"You've danced before?"

"Of course I have, I attended the yule ball, Professor Flitwick was a brilliant teacher"

"Who did you go with?"

"Terry Boot"

"Boot?! Terry Boot? Would've thought pureblood Slytherins would be all over that"

"Nah I was safe, my sisters on the other hand…"

He laughs.

"How come I never heard that through the Hogwarts rumour mill?"

"Roger Davies going with Fleur Delacour really was more of a stir than Terry Boot and I going together. That and Sally Fawcett and Stebbins getting caught by Snape kissing in the rose garden. He was dating Martha at the time"

"You know a worrying amount of school gossip Isobel"

I shrug as we continue to dance around my grandparents living room. Midnight had chimed nearly an hour ago but there was no way the party was stopping. My grandparents' friends were a wide variety of characters to say the least. There were many ex aurors in attendance which made the whole affair seem more relaxed given the times we lived in. As well as many of my grans colleagues and friends she had made in her many years in Department of International Magical Cooperation, including if I wasn't mistaken, a werewolf. This of course meant nothing to my gran although I had noticed she was trying to keep any meat away from the lady in question, despite her many assurances that this was because she was in fact a vegetarian. A cruel irony if true. Or perhaps an expected result of a kind-hearted woman being cursed to maim and kill innocent creatures and people every month if she didn't take her potion. Fenrir Greyback has had a long spree of ruining people's lives.

My grans best friend Eleanor however is and always has been my favourite nonrelative. They attended Hogwarts together but didn't strike up a friendship until they found themselves sat next to each other on their first day at the ministry. They may have taken very different paths, but they still act like a couple of 18-year old's around each other. Eleanor never married because she 'loved to party too much' to hold down a husband. Although I always knew even from a very young age it was because her 'flatmate' Francine was her true love. She has a tattoo of a Chimera on her arm, Francine has a Peruvian Vipertooth. They burned their bras in the seventies with muggle women and always have no filter at parties. Including this one as she came up to Blaise at the start and asked him if it was true his mother knocked off her last husband. Even Francine was shaking her head at that one.

I look up at Blaise and see he is staring at a little girl trying to get her distraught dad to dance.

"Who's that?"

"Dads cousin Robert and his daughter Betty, his wife was killed a few months ago by death eaters"

"Do you mind if we stop dancing?"

I shake my head and he walks over to betty and asks her if she wants to dance. She lets out a squeal of happiness, takes his hand and waddles into the middle of the room with him. The party continues for some more hours before gran finally has enough and tells everyone to get out of her house. Blaise spent most of the time twirling Betty around although he looked happy to finally get some rest. By the time we all stumbled home and fell into bed it was five in the morning.

It was the day after new Year that three owls arrived at the kitchen window looking very flustered. Mum quickly untied them, and they flew off again without bothering to rest. They were all addressed to me. I quickly ripped them open and began to read.

Isobel

Death eaters crashed our boxing day lunch and arrested my uncle Eoghan and interrogated the whole family, used the cruciatus curse on my aunt Helen. Everyone is pretty shaken up as you can imagine. I don't know if I'll be back after the holidays. If I'm not, stay safe and look after the others. My uncle knows Luna's dad, she got taken by death eaters when she was on her way home from the station. Watch your back.

Daniel.

Iso,

Luna got taken. Constant vigilance.

Terry.

Izzy Bizzy,

Hope everything is alright. Did you hear about Luna? My mum says its because of what her dad is printing, she gets The Quibbler. Well she did. He's stopped printing. I also heard about Godrics Hollow, is granny ok? I guess she isn't moving though. Christmas was good. A little quieter than usual of course. Thank you for the chess set and chocolates! Wouldn't think rose quartz and onyx would work as pieces but they are beautiful. Thank your mum for the scarf and I hope you like your present. Say hello to Blaise for me and stay safe, see you on the train.

Love you lots,

Jully Baby xx

I hand them to Blaise and mum to read. Mum then exploded to say the least. Yelling about how Blaise and I were going back to school over her dead body. It took dad an hour to calm her down while Blaise, the twins and I watched on worryingly. She conceded that we had to go back but that didn't mean she wasn't going to burst out in tears at regular intervals until we got on the train in just over 24 hours. We spent the rest of the day in my room packing just so we didn't have to see it.

