"oh, yeah, you're supposed to be studying for your N.E.W.T.S. next year, aren't you?"

"what do you mean 'next year'? i started studying months ago. why? when did you start?"

"uh—"

two figures made their way down the spiral staircase of ravenclaw tower. both were older girls, one in her seventh year and the other in her sixth. one sported long, messy, black hair as if she had just rolled out of bed. the other wore a shiny, blue prefect's badge on her robes and tied her dark brown hair out of her face. the two were always very different but they always spent most of their free time together. no one ever found out why.

"—the snow outside looks especially white today..." the first pointed out, hoping to derail the conversation topic.

"oh, yes, i guess it doe— wait a minute..." the second peered out the window into the courtyard and spied a commotion down by the fountain. at that moment, the first thought she saw the second's prefect badge glint in the sunlight.

the second girl rushed down to the courtyard and the first took her time down the rest of the stairs. both were surprised to see a bunch of first-years and second-years crowded around one tall, light brown-haired girl from gryffindor house. there were toads sitting calmly behind a glowing, gold line on the stone courtyard floor. the banners on the toads were marked with numbers and names: 1 was jill, 2 was smartacus, and 3 was leggy.

the girl with light brown hair turned around and smiled at the other two.

"gambling is illegal," the second one, the prefect, breathed, and yet, her eyes were trained on toad racer number two. "you can't be doing this, especially not on school grounds."

"you seem intrigued," the tallest girl approached her. "why don't you watch for yourself?"

and that she did. they all did. they watched, amused, for thirty whole minutes. the first, dark-haired girl sat at the fountain to watch the chaos unfold from a distance. the second found herself right next to the toads, rooting for the one she had formed an attachment to in the past half hour. the third smiled over them while she counted her money.

"ehem," all of the students in the courtyard froze. professor minerva mcgonagall loomed over all of them. one toad croaked loudly. "who is responsible for this?"

the first and second-years scattered, leaving the three girls behind.

"ah...! professor! i was just about to reprimand this...?" the prefect stood up quickly and smoothed out her skirt.

"fifth year."

"fifth year gryffindor! please, professor, i'll take it from here."

mcgonagall was silent for a short time. a few seconds more elapsed before she raised an eyebrow and turned to leave. the prefect girl's heart beat loudly against her chest.

"... so...! as punishment for conducting illegal toad races, you must meet with the groundskeeper to take care of the school's toads! i'll let you off with a warning, gryffindor." the prefect looked the tall girl straight in the eye, winked, and crossed her arms to appear stern.

"ah, yes, i'm sorry to have done such a thing to these toads... i'll go straight to hagrid and... repent." the tall girl shook the prefect's hand, slipping her a few galleons with the handshake. both separated and departed different ways, the second back to the dark-haired girl and the third on her way to hagrid's cottage.

"...toad racing, huh?"

"i know, who would've thought?" the prefect leaned in. "next race is near the outskirts of hogsmeade. pass on the details for our tall friend."

the amount of responsibility placed on the head boy's shoulders is quite immense, considering he leads the student body alongside the head girl. to be head boy is to be the "ultimate teacher's pet," as one student called it. the head boy this year was a well-known figure around hogwarts already as the dashing seeker of the ravenclaw quidditch team. most students knew his name; all of the professors thought him a proficient wizard. in short, he was basically perfect. this might raise the question: what kind of corruption could disrupt the head boy's perfection?

take the exemplar, a sixth year slytherin. there's a certain, separate type of knowledge a sixth year slytherin has built upon entering hogwarts, and that type of knowledge is known as cunning.

it takes a certain amount of cunning to break a head boy's perfect streak, and this amount, when tossed into the head boy's life, makes for an amusing adventure.

the head boy turned his head while walking down the spiral staircase of ravenclaw tower and spotted the sixth year slytherin playing a game with his friend in the courtyard, which, in hindsight, is quite the hangout spot for troublemakers. the game was rather one-sided, considering it involved the slytherin transfiguring his friend into different animals.

