Disclaimer – I borrowed some ideas for this chapter from "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" which is JKR's. Bits you don't recognise are mine. Simple!

~*~

In the name of Helga: Year One

shewhodares

Flying home for Christmas?

~*~

A carousing tumult outside of the dormitory woke Rachel with a jolt early that Friday morning, nearly giving her the fright of her life. It had started as a chorus of excited voices outside of the seventh years' dorms at the bottom of the underground passageway, moved on through each of the older students' rooms, where a student with a set of Muggle bongos had joined the fray, and arrived with a bang at the last pair of rooms before the back entrance to the Hufflepuff Common Room. Before she had time to fully register what was happening, a sharp rat-a-tat-tat of a knock was being hammered out on the girls' front door.

"Abbott, Bagshot, Bones, Fawcett and Perks! Come on, get your pretty selves out of bed and get your stuff ready! We're leaving tomorrow, you don't want to miss the last larks of term to be doing your packing, do you?"

The voice, a female one, sounded familiar to her. The slight problem was it had joined in a chorus of "Bernard the Christmas Hippogriff" and left before she could find out who it was. However, the passageways of The Sett were now silent, and Rachel took comfort in the thought of Professor Snape's face at breakfast when he realised that the sixth years of the black and yellow house were his last class of the year.

~*~

On her arrival at the Great Hall, the identities of the culprits of the Hufflepuff morning mass revelry were revealed. She should have guessed – three boys, who were in fits of giggles at something, a pretty blonde girl unknown to her, and two more girls that Rachel recognised from the start of term feast – none other than Verity Vector and Kat Kiely. All six were wearing bright red Santa hats.

Verity, who motioned for Rachel to join them with a swift flick of her hand, was notably not wearing her tiny, yellow prefect badge. In its place was a large Hippogriff pin, covered in flashing lights had a button on its stomach. As the first year slid into place at the long table, the brunette, who had a wicked glint in her eye, pressed it. It began to sing.

"Bernard the Christmas Hippogriff

had a very shiny beak

and those who ever saw him

used to call him a f – "

"Ssh!" whispered the random blonde. "Snape's looking this way!"

Indeed, the Slytherin House Head had one of his beetle-black eyes fixed upon the table on the far right of the hall. It was lucky for the party people that his eyes were distracted by a group of Gryffindors playing Exploding Snap at their table, otherwise he would have seen the now infamous bongos being passed along under the table, away from danger.

"Thank Merlin" gasped Verity sarcastically, quickly cutting off the song before Snape could locate where it was coming from. "It really wouldn't do to get into trouble before we even get into his class, would it?"

"So this is for his benefit" Rachel guessed, gesturing at the green and silver strands of tinsel around the two girls' necks. "Didn't think it was a new addition to the uniform".

"Hey, you, don't be cheeky to your elders!"

This was from Kat, who had been watching the youngster's mystified reaction with a wry grin. "This is a Hufflepuff Christmas tradition!"

"What, bothering Snape? We do that all year!" retorted the owner of the bongos. "And it's a Ravenclaw and Gryffindor tradition as well!"

The seven laughed.

"So, what are you planning? Some sort of prank in his class?"

"Yep, in ours" replied Verity, gesturing to herself and the blonde. "This is Beth, she's in my year. One last jape before we go home, eh?"

"Mmm, if you say so. I still think it's going to be trouble to try and pull a fast one on Snape, though" muttered her partner in crime, who was trying to avoid another filthy look from said teacher. "If this jeopardises my Potions final…"

"Oh, stop it with your stuff about grades and rules. You sound like a Ravenclaw!"

"Behave yourselves, you two" said Kat. "At least you get a last prank – oh, I wish I was going to be in there! It'll be great!"

"What exactly is it that you're doing?" Rachel wondered aloud, thinking it must be good if even the well behaved Head Girl wanted to be part of it.

"Never you mind".

Verity had tapped Rachel jokingly on the nose with her wand.

"I'll write to you in the holidays and tell you about it – if we survive Snape's wrath. Have you got some paper?"

~*~

A rather strange sound greeted Sally-Anne as she entered the underground passageways of The Sett.

"Stop it! Stop it! Ugh!..........get a grip, David, control yourself – ach! There's no bloody use!"

Then the sound of a book meeting heavily with the wooden wall.

Frustration, anger, fear – all those things personified and given a voice. A voice that was both familiar and unfamiliar to her at the same time; a voice that both sounded as though it should have belonged to a boy her age, yet couldn't possibly. She'd never heard David speak in a tone that was anything less than jovial before.

And she didn't like it one bit.

~ * THE END * ~

A/N: Thank  goodness – finished at last! I've got Adele and Lucy Lupin to thank for giving me a well deserved kick up the backside where this is concerned.

You may be wondering why exactly I took so long. Well, dear chums, it's not because of writer's block. Not entirely, anyway. I had planned on continuing the mystery with David for the whole chapter, but I had an idea in my head that'll need a lot of building up to, and to publish it straight away would be too sudden a change in tone. It'll fit in pretty much anywhere as it is. On the plus side, I figured that I needed to skip through to Christmas, this chapter gave me the perfect excuse to do so, and even better, it means that the next chapter is pretty much written! Woo hoo! I'll try to get it done as soon as possible (I go back to University around the tenth).

Finally, for those of you who haven't been there before, I have a LiveJournal at - if you want to keep more up to date with what I'm doing, and to get the first details of when I'm actually writing, this is the site to go to.

On another note, anyone who reads, writes or simply enjoys the Draco/Hermione ship to any extent should visit my new site, The thin line between love and hate (). I'm the site Administrator, Hannah Abbott. If you join, send me a PM telling me that you joined from ff.net!

On yet another note, for those of you who haven't visited already, go to if you want to enjoy a really good HP message board. I'm the Head of Ravenclaw there, and I go by the name of Rowena Ravenclaw.

Ta ta for now,

Shewhodares

xx