Hi this may seem familiar. Its because I forgot I already posted this, edited it, added a bunch more stuff and then realised after the fact. I want you guys to see this anyway. (I split the previous version in two because it got so long. That part will hopefully be better too.)

December 2006

Kiara ducked under the flying clothes that Haley had spelled. Kiara took last look over her area before it was a minefield of clothes and belongings. before gingerly stepping between scatters of belongings and setting her trunk by the door. She was glad Regulus convinced her to do a pre-pack before everything went crazy. He had been adamant that she leave early the night before and start packing. She thought he was being over-prepared but like with so many things he was correct. Kiara didn't know how he knew this year would be more chaotic than most but she was thankful he did. Without him, she would have been flying around the room like the cleaning harpies. Only she would be trying to find her sweaters not, a misbehaving camper. Three out of the four occupants of their room were present. Haley was madly stuffing pants into her trunk, Quinn was dashing in and out of hers, and Kiara was dodging any projectiles that came her way. Eleanor, their other roommate, had left earlier to go bother Jonathan.

"Can someone help me find my sweater?" Quinn asked, her head poking out of her trunk.

"I just finished. I can look over here. It's the blue one right?" Kiara walked over to Quinn's area of the room.

"Yep. I don't think it's in here," she pointed back into her trunk, "but I've accidentally packed things before and forgot about them. I might as well check one more time."

As Quinn disappeared back into her trunk, Kiara searched through the pile on the bed. She found a strange amount of clothes for a girl who wore her uniform everywhere during the week.

"Are those my shorts?" Haley leaned off her bed, holding on to the curtains to keep from falling.

Kiara held up the mentioned piece of cloth.

"These? Didn't you say you lost them two months ago?" she raised her voice for the next part to make sure Quinn heard her. "You both need to deal with your organization habits. How are either of you supposed to find any of your things if you both just assume whatever is on the floor is yours?"

"It's worked so far. Well except for this." Haley snatched back her belongings.

Kiara shook her head before heading back to the slightly more manageable pile on Quinn's bed.

"Where do you even keep these things during the year? I never see them?"

Quinn's voice echoed up to them suspiciously, "Oh here and there. The elves help me with some of them."

Haley huffed something not for polite company towards the elves and their lack of care for her problems. Kiara ignored both of the maniacs. After looking through the whole mess on the comforter there was only one other place for her to look. Kiara got down on the floor to look under the bed. She was trepidatious about sticking her hand in but there was no other way of searching the dark void. Kiara wouldn't be surprised if there was one under there. Kiara poked her hand under the bed and swept it around tentatively. Once she determined it to be safe enough she reached to the back of the bed, mentally thanking the house elves for their magnificent cleaning.

The tips of her fingers brushed something soft, and thinking it might have been the sweater they were looking for, Kiara extended her hand forward to get a firm grasp on it. However, the thing—that was now very obviously not Quinn's sweater—moved out of her reach. Before Kiara had time to react the fluffy thing twitched and brushed her hand. It was warm. Kiara yelped and pulled her hand to her chest, backing away from the bed.

"There's something down there!" Kiara pressed against the far wall. Her gaze frantically switched between the shiny eyes peering out from underneath the bed and Quinn's shocked face. "What did you put under there?"

Slowly, a small furry face peeked out from under the bed. It looked like a dog. At least in shape. The thing couldn't be a dog but looked like a terrier. The only thing that made this thing, not a dog was its fur. It was white and if it weren't for its other coloring could have been real. Somehow in its fur coat spirals and vague shapes of deep green. Its small beady eyes scanned the room, eyeing the girls before scampering back under the bed.

"What is that? Why is it here?" Haley screeched, dropping a scarf and jumping onto her bed.

Quinn rushed towards the bed to pull out the tiny beast, which had started emitting a high-pitched whine. "Oh baby, everything is fine. Mommy is here. She's sorry her loud friends are scaring you."