"hey, wait two seconds, i need to breathe between transfigurations."

"don't all animals have lungs? you're fine."

a brief flash and his tall friend was replaced with a frilled lizard, squirming around on the courtyard floor. the head boy flew downstairs in a rush only to find the slytherin and his frilled lizard friend had vanished. the head boy scouted the area and found nothing, frustrated at himself for letting the other boy get away.

on another cold, snowy day in hogsmeade, the head boy was out with his friends. they ran a few errands— buying a few rolls of paper at scrivenshaft's quill shop. they walked past the shrieking shack and speculated the origin of its name. they browsed for robes inside gladrags wizardwear and spent a few sickles here and there on sweets at honeydukes. after a long break from responsibility and studies, the head boy and his friends decided to end their hogsmeade trip at the three broomsticks, which was always particularly crowded on weekends.

through the frosted windows, the head boy looked for people he was looking to avoid. instead, he caught the sixth year slytherin expanding his butterbeer and laughing with his friends, including the one he turned into a lizard a few days before.

the head boy tried pushing through the crowd to get to the slytherin to no avail. he watched with annoyance as the slytherin finished his butterbeer and left through the back exit. when madam rosmerta greeted the head boy and his friend, the head boy knew he couldn't chase after the slytherin after waiting so long for a seat inside.

their final meeting was outside filch's office. the head boy caught the slytherin red-handed, tossing a dungbomb into the short-tempered caretaker's private quarters. the two made intense eye contact.

suddenly the head boy had a flashback to his first year at hogwarts.

the head boy came back to reality.

the two were still standing a few feet away from the outside of filch's office, frozen in place. the head boy retreated and took a step back. he was frustrated at himself for letting the slytherin go but grudges hold strong in a seventh year's heart.

"you should get back to your room before he comes back and catches you."

the two nodded at each other and parted ways.

a character sulked down the hall alone. she was small in stature and had the face of a rabbit. she was a hufflepuff in her sixth year and was known amongst friends and acquaintances for being cheerful and witty, but the girl with the rabbit face was feeling quite down lately. her cousin had been working late in the hospital wing and all her friends had suddenly decided to start studying for next year's exams, so she didn't have anyone to hang out with (or rather, no one to be irresponsible with). naturally, one would feel lonely.

"hm..." her feet dragged as she made her way down to the quidditch field to watch the hufflepuff team practice, as she promised the captain a few days back. usually, she'd be thrilled to watch, as it's become a pastime she's gotten to enjoy, but watching alone isn't even half the enjoyment one could share with good friends.

once she'd sat in her favorite spot in the stands, she realized that the team practicing wasn't even her own house. judging from the maroon robes they were all wearing, the team must have been gryffindor's.

oh, she thought. might as well stay and wait, i have nothing else to do.

and that she did. despite them only training the beaters that day, it was quite entertaining to watch the newbies hit the quaffle everywhere except the ring-shaped goals. a few hits flew past her and she managed to return the quaffle, followed by a comment about trying not to kill her.

her mood picked up because of her preoccupation with trying not to die and watching the gryffindor quidditch team have fun messing with the new kids. the tallest chaser of the team seemed quite distracted.

"hey," the captain moved toward him on her broom while the other members of the team were concerned with finding the second quaffle. "you alright? you seem..." she glanced at the hufflepuff girl. "distracted."

"no, i'm fine," the chaser tore his eyes away from the girl. "we ready for the next round?"

"yeah, alright..." the captain chuckled.

the beaters readied their positions, their bats held high. one of the chasers tossed them each a quaffle and they made contact; one hit it toward the goal posts and made it in (to which, half the team celebrated), and the other hit it toward the stands, right toward the hufflepuff girl.

she braced for impact as the team shouted out of fear for her being hit, but the quaffle never came. instead, she opened her eyes to see the tall chaser surrounded by the team a few rows below her. everything hit her at once and she made her way down to where everyone was, a myriad of incomprehensible sentences spilling out of .

