Chapter 23
"Once upon a time there was a girl who saw an evil little boy picking on a poor little kid. The girl got really mad and beat the crap out of the evil little boy, sending him home crying to his mommy. The end." Becca folded her arms over her chest and huffed, glaring pointedly down the hall.
"No, Becca, not the end. You can't just go around picking fights with people and you know it." Lily replied.
"Well if you ask me, they're the one's picking the fight! I mean, look at them picking on that poor little first year! He didn't do anything to them!" Becca was throwing a tantrum now. Though her tantrum does have a good point to it.
"Didn't you call them munchkins the other day?" I asked.
"It's a term of endearment, get used to it." Becca growled at me. "Lily! Let me go teach them a lesson! They shouldn't be picking on first years and you know it!"
"Of course I know it! But not even James here is stupid enough to go picking a fight with seven students who older than him, bigger than him, and stronger than him."
"I think that was an insult." I commented. I don't understand why Becca doesn't just ask for my help, I'd gladly give her a hand kicking some Slytherine butts. I would have suggested it first, but I'm trying to stay on Lily's good side, and Lily doesn't like to kick Slytherine butts or when I kick Slytherine butts, so I decided against it.
"But it wouldn't be just me! James would help, wouldn't you?"
Now she catches on. "Of course. My first 3 rules are never back down from a fight, never leave a friend hanging, and take all opportunities to kick Slytherine butts."
"James! Stop encouraging her!"
"Don't tell me you wouldn't help too if you weren't a prefect."
"You know I would, but it would be against the rules!"
"Fine, you stand here around the corner and watch. If the Slytherines start getting the better of us, you come and help or pretend to be running down the hall with a teacher or something. If we are winning then just happen to come around the corner after they run screaming for their mommies." I compromised.
"Fine!" Lily huffed, leaning against the stone wall of the corridor and crossing her arms. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
Becca rolled her eyes at Lily and, with a wink, strolled around the corner into the hall with the first year and the Slytherines.
"I swear, someday that girl is going to get into it with someone she can't win against, and knowing her, it'll be over one of her chivalrous ideals." I shook my head and followed Becca into the hallway.
"Hey! What do you morons think you're doing? Leave that kid alone." Becca walked up to the group of people, stopping about five steps from them. I followed suit, standing just behind her to her right.
There were 5 Slytherines total, 3 boys and 2 girls, standing over a small bay with mousy brown hair. I recognized the small boy from the sorting by face, not by name. Of the Slytherines I could identify all 5. The tall blonde boy hovering closest to the little boy was Lucius Malfoy, a right pain in the arse and a member of one of the oldest pureblood families, he was in his 7th year now. The boy standing next to him was Rodalphus Lestrange, also a 7th year and a pureblood. Rodalphus was dating the girl standing across from him, Bellatrix Black, Sirius's cousin. Bellatrix was leaning against a wall looking bored at the first year and annoyed at Becca. Bella, as she's called most often, was in our grade, a 7th year. Another of Sirius's cousins, Narcissa Black, stood next to her with her nose in the air, as if she was too good for the entire world. She was a 7th year as well and dating Lucius. At the back of the group stood a boy with greasy black hair and long black robes. He was Severus Snape, Sirius and mine's favorite Slytherine to get retribution on, mainly because he was so incredibly horrible at controlling his temper and reacted to everything we threw at him. Severus was a 6th year also and a whiz at potions. Half the time I couldn't tell if he hated Lily for her ability in potions or admired her for it, you can never tell with him until you get him riled up. When he saw me he took two or three steps back, away from the group, as if he meant to distance himself from them to say he had nothing to do with it. Yeah, right.
"Oh, look, it's Anabell the cow and Potter the blood traitor." Malfoy sneered at us. He was clearly overconfident, and had good reason to be. Not only did he have us out numbered, but the people out numbering us were, for the most part, fairly talented students, much as I hate to admit it.
"Shut up you Barbie doll and let the kid go." Becca yelled at him. Uh-oh, temper alert.
