Chapter 15: End of Term

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            The month leading up to the end of term, and the Yule Ball, passed quickly.  Katie, Ginny and the twins were progressing well with wandless magic and Alinora was happy to report their progress to McGonagall and Dumbledore.

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            The last day of term was a cold, gloomy day.  It had begun snowing the night before.  There was an undercurrent of excitement though, despite the prospect of a long day of classes.  To celebrate the end of term, the twins had charmed all the salt shakers to sing the school song.  This wouldn't have been too bad, except that they were all singing it in different styles and all were vastly out of tune.

            Alinora had smiled weakly at Ginny when she and Katie had sat down across from her at breakfast.  Though she'd supposedly gone to bed early the night before, Ginny couldn't imagine that she'd gotten much in the way of sleep, based on the dark circles under her eyes.  Her skin was even paler than normal and her eyes had gone a pale, icy blue.

            Alinora sat at the table, picking at her breakfast, though successfully eating very little.  She'd gotten hardly any sleep the night before and what she had gotten had been full of nightmares about her family.  Her goal was to simply make it through the day, doing as little damage as possible, and hope things improved tomorrow.  Her resolve was being sorely tested though by the discordant singing that rang through the hall.  She could feel her muscles tensing and her hands kept clenching into fists.

            Finally, feeling quite desperate, she reached out to the nearest salt shaker and focused on trying to get just one to make something that sounded vaguely like music.  With her eyes clenched tightly shut, she began to sing along under her breath, focusing on the thought that she wanted it to sing with her.

            After a little while, she felt a hand touch hers and recognized Ginny's presence.  Right afterwards another, Katie's, joined too.  At that point, with the three of them merged, Ali felt her stomach do a flip flop and suddenly all the salt shakers, not just the one she'd been focusing on, were singing together and in three-part harmony- in her, Katie and Ginny's voices.

            Alinora jerked her hand back in shock and glanced quickly at the other two.  They looked as amazed as she felt.

            "What…" Ginny began.

            "I… I've got to go." Ali said quickly, grabbing for her bag and standing up.  "I'll see you all in class- later."  Her eyes were frightened as she hurriedly walked out of the hall, leaving them all to stare after her in confusion.

            Alinora was very quiet during morning classes as she pondered what had happened at breakfast and tried to ignore the remains of her nightmares.  While not paying much attention to what was going on in class, she still managed to answer any question posed to her directly.  During Transfiguration, Katie thought for a moment that Professor McGonagall was going to give Ali a lecture about paying better attention in class, but the fact that she was one of the few successfully able to transfigure her desk into a small pig left her little support for the accusation.  That and the lost and scared look in her eyes that was so different from her normal mischievous expression.

            Alinora made an effort to act normal at lunch, while putting off any questions about what had happened that morning or how she was doing.  She could see that her friends were concerned, but she couldn't explain yet what the problem was and was afraid that if she tried she'd lose what little control she currently had over her emotions.  The thought of that loss of control scared her- a witch or wizard out of control could do a lot of damage.

            Knowing that their next class was potions with Professor Snape did help though- he wasn't as forgiving as her other teachers and could be counted on to take off points for any imagined lack of attention or misbehavior in his class.

            Despite her concerns, Potions passed fairly painlessly, or as painlessly as it ever was.  Her classmates had joined together in an effort to draw Snape's attention away from her.  Somehow they did this without anyone getting assigned detention or Snape saying anything too scathing.

            Alinora was feeling quite relieved as they left Potions.  They only had double Charms left before the day, and term, would be over.  As they walked towards the stairs out of the dungeons, Alinora suddenly realized that she'd forgotten to give Snape some notes that he had agreed to look over for her.

            "Bloody hell!" she swore, a bit louder than planned, which effectively killed off all conversation around her.  She grimaced apologetically.  "Oops, sorry.  I gotta go back- I had something to give Snape that I completely forgot about.  I'll meet you in Charms!" and she ran off back down the corridor.

            A few minutes later, she was once again leaving the Potions classroom.  She passed the waiting fifth year Gryffindor and Slytherin students waiting to get in.  She waved at Harry, Ron and Hermione, before hurrying towards the stairs.

            She was so intent on getting to class on time that she wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings and her guard was down.  Because of that, she didn't see the hands that reached out for her from behind a tapestry to her left, but she certainly felt the glancing blow to her jaw…