The Hogwarts Express blew another whistle, signalling that there was only ten minutes left to board. Vinny glared gloomily at the red engine, shoulders slumped in defeat.

“How’s that shiny badge of yours?” Derek quipped, chewing noisily on the end of a licorice stick. He whipped it forward and smacked Vinny’s cheek with it.

“Shut up,” Vinny groaned, grabbing hold of the prefect star that was pinned to the front of his cloak. He had been sure that Kettleburn was going to get it, and when that owl swooped into his window Vinny had all but lost his mind. How on earth was he supposed to be a bloody prefect?!

“This is great!” Derek exclaimed, and he began to tick off his fingers one by one, “We can get out of detentions, we can give detentions, we can take points--”

“I can take points.”

“Details. I’ll be your prefect advisor. First order of business is making sure that Dearborn never sees the light of day from all the toilets he’s gotta scrub---”

Vinny rolled his eyes, unwilling to be the sheriff in the constant showdowns between Derek and Dearborn. He was supposed to be a part of the showdowns, not keeping them from happening! Oh, what sort of life was he going to lead for the next three years? Sprout had really done it, this time. She’d finally put the nail in the coffin of all that was fun and good in the world. Anything he could have found amusing once was now strictly against the rules, and if he broke those rules he lost his badge, and if he lost his badge he’d be the laughing stock of the school.

“I’m not boarding,” Vinny said with a great shake of his head. “You take it, you be prefect!”

Derek let out such a loud howl of a laugh that it almost drained out the sound of the train. Owls startled in their cages and first years tripped over their feet. There were tears streaming down his friends face, and Vinny glared.

“That’s the best joke I’ve ever heard,” Derek said through his hiccups. Vinny crossed his arms. Maybe he could convince Kerian to take the badge, he was always trying to impress people (and failing).

“Ha, ha,” Vinny mumbled. Derek continued to snicker as they headed toward the train, dragging their trunks along.

“Me, a prefect? Ha! I’d lose the badge within the hour, and I sure as hell would end up killing Zeller!”

Vinny halted, causing their trunks to crash into each other. He turned to Derek, looking mortified. “Zeller got it?”

“Of course she did,” Derek said, his grin of amusement widening even further. “Edward told me she already tried to take points from him for loitering. LOITERING!”

“Bloody hell,” Vinny groaned, slapping a hand to his head. Not only was all the fun going to be sucked out of the last three years of his Hogwarts career, but he’d have to do it with his worst nightmare, Bess Zeller. That girl--she made Vinny grind his teeth with how frustratingly prim and proper she was. A little bucked-tooth know-it-all whose hair he was constantly sticking gooey things in.

“She’s going to ruin my life,” he exclaimed behind his palm. Derek clamped a hand on his shoulder, giving Vinny a shake.

“Er--perhaps you should open your eyes.”

Vinny’s fingers separated and he peered through.

“Is that---”

“Speak of the devil.”

Striding towards them with a great sense of purpose was Bess, but she did not look like the Bess he had terrified on the Hogwarts Express last June when he’d stuffed toads in her bag. Her tightly-wound plaits were gone as her long hair flowed behind her, and her robes were not buttoned to the point of near strangulation. No, no, her robes were actually open, which allowed the boys a great view of a figure they had not known existed. That skirt had to be regulation length, yeah? It certainly didn’t feel like it.

Why was she---it suddenly so hot? Here. On the platform.

“Well, fuck,” Derek muttered, giving Bess a short wave as she stopped purposely in front of them. Vinny felt dizzy, his eyes locked on her lips---lipstick. She was wearing lipstick.

“The prefect meeting is in the first cart,” Bess snipped, tapping Vinny’s badge with a neatly manicured finger. His eyes crossed and he nodded. She looked over both of them with a quick glance of confusion and disgust before turning away. Vinny and Derek’s head cocked in a timely and equal fashion as they watched her go.

“Maybe being a prefect won’t be so bad.”

“No, not so bad I reckon.”

“Pretty good, even.”

“Bloody fantastic.”

They both let out a breath.

“Fuckin’ hell.”

The Hogwarts class of 1977 was a decidedly strange group of students.

It was just an observation, but Graciela was almost always in a constant state of observation. She spoke very little to her classmates, only Edward Pennifold ever holding much of a conversation with her and that was only when he was let out of the grasp of his Ravenclaw (female) counterparts. Most of her silence was due to her own self-consciousness and Graciela found it easy to blame her lonely times on herself. She never had anger toward the people who didn’t seem to notice her in the corridors, and found them to be...interesting. It was as if their incessant, but interesting and entertaining, chattering and bickering made up for their lack of conversation with her.