"And why would I listen to you, you cow?"
"You know, I really wouldn't do that if I were you." I interjected, but none of them listened to me.
"Prick!"
"Half-blood!"
"I'm telling you, it's not a good idea..."
"Jackass!"
"Lowly piece of trash! You're not fit to clean my toilets."
"See? Now you've gone and done it." I sighed and resigned myself to the fact that I was going to spend the afternoon in the infirmary.
"YOU!" There it goes, Becca's temper just snapped. Really, we need to get a leash for her. Becca threw herself at Malfoy, completely forgetting her wand. Or maybe she didn't forget it, maybe she just wanted the satisfaction of beating Malfoy's face to a bloody pulp, I know I would.
When she lunged I pulled out my wand and disarmed Rodalphus before he had a chance to react. Then I turned to Bella and shot a stunner at her, which she dodged, with a slight smirk. She threw a curse at me, and I put up a shield to block it with a yell of 'protego'. I continued to duel with Bella while Narcissa took a few steps back, too good to get into the fight, and Snape looked hesitantly from the fight, to the corridor behind him, then back to the fight.
Bella was throwing spell after spell at me, not even phased by my attacks, when she made a careless mistake and slipped on a small amount of blood that had poured from the 1st years nose. She fell to the ground hard, landing on her back, and I stunned her not even a second later.
Then I turned to see how Becca was doing with Lucius. She had broken his nose and given him what would be a nice black eye. At some point Rodalphus had come up behind her and pinned her arms so she couldn't move them. Lucius had taken the opportunity to stand up and take a few swings at her, thinking she was immobilized because she couldn't use her arms.
A truly fatal mistake if Becca had had more than a summers worth of martial arts training. When Lucius came within range, Becca swung her legs up in a spinning move and kicked him in the head while twisting out of Rodalphus's grip. Lucius fell to the ground in a heap, probably seeing stars. Rodalphus was thrown off balance and tripped over his own feet, sending him straight into Becca, throwing the both of them to the ground. I ran over and stunned Rodalphus, pulling Becca out from underneath him. The only two left were Narcissa and Snape. Narcissa yawned haughtily and leaned against a wall like she was bored. Snape went to pull out his wand when my gaze landed on him, and I was about to teach him a lesson as well, but Lily came out from around the corner.
"Snape! Put away your wand! You're a Slytherine prefect, you shouldn't be fighting. Neither should you two, I'll have to take you to Professor MacGonagall for this." Lily continued to verbally berate us for fighting, sliding us a wink when we were about to protest. "You three, gather your friends here and get to the hospital wing, go on!" Lily turned to Snape, Narcissa, and the now conscious Malfoy. "Get moving!"
Narcissa rolled her eyes, flicked her hair over her shoulder, turned, and walked away. Snape enervated Rodalphus and Bella and the three followed Narcissa. Malfoy pulled himself from the floor, wiping his still bleeding nose on the back of his hand. "You'll pay for this you little bitch. You better watch your back, you half-blood!" Malfoy walked backwards a couple of steps, glaring pointedly at Becca and I, then turned and followed his friends down the hall in the opposite direction from the hospital wing. They must realize the trouble they'll be in for fighting if they go there.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." Becca rolled her eyes, then flinched, cupping her left eye with her hand.
"So you didn't escape unscathed I see." I said.
"Malfoy landed a lucky blow, he was flailing wildly. People tend to land lucky punches when the flail wildly." Becca shrugged it off and turned into the light at Lily's urging.
"Let me see it. Good, just a black eye, no broken cheek bone. I can fix this up in a jiffy." Lily pulled out her wand and waved it over Becca's face "Episkey!" Becca's black eye faded away slowly under Lily's glowing wand point.
"Good job." I said. "I see you've been looking up some healing spells."
"Yeah, and you're next."
"But I'm not injured."
"Who said I was going to heal you. I'm going to take you to the library to study."
"Er... I'm busy?"
"Doing what?"
"Er... Stuff?"
"With who?"
"Er... Becca?"
