Halloween in the castle is always cause for a lot of mixed emotions. At least for Myr it is.

While the castle looks amazing, and some of the teachers like to theme their lessons which can be really fun, it's also the time of year that Peeves the poltergeist is most active, and Myr doesn't think anyone particularly likes being on the wrong end of one of Peeves' many pranks. So he assumes he's not the only one with conflicting feelings about the holiday.

Of course, they're made worse by the fact he manages to have a bucket of armadillo bile, likely swiped from the potions store room, upended over his head by the poltergeist before breakfast has even ended.

Peeves cackles above them as Fiona slides her wands out of her sleeve and performs a quick cleaning spell on Myr's robes.

"Thanks." He mumbles and she smiles lightly.

"Peeves usually doesn't strike the same target twice in a day." She offers. "He'll probably be off tormenting the first years for a bit now."

"Still. First thing."

Fiona can only shrug sympathetically.

"Oh come on Myr, it's Halloween!" Evera interrupts, leaning over the table and nearly putting her hand in the puddle of bile still on the wooden surface. "You can't be sad today! Those are the rules!"

"Indeed." Drake agrees, nodding sagely. "Halloween is to be occupied by spooky goodness and pumpkin pie. No room for sadness."

Myr rolls his eyes slightly. Drake and Evera have always been rather ridiculous about their love of the holiday in his opinion.

"Myr, we have to get going." Charlie rescues him from having to listen to the two start singing Halloween songs - which they always do at some point during the day, usually more than once. "Muggle Studies is in fifteen minutes and you know what the fourth floor staircase is like."

Myr nods and the two excuse themselves, waving to the others who they'll see again in Care of Magical creatures after Muggle Studies.

"I wonder if Quirrell will do anything for Halloween? We haven't had Muggle Studies on the thirty-first before." Charlie muses aloud.

Myr shrugs. "Honestly Muggle traditions aren't all that different from wizards ones as far as I can tell. Do you guys trick-or-treat?"

Charlie glances over at him with a frown. "Is that one of those weird muggle contraptions? I don't think it sounds like one I want my dad getting his hands on."

Myr blinks, nearly tripping over his own feet in his surprise. "Wait, you don't? Okay, maybe there is something we could talk about in class today."

Sure enough, once everyone has settled into their seats Professor Quirrell takes a plastic pumpkin used for candy collection out from behind his desk and holds it up.

"Now then, I know we have some Muggleborns in the class, but I'd like them to stay quiet for a moment. Who hear thinks they can guess what this is?"

Franziska Reinhardt's hand shoots up immediately, to the surprise of absolutely no one. She knows as much about Muggle customs as the Muggleborns do, despite the fact she was raised by two wizards. Myr still can't quite figure that one out. 

Professor Quirrell looks around to see if anyone else will volunteer. After a moment Kiera Cassidy from Hufflepuff raises her hand uncertainly.

"Is it a decoration of some kind?" She asks when the professor eagerly waves for her to answer. "I mean, pumpkins are a popular Halloween decoration for us, so maybe it's the same for Muggles?"

Professor Quirrell beams. "Very close! Muggles do in fact use pumpkins as decorations on Halloween, but this particular pumpkin is unique!" He turns it so the hollowed out center can be seen. "This pumpkin is used for something called trick-or-treating!"

Myr is actually rather impressed by Quirrell's lecture on Muggle Halloween traditions, which is surprisingly accurate. Normally Muggle Studies gets the details of the Muggle world distinctly, and often amusingly, wrong, despite the professor's clear enthusiasm for the subject.

"How did he do?" Charlie asks as he and Myr head for the forest after class. Two of the Slytherins from the class trail behind them, also heading for Care of Magical Creatures. Myr knows them both - they're the only two Slytherins in their year on the Quidditch team - but neither he nor Charlie acknowledge them, and they return the favor.

Charlie always enjoys fact-checking Quirrell's lectures with Myr after the classes, and Myr humors him. Usually because it is rather funny what Quirrell gets wrong.

"Actually he was pretty on point." He responds.

"He didn't get the point of the trick part of trick-or-treating though." One of the Slytherins speaks up, and both Myr and Charlie jump.

Alasdair Macmillan raises an eyebrow at them, while Lenox McLeod looks as surprised as Myr feels at the comment.

"You, uh, know about trick-or-treating?" Myr asks uncertainly. He had thought Alasdair was a pureblood, and therefore wouldn't know anything about Muggles or their traditions.

Alasdair just shrugs and goes back to walking in silence. It's a distinctly weird moment and it lays heavily in the air until they arrive in class and Charlie and Myr are able to go join the other Gryffindors, while Lenox and Alasdair join the Slytherin girl still in their class.

"How was class?" Fiona asks as they approach. She enjoys hearing about the misinterpretations of the wizarding world as much as Charlie does, so Myr usually ends up telling her about all their lessons. He's pretty sure she could pass the OWL at this point.

"Apparently accurate except the stuff about tricks. According to Macmillan anyway." Charlie supplies.

That gets them confused looks from all their classmates. 

"You talked to the Slytherins?" Remi, surprisingly, finds his voice first, and Charlie can only shrug.

"I mean, not really, he said one sentence then went mute again, but it was super weird."

They don't get to discuss the odd phenomenon any further as Professor Kettleburn appears with a cage that's occasionally spewing fire, and the entire incident is just about forgotten by the end of the lesson. Fire crabs, as Myr learns, require one's full attention if you want to keep your clothes from burning.

"You've got more than one set of robes, right?" Fiona asks, concerned, as the group of Gryffindors head back towards the castle. "The next Hogsmeade trip isn't until next weekend."

Myr nods, tugging at his singed robes and being thankful that it's still surprisingly warm out despite the date. "I'll be fine. Plus this weekend is the first Quidditch match so I'll be wearing my uniform on Saturday."

They're greeted by a flock of bats when they open the castle doors, and Evera shrieks happily even as she ducks with the rest of them.

"This freaking holiday." Remi grumbles as he splits off. Myr isn't sure where the brunet vanishes to when he's not in class with them, but as nothing has exploded or otherwise caught fire recently he's not all that concerned.