Getting the train was unusual. Mum refused to come so only dad was there to see us off, Blaise's mum was still living it up in the Caribbean closing in on her next target, so he didn't have to return home and then come to the station. Dad gave us both a hug and forced himself to put us on the train. He disapparated before we managed to turn around and wave. We could only find Kate and Julia and we all spent the journey wondering who wasn't coming back and quite frankly how they planned on getting away with just not turning up, surely the whole family would have to disappear.

When we arrive at Hogsmeade, it really was clear how the number of students had dwindled. A good quarter of those who started in September were missing. Well except for the Slytherins who had all returned, although none looked particularly happy and searched the crowds for friends they had in other houses to see if they had returned. After sharing classes for so many years it's no surprise Slytherins have friends in other houses, Gina and Emily's best friend was a Slytherin. David is absolutely lovely. I mean he doesn't like custard, but you can't have everything in the friendship lottery, can you? I spent all of last year studying herbology in the library with Nicholas Nott. His brother may be a brute but little Nicky is lovely. It's a shame he didn't get the grade needed to continue herbology or we'd still be studying together every Tuesday and Thursday night.

We were glad to see though when we searched the platform that everyone had returned despite Daniels worrying letter. We crammed all of us into a carriage to quickly catch up before all of our conversations felt like they'd be monitored again. Everyone was shaken by some event that happened over the holidays to either family or someone close but ok, nonetheless. Kate and Daniel had had their first contact from Beverley since she went into hiding. Well, they think it was her. They both received anonymous gifts from someone and assumed it was from her as they referenced an inside joke they had. By the time we made it to the great all we were all on the same page once more.

That night after dinner we all sat by the fire in the common room exchanging stories about what had happened over the holidays and funny things that had happened despite a raging war going on while the Wizardly Wireless Network warbled out of the radio in the corner. Declan's grandparents also lived in Godrics Hollow but unlike my granny as soon as they heard about Bathilda Bagshot they had packed up and moved into his aunts place 250 miles away before lunch time. His grandmother was absolutely terrified that you know who had managed to kill a woman who lived three doors down without anyone even realising, it took most of the holiday break to calm her down. Russell successfully managed to lighten the mood after that by telling us that the owl delivering a card from his cousin in France got so disorientated on the flight over due to a storm that by the time it arrived he crashed landed into a bowl of cake mix, causing the entire kitchen to be coated in the stuff. It took his mum an hour to clean the owl who had the audacity to bite her after all her hard work. We sat for a few more hours talking, slowly settling into silence watching the fire and listening to the radio.

"You know guys, despite everything that's happening this year, I'm happy that you're here, don't think I could have done it without you lot. Especially since Nick couldn't come back" says Trevor

We all turn and smile at him. Declan wraps his arm around his shoulder.

"neither mate"

And its true. Without these guys this year would have been a lot worse. The least we can hope for is that we all stick it out until the end of the year. Who knows about after. Maybe we'll all decide its best not to come back and go on the run like a lot of the seventh years. Or hopefully this war will be all over and we can have a good school year for once. Whatever happens though, I'll always be thankful that I had these crazy people to get me through it. we all ended up hugging each other before heading to our dormitories. When we reached the girls dormitory and realised it really was just the three of us now, we looked at the two empty beds sadly. Luna's bed still had her intricate handmade magical creatures hanging from the posts. While Beverly's was still untouched as she never even had the chance to come back to hang her muggle boyband posters.

Over the next week the common room was a buzz of information as people passed on stories from their parents to everyone about what was happening in every department at the ministry. The most horrifying was finding out Umbridge had been released from Askaban and was now in charge of bringing in muggleborns and questioning them. The worst was finding out what happened to you if they did bring you in. We all hoped that Beverly and Nick were still safe wherever they were and hadn't been rounded up. No one knew what had happened to Luna once they took her as she hadn't been taken to the ministry or Azkaban which caused panic as some students thought they may have killed her. It took another week to convince people that they couldn't or wouldn't kill her but really we all knew it was a possibility, we just didn't want to believe it was one. It was this that pushed my decision really and had me taking Michael to the side one night in the common room and asking

"So how do I join Dumbledore's army?"