"No you're not. I'm working on a project with Rebby." Becca shook her head when Lily looked at her, and when she looked away Becca stuck out her tongue at me.
"Er... With Sirius then, I thought Becca was going to be there too, but it's just me and Sirius I guess..."
"Right. Well. Since you're doing stuff with Sirius all afternoon and don't have time to study with me, I guess we'll just have to study alone in a quiet corner of the library some other time." Lily gave me a smirk and a wink, then turned and flounced off in the direction of the library.
That was an invitation if I've ever heard one.
"Wait! Lily! Sirius and I can do that thing we were gonna do later, after we study. I mean, grades are more important, right?"
"Yes, of course James." Lily rolled her eyes and kept on walking. "See you later Becca!" She waved back at Becca.
"See ya Becca!" I gave her a head nod.
"So, about this studying... What subject are we covering again?" I raised an eyebrow at Lily as she eyed me mischievously.
"Depends. What would you like to study?"
Who would have thought Lily could be the mysterious kind of sexy?
I ran along the hallway towards the Great Hall where I had told Lily and James I was going to work on a project with Rebby, then I cut back towards the Gryffindor Tower. When I reached the portrait hole I yelled the password and jogged in, up the stairs to my dorm room, and dropped my school bag on the ground, hefting a light, dark purple and black back pack instead. I took off again, running until I reached a secret side door to the castle grounds that no one else knew about. The door opened to a forgotten garden on the opposite side of the castle from the Herbology greenhouses.
Now, my mother has always loved gardening and such and as a child she forced me to help her pull weeds and turn over mulch and plant everything from zucchini to roses in her little gardens and flower beds. Myself, I prefer a nice spot in the cool shade where I can read to a day getting baked in the hot sun trying not to be stabbed by little thorns on the rose bushes and poke-y things on the weeds. The point is, the last place anyone would ever think to find me is an overgrown garden with lots of weeds to be pulled, especially if I was actually pulling them of my own free will.
I had, of course, learned how to pull weeds by magic, and had learned to do so in this very garden. It had been the point of coming here once or twice a week last spring before I went home. Because both of my parents do magic no one at the ministry is going to notice a minor house keeping spell like one for pulling weeds, especially since I figured out how to disable the ministries wand tracking system ages ago. At least I refer to it as a wand tracking system. Really what they do is cast a spell that monitors wand use and lets them know of magic turning up in unusual places, like muggle neighborhoods with no known wizards in residence, or the use of magic illegally. The problem is they have to investigate each spell separately to find out who cast it and that takes a while, so instead they only investigate the out of place spells and such.
I tossed my bag onto an old mossy wood and iron bench and went about cleaning up the over grown flower beds, turning over the mulch and removing all weeds. I then gave the grass the once over, trimming it all down to the same approximate size. Lastly I cast my wand in the direction of a small fish pond that contained no fish and cleaned it of mold.
With the chores finished, I took up my bag and sat down on the bench, taking a moment to bask in the warm glow of the sun. It was still winter and quite cold outside, but the little garden's previous owner had put a spell on it that allowed it to remain warm like late spring all year round. In the winter it was very amusing because when the snow fell the heating spell had no effect on the snow until it hit the ground, so I could stand in a nice warm garden, surrounded by green plants and blooming flowers, and catch snowflakes on my tongue.
I reached into my bag and pulled out my sketchbook and my graded pencils and started drawing one of the roses in the garden. I heard a bird call over head and looked up to see one of the few birds who were smart enough to realize that this particular garden stayed warm year round with plenty of food for them. The bird, I'm not sure what type it was, chirruped again and I was suddenly struck by a memory of a few days ago when Sirius had taken me to his island. We had gotten back together then and I have every intention of keeping it that way. I just hope nothing else happens to make me feel otherwise, I have enough stress to deal with as it is.
The bird took flight into the cool winter air above the garden, off to stretch it's wings or forage in the school greenhouses for food no doubt. I turned back to my drawing, tossing my worries from my mind and instead contemplating why I couldn't get the durn shading right on one particular rose petal.