"No Halloween spirit that one." A voice chimes in, and Evera and Drake both perk up.

"Hullo Nick! Enjoying your death day?" Drake asks with a grin.

Nearly-Headless Nick, the Gryffindor House ghost, tips his head in answer. "Well there have been worse ones. This year I hope to attain membership to the Headless Hunt!" He floats off through one of the walls, and Drake shakes his head sadly.

"He tries every year." He tells the group. "They never let him in though. He's not quite headless afterall, it would stop him from engaging in a lot of their activities."

"It's really too bad, he does so want to join." Evera adds with a sigh. "But oh well, I guess when you're dead there's not much else to do! Who wants to try and sneak into the kitches to steal some pie before lunch?"

Myr declines the offer, citing the need to change, as does Brandon though it's clear he only does so because he has Ancient Runes to get to. Fiona and Nabila decide to accompany Myr up to the Gryffindor Tower, but the rest of their friends head down to the dungeons.

"You know Myr, there are some fire-proof potions that work against Fire Crab emissions." Nabila says halfway to the Tower. "I have some extra if you'd like to use it on Friday. So you don't lose anymore robes."

Myr is surprised. "That sounds great Nabila, thanks."

"How do you even know about that?" Fiona asks, sounding impressed.

Nabila shrugs, but there's a faint smile tugging at her lips. "I like creatures. And I'm better in the class than Charlie so naturally I'm prepared."

Fiona and Myr share an amused glance. Myr thinks that if he decides to not continue Care of Magical Creatures, the thing he'll miss most is the ongoing rivalry between Nabila and Charlie over who's better in the class.

Not that Myr knows which classes he'll be dropping after OWLs. He still has no idea what job to even be considering right now, nonetheless working out which classes he'll need to take for it.

He does what he usually does when worry about the future starts creeping up and shoves it down to be worried about when his career consultation is scheduled. He leaves Fiona and Nabila in the common room so he can change, and he's pleased to find that his bed is occupied by a large, fuzzy black lump.

"Hey Owen, haven't seen you for a few days." He greets his cat with a quick scratch behind his ears before digging into his trunk to find a clean set of robes. "You should come to the Halloween Feast tonight, I bet some of the students would love to see a giant black cat roaming around."

Owen's ears are perked up, but he otherwise hasn't moved from his spot on the bed. Myr grins and pets him a few more times before heading back down the stairs - only to pause when he hears the familiar sound of bickering coming from the second years' dorm room.

"I though they got past this stage." He sighs to himself. He debates internally for a moment whether or not to interfere, but he figures that he'll most likely be dragged into it anyway so he knocks at the door.

Immediately the voices go quiet, and a moment later Oliver Wood pokes his head out of the door. "Oh, hi Myr." He grins and steps back, allowing Myr into the room.

"I could hear you two from the hall." Myr wastes no time getting to the point. "I thought you had sorted our your differences?"

Percy flushes. "Oh, apologies Myrddin. I didn't realize we were so loud."

Percy has begun using Myr's full name since he heard Uncle Cyril using it one morning early in September, and while it's a bit weird Myr figures it's harmless. "No need to apologize. What's wrong?"

Now it's Oliver's turn to look embarrassed. "Perce is ditching me in potions." He grumbles. "And he knows I need his help in that class."

Percy's irritation returns full force. "And I told you that there are plenty of people who will be just as helpful! Unlike you, Lucas doesn't almost blow up my cauldron at least once a week, so of course I'd rather work with him!"

"Only almost! Come on Perce, the first game is this weekend and I can't fail potions now! They won't let me on the field!"

My regrets knocking. "Oliver, one week of poor performance in one class won't get you pulled off the field, and we don't have a reserve Keeper anyway so unless McGonagall herself told Charlie to keep you grounded nothing is going to stop you from flying. Percy is allowed to partner with whoever he wants in class."

Oliver looks relieved, and Percy rather smug.

"There, what did I tell you?"

Myr leaves them to it to rejoin the girls in the common room.

The rest of Halloween actually goes quite well - Peeves keeps his mischief far away from Myr, Transfiguration and History of Magic both have fun Halloween themes, and even Potions is tolerable. And the Feast is, as always, fantastic. The Great Hall is decorated with all manner of spooky ghouls and ghosts and Evera and Drake takes turns telling increasingly ludicrous scary stories. They continue the stories that night in the common room until they have to head to Astronomy.

Once Halloween is over though, the stress piles right back on, especially with the match against Slytherin rapidly approaching. Charlie has taken to booking the Quidditch pitch before classes start in order to get play time in, as Melissa Tatum - the Slytherin captain - managed to snag almost all of the afternoon spots.

This means Myr has been waking up at six in the morning for nearly two weeks straight, and he thinks it might be making him play worse than usual.

Charlie relents when the team (minus Oliver who's oddly enthusiastic about the early mornings) confronts him in the locker room after their Thursday practice, and he cancels the one he'd planned for the next day.

Myr is glad for it - he actually feels rested on Saturday and ready for the first game of the season. The team sits together at breakfast and quietly go over their strategy while the students sitting around them make a ruckus to prevent eavesdropping. Myr is actually feeling rather optimistic about the day - the team has been doing well in practice, and Oliver's save ratio is already higher than Kent's had been. Evera is rather thrilled with this fact and has announced her intention to taunt her brother with it during Winter Break.

They go over the plan one more time in the locker room before heading out onto the field, brooms over their shoulders and spirits high. Charlie steps forward to shake Melissa Tatum's hand, and Myr scans the Slytherin players.

Alasdair is standing next to one of the beaters, speaking to him in a low voice. He stops when he sees Myr watching them, offering a small nod which Myr returns. Then Coach Crowell is releasing the snitch, and all fourteen players are taking off.

Myr glances at Oliver as the second year swerves to the hoops, worried that the excitement of his first game might be overwhelming, but upon seeing the twelve-year-old fully focused he turns to find where the bludgers have gotten to.

Only to find out moments later that one of them had been behind him.

