Chapter Two: The Secret Santa's
December 1st
Cho walked into Group and Independent Living class first thing on Monday morning. She smiled a little at Harry who was sitting in the first row with his Gryffindor friends. He gave her what appeared to be a less that thrilled smile and went back to chatting with Hermione. Sighing, Cho sat by Bradly Bradshaw and Lana Tanta, two friends from Ravenclaw that she had made this year.
Draco, Crabbe, Goyle and Pansy sat at another table together. Pansy looked anything but thrilled which was a surprised considering what the other three were doing. They were anxiously tossing wads of paper at Neville's head.
The Hufflepuffs all sat awkwardly in the corner oppisite Cho. Hannah, Susan and Ernie were the only two she recognized.
For the first time Cho realized that there was a woman at the head of the class. Obviously the new professor. The woman stood up and took a few steps towards the class.
"Everyone stand!" She said cheerfully. "We are getting assigned seats and then I will introduce myself"
Cho couldn't help but smile as everyone stood, mumbling and complaining the whole time.
"Assigned seats?" Hermione said, not all the thrilled herself. Usually professors let the students pick there own seats and even when they didn't they usually sat the kids with people in their houses anyway.
This class wasn't about being separated in to groups of friends though, Hermione thought, recalling the anouncement, this was to unite the houses. She could only imagine what the woman had in mind.
"Alright! Please everyone. This will be painless I promise," She smiled and started at the first desk which was one of six, each containing four chairs. "Hermione Granger, Draco Malfoy, Susan Bones, Bradley Bradshaw"" Hermione reluctantly took her seat next to Malfoy as the professor moved to the table next to theirs.
"Neville Longbottom, Millicent Bulstrode, Ernie Macmillan, Lana Tanta," She woman moved slowly behind Hermione to the next row as if trying to torcher everyone. "Harry Potter," At this name she looked up, right at Harry and smiled, she was a younger professor, slightly round, with bright crystal blue eyes and a huge smile that seemed to go from ear to ear. "Cho Chang, Vincent Crabbe and Hannah Abbot." She moved to the next desk. "Gregory Goyle, Padma Patil, Ron Weasley, and Pansy Parkinson," She stopped and came to the front of the classroom. "Now for and introduction! I am professor Gorlick. Welcome to Group and Independent living. MY job here for this year as been as a, what muggles would call, guidence councelor. For those of who who have never heard the term. I guide and help young people such as yourself throught school."Her smile brightened even more.
Draco grunted and for once, Hermione agreed with him.
"For the most part you each have a table filled with four people from different houses and also two males and two females. This is were the group comes in. You will learn to get to know your group. You will be writing papers on your partner and playing games with your group. Your partner is the person beside you." She looked down at a piece of paper she had in her hand. "Hermione, you are with Draco and Susan is with Bradley"
Everyone's eyes shot to their partners. Most people hated the idea while others simply accepted it. Not Hermione.
"Professor, with all due respect I must object to this idea. Pairing us with people that some of us hate to no extent will eventually lead to someone's death." She glanced at Draco.
"Yeah... like a filthy mudblood's," Draco snapped causing the Slytherins to errupt into laughter.
Harry sat behind Hermione and watched as she sank into her seat. The teacher eyed Draco with a bit of distaste.
"There will be none of that." Professor Gorlick said with a frown. "There will never be any mistreatment of anyone in this class. You will not think of your selves as four separate houses but instead, one unit. Any points deducted for misbehavior will be from your own grade, not your house points"
Draco's face lit up a little as if seeing this as an opportunity to act out in class.
"For those of you who need it... detention will be assigned. Hopefully that is not neccesary." She turned to the board behind her and tapped it with a wand. Secret Santa Project, suddenly appeared.
"This will be the first assignment you will be conducting!" Her face returned to it's smiling state as she explained. "You will each draw a name from the bowl at the front of the room. This will be the name of someone in this class that you will be buying or making a present for"
Groans errupted around the class as she tapped the board again.
One page paper on the subject, one present for the subject.
"You will be writing a paper on the good aspects of the person you draw from the bowl and we will be swapping presents on the 18th." She paused, smiling even brighter if at all possible and pointed to a bowl on the desk beside her. "Hermione, you may start with the picking. Remember to tell no one, especially not the person you pick, who you picked."
Draco followed Hermione to the bowl at the head of the class. Professor Gorlick looked so pleased with herself, with the biggest grin upon her face. He wanted to slap her. Hermione stuck her hand in the bowl and pulled out a piece of paper, then walked back to her seat. Draco followed suit as did the rest of the class.
The young Slytherin's eyes drifted over to Hermione as she unfolded her piece of paper. A look of disgust crossed her face as she shoved the paper into her pocket. He hadn't seen anything on the paper but apparently Hermione had, and she wasn't all to keen about it.
Draco shoved his own paper into his pocket, not bother to look at it. He'd check later but for now he didn't want to give the professor the satisfaction of knowing the she was indeed tormenting them all with her idiotic games.
"Your papers all have an anti cheating like spell on them. In case you drop the paper, no one will know. If need be, you can discuss your secret santa with a friend, but I urge you again not to share it with that person you see on the paper. You will be turning that piece of paper in when we exchange gifts and if that person finds out it will turn black and you will be docked a grade."
Professor Gorlick spent the rest of the class period going over the rest of the course syllabus. It didn't seen too much fun to Draco, especially not when he was sitting next to the most annoying mudblood ever to cross his path. He could be thankful for one simple thing: she was smart and therefore would get him an A. Whether she liked it or not.
(A/N: I didn't get around to spell checking or grammar checking either of these chapters, so the next update will include all of that I hope. I have a term paper coming up though so it might just be another chapter.)