"I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts, duddle-dee-dum, there they are standing in a row, bum-bum-bum, big ones, small ones, ones as big as your head..."
"Rebby, if you don't stop singing that song I'll be forced to walk a good four feet behind you to keep people from thinking we are friends."
"We're not friends?" I gave Sirius a pout-y look.
"Sure, we're friends," Sirius smiled at me cheekily "as long as you don't sing that song around me in public."
"Well aren't you nice." I rolled my eyes at him and hummed the tune instead. The blasted song had been stuck in my head for a couple of days now.
"Where are we going again?" Sirius asked, irritated and impatient.
"We are going to do some bonding. You're dating my best friend. Your best friend is dating my other best friend. And your other best friend is dating one of my other friends. I think it's about time we did some bonding. You know, find out a bit more about each other."
"So, why haven't James or Remus been drug out in the cold to 'bond' with you?"
"Because they have appointments later this week to do some bonding, though I don't think they actually know that..."
"I see... And you're sure Becca doesn't mind?"
"It was Becca's idea. Something about she wanted some alone time to think things over. She's been quite busy recently, what with school and you and her family and the study group. Plus she's applying to an art camp this summer; it's crazy hard competition to get in from what I hear."
"Oh, so where are we going?"
"The quidditch pitch. There's an enclosed portion of the stands for guests to stand in in the winter. It's heated and has some of the most comfortable squishy armchairs I've ever had the pleasure of napping in."
"Got it. So what does the bonding entail?"
"Talking mainly."
"Alright then..."
I led Sirius up to the guest box and turned the heat up once I had closed the door behind us. I took off my coat and tossed it on a hook by the door then flipped my shoes off as well, leaving them in a heap by the door.
"Bonsai!" I said, hopping onto one of the couches and nearly bouncing Sirius off the other side.
"So what are we going to talk about?" Sirius asked me, a note of amusement on his face.
I settled my self into a chair across from him and put on the most serious face I could and asked "I want to know one thing in particular: what are your intentions with my best friend?"
Sirius stared at me blankly. He blinked, once, twice, thrice. Then he cracked a smile. Next he began to laugh at me, as if it had been a joke.
"No, really, what are your intentions?" I asked again.
"Who started the second goblin revolt?"
"Do we really have to study this stuff? I already know it all from class. And you know it all because I've already quizzed you 80 or 90 times... Can't we, I dunno, go for a walk or snog one another senseless for a while instead?"
"Nice try James, but we need to study more." I rolled my eyes at him.
"Oh, come on, we could go find that rug closet again and-"
"NO! I mean, er... Fine, we can stop studying, but no snogging in rug closets."
James looked positively giddy. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. He jumped from his spot at the library table, gathered his books in one swoop, tossed them into his bag, threw the bag over his shoulder and looked at me expectantly. "Well? What are you waiting for?"
"The tornado caused by your quick movements to subside."
James rolled his eyes at me. The more time we spent together the more of my traits he was picking up, the eye rolling for instance. "Well, get a move on. Maybe we can still make it in time."
"Make where in time for what?"
"Actually it's 'Make what in time for who?' but that's not the point. The point is for you to get your cute booty out of your seat, get your stuff, and hurry up!"
"Pushy, pushy. No denying the testosterone there." I stood and gathered my belongings, put them in my bag, then followed the overly excited James into the hallway where he practically danced around me as he led me in the direction of the Gryffindor Tower. "Where are we going again? And for what reason?"
"You'll see." James slid me a mischievous smile.
Uh-oh. Here comes trouble.
As I exited my secret hideaway I sighed and tried in vain to wipe the smudges of pencils from my fingers onto my jeans. I had walked maybe halfway down the hall when Remus popped out behind a corner, held out an arm, and made a sweeping bow.
"M'lady, I am to escort you to a meeting." he said, standing up straight again.
"Haha, nice Remus... What meeting?"
"A secret one."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"A secret meeting about what?"