"Ollie!" The fact he can still make out Percy's voice from the screaming crowd feels like it should mean something to Myr, but he's too concerned with spinning around and spotting where Oliver is free-falling to the ground, the bludger that had knocked him out zipping off to cause more chaos. Myr also spots the beater that Alasdair had been talking to floating nearby, looking disgustingly pleased with himself.

Myr may spend the rest of the game aiming every bludger he can at Alasdair and the beater who went after Oliver. Infuriatingly, they always manages to dodge.

Rajani isn't completely sure how she feels about their crushing victory against Gryffindor, considering it put a second year in the hospital wing for three days. But for the most part she's pretty happy about it, especially given that Lenox had caught the snitch, adding insult to injury for the lions.

She also had her first taste of firewhiskey at the after party, and that was rather fun as well. So maybe her feelings about the victory aren't quite so mixed.

"What are you thinking about?" Jemma Finnigan asks curiously.

Rajani glances over at her patrol partner. Of all the other prefects in her year, Jemma is probably the one she finds least irritating to patrol with, after Eugene of course though it's rare she's paired with any of the Slytherins. Willow and Bill seem to plan patrol schedules so that all four Houses have at least one prefect on patrol at all times. Which in Rajani's opinion since she actually enjoys talking with the other Slytherin prefects, but rarely gets the opportunity to do so.

"Quidditch." She responds to the question honestly, and Jemma nods.

"I suppose you're still happy about your win." She replies, though her tone is clipped. Rajani figures she's a bit more upset about the second-year situation, but honestly the kid is fine. She overheard Charlie mention that he was already asking to rejoin practices which to her is a clear indication that there was no long-term damage, so really no harm done.

"Well yeah, the Gryffindor-Slytherin House rivalry is well documented." She replies snidely. "Of course I'm happy. If the situation was reversed the Gryffindors would be quite smug I'm sure."

Jemma frowns and falls silent, and that's when Rajani finally remembers that she's dating one of the Gryffindor Chasers.

She sighs. "Okay sorry, that was uncalled for. Mostly I'm happy my friend Lenox caught the snitch, not about the bull that Alasdair and Callum - or sorry, you probably know them as Macmillan and Lindsay - pulled with the kid. Lenox says Melissa - Tatum - tore them a new one in the locker room." She doesn't mention that the captain had been more upset about how obvious they'd been than the incident itself.

Jemma looks a bit less upset at the news. "Well that's good then. McLeod did fly quite well, Charlie said so himself at dinner Saturday."

Rajani raises an eyebrow at Jemma as the girls start up the stairs to the seventh floor for the last section of their patrol. "You sat with the Gryffindors at dinner?"

Jemma shrugs. "Franziska did too. You know how it is - when your boyfriend is sad you need to be nearby for emotional support that he insists he doesn't need."

Rajani can't help but smile at that. "Okay yeah, I might be familiar with that." Then she catches herself and rearranges her features into something more neutral. She remembers the last time she'd let herself get along with a Hufflepuff, and it hadn't been pretty. No need to repeat past mistakes.

The last thirty minutes of the patrol is done in silence, though Jemma tries a few times to start up another conversation before eventually accepting that Rajani isn't interested.

Ed is waiting for her in the the common room when Rajani gets back.

"How was patrol?"

She shrugs. "Decent. Jemma is better that Tabs or Charlie."

"I'd imagine especially Charlie after the match this weekend." Ed adds wryly. "I overheard Bill tell Willow that they can't pair us with the Gryffindors for patrols for at least the rest of the month."

Rajani rolls her eyes as she sits next to her boyfriend, fitting comfortably under his arm. "Lions are such drama queens." She declares, and Ed laughs.

"Truer words." He replies with a grin.

They chat and cuddle on the couch for nearly an hour until they're interrupted by Gabi coming back in from her patrol.

"You two ought to sleep." The ravenette suggests, scrubbing a dark hand through the knots in her ever-tangled hair. "It's nearly one in the morning and I know that both of you have classes right after breakfast tomorrow."

"It's no different than Astronomy." Rajani shoots back lightly, but she's already standing and stretching even as she speaks. "But yeah, I could go for a bed. See you tomorrow." She gives Ed a quick kiss and then follows Gabi down the tunnel to the girls' dorms, wishing her fellow prefect goodnight before slipping into her room as quietly as she can manage.

Her class first thing in the morning is Defense Against the Dark Arts with the Hufflepuffs, and she's very careful to sit herself right in the middle of her friends so as to avoid accidentally ending up next to anyone she doesn't want to acknowledge.

"How was patrol with Jemma last night? I'm paired with her for the first time tomorrow and I don't fancy walking into a Tabs situation unprepared." Eugene pokes her in the side. "Thanks for that by the way, really appreciated the heads up."

Rajani smirks at him. "Some things in life must be experienced first hand." She snarks back, quoting one of Professor Greengrass's favorite sayings. "But Jemma is fine. Big on small talk but good at hushing up when it's not wanted. Surprisingly for a Hufflepuff." She adds, and Clary snorts.

The professor starts class then, and Rajani settles in. She's quite glad to have such a competent teacher for their OWL year - while she doesn't think she plans on continuing the class, it will be nice to not completely humiliate herself on the exam.

The lecture of the day is two parts, which are Rajani's favorite kinds. The first half of class Professor Greengrass goes over the theory and motions of the Impediment Jinx, and in the second half he pairs people up to practice.

Professor Greengrass always lets them choose their own partners as well, which is nice. Rajani doesn't mind Snape as much as she knows some of the other Houses do, but it does bother her when he occasionally assigns pairs for the double blocks.

The one problem is that she almost always finds herself paired up with Finn, who, despite now being her almost-permanent potions partner, she still doesn't really know all that well.

"Ladies first." He offers with a bow, and she shoots off the jinx before he can even get back up, grinning at him innocently. One thing she has figured out is that he appreciates sass and being surprised.

After watching him struggle to move for a few moments Rajani reverses the charm, and Finn finally manages to stand back up.

