October was drawing to its end and things were starting to improve for everybody. It was the night of the Halloween feast and the girls were happily sitting in their dorm room.
"I can't believe it's already Halloween; things are just flying by this year."
Ginny smiled at Lily as she curled her hair. She was the only one still getting ready for the feast. It was funny how things were changing.
Lily and Branwen were sitting on Alice's bed, flicking through a magazine called 'Young Witch' and looking at the latest fashions and gossip for the wizarding teen, while Alice was drawing something.
"Gin, where's Mand got to?"
"Oh she's in detention, said she'd meet us at the feast."
"Detention? Well it's good to see she's back to her old ways. What did she do?"
Alice looked up from her sketching and smiled.
"She cut Lucius' hair when he wasn't looking."
The girls burst out laughing as Ginny applied the last of her make-up. Branwen smiled up at her.
"Did anyone ever find out what was wrong with Amanda?"
Lily and Alice both shook their heads and Ginny smiled an innocent smile. There was no way she was passing that story onto the others, no matter how good friends they were.
"Should we go down? The feast is due to start in five minutes."
The four girls ran through the corridors to the Great Hall, they were among the last to arrive and took the last remaining seats next to Christian and his new girlfriend Kathy White. Looking around Ginny spotted Lucius sitting at the Slytherin table and laughed.
His hair was a mess, the left hand side was cut to his shoulder while the right barely came to his ear, she wondered how long it would take for his mother to turn up and sort it all out.
"Welcome to our annual Halloween Feast. Let's all get tucked in."
The meal appeared in front of them, there was nothing nutritious on the table tonight and everyone was taking advantage of it. Sitting next to her Branwen reached forward to grab a slice of pepperoni pizza and found herself tugging on the same slice as Peter.
Ginny watched as the girl turned a bright shade of red muttered something and let Peter take the slice as she took another one. Lily exchanged a look with Ginny at this but they ignored it as they both picked up burgers and started to eat.
Just before the dessert was set to appear the Hall doors opened and Amanda came running in laughing so hard she had turned red. Ginny saw Sirius looking at her and she waved as she neared the table.
Branwen had been right; Amanda was back to her old self. She was smiling happily and had her robe slung over her book bag. Ginny noticed that her uniform was back to its old ways as tight as ever before and she seemed to have gained her confidence again.
Ginny moved closer to Branwen as Amanda swung her legs under the table and grabbed a slice of pizza shoving it into her mouth.
"What took you so long?"
Amanda swallowed the food and smiled happily.
"I was having a lecture about cutting hair and all that stuff when my grandmother turned up and started yelling at Aunt Victoria for something or other, it was so funny."
The food in front of them changed and sweets and doughnuts and all other junk appeared. The girls leaped into it. Amanda took a doughnut then stood up smiling.
"I'm going up to the dorm room, I'm rather tired, I'll see you all later."
Then she was gone. The rest sat in the hall for a while chatting and soon Dumbledore excused them.
"I'm going to the toilets I'll met you all in the dorm room."
With that Branwen disappeared out the door and the other three laughing and chatting away to Frank and Joseph headed up to the common room, unaware of what Branwen was really up to.