"A secret meeting about secret stuff."
"Is this secret meeting about secret stuff going to take long, I'm supposed to meet Sirius later."
"Sirius will be at the secret meeting."
"Well, that's nice... Who else is going to be at this secret meeting?"
"Lily, Rebby, Peter, James, Sirius, you, me."
"Ah, I assume then that this secret meeting is about the secret stuff that was discussed in secret in a not so secret empty classroom on the seventh floor?"
"Yes."
"Oh goody!" what? You don't follow the conversation? I mean, makes perfect sense to me. We're going to a meeting with the aforementioned people about becoming animagus. How could you not figure that out? "So which oh so secret room are we going to have this oh so secret meeting in?"
"In the same oh so secret room we use for our oh so secret study group."
"Cool."
"Yup."
"Yup."
We walked in awkward silence for a while. In the time it took us to walk up to the Room of Requirements I thought about the awkward silence and realized that Remus and I didn't talk nearly enough. I know next to nothing about the guy. All I know is he likes to read and he's cute and he's the only thing keeping James and Sirius from serious trouble, if you'll pardon the unintentional pun.
"So, who's your favorite author?"
"Jeremy Douglas."
"Never heard of him."
"He's a little known wizard author. He writes mostly science fiction stuff."
"Fun. My favorite author is either Janet Evanovich or Ken Follet, they're both pretty good. Both muggle authors though."
"I think I've heard of Ken Follet. What's your favorite of his books?"
"Definitely either Code to Zero or Jackdaws, they're about espionage kind of stuff during World War II and the Space Race... Some pretty interesting stuff."
"Yeah, I'll have to borrow one of his books from you sometime."
"No problem, I have a ton of books in my dorm. I keep having my mum ship me a couple of books at a time when I think of one I want to read. I'd like to borrow one of Jeremy Douglas's books as well, science fiction books aren't my favorite, but they are pretty amusing. I prefer science fiction movies and television to books. The Sci-Fi channel is my favorite TV. Channel."
"Yeah, I don't watch much TV., but I catch reruns of Dr. Who on occasion."
"That show's pretty awesome."
"Yeah, it rocks."
"Kinda' sucks they ended the series."
"Yeah, I wish they hadn't but yeah..."
We continued talking about science fiction shows on TV. For a while, then talked about the cheesy science fiction movies we've seen. When we reached the door to the Room of Requirement it was too soon.
"Welcome to the Marauders School of Animagus Training for Girls. I'm the Headmaster, Remus Lupin, and-"
"Wait, I thought I was the Headmaster?"
"No, Sirius, you're the Head Character Trait and Animagus Form Coordinator., Remus is the Headmaster, and I'm the Head Tutor in the Technique of Transition, Transformation, and Transfiguration."
"Oh, right, I knew that... What's Peter?"
"Peter is officially M.I.A. On this one."
"Where'd he go?"
"No clue."
"Hey, shut up, I'm trying to teach the girls how to turn into animagi here!" Remus said, smacking James and Sirius in the back of the head at the same time. Turning to us he said "Honestly, they're usually much more professional about this, believe it or not. Now, becoming an animagi is a difficult process, but I found a way to make it easier, by breaking it down into steps. You see, the book I found in the library that explains it is old-"
"Old doesn't even describe it." Sirius commented snidely.
"More like decrepit. The thing was in old English and the pages were falling apart. Literally turning into dust, that thing was." James added.
"When I found out the boys were trying to learn to be animagi and had spent about a year trying to decipher the first page of this book, I decided what we needed to do first was write the instructions in easy to read modern English. We came up with this list here." Remus waved around a small bound red book with parchment pages. The cover said, in loopy gold writing, The Marauders Guide to Becoming and Animagi. "Now, you're going to pair off with each of us and work on the first few steps, okay? Each of us is a little better at different parts of the process, so you'll rotate once you've grasped the step you're working on. Lily, you're with Sirius, Becca with James, Rebby with me." with that the six of us paired off into the three groups, Rebby and Remus walked over to a couple of desks to work on their part, James and Becca slumped in a corner lazily and started working on theirs, and Sirius and I ended up in the windowsill bench seat.