"Pretty good." He admits. "My turn then?"

"Don't announce it, you'll be-" Rajani cuts herself off with a quick Protego as Finn tries catching her off guard like she had done to him moments before. She grins at him. "-expected." She finishes cheekily.

Their practice session ends up turning into a mini duel, in which only three spells are actually used. Professor Greengrass is rather amused by their display and comments not only on their form for Impedimenta, but also on their dueling skills in general, offering a few pointers on timing and reading their opponents.

After class Queenie and Eugene join her in the corridor. "That was really cool Raj!" Eugene grins. "You wiped the floor with Finn."

"No offense to him but he was raised by Muggles. He's not going to have as natural ability as Raj who's a pureblood and was raised as such." Clary points out from behind them. Lenox gives her a look, though he doesn't drop her hand, and she shrugs. "I read it somewhere. But it makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, if you grow up around magic you'll have a better intuitive idea of how it works, right?"

Queenie looks thoughtful. "That does make sense." She decides after a moment. "Still Clary, you ought to be careful. If some arse of a lion heard you saying things like that-"

"Then he would get his tongue tied up for the rest of the day." Clary replies proudly. "I've finally perfected the tongue-tying jinx."

Rajani glances back at her friend. "Congrats, you've been working on that one for a while now, right?"

Clary nods happily. She's been teaching herself several jinxes and hexes ever since the third year prank war in order to "defend Slytherin's honor" as she always puts it.

"It's a lot of weird wrist movement, but I figure that it'll help me in the long term too." She adds.

Lenox squeezes her hand. "Clary has decided she wants to try for the Auror track when we graduate." He sounds proud, and Rajani momentarily wonders what it might have been like to date Lenox, but she snaps herself back to reality pretty quickly. Ed is a fantastic boyfriend, even if their relationship does have a self-imposed time limit.

"Kingsley says that the training for that is pretty intense." Queenie warns. "But that said I think that's awesome! There are almost no Slytherins on the Auror squads because of the stupid biases from the first war, so we need good snakes representing us!"

Clary's cheeks go slightly red, but she's beaming. "It's just a thought, I'll have to see what Professor Snape says the requirements are for that job. Goodness knows my grades the past few years haven't been outstanding."

"You've improved a ton though, plus if you drop the needless classes like you did Care of Magical Creatures you'll probably do really well." Queenie encourages. "Seriously, I'm holding you to this now, we need Slytherins in the Aurors."

Clary laughs. "Well then this future Auror needs to go study. Anyone care to join me?"

Since none of them has a class for at least the next hour, everyone does end up at one of the tables in the library. Rajani works on her Ancient Runes translations, which is due in an hour and she definitely needs to manage her time better.

She's surprised when Cadfael sits next to her about twenty minutes later. She looks around for Alasdair, who usually accompanies Cadfael everywhere, but the asian boy is nowhere in sight.

Cadfael shifts uncertainly. "I finished the Runes homework, if you wanted to compare." He mumbles.

Rajani shrugs and moves so that her own attempts are visible. Since their talk the year before she's been trying to be less openly hostile towards Cadfael, and really any help in Ancient Runes is help she'll take.

To her genuine surprise Cadfael is actually good at Ancient Runes, and she continues talking to him about morphology variations even when Queenie joins them in walking to class fifteen minutes later.

It isn't until after class, when Cadfael leaves to find Alasdair, that Queenie comments on the sudden camaraderie.

"It's good to see you two trying to mend bridges." She elbows Rajani lightly. "Though won't Ed get jealous? I thought he was your Ancient Runes helper."

Rajani rolls her eyes. "He gave me some study tips but he dropped the class before fifth year." She replies. "And honestly, if he gets jealous of me studying with boys I wouldn't want to date him anymore. Who has time for that?"

Queenie laughs, but it sounds a bit weak. "Right. I mean, I don't have that issue with Eugene, though we're engaged so I figured it would be different than dating."

Rajani holds back a sigh. Queenie has always thought her relationship with Ed is weird, but Rajani also thinks that Queenie was hoping for a ton of relationship drama to live through vicariously and she's not getting it from either Rajani or Clary, whose relationship with Lenox is surprisingly stable despite it seeming to have come out of nowhere.

"I'd imagine good relationships aren't so different." She says instead, and Queenie hums.

"You're right, you're right. I'm glad then, that you've found someone who you get on with so well." She says. "Speaking of Ed, will he sit with us today? Or will you finally go sit with his friends?"

Rajani shrugs. It's another thing that Queenie finds odd about her relationship with Ed - how Rajani hasn't really met any of his friends. "They're honestly a bit vulgar." She replies. "I admittedly wouldn't mind sitting with them if Lucy was there. Or Trevor and Gabi."

Queenie huffs, but it's playful. "Ah yes, the prefect club. I suppose if you manage that you'll steal Eugene away from me and leave me all alone."

Rajani laughs, glad the momentary tension is gone. "You'd probably hate it, Trevor is..." She trails off. "There is no word for what Trevor is." She decides with a grin.

She ends up sitting with her friends as normal, and Ed sits with his. It's their usual setup, and it works well enough for them. Plus Ed has no afternoon classes, and Rajani doesn't have History of Magic for two hours, so they spend time together after lunch is finished.

"Queenie is still confused by our whole relationship." Rajani informs Ed once they've settled in the courtyard. It's a bit chilly, enough that Rajani knows the weather is going to turn more towards winter within the week. Which is all the more reason to enjoy being outside while they still can.

"What's to be confused about? I like you, you like me, and we're seeing how it goes from there." Ed responds, sounding amused.

Rajani nudges him lightly. "It's not that simple and you know it. I think the fact we're breaking up when you graduate weirds her out a bit. And I've noticed we're a lot more physical than she is with Eugene."

"And I'm not complaining about that." Ed adds in with a grin. Rajani laughs.

"I'm not either." She agrees, and the conversation quickly shifts gears into something more entertaining.

Rajani ends up daydreaming through History class, looking forward to when class is over and she can track down her boyfriend and resume where they'd left off.

