Chapter Thirteen

A tense atmosphere surrounded the dining table of the Head Dormitory.

Neville Longbottom can feel the dread rising in him as the tension grew stronger. He could see the head boy on his chair, slowly inching away from the table as if preparing to scape. To be honest he feels the same, and probably every other boy gathered around the table.

'I want to leave'

These words resonated within the minds of all the male prefects.

Hermione feels a headache starting to form as she scans the tense atmosphere around the table. It may have been a relief that the debacle of the previous meeting was already swept under the rug, however the situation unfolding in front of her doesn't seem to be any better.

In front of her was an awful vision. Pansy Parkinson seems to have gathered a posse backing her argument while others gathered around who seems to be Padma as she disputes whatever Pansy was saying.

She noticed Draco slowly inching away from the table and sent a glare his way which only went unnoticed as he continued distancing himself from the table.

Neville hid under the table, but she soon saw him crawling his way out of the dining room.

Michael Corner from Ravenclaw just disillusioned himself.

Hermione doesn't know whether to feel amused or annoyed. Deciding on the latter, she silently casted a silencio to everyone surrounding the table. It was quite the sight seeing a 5th year Hufflepuff prefect soundlessly choking on laughter when the girls kept on fighting despite producing no sounds.

Waiting until everyone has settled down, she cancelled her spell and cleared her throat. "Going back before this whole… debacle came to be, we shall now discuss the preparations of the Halloween Ball. This discussion was supposed to have taken place during the previous meeting but as we all know, a certain disagreement occurred."

She saw them wince as they remembered what the "disagreement" is. Making use of the silence, Hermione pulled out a piece of parchment and her self-inking quill and placed them on the table.

"Now let's start this again. What theme should this Halloween Ball be? To avoid the chaos that is a while ago, I'll list down your nominations and tally the votes. Whichever theme gets the most votes would be the theme that we'll use."

There was a unanimous sigh of relief that came from the boys.

Neville finally made it back to his seat.

No one apart from Hermione noticed Michael's reappearance in his seat.

"I told you, a fairy-tale themed ball would be perfect! It would be absolutely beautiful since we can use magic to make our dresses and other ball stuff more magical!" Insisted Padma, halfway off her chair being held back by one of the younger Ravenclaw prefects.

While some of the others nodded in agreement, the look of utter disgust on Pansy's face made Hermione wince in pity for the Ravenclaw Patil. "Okay, a muggle fairy-tale theme from Ms. Patil. Anyone else?"

Without raising her hand, Pansy started, "I told you, a creatures-themed Halloween ball is way better than that muggle nonsense you're spouting, no offense Granger." Hermione just shrugged, surprised by the sudden and nonchalant apology.

"What good is a Creatures-themed party? You cannot really expect students to dress as a grindylow or whatnot on a ball, can you? Seriously Parkinson, I thought you'd have more sense when it comes to this."

"Oh hush it Patil, and a Grindylow? Are you trying to make your small-mindedness that evident?"

Gasps were heard from the Ravenclaw members, which is understandable considering the insult and the principles of their house. Just as Hermione was about to take over, not wanting the repeat of whatever happened earlier, Pansy gestured her to sit down.

"I mean really? Is Grindylow all you can remember from our classes? The Wizarding world had hundreds, if not thousands, of magical creatures! Take a fwooper or heck a phoenix even, imagine dressing into something that's reminiscent of those creatures and tell me I'm wrong for pushing for a creatures-themed ball." Pansy sighed as she relaxed on her seat.

Hermione glanced at the suddenly quite table, unsure whether to feel relieved or even more anxious. "Okay, two nominations then, a muggle fairy-tale and a creatures themed vote, any other suggestions?" Silence, "If none, then we shall proceed to voting for whichever theme you favour the most."

The voting began. Hermione gave everyone a slip of parchment and asked them to write the theme they prefer. After writing, they would then hide the parchment on their hands until Hermione accios them for her to count.

It seemed to be going well. Hermione tallied the votes, discarding the empty slips she was sure came from the boys. However, just as she was finished, a flash of fear ran through her. She swallowed as she glanced at the girls expectantly looking for her for the announcement of the winning theme,

"It's a tie" Hermione hesitantly said, then once again went over the tallies to double check, dread continuously rising as the results kept revealing the same thing, the number of votes on both themes are equal.

Passing the parchment with the tallies to a Hufflepuff near her, she watched as all the girls gathered around the parchment, as if fervently staring at it would somehow change the outcome. It didn't.

It was at that moment that the girls noticed something. The number of the votes only equal to the number of the girls.

The boys didn't vote.

Realizing they had been discovered, fear and panic ran through the face of all the male prefects.

Before Hermione has realized what was happening, the boys already fled the scene with the girls hot on pursuit. They ran to the door, startling a grumpy Severus Snape, earning them a scowl and a long insult that somehow lasted for 15 minutes though they're already gone.

Needless to say, this meeting is yet another failure.

~*0*~

Hey guys! Soooo online classed haven't been treating me well, which is probably evident from this totally late and really short update.

I'm sad to say that future updates may take as long as this one. As much as I want to update earlier, the amount of homework and activities our teachers give us coupled with regular house stuff is really time consuming and whatever free time I find, I spend on taking naps.

I'm really sorry about this and I hope you guys understand. Thank you so much for waiting.

PlatinumWriter signing off…