Dani had just about had it with this school. Having already transformed a porcupine into a pile of pins and back under McGonagall's watchful eye, she had been told to study for an upcoming written exam. As the professor had been watching at the time, she'd flipped her book open and bowed her head, but after three minutes resolutely given up.

The material wasn't difficult, and Dani genuinely enjoyed learning, a trait many found irreconcilable with her usual demeanor - but the Hogwarts classes she'd been placed in were somehow a step behind those she'd been in at Beauxbatons. Without a challenge, she quickly devolved from watching the board with some attention to tracing doodles in the margins of her scroll with vanishing ink.

She chanced a look up to see if McGonagall was watching. To her delight, she was preoccupied with the plight of a boy with rather goofy-looking front teeth who'd managed to make his own test subject both bright purple and extremely agitated.

Lounging back against the wooden seat, Dani stared vacantly toward the clock. It was disappointing to her that classes had ceased to provide any interest, especially given that - the distinct lack of friendliness towards Beauxbatons girls still lingering among her female peers - there wasn't exactly a social aspect to look forward to. In fact, this combined with the fact that no tall dark and handsome boys happened to be present in any of her courses had somewhat diminished her will to attend class. She still showed up, of course, but often just finished the work and pictured Cedric in the shower for the remainder of the hour.

"Ow!"

"Ronald, if you hadn't hit it, it wouldn't have done the same to you!"

Dani looked over at the sound of commotion to see a group of Hogwarts students clothed in Gryffindor robes. The red headed boy was rubbing his arm and wincing while his friend, a bushy haired brunette who had also already completed the work, reprimanded him. A third boy next to them glanced over at his bickering friends only for a moment, returning to waving his wand at his porcupine with detached interest.

An amused smirk lit Dani's face for a moment at the sight of them, a shade of memory winking to the surface.

She rather missed having her own friends in her classes. At their own school, they had at least been able to see each other during longer passing periods or lunch, but now she rarely saw either of them until the end of the day. And by then, they were exhausted from the day's efforts.

It wasn't only the adjustment to Hogwarts that wore them down. Madame Maxime had been paying less and less attention to anyone but dear Fleur, as though she were her life's gamble, and consequently cared less for their health and sanity. Twice this week she had grounded Aimee to the carriage after word reached her about one of her and the Weasleys' pranks. Dani had been sentenced to night lookout for three days after a night out roaming the halls too long for Maxime's liking.

The code of behavior had been strict at Beauxbatons, but nowhere near to this level of intensity. Madame was surviving the pressures of being a visiting headmistress under the observant eyes of Dumbledore by passing along zero tolerance for imperfection in her students. It was how Dani knew she was nervous.

Lynn got the worst of the three of them, as usual, through no fault of her own but for having a pretty face.

Dani had been walking by the staff table at lunch one day and overheard one of the Hogwarts staff members complimenting the headmistress on the 'beautiful young lady' who exceeded all expectations, behaving admirably in the classroom. Maxime had thanked her politely at the time, but had somehow construed this as a threat to the value she had built into Fleur's image.

Lynn scrubbed the carriage inside and out every day for a week, and served the Delacours breakfast in the carriage so that they wouldn't have to walk to the castle in the mornings.

Forever at odds with Dani's prerogative, Lynn never complained. She wasn't a particularly talkable person to begin with, and even less so a likely character to jump into the fray to defend herself. Despite her lack of comment, the extra work was taking a visible toll, weighing heavily under her eyes and in her shoulders. She slept less, ate less, and spoke less. She was almost constantly reading, and in the few moments when she wasn't, was irrefutably fidgety.

She was hardly alone. A girl named Laetitia De La Tour was very nearly slapped across the face for not adding 'ma'am' to the end of a sentence addressing the headmistress and her sister was kept back from dinner one night for a stray comment about wearing her skirt shorter.

In response, an invisible sense of support had netted itself around the residents of the oversized carriage as they tried to keep the peace among themselves to block out Madame's growing madness. Only days after the First Task, a freckled third year named Roslin had broken her ankle, tripped down a moving stairway by a Slytherin girl. Madame had reacted without a shred of sympathy, insisting that she continue to attend classes, and so Dani, Aimee, and Lynn were among a few other girls who brought her breakfast and held her books down the hallways to classes while her ankle healed. Dani had socked a guy in the face for laughing at Roslin's makeshift ankle cast, and although it earned her a week of shoveling winged horse dung, she'd earned the awe and respect of the smaller girl that was now both irritating and deeply fulfilling in a way that was unfamiliar. Roslyn could now be spotted wobbling down hallways with Lynn or her Hogwarts friend, Ginny, between classes, always chirping a greeting to Dani in passing.

Although some of the punishments had strung the students closer together, there was one looming threat from Madame that troubled more then the rest…the Yule Ball. Time was trickling away before the night that had the Hogwarts faculty in a flurry, the snow occasionally covering the ground nowadays an excellent reminder.

Dani had held out a small hope that perhaps, miraculously, Cedric Diggory would ask her - but this had vanished when news travelled of his asking the Ravenclaw Cho Chang, her crush and borderline obsession dissipating along with it.

Aimee and Lynn had shown no signs of despair over the approaching dance, though to her knowledge neither had dates. Lynn had gotten a few offers, all of which she had turned down, and Aimee was too preoccupied with her pranks to pay the least bit of attention to social events. Dani knew they would be forced to confront the problem soon, as Madame had imposed a new rule.

They were to all have dates to the ball. If they did not find dates, they would get two weeks of carriage cleaning duty and be forced to undergo 'society training' once back at the academy. Age wasn't an excuse, because the youngest selected girl to be brought along besides Gabrielle Delacour (who was of course excused) was Roslin. Roslin was a third year, and just at the qualifying age, but seemed have better luck then others. Her friend Ginny had insisted on finding her a date among friends after hearing of the ridiculous rule.

With little more then a week until the ball, Dani was beginning to panic. Not that she feared Madame's wrath - she'd already been through the headmistress' idea of social reform and found that a healthy dose of sarcasm was all she needed to survive it - but she hoped Lynn would give way to an offer sometime soon. If there was one thing the poor girl didn't need right now, it was another triviality to be punished for.

The bell rang, jolting her from her thoughts. Professor McGonagall yelled reminders about homework over the noise as the class charged out the door. As Dani hefted her bag over her shoulder and followed the crowd, the worries swam again to mind.