"Raj." Queenie hisses. "At least pretend like you're paying attention. We do have OWLs this year."

Rajani blinks at her friends, momentarily startled, before grinning and giving a slight shrug, unrepentant. "I can study tomorrow, or over the weekend." She whispers back. "How his droning doesn't put you right to sleep I'll never know."

Queenie rolls her eyes, but when her boyfriends slumps down next to her, clearly dozing off, she has to concede the point.

Once class is over Rajani wastes only as much time as it takes to bid her friends farewell before hurrying off to find where Ed has gotten to.

She hears Clary shout something teasing after her, but she just waves in response. She loves her friends, but she and Ed had left off just before the fun part, and she's rather anxious to get back to it.

After all, they only have until the spring. No sense wasting time.

Brewing an Animagus potion turns out to be even more complicated than Ana had expected - and she had been fully ready for the potion to be one of the most difficult ones she's created.

For one thing, while finding undisturbed parts of the castle is generally straight forward, being able to find those areas again proves the challenge. For another, keeping a mandrake leaf in for an entire month is proving incredibly inconvenient.

Halfway through November Ana is just about ready to spit out the leaf and try again in the summer when she doesn't have classes that require her to be able to clearly enunciate incantations. Her grades are almost definitely going to be negatively impacted, and there's a chance that November twenty third will be too overcast to see the moon and she'll have to restart the whole process anyway.

She says - or rather writes as she's long given up on speaking as a form of communication for the month - as much to Amelia one Saturday afternoon while studying in the library.

Amelia reads the note, and then shrugs. "It's your call Ana, though I think you'll be rather upset with yourself if the twenty third does turn out to be clear."

Jerome and Shaun glance up from across the table, as does Finnigan who once again has managed to sit with them without Ana noticing.

"Talking about the mandrake leaf?" Shaun guesses, and the confusion decorating Jerome's features clears up.

"Oh! Yeah, I agree with Amelia. Plus midterm exams are in December this year so you should still do well on those." Jerome adds his two cents eagerly.

Finnigan wrinkles his nose, clearly not following the conversation. Amelia notices and glances at Ana, who shrugs in response to the silent question.

Amelia turns to Finnigan. "Ana is in the process of becoming an Animagus, so she has to keep a mandrake leaf in all month."

Finnigan blinks. "That explains why you've been so quiet." He says after a moment, looking at Ana. "But, um, what's an Animagus?"

All four of them stare at their companion until he gets so uncomfortable that he actually sinks down in his chair slightly.

"Stupid question obviously." He grumbles under his breath.

Shaun recovers first. "No, not at all. You grew up Muggle I presume?"

Finnigan eyes him warily, still slouched and looking ready to bolt at the slightest provocation, and nods in a short, jerky motion.

Shaun nods in return, much calmer. "I was too. I only know about Animagi because of Ana - it's one of those weird wizard things they don't teach you - at least, they haven't yet. Maybe in NEWT levels when we start talking about human transfiguration?"

Ana lets the others explain what an Animagus is to Finnigan while she returns to her Defense Against the Dark Arts essay.

She manages to finish the essay before Jerome urges them all to leave the library for a bit and take a break.

"Speaking of," Shaun adds as the library doors close behind them, "What is everyone doing for winter break? We have to sign up to stay or not next weekend if memory serves."

Ana gestures to the castle in answer. She can't go home for the break - the lighting storm she's expecting is smack in the middle of it. Which is odd considering winter isn't known for having the best conditions for such storms, but she's still choosing to trust Professor Trelawney's cards on the subject.

Shaun nods. "I'm probably going to stay as well. Extra practice with spellwork is never a bad thing."

"Well I'm definitely heading home." Jerome states firmly. "Terry says I'm not allowed to miss Christmas."

Amelia smiles. "I'll likely go home as well, spend some time with my dad and Daniel. It's the first Christmas Dan is actually going to be in the country so I'd feel terrible if I skipped it."

Ana tilts her head, but it's Jerome who voices her question. "Not Daniel Kingsley of Puddlemere United?"

Ana doesn't keep too close a watch on Quidditch, but she's aware of the big names in the game and Daniel Kingsley has been a rising star in the past two years.

Amelia shrugs. "Yeah, that's him." She confirms, and Jerome releases a noise that Ana is pretty sure his vocal chords shouldn't be capable of making.

"You have to get me an autograph! Jeez, your complete disinterest in Quidditch makes even less sense now, honestly. Your brother is going to go down as one of the greats in the world of Chasers, mark my words." He declares dramatically, getting some amused looks from the students they're passing.

Amelia shrugs again, though there's a faint smile on her features now. "Cool. As long as he's happy, that's what counts."

"How do you become a professional Quidditch player?" Finnigan asks after a moment, sounding almost hesitant. It's clear he's still a bit off balance from their reaction to his earlier question, his tone preemptively defensive.

Amelia shrugs. "It differs for everyone. Usually seventh years will owl their preferred teams' recruiters to come watch one of their matches, along with their Hogwarts play record - you know, goals scored, or blocked, number of overall wins, stuff like that. Then they have to wait to hear back about whether or not the team is interested in giving them a spot in the tryouts at the start of the next season. Occasionally there will be open call spots for the tryouts as well, if they don't have enough reserve members for the season or didn't do any scouting at Hogwarts during the school year. There are a lot of paths really, it's not so complicated."

"It sounds kind of complicated." Jerome pipes up.

Ana shifts the leaf into her cheek carefully so she can speak. "If you're truly passionate about something, then any path is worth taking towards it." She's acutely aware of how odd she sounds, between having a leaf in muffling the words and having to speak slowly so she doesn't tear it or otherwise damage it. Still, she's proud of how long the sentence was.

Shaun hums. "True. Honestly I wish I had something I was passionate about - I'm still stumped what to tell Professor Flitwick during career consultation in the spring."

"Is that when it is? For some reason I thought it was the start of the year." Amelia asks. "I've been waiting for a message or something about those."