"So, what exactly does the Head Character Trait and Animagus Form Coordinator do?" I asked him.
"I help you coordinate your animagus form with your character traits of course."
"Yes, and that makes so much sense..."
"Well, you see, one doesn't choose their animagus form exactly. You see, your animagus form depends on your personality, your character traits, who you are at the core. James is a stag, stag symbolize pride, among other things, which James just happens to have a lot of. Mine is a dog, something like a cross between a black lab and a grim. Dogs symbolize loyalty, grims death, both of which have a lot to o with my life. Make sense so far?"
"Yes, but you said that 'one doesn't choose their animagus form exactly', what do you mean by 'not exactly'?"
"Well, you don't choose them, they choose you, like a wand kind of. Whether you except them or not is your choice, but you only get one chance."
"How is that possible? How can an animagus form choose anything?"
"Well, they are part of you, a small part of you that you bring out when you become an animagi. Becoming an animagi is like enhancing that part of yourself, and in the best of cases, turning it into a source of strength and power, something you can depend on and utilize in the best way possible."
"I see." I let this sink in. What would be my strength? My personality trait that stood out strongest? What animal form would choose me? And most of all, would I except it? "So, what exactly are we going to do now then?"
"We're going to make a list of your character traits and allow you to familiarize yourself with them. You see, the book says that in order to except your animagus form, you have to be completely at ease with yourself, with your inner workings. You have to understand yourself better than anything else in the world. You have to understand what fuels you and what your priorities are and where you stand on the most basic of levels."
"So we're going to evaluate my character?"
"We're going to help you become more familiar with it, yes."
"And this is your area of expertise?"
"What can I say? I'm a good judge of character, it's a gift and a curse." Sirius shrugged his shoulders. "Now," he pulled his legs underneath himself, sitting Indian style, and took out a quill and a piece of parchment "first we are going to make a list of your character traits, all of them, and I think we'll start with-"
"-bookworm. Sometimes I just can't figure out which of you is worse, Lily, Becca, or yourself. Honestly, between homework, being a werewolf, studying, becoming animagus-
"I'm not an animagus."
"-and tutoring I haven't a clue where you have had the time to read anything. I mean, really, do you ever sleep? Where do you find the hours to-
"Rebby, can we focus here a little?"
"-do everything you do and then read for pleasure as well? I can barely handle my social life and homework and quidditch, much less-"
"REBBY!"
"Huh?"
"We need to get to work, I have to explain all of the steps to you and familiarize you with all of them. When you go to perform the spell the first time it's highly ritualistic and if everything isn't exact the results can be less than promising. It's part of the reason why students aren't allowed to just go haring off and learn to become animagi, part of the reason it's illegal to attempt it without notifying the ministry, because the repercussions sometimes effect not only the person attempting the process, but also everyone else."
"Oh." Well dang, give me the 'the things you do effect others' speech again please, I haven't heard it enough from my mother.
"Now, what we need to do is go through it step by step a few times until you've memorized the procedure. Then I'll start explaining the ritual to you, have you memorize that, then have you practice setting up for the ritual, practice saying the ancient words, so that when you actually perform it, you'll be-"
"Ready yet?"
"Nope, I want to finish my chocolate bar first. Want a piece?"
"No, I want you to finish the damn thing so we can get started already." James said irritatedly. I chewed faster, swallowed, and took another bite of my chocolate bar.
"Yeah, yeah. What are we going to do anyways?"
"We're going to practice your transfiguration until it's smooth enough for you to be able to manage this spell. Becoming an animagus is 60 transfiguration you know."
"And the other 40?"
"60 transfiguration, 20 charm, 15 spell, 4 ritual and 1 other."
" 'Other' being?"
" 'Other' being a combination of heart, soul, the knowledge of one's mind, body and spirit, and the courage to go through with it. Now, we'll start by practicing transfiguration of inanimate objects into other inanimate objects. This match into a needle first."