Quinn's words both calmed and terrified Kiara. The girl was not known for her common sense and what may have been a deadly beast was now curled up in her arm. Kiara tried to reason with herself. Quinn wasn't completely insane no matter what some of her actions implied. She wouldn't take a dangerous animal into their dorm. Her mumbled assurances must have had some effect because Haley had gotten off her bed. She moved towards the other girls a hairbrush still held out like a weapon. The absurd sight was the thing that shook Kiara out of her panic.

Once Kiara's racing heart settled a bit and her mind cleared. She tried to remember how the creature could have gotten into their room. Their last transfiguration class earlier that week flashed through her mind. Their assignment was to take a teapot and transfigure it into their favorite animal and then back. Her porcelain blue fox had taunted Eleanor's pig around their desk. Professor McGonagall forced them to turn the animals back at the end of the class.

"Quinn, please tell me that isn't your transfiguration assignment," Kiara begged.

"Of course not silly, this is Beatrice." Quinn petted the dog, still making soothing noises at it.

"Sorry, Quinn. I meant how did you um, acquire...Beatrice." Haley looked at Kiara like she was crazy. Kiara wasn't sure she was sane at this point. These insane experiences Quinn unknowingly forced them into never grew normal. Normal people didn't try to reason with a fifteen-year-old with a ceramic dog.

"Avery gave her to me when he couldn't turn her back. We were trying to counter-spell her but I just couldn't. I mean look at this face." She brought up Beatrice to Kiara. "I told Avery I would take care of her. Ma will love her, and I even found a spell to make her fluffy like a live dog!"

The other girls looked at each other, silently arguing over who would deal with this Quinn Disaster. The occurrences weren't weekly but they happened often enough the roommates had a system to mitigate the fallout.

'You do it.' Kiara's eyes glared at Haley.

'I dealt with the last one.' Haley crossed her arms.

'No, I did. You got the one before that and Eleanor got the one before.'

'Fine, but Eleanor has to do the next one.' Haley told her with a defeated sigh.

She gingerly moved closer to Quinn. The girl was still playing with the fluffy creature, oblivious to their whole conversation.

"Quinn, honey," Haley placed her hand above the dog to get Quinn's attention. "I'm not sure how happy your mum will be with the unannounced family member." Haley tried to be indirect, hoping Quinn would get the message.

"That's a great idea! I'll go owl her now." Quinn pushed Beatrice into Haley's arms. The girl started and held the animated china away from herself. Quinn rushed to her desk and grabbed the nearest piece of parchment.

"No, no. That wasn't what I meant." Haley placed the dog on the table to stop Quinn's letter. "There isn't a way to say this nicely but it needs to be said. I don't think you should take...Beatrice home. You need to bring her to Professor McGonagall. She'll know how to turn..."

Kiara waved her arms in warning to Haley, over Quinn's shoulder, trying to stop her.

"But Beatrice is lovely," Quinn interrupted, "I can't turn her back into a plate. She'll be so sad. She'll miss me!"

"Quinn that thi-"

"Haley, can I talk with you for a second?" Kiara didn't wait for a response before pulling the girl out of the room.

"We can't just force her."

"Well, we have to do something! I still have dirt on my sheets from the last 'beastie'. It's too much!" Haley exclaimed, leaning against the wall.

"It isn't we have to try."

"Yes it is. Not all of us want to spend our last few days before break trying to hide a-"

"I know that you're frustrated," Kiara interrupted, "I am too, but we stick by each other, even Quinn when she adopts strange things. We got you out of that detention. We saved El from her horrible date. You guys stopped me from falling down the stairs from exhaustion. That's what we do, so you and I are going to walk back into that room and somehow convince Quinn to tell a professor. And if that doesn't work we are going to smuggle that dog home or so help me I'll...I'll..."

"Stop helping me study?" Haley said with a smile, her anger had seeped away during her tirade not that Kiara noticed it.

"That." Kiara nodded and marched back into the room, ignoring the muffled laughter behind her.

