Chapter 6, The Crack Widens
Disclaimer by DaLuver: we only own the insane things that make you think "… what the…?!" LMAO! It's very fun to write this story, and I'm definitely falling in love with the DANCING BANANAS AND SPOONIE!!! YAAAY!!! :-D Happy reading!
In the girls room:
The only sounds to be heard were the scratch of quills on parchment and the flipping of pages in old books. The girls of the gang were doing their four essays. Snape had assigned three three-foot-long ones, and McGonagall had assigned one five-foot-long one. They had gotten through the first two from Snape together, but the third one was like a creative thinking essay, so they would have to each do their own.
"… was it boomslang or shrivelfang…?" Monica muttered distractedly. "Oh, this is impossible! I'm taking a break!"
Hermione looked up from her book. "It's okay Monica, just take a short break and calm down a bit."
"I'm going for a walk." Monica sighed as she got up. "Official invite: anyone want to join me?"
Hermione shook her head and went back to reading.
Cho looked up from her muggle magazine. "I thought you'd never ask. Come on."
Monica smiled. "Well, anyone else?"
Michelle continued writing. "No thanks but have fun."
"Yvette?" Monica and Cho glanced at the forlorn girl who was currently hunched over her parchment.
"I can't!" She showed them the progress she had made in half an hour.
"Three sentences…?" Monica hugged her. "Just calm down, you can do it."
Yvette groaned and put her head in her hands.
"Well, we'll be back later!" Said Cho brightly.
They walked through the castle for about fifteen minutes talking about their childhoods. It was amazing how much in common they had.
"…Oh, I like to sing too!" exclaimed Cho.
"It's my favorite thing in the world."
Cho smiled. "Oh, come on then!"
"Can I look yet?" asked Monica.
"No."
"How about now?"
"No."
"Now?"
"No. No. No! Now hush!"
They were outside. Monica had felt the rush of the cold night air as Cho opened a door. They walked for about ten more minutes, and just when Monica was about to infuriate Cho a bit more, Cho uncovered her eyes.
"Now you can." She laughed at the shock on Monica's face.
"This is the lake. That's the giant squid right there." She pointed at a large tentacle that was floating lazily on the water.
They were on a rock overhang opposite of the castle. "It's beautiful."
"Well, sing something."
"What?!"
"Just sing something." Said Cho with an amused smile on her face.
We were strangers... She whispered into the night air. "It… echoes!"Cho laughed. "I come here when I want to sing, when I want to get away from the world."
"Cho, I have a feeling that we're going to be great friends."
They both laughed and sang for about half an hour more at the top of their lungs. One song that they both seemed to like was a song that Cho had taught Monica.
His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the dark lord.
They walked back to the castle laughing.
"Well, hello dears," greeted a familiar portrait.
"Hello, Elizabeth." They chorused, and broke down laughing again.
She smiled. "Well, you'd best get back and finish all your work. I'll see you both later, I have to go meet with the headmaster."
Monica sighed gustily and they trooped back up the stairs.
Meanwhile, back in the girls room, Michelle, Yvette, and Hermione were finishing work on their essays. Well, Michelle and Hermione were finishing up, anyways. Yvette sat in complete concentration at the desk in the corner, chewing on the end of her quill. She was still working on the beginning of the third essay, while Michelle and Hermione were halfway through the fourth. Hermione looked up.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Yvette." Hermione's recommendation broke the studious silence of scratching quills.
Startled, Yvette looked up. "What?"
"Chew on the quill, they have a nasty habit of exploding in your mouth. Unless of course you like having black, feathery teeth, in that case go right ahead," Hermione replied, shrugging.
"Thanks. I just can't get through this stupid essay!" said Yvette, brow narrowed in concentration.
"Just keep going, it'll get easier." Michelle told her, "And the next one's no sweat, I just finished it."
"You know what? Shut up," said a disgruntled Yvette.
"You finished it too?" asked Hermione, "Because I just did."
"Really? Cool," replied Michelle.
"Hey, you like books, right? Want to go to the library here? It's huge!" asked Hermione, "I have just the book you could read, Harry and Ron never bothered to read it, but you might like to, it's called Hogwarts, A History."
"Cool, where is it?" asked Michelle.
"Wherever it is, just go there, so I can work in peace, unless one of you would be willing to help me with this?" Yvette said the last part hopefully, but by then, the two girls were already out the door, and walking towards the library.