We spent the better part of the day working on our separate portions of the preparations. We finally broke for dinner when Sirius's stomach growled loud enough that it echoed through the noisy room like a gong that's been beaten by a weight lifting Olympic champion.
After dinner we all agreed to meet the next day to work on the animagus spell some more. None of us had completed their first little step yet, though I was further ahead of the others having memorized the spell. I speak 5 languages nearly fluently, two fluently, so pronunciation was easy for me and memorization has become a strong suit for me as well from writing so much. You see, when you write, you have to edit and edit and edit and edit until everything is just right, so when you have to keep reading things like that it's easier to just commit things to memory so that you can find the correct portion to go back and fix faster. Call it a gift if you like, I call it training. The point is, I finished memorizing the first part of the spell. The bad news was that there were five more parts to memorize before all was finished and we switched partners.
Lily and Sirius had apparently argued ceaselessly about her part of the spell while Remus had spent the entire time trying to force Rebby to pay attention while he explained the different steps to the ritual. I pitied them and wouldn't trade places for the world. That is, I wouldn't trade places with Sirius and Remus, I don't envy them their jobs.
The next evening was more productive, Lily and I had given Rebby a smack on the back of the head to make her focus and she learnt the majority of the ritual that night. I memorized the first, second, and third parts of the spell and managed to put the first and second together and half of the third. Go me. Lily managed to swallow her pride long enough to finish the list of her character traits and then whittle it down to the twenty most prominent.
For the next week we worked non-stop. Monday we got up early to finish homework, went to classes, did more homework, had quidditch practice, then worked on the animagi stuff. Tuesday was the same. Wednesday we traded out the animagi stuff for the study group. Thursday we traded out quidditch for the animagi stuff. Friday we had study hall after lunch and did homework during that and then had quidditch, then animagi stuff, then study group, then more animagi stuff. By the time the week was out we were all exhausted. And the good news was, we did this for another month before we got the reprieve of Christmas break. Not to mention we were finally at a level in all of our sections that the boys found acceptable for switching to another part. Peter had joined us every now and then during the lessons, but had always left early claiming to be bored.
With the winter vacation fast approaching everyone not in the student government received a pleasant surprise. A week before classes ended Lily and Remus announced, with the help of the fifth year prefects and seventh year prefects, that there was to be a Yule Ball again this year the night before the train left. It was for the 3rd through 7th years only. This of course caused very few of the students to be able to pay attention and stay on task in classes. That Friday there was to be a trip to Hogsmeade as well for the students and then on Saturday night was the ball. Most classes Friday morning were let out early or simply canceled because none of the students could contain their excitement. The ones that weren't out early or canceled were simply put to the task of silent study hall until the bell rang.
I had a free period first on Fridays and second I had Defense, but Professor Emling let us out early after realizing she would be less likely to control our class, containing the Marauders, 14 squealing 6th year girls, and 8 other 6th year boys who were just as much trouble this day as the Marauders were usually, than she would have been to control her first period class of excited 3rd years. And so, with a roll of her eyes and a promise of a 18 parchment essay on what we've learned so far due after the break, let us out of class early.
My friends and I made plans to get our money and empty our back packs and meet at the Great huge double doors in fifteen minutes, then raced off to do just that. Rebby, Lily and I aren't particularly fond of shopping, but sometimes it's just too much fun to resist, especially when we were going to a ball and, for once, all had dates. I was going with Sirius, Lily with James (BIG shock there), Remus with Rach, Rebby with, erm, well she wouldn't tell us, but she claimed he was hot and a surprise for us. Win, Will, Mickey, Peter, and Matt had all found dates too, though Win and my brother Caleb had broken up (thank Merlin!) and would be hanging out with their dates friends at the ball for the most part. Actually, they had been hanging out with other people more and more, and with us less and less recently...
Anyways, the seven of us met at the doors and walked to Hogsmeade for our shopping excursion.
Yippy! Shopping! Kill me now!