Ana had figured out pretty quickly that her own estimate on the timing of the consultations had been somewhat off, but she had also been under the impression that the consultations would be earlier in the year. She's still rather embarrassed by her own failure in the area despite no one else seeming to remember that she had been the one to mix up the dates in the first place. Hopefully that knowledge remains firmly forgotten.

Shaun shrugs. "From what I hear from the older students." He amends. "They never actually talked to us about the consultations, did they? We just sort of heard about them from..." He trails off and frowns. "Where did we hear about them?"

The others shrug, and Ana follows suit despite knowing she'd learned about the consultations from her mother. It's not worth risking the leaf to say anything.

It's easy to lose focus on the conversation when she can't participate in it, and she very quickly finds herself going over the process of creating the animagus potion in her mind. She's had it memorized for over a year now, but she would hate to mess something up and have to restart the entire process with no idea when the next electrical storm will be arriving. Worse than the fourth being cloudy would be missing a storm because of a simple mistake.

"Ana? Hey, we're heading back to the library." Jerome pokes her and she realizes that he's probably been trying to get her attention for at least a minute. She feels herself starting to flush, but she quickly pushes down the embarrassment. There's nothing wrong with being distracted after all, provided the distraction doesn't cause any sort of destruction or injury.

She nods to show she's heard and follows the group back, now preoccupied with organizing her study order for the rest of the afternoon. Efficiency produces the best grades after all, and midterms and papers will be the only things included on her scholastic transcript for the year due to the OWLs replacing their final exams. She can't afford for anything to be lower than an E.

The rest of the afternoon and most of the evening is dedicated to studying, and Ana manages to secure assistance from Amelia and Shaun in staying out after curfew in order to work on her Astronomy assignments. There are benefits, she thinks, to being friendly with the prefects.

She had done some research over the summer into what will be needed for Curse Breaking, and Astronomy requires an OWL grade of E or higher. While Ana of course does as well in Astronomy as she has everything else, she'd never given much weight to the subject as something she personally would need in the future. So she feels she ought to make up for lost study time in order to reach the NEWT level.

She sits up in the Astronomy Tower with her charts spread out over the floor, studying the stars' movement and shooing away several giggling couples looking to avoid prefect patrols.

She also encounters a few of said patrols when they stop by to check that no one is in the Tower. She has to spend nearly ten minutes convincing one of them that she's allowed to be there at all, and the Slytherin girl - either the sixth or seventh year since And doesn't recognize her - informs her that she'll be checking with Willow if Ana really has permission. Ana just rolls her eyes once the girl and her oddly quiet Hufflepuff partner depart and returns to tracking Mars across the sky.

The moon is almost invisible in the sky, and Ana finds herself glancing at it repeatedly as she works, wishing she could rush the days to the next full moon. She's on the other side of the halfway mark at this point - the new moon had been a few days ago and it's a waxing crescent that decorates the sky above her, moving towards the full moon. But it feels an absolute eternity away and Ana is uncomfortably aware of the leaf in .

The hardest part of course is eating, so Ana has been skipping meals here and there in the past two weeks as well, not wanting to swallow something she shouldn't. Even when she does eat she has to be careful, never having too much at once for fear the leaf will get caught up in the food and she won't notice in time.

She sighs and puts the final touches on her last start chart. According to the sky it's about two in the morning, and she figures she probably should go to bed now.

The trek to the Ravenclaw Tower isn't far, but because she has to descend the entire Astronomy Tower and then climb the Ravenclaw one it takes her almost fourty minutes before she's staring down the door knocker and realizing she can't count on anyone else to open it for her. She's been letting her friends answer the riddles on their own for the most part, since the knocked doesn't accept written responses (Ana is less surprised than her friends were about the realization - she doubts even the most powerful charm could render an inanimate object able to read).

"Many have heard me, but none have seen me. I will not speak unless spoken to."

Ana huffs a breath through her nose. At least it's an easy one. She shifts the leaf so she can speak at least somewhat clearly.

"An echo."

The sound of the door is almost painfully loud in the otherwise dead silent hall, and Ana pulls open the door and slips inside as quietly as she can manage as if it will offset the noise. She doesn't love the idea of showering in the morning and sleeping in her own filth all night, but she figures it would probably piss off a lot of people if she were to turn on the shower this early in the morning.

Despite her hygienic misgivings, she falls asleep rather quickly once she's in bed.

She wakes up with the leaf curled awkwardly over her teeth, and she locks her lips together and moves it under her tongue to prevent it from falling out. Once that's done she looks around and realizes she's the only one in the dorm, and that the strength of the light shining through the window indicates that it must be nearly ten at the earliest.

She'd overslept.

Drat. She thinks to herself as she jumps up, stumbles as her vision briefly goes wobbly, and then grabs her clothes and darts for the bathroom as soon as she's steady again. That's two hours lost that she wanted to use to go over Jerome's Care of Magical Creatures notes with him. Despite his poor performance in most classes his notes are surprisingly thorough, if somewhat difficult to decipher without assistance.

She heads directly to the library, bypassing the smell of breakfast still wafting from the Great Hall. She hasn't the time to waste grabbing anything to eat, and it's better for the leaf anyway.

Her friends - and Finnigan - are all gathered around one of the tables, and she drops into the seat next to Jerome, pulling out her textbooks and spreading them out around her.

"Good morning." Jerome greets cheerfully, holding out his notebook for her to take with a bright grin. "Amelia and Evie let you sleep in a bit since you've seemed kind of run down lately. Don't be upset, I encouraged it. Anyway, here are my Care notes like you wanted. Shaun helped me charm them with a color-coding spell so they should be easier to figure out. If you need any translations from my terrible handwriting just poke me. I've got to work on that Defense essay you finished yesterday."

Ana blinks and accepts the notebook, almost touched at the thoughtfulness if it hadn't interfered with her study schedule. She also wishes she could speak freely so she could inform Jerome that she isn't run down whatsoever and she's not sure where he would get an idea like that. But the leaf holds her tongue for her and she instead turns to the notes that had been offered. She has two hours to make up for after all.

Thoughtful or not, Ana needs to be efficient, not coddled. She'll be informing her friends of that as soon as she can speak freely again.