Her eyes were locked on the Gryffindor girls of their year. The four of them could not be more different, and were either laughing hysterically at some inside-joke no one but the four could understand or they were shrieking and looking ready to kill one another. Right now, Dorcas Meadows was standing on a bench waving her arms around maniacally as the other three squealed with laughter, and Graciela watched them with keen interest as she made her way across the courtyard. What could they be talking about? It must be a girls-only story, because the Gryffindor boys sitting near them looked bored out of their minds. It must be something about the Hogsmeade weekend...

Graciela was jolted out of her thoughts as someone collided into her shoulder, knocking all of her books to the ground. She dropped to her knees and bowed her gaze as the towering Slytherin Orpheus Travers glared back at her, as if wondering how she dared be in his way. Graciela felt her face heat up as he started towards her, but he stopped short a few feet in front of her.

“Oy, turn that ugly mug around, Travers,” the very familiar voice of Derek Dobbs said from behind her. Graciela looked up just in time to see Derek wave his wand lazily at the Slytherin, flicking a few golden sparks, “Before I give you something to really get bothered by.”

Graciela gaped and was so struck by the scene that she hadn’t noticed the second Hufflepuff to come to her rescue. She blushed a deep, dark red as Vinny Gudgeon smiled at her, having knelt down to pick up her books and parchment. Graciela always lost her voice when Vinny was around, even more so than usual. He swept up her books in one hand and put out his other to help her to her feet, but Graciela was feeling content just staying on the floor. Only hesitating for a few seconds longer, she took his hand and stood, and winced at how the confrontation between Derek and Travers seemed to be intensifying.

“How quaint, one mudblood protecting another,” Orpheus drawled. Graciela felt her own flare of anger shoot up inside of her at the words, but it was nothing compared to the red of Derek’s face. Vinny promptly forgot about her books and dropped them on a bench to jump in between Derek and Orpheus, as both boys’ wands had started to send much larger and more furious sparks.

“All right, all right,” Vinny said in his best Head Boy voice. He always managed to go from carefree and fun-loving to authoritative very quickly, and Graciela was glad he had gotten the badge this summer and not some of the other boy prefects in their year. She dropped down onto the bench with her books, not wanting to get in the way, “Let’s just move along, shall we?”

Orpheus scoffed and crossed his arms as one of his yearmates swooped into the scene. Caradoc Dearborn always looked like he was ready to start a fight, the smirk on his face displaying pure joy at the prospective confrontation, “So your Hufflepuffs can make threats,” Caradoc said, “but the second a Slytherin talks back you jump right in? That’s not bias at all, Gudgeon.”

“Knocking a girl to the ground and then calling her a mudblood isn’t just ‘talking back,’” Vinny said smoothly, though his hand twitched by his pocket where his wand resided. It wouldn’t be the first time this year that Vinny had been forced to pull his wand on some feuding students in the corridors. With tension rising outside the walls of Hogwarts, it was becoming harder and harder to keep the students ignorant of the storm that was forming.

Graciela began to gather her things, but she was too interested in what would happen to slip away just yet. A hand caught her elbow, and she was surprised to see Edward at her side, “Are you all right?”

She nodded, noting his concern and his slight tug on her sleeve. Edward would want nothing to do with this fight, and she was about ready to let him lead her away when a shrill voice broke into the crowd.

“Dearborn, would you stop riling up the crowd?” Rachel Englewood said, coming up beside Edward with her hands on her hips. Graciela watched as Caradoc’s smirk twisted into a frown at the sight of the Ravenclaw, and Rachel seemed to as well, “I know you’re not getting any of your own action these days, but really? Does starting unnecessary fights get you all hot and bothered?”

The crowd that had quickly formed around them let out hoots and hollers. Caradoc’s face burned a deep red and he pointed a stiff finger at Rachel, “Shut it, Englewood, if you know what’s good for you!”

“Is that a threat?” Rachel and Derek both let out, but Derek’s very blond girlfriend had jumped in front of him and had begun tugging him back. She was really no physical match against him, but Giada managed to pull Derek a bit further out of the circle. Edward’s keen senses knew that Graciela was no longer in trouble and had turned into Rachel, pushing her back and far out of the crowd as he could before she could make good with the threats she was verbally slinging at the Slytherin.

“Out! Everyone to their common room!” Vinny’s voice boomed, finally pulling his wand and pointing it equally at all of those involved. The Slytherins sneered and left with some choice words, and Vinny shook his head, heading down the corridor to fetch Derek, whose head was ducked low against his girlfriends as he furiously went off.