Her purposeful stride stuttered to a halt when she saw Eleanor conjuring a carrier for Beatrice. Somehow the girl had snuck back into their dorm without either of them noticing. The green dog wiggled into the padded enclosure before letting out a small happy bark.

"Thanks, El. Beatrice loves it so much." Quinn watched her dog for a second before jolting and facing Eleanor. "Do you happen to know where my sweater is?"

"You do know you're magical, right?" Eleanor shook her head. She swished her wand and an accio pulled a bright blue sweater out of one the piles in the room.

– o – ️ – o –

After a cheerful dinner filled with laughter and well wishes, the girls returned to their room. Packing settled down until all that was left was an assortment of random items they were going to leave behind. The room was decently clean, at least in Kiara and Eleanor's areas. Haley had stuffed her wardrobe haphazardly in a way that made Kiara's eye twitch. Quinn placed everything back in the mysterious pocket the elves made for her. During her packing, Kiara found random books and things she couldn't believe she left over the years. A deck of playing cards in her dresser brought the vision of Haley and Eleanor attempting to play muggle games. Every so often Kiara and Quinn tried to introduce the others to muggle culture. It gave interesting results. After a few minutes of convincing the two girls agreed, and they sat huddled in a circle playing cards. They knew they probably shouldn't have stayed up so late. The train would leave right after an early breakfast to get them back to London before nightfall. But what was sleep in the face of amusement.

"Go fish."

Quinn pulled a card out of the floating deck and pumped her arm, "Yes, take that, girlies! Three queens. I'm out"

"This game is stupid," Haley muttered, blowing her hair out of her face.

"You're only saying that 'cause you're losing." Kiara smirked, "El, got any aces?"

"Ugh, I'm sure you're cheating!" The girl reluctantly handed over the card. Her lack of skill was showing and Kiara wasn't afraid of taking advantage of that. "Haley, do you have any threes?"

"Nope. Got any sevens, Kiara?"

"Yep, here I don't need them anyway. I'm gonna beat you right now," Kiara's competitive streak was the only thing keeping her awake. "Ellliieee, got any...threes?"

"No fair! You knew I had it." Eleanor pulled her cards close to her chest, scooting away.

"That's the point, silly. Hand it over." Kiara victoriously stuck out her hand, Haley and Quinn watched in silence, wondering if the girl would give in.

"No!" With a flurry of movement, Eleanor threw her cards underneath her pillow before sitting on it.

"Well, I guess the game's over," Haley happily announced, dropping her cards.

Kiara grumbled about sore losers as she spelled the remaining pile back to herself. She started picking up the individual cards that had somehow managed to explode over this rug. She turned to glare at Eleanor, who was guarding her cards.

"I need those Eleanor."

The Irish girl blew her a kiss and handed the cards over. They goofed off for a bit before Quinn mentioned the train which forced them to settle down. They moved up to their beds not drawing the curtains closed. A soft a nox turned off the lights, except for the fairy lights they trailed around the room earlier that year. Kiara set an alarm for the morning and wiggled under her blankets. The room grew calm and silent, the warmth of their blankets and warming charms winning against the light chill from living in the basement. The silence was broken by Quinn's new pet's snort causing the girls to burst into laughter.

"Shh, someone might hear," Kiara whispered.

A few giggles stuttered out until the only sound was soft breathing and rustling fabric.-


Happy holidays and New Year!

This chapter was kinda just fluff with a tiny bit of plot, but it is longer than normal so yay?

Sorry for the long break. I had my finals and then a family trip so I hadn't had the time to write. This chapter is partially edited. I'll let you guess where my editor stopped. You get a real taste of how bad my grammar is. I am so sorry for this.


New note:

So Hi...

Thanks for rereading this... Sorry about my mistake...*Hides behind table* I hope you like this version better. I am hoping to do this for all of my chapters after a while. Editing is hard but pretty fun(ish) and I think(hope) this improves my writing.

Thank you to everyone who has read so far it really helps when my inspiration is low.

Any questions are welcome. If you liked this chapter, please consider giving it a vote or a comment. Thanks for reading!

- Natalie