Franziska is actually quite excited for winter break for once. Due to the upcoming OWLs, several of her friends are staying at school during the break to give themselves more time to study and to practice their wand work. Franziska is just happy that she won't be alone in the dorm room.

"It'll be fun spending Christmas together again!" Leona says cheerfully as the Hufflepuffs sit down for breakfast Monday morning. "I assume the same group from second year still stay over the break?"

Franziska nods cheerfully. Leona had gotten along well with her break friends - give or take, Franziska does think Leona might have scared Fitzwilliam somewhat - and Franziska thinks it will be fun to have new people added to the group again, even if most of the break probably will be spend studying.

"You've already decided? We don't have to sign up to stay until this weekend." Kiera points out. "I'm sort of on the fence. I'd like to be home for Christmas, but also I really need to work on my Charms if I want to get an E on the OWL."

Donaghan glances at her curiously. "Don't we just need an A for Charms to pass into NEWT levels though?" He points out.

Kiera nods. "Yup, but if I get an E on the OWL I don't need to pass the NEWT and I can still become a Herbology specialist at St. Mungo's." She explains with a grin. "Gotta plan ahead Donny!"

"Don't call me that." He sighs, but he's smiling.

Franziska turns back to Kiera. "So you still don't know if you're staying?"

"You should! It's really fun here during Christmas, I stayed over during second year and it was awesome." Leona encourages eagerly. "Stay and I'll personally help you with your Charms."

Kiera laughs. "No offense Leona, but you're about the same level as me in that class. Now if Aidan was staying and offered his services..." She trails off and everyone glances over at the Irish boy, who shakes his head firmly.

"I'm not missing Christmas with my parents." He says simply. "I'll help you all study when I get back, and over Easter break as well."

"Boo." Tonks declares loudly, and Aidan rolls his eyes as she giggles.

"Donaghan and Cian are going home as well, how come only I'm getting any grief?" He asks, though his tone is light.

Donaghan grins. "Your information is old, we've been swayed into staying." He informs Aidan, and Cian nods. "We're looking forward to hearing some classic wizarding carols."

"And a lot of Celestina Warbeck." Tyler declares. "Lola and I will ensure you two are fully indoctrinated into good music."

As it goes whenever an opinion on Celestina Warbeck is voiced, the table ends up dissolving into a debate on whether or not Ms. Warbeck is really a shining example of good music or if she's simply overhyped.

Franziska personally likes her music for the most part, though she doesn't feel strongly enough to get involved in the debate, instead turning to chat with Henry, who's seated to her right.

"What about you? Joining us for the break?"

He shakes his head. "Amelia is going home so I decided to as well. I'm not that worried about OWLs honestly."

Franziska raises an eyebrow in amusement. "Really? And how does your Ravenclaw girlfriend feel about that?" She teases, and Henry blushes.

"She's not my-" He cuts himself off. Although he and Amelia have been spending a lot of time together - and if Leona is to be trusted are going to Hogsmeade together again over the weekend - neither has acknowledged their friendship as anything but. Despite the fact it's obvious to all of them that they're definitely dating.

Franziska lets him off though, changing the topic to something less prying. Namely, their afternoon potions class and if he wants to compare essays during the break they have right before it. Franziska may be dropping Potions after OWLs this year, but she still wants to do well.

"Why don't you ask Brandon for help? He's one of the few who's actually sticking with Potions, and apparently he's actually good at it." Leona pipes up, dropping into their conversation with ease and directing a suspicious frown at Franziska as she does.

"He has Defense during our free period." Franziska defends herself, but she knows it's not fooling Leona. Her roommate had sensed that Franziska and Brandon had been having problems even before Franziska realized they were having problems.

"He has lunch before that, and you both have time before lunch as well - neither of you takes Divination." Leona points out, still frowning. "I will push you two into a closet without your wands if you don't figure out something soon." She adds lightly, but Franziska somehow doubts she's kidding.

"It's complicated." She says anyway, despite knowing it's not going to help. "He's getting really secretive with his potions stuff - I've asked both Charlie and Aidan in addition to Brandon about what he's doing and none of them will say anything."

"Well then insist." Leona suggests. "I mean, you've been dating for what, almost two years now? You should be able to talk this out, like last year with the Quidditch seat stuff."

Franziska nods, but she's not convinced. Whatever is going on with her and Brandon right now, it feels worse than the argument they'd had at the end of the previous year. But Leona is right about one thing - they should be able to talk about it. That's what you do in relationships.

Thankfully, Evie arrives just then to walk with them to Charm class and effectively distracts Leona as she begins chattering on about the next Quidditch match and how Ravenclaw is absolutely going to win.

Franziska has never been happier that she made friends with the destructive girl.

But still... "Ravenclaw doesn't stand a chance. Your Seeker isn't half the flyer Lola is, and Elizah Blackthorn has one of the highest save ratios among the current Keepers." She says haughtily, laughing at Evie's scandalized look.

"I come here, with the promise of friendship, and I'm attacked in this way!" She declares dramatically, leaning right into Donaghan and Cian's space as she pretends to swoon. "The humanity!"

Franziska laughs as Cian makes a face and attempts to push Evie away. Donaghan just looks amused as he moves the remains of his breakfast so Evie doesn't get her hair in them.

"Well you can't exactly start a discussion about Quidditch and not have someone point out that your team hasn't won the Cup since first year." Donaghan points out, grinning at Evie when she pouts at him.

"Oh fine, fair enough. Come on, I want good seats. We're learning the Substantive Charm today!" Evie recovers quickly enough, bouncing back to her feet and nudging Franziska eagerly.

Charms class is quite enjoyable save for Evie accidentally blowing up one of the windows, but once it finishes Franziska can feel Leona staring at her again, and she knows what the brunette is going to say even before she walks over.

"Hey Leona, did you want to join me and Franziska? We're going to keep practicing in one of the classrooms." Evie greets the brunette, blissfully unaware of the slight tension in Franziska's stance.

