you didn't take Arithmancy," he exclaimed.

Susan shrugged.

"I was home-schooled in Arithmancy since I was five," she said. "Taking it here would have been as boring as Divination if not more."

This time the Slytherin grinned.

"Well," he said. "With both of us knowing Arithmancy, we should have no trouble to tweak the spell in a few weeks' time."

It took them a month.

They might have been able to do it faster, but somehow whispered conversations about anything and everything always came between their work and their intentions to get it done fast. Susan didn't mind, Blaise was easy to talk to. Finally she had found someone on the same level of Arithmancy like herself!

"So... you look a lot more awake compared to the beginning of the year," Hannah inquired.

"History's not so bad, you know," Susan just explained and when Hannah looked at her as if she had lost her mind, Susan couldn't resist to add. "Really," she said. "You should try it sometime. It truly gets interesting at least half-way through the lesson."

And like that, Susan's nap-time problem resolved itself – and if Hannah wondered why Susan's favourite class was suddenly History, that was her problem. Regretfully she never found a way to stay awake enough to find out why Susan loved History so much.

xXxXxXxXxXxNapxXxXxXxTimexXxXxXxXxTimexXxXxXxXxNapxXxXxXxXxXxXx

Just a little idea

Hope you liked it

Ebenbild