"are you sorry? i mean, ah!! hurt?? is ow that broken? i mean, argh!!" she clearly couldn't articulate everything she wanted to say and her panicked word vomit made her seem strange, but the chaser just laughed.

"your nose is bleeding and all you can do is laugh?!" the captain zoomed toward him on her broom and slung his arm around her shoulders. she looked over at the distraught hufflepuff girl. "you, come with me."

"c-captain, are you sure i shouldn't go?! i'm the one that hit him in the face!" the beater stood up and made the motion to support the chaser, but the captain shook her head.

"i'm trying to make something happen, here, keep practicing with the others."

the captain and the hufflepuff girl took the chaser to the hospital wing where madam pomfrey treated his injury and told the two to let him rest for a while. the captain looked at the hufflepuff girl with a smile of knowing and planted the idea in her mind that she should visit him in a few hours.

at night, the hufflepuff girl tossed and turned in bed, still overcome with worry and guilt that she caused his injury. she sat up, looked over at her roommates, and headed out to go see him.

when she arrived, madam pomfrey refused her. after a while of begging, she glanced at her hospital aide, sighed, and let her in. the rabbit-faced girl rushed to the gryffindor chaser's side and sat in the chair next to his bed. the two talked about what happened that afternoon and she apologized profusely for sitting so close to them while they practiced. he brushed it off and told her that he was fine, that it happens all the time.

the two talked for a while before madam pomfrey kicked her out and the hufflepuff girl returned to her dormitory with the biggest smile on her face. the memory of his parting words were imprinted in her mind: "would it be weird if i asked you out even though we just met?"

when he first visited the hospital wing, he was a first year. like most first years, he was intimidated by the size of the castle and decided to stay cooped up in the common room whenever he had no classes. his plan was foiled when his cousin decided to take him out to watch his first hufflepuff quidditch match and ended up having to take him back because the temperature change from the warm castle to the cold autumn rain got him sick. he spent a couple of life-changing days in the hospital wing with madam pomfrey and told himself he should probably be doing something if he was going to spend all his time in the castle.

after two years of frequent hospital wing visits, madam pomfrey finally let him be her aide in his third year. three years later, he became her most trusted hospital aide. the most accident-prone students became familiar with him and greeted him in the corridor when they passed by; quidditch players gave him gifts for treating their injuries.

whenever there's a long pause in activity, he would sit by himself at a table nearest the window to study or daydream.

he recalled experiencing torment from peeves, the troublesome hogwarts ghost. peeves used to make up songs about him but he would just laugh as he followed him around empty halls, singing about being madam pomfrey's pet.

the songs stopped as peeves got bored of his lack of protest, but as one ghost disappeared from the boy's life, another made himself known. the ghost he met was bored in appearance and rarely talked to anyone; nonetheless, he always roamed around the hospital wing picking his nose and sitting in the corner looking unamused.

after a week of seeing this new ghost, the sixth year hufflepuff boy asked him where he came from. the ghost replied vaguely, i don't know. the boy simply nodded and resumed his hospital wing duties.

while working late, the boy spied his cousin in the frame of the hospital wing door. she was begging madam pomfrey to visit someone. the nurse took one look at the boy, sighed, and let her in. the boy watched his cousin run over to the tall boy with the bandaged nose. he looked over at the ghost sitting in the corner again.

what do you want? the ghost's eyes met the boy's. the ghost turned around and the boy left for the night.

"so, uh... how long are you staying?"

the next afternoon ghost looked at the boy with a look of incredulousness. he wondered why this weird little hospital aide was so interested in him.

"i dunno."

the ghost continued to pick at his nails.

"well..." the boy fussed with the blankets of the cot he was fixing. "if you don't have anywhere to stay, there's always room here."

huh? the always-bored ghost had a sudden change in expression. offering a ghost, of all people, a place to stay in the hospital wing was indeed strange. the ghost had no idea what that boy would gain by offering him shelter that ghosts really don't need, but the gesture was definitely recognized.

the two nodded politely at each other; the boy continued his work and the ghost faded into the wall.