"So, how big is this library?" Michelle asked Hermione, amiably as they walked.
"Huge, it's great!" Hermione replied and she smiled, "This is going to be fun."
"Sure is, what kind of books does a magical school have in its library anyways?" Michelle was curious.
"All sorts, you'll see, stuff on magical creatures, spells, jinxes, and all of these things gone wrong. There are also biographies and extra schoolbooks. There is also a restricted section that you don't want to go in, unless of course you have a specific book to get, the books there tend to be, well, unpleasant." Hermione replied.
"Unpleasant? You mean, as in violent or graphic or something?" Michelle queried, confused a bit.
"Some, but most of the books there have been bewitched to scream or bite or brainwash or something equally unpleasant. But that's not important. You rarely, if ever, even have to think about the restricted section. You can see the rest of the books for yourself, we're there."
They had just stopped in front of a large wooden double door. Hermione opened one, and gestured Michelle to enter. She stopped cold three steps in. "WOW, that's a lot of books!"
Hermione laughed and closed the door behind her. "Yup, it's big alright. Come on, I'll show you around."
They spent the next hour looking at the books. Hermione showed Michelle how to check out Hogwarts, A History and introduced her to Madame Pince, the librarian. They returned to the dormitory each carrying a large book. Hermione had gotten a self-defense book called Curses, and How to Counter Them.
On their way back, Michelle laughed and said, "That was fun. Monica and Carlos will love that place when they get to it, they both like reading just as much as I do, I can't wait to see their faces when they see it."
"Really? Well, I think that we might have to soon to research things, some of the essays and assignments we'll get will be difficult to do without going there." Hermione told Michelle. Soon they were outside their dormitories door. They opened it and saw, to their amusement, Yvette, Monica, and Cho working on the last essay. As they walked in, Monica gave a shout and exclaimed, "FINALLY, I'm DONE!"
"Me too," said Cho.
Yvette gave them both dirty looks, and sighed. "I'm the only person here who didn't go anywhere and I'm the person the furthest behind. What gives?"
"Don't worry about it, maybe tomorrow, you and Ron should do the work together, he also tends to be slower at it." Hermione told Yvette.
"Ok, what do we have tomorrow?" Yvette asked, in a curious and resigned tone.
"I think Care Of Magical Creatures, and Herbology. Dumbledore is making all of you take that one. By the way, have you all chosen the other classes you want to take? Arithmancy, Divination, or Study of Ancient Runes?"
This query was met by blank faces from the gang members present. "HUH, what was that again?" Yvette stared at Hermione, and then she started again, "Can we pick none? I really don't want extra work."
Hermione laughed and answered, "No, you have to pick at least one, but if you don't want the work, pick Divination, there's practically no work involved. The work there is easy, you really don't have to work that hard on it, Harry and Ron just made stuff up and got full marks. The teacher is a real fraud. Arithmancy, my personal favorite class, is more complicated, and is a lot like math. There are lots of runes and charts and such. Study of Ancient Runes is more of the same, and is basically all about runes. There are other classes you could pick, but Dumbledore feels these are the classes that would benefit you the most."
"Ok, well, when do we need to pick the classes, right now? Because it's been a long day and I have a feeling tomorrow will be more of the same," Michelle gave a loud yawn.
"I don't know when you have to pick, but its going to be soon, but you're right, we probably should turn in, so good night everyone." Hermione replied, and they all changed into their pajamas and fell into bed.
Meanwhile, in the boys' room:
After the boys (In this case, 'the boys' means Carlos and Draco) finished with their essays, Harry and Ron introduced Cesar into the volatile world of exploding snap. They started with simple card games that have breached the oceans, aka, go fish. Then they moved on to building card towers that would blow up periodically. By the time they finished, all of their eyebrows were badly singed, and they reduced their need for a haircut in the near future (yes, even Harry had).
Carlos and Draco, however, were involved in slightly more mature pastimes: VIDEO GAMES! Draco had done a spell to reduce magical interferences in muggle electronics, and they were playing the very mature game of Super Mario Brothers 3 on Cesar's game boy. Draco had deemed it preferable to actually interact with the new arrivals to spending yet more time in the corner desk sulking. Well, what did you expect?
A/N: this is the end of the pre-written chappies, tho Im almost done with the next, so the update schedule will be once a week, for now, postings will be every friday, but this is tentative, if i finish this next one soon, and i just can't wait, it'll be on sooner, we'll see, and don't forget, REVIEW
