Seamus Finnegan
(Co-Winner of the January Competition at Middle' Common Room)
Starting my seventh year at Hogwarts is strange. Most of the students haven't returned; their parents want to keep them "safe" at home. Like anyone is safe now! Mam was shocked that I defied her over it, but I'm seventeen now, and an adult in the Wizarding world.
Sharing a room with Harry Potter for six years, and not knowing what was happening was impossible. I didn't believe him for a long while – because Mam didn't – but after what happened at the end of last year…. That truly made a believer out of me.
It's so quiet here in the common-room. There are maybe twenty students in the whole of Gryffindor Tower, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff are the same. Slytherin has about ten students, and they're shunned by the rest of the school. You don't know if they're spies, and it's safer not to talk to them at all.
Harry, Ron and Hermione are off somewhere huntin' something – Ginny knows what, but she ain't sayin' anything. Dean, Parvati and Lavender haven't returned. Neville spends his free time in the Library learnin' Defence spells and charms (he knows more about them than anyone but Harry). And me, I spend my time wonderin' whether I've done the right thing coming back. I'm worried about Mam and Da – Mam's never been good at Defense, and she's gotta protect the both of them.
But I've made my choice, and I'll stick to it, for good or bad. But everything has changed, and I'm scared.