"Were you?" Leona's tone is light. "Well I won't say no to practice! If you promise not to blow out any other windows." She adds teasingly.

Evie rolls her eyes dramatically and declares that Leona clearly has something against Ravenclaws, but it's playful and although Franziska knows why Leona is going with them she's glad to see her friends getting along.

They find an empty classroom quite easily, and practicing the substantive charm ends up evolving into a full review of all the Charms they've done during the year. Franziska nearly forgets about Leona's impending metaphorical closet until the brunette abruptly stops halfway through the incantation for the color-change charm.

Evie frowns. "You okay Leona?" She checks, and the brunette quickly grins at her.

"Yep, I'm great! Frannie over here though, she needs to go have a talk with her boy." She says pointedly. "Herbology will be out by now. Go." She adds firmly when Franziska attempts a protest.

Evie tilts her head in confusion, but doesn't try to help defend Franziska either, so Franziska finds herself resignedly heading out of the room towards the main hall where she'll hopefully be able to intercept Brandon before he can vanish off to wherever he goes in his free time.

She's successful, reaching the entrance hall just as the door swings open to admit the Gryffindors and Slytherins in from the greenhouses.

"Brandon!" She quickly walks over as soon as she spots her boyfriend. "Hey, can we talk?" She asks nervously. "In private?" She adds, glancing at Charlie who's pretending (badly) to not be listening.

Brandon immediately looks as nervous as she feels. "Does it... have to be in private?" He asks weakly, and Franziska realizes that maybe he's been avoiding her as much as she's been avoiding him. That maybe they both know where this is going, even if she doesn't want to admit it. Not yet.

She shrugs. "I guess it could wait." She mumbles, and Leona is going to be pissed-

"No it can not. You two go. Charlie, come help me with our Care of Magical Creatures essay." Fiona appears out of nowhere and begins hauling Charlie away as he protests that she has class and he can't help her right now.

Franziska is both glad of the interruption but also somewhat upset because now she actually has to figure out how to talk to Brandon about the weirdness that's been slowly growing between the two of them for most of the year.

They walk in silence for several minutes until Brandon finally gets uncomfortably enough to speak first.

"You wanted to talk to me, so what's up?" His tone is preemptively defensive and Franziska doesn't blame him.

She finally stops walking - they're in one of the many deserted hallways now, they won't likely be disturbed - and turns to face her boyfriend. "I did yeah. Um, I don't completely know where to start but I guess first off I'd like to know what you're doing with your secret potion."

Brandon balks. "That... that's still in the works, I can't tell you anything because there's nothing to tell." He says haltingly, and Franziska frowns.

"I'm your girlfriend Brandon." She says quietly. "Why are there things you can tell Charlie and Aidan but not me?"

"That's not fair!" He protests. "They're my best friends! It's totally different."

Franziska feels like it shouldn't be, but she bites her tongue. Saying something like that is too close to acknowledging that this might not work out.

Instead she says, "Well then what can you tell me? We've barely seen each other this year."

Brandon shifts. "Yeah, sorry about that. OWLs, you know ho it is..." He trails off, but she waits, not letting him change the subject until he answers her question. Finally he sighs.

"Look, we... we might be doing something that isn't completely, one hundred percent... legal?" He quickly keeps talking before Franziska can respond to that revelation. "It's nothing bad! But, you know, didn't want to get you mixed up with it if it went badly."

Franziska stares at him. "You're breaking the law?" She repeats, stunned. "Brandon you can't- I have to tell a teacher-"

"No! See this is why we didn't tell you!" He interrupts angrily. "You're way too much of a stickler for the rules! No one is getting hurt, and that's all you need to know."

"We're getting hurt." She replies quietly, though it takes Brandon a moment to process the words through his continued frustration.

He blinks. "What does that even mean?"

"Our relationship. When was the last time we properly hung out together? Not studying?" She presses. "I see more of Evie than I do of you. And I have more fun with her too." She adds, somewhat pettily. See if Brandon can keep acting so high and mighty now.

Brandon bristles. "Well then maybe you should be dating her instead." He grumbles, staring at the floor.

Franziska pauses, then, "Maybe I should. It certainly feels more natural than what we have." They both stand in silence for a long time before she finally speaks again. "Why did you ask me out?"

Brandon looks up, confused. "Because I liked you?"

"We'd never spoken before. Not really. Even over Christmas I spent more time with Nabila and Fitzwilliam." Franziska points out. "I barely had an opinion of you but you asked me out."

He shrugs uncertainly. "Okay, you were really pretty and like I said I could tell a lot of other people liked you too. I wanted to ask first."

Franziska processes this, and then remembers something her father had told her the summer before third year: "some people will be drawn to you...you'll know when someone loves you for you and not your Veela charms."

Something inside her goes cold. "Brandon, there's something I should tell you." She clears . "Look, um, I don't think you actually like me."

Her boyfriend immediately tries to protest but Franziska puts up a hand. "Listen. As friends, yeah, but I don't think you actually like me romantically. I'm a quarter Veela." She pauses to see if that will explain things enough so she doesn't have to, but Brandon still looks confused.

She sighs. "It means that sometimes people think they like me but they don't. It's a weird genetics thing-" She shakes her head. "Look, just ask Charlie okay? He's the creature expert. I don't even understand all this stuff myself. But... I think we worked better as friends." She rushes out the last part, staring at her feet and feeling close on the last word.

Brandon is silent for a long time.

"If I'm the one getting dumped, shouldn't you be less upset?" He finally says, and Franziska can hear that he's struggling to keep his voice steady.

She can only shrug, and a moment later he sighs.

"Okay. Friends. But I think we should maybe... not talk for a while."

She nods mutely, and a moment later hears him walking away. She can't bring herself to move until even the echoes of his footsteps have faded, at which point she finds the nearest wall and sinks down.

Brandon is right. She broke up with him. Yet here she is, sitting on the floor, shaking like she's the one who was just dumped.

There's an ugly feeling in her chest, and she closes her eyes in a vain attempt to pretend she's fine.

She knows logically that it was the right call. But right now, everything just feels like it's falling apart around her.