Graciela stayed on the bench, feeling exhausted even though all she had done was sit and watch. She stared after the Slytherins, wondering if they would make due on their threats, and was so tired by the past five minutes that she didn’t have the energy to jump when Sebastian Goldstein and Graeme Dorny sidled up on the bench on either side of her. Graciela looked from one Gryffindor to the other, recalling right away that they too were muggleborns. She could see just by the color of Sebastian’s ears that he had been listening in very closely, and he gave her shoulder a quick pat.

“Pity Gudgeon broke it up,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. He ran his hand over his neck, and Graciela spotted a bit of lipstick on his collar. Sebastian noticed a smear on his hand right away and immediately began wiping his hand on his pants, his cheeks now matching his ears,“Dobbs would’ve blown Travers to bits.”

“Maybe he could’ve taken Dearborn along with him,” Graeme mused.

Graciela just frowned and let the boys continue on with their thought up mock-battle. She’d left Portugal to escape the violence between those of supposedly ‘pure’ blood and the muggles and muggleborns. What would it take to stop the madness here before it truly began to reign terror upon them?

“Vinny. Vinny. Vinny.”

Vinny turned toward his roommate with a glare, silently threatening to throttle Derek. Derek was unmoved and continued to poke Vinny in the arm with the tip of his quill when his friend turned back to the lesson. “Vinny.”

“What?” he hissed, keeping his eyes on Professor Slughorn but tilting his head to listen to Derek.

“Can we go to Zonko’s this weekend? I want to go to Zonko’s. We’re going to Zonko’s.”

His face contorted and he turned to look at Derek, confused, “What’s the point in asking me if---” Vinny straightened from his slumped position in his seat when he realized that the rest of the room had gone silent. Professor Slughorn was staring pointedly at him and Vinny could feel the eyes of all the other N.E.W.T. level students boring holes into Derek and himself. His face heated up and he cleared his throat.

Derek continued to poke him in arm with his quill.

“Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Mister Gudgeon?” Slughorn asked, slightly amused. His amusement was clearly the one of a professor who was about to take away house points. Hufflepuff was in the lead for the House Cup, but with Slytherin not too far behind, it would be a pleasure to Slughorn to take points away from the Badgers. And from their Head Boy! Just add insult to injury!

“Yeah,” Derek began, immediately growing defensive for his mate. Vinny felt his neck grow very hot and he knew that the next words out of Derek’s mouth would cost them not only house points, but their Hogsmeade weekend as well. He had to do something, even if his conscience was screaming ‘DON’T!”

“I’d rather share---YEEOW!”

The howl Derek let out caused the other students to jump and bang their knees into their tables, rattling all the potions and cauldrons. Vinny stood up immediately, putting his hands on Derek’s shoulder.

“He’s ill!” he let out, dragging Derek out of his seat. Vinny grinned at Derek, whose face was pinched in pain. “He’s ill, and I was asking if he wanted to finish the lesson before we went to the infirmary, but Mister Dobbs said he’d rather share notes with me now than miss the whole lesson, but---” He yanked Derek by the arm, and put his free hand to his friend’s forehead. Vinny’s face cringed into an exaggerated look of dismay, “But he’s burning up! I’m taking him straight to Pomfrey’s!”

“Well---all right, then--” Slughorn managed to let out before Vinny dragged Derek out of the room and through the dungeons.

When they were out of earshot, he finally let go of Derek, and let out the breath he’d been holding for the past few minutes.

“Did you have to pinch me so hard?” Derek whined, punching Vinny in the arm the second he was free. Vinny took the punch, scratching the back of his head as the guilt overtook him.

“Yeah...sorry about that,” he said honestly. “But you were going to get us detention and I really don’t want to miss Hogsmeade this weekend.”

Derek’s frown flipped into a wolfish grin, “So we can go to Zonko’s---”

“Of course we’re going to Zonko’s!” Vinny exclaimed. He and Derek stopped their walk to stare at each other, as if to let the fact sink in. There was no way that Vinny was going to miss Zonko’s annual blowout sale, it had just not been the time to discuss whether or not they would be visiting the store this weekend. But now that they were free from Potions (which Vinny would regret later, as they had an exam later on in the week), it was easy to turn the subject into more interesting topics.

“Fantastic! And we’re out of class half an hour early, I knew there was a reason you got that badge!” Derek let out, and he jumped onto Vinny’s back in celebration, as he was prone to do. Vinny caught him easily and was ready to throw him into a second year Charms lesson when Professor McGonagall and Headmaster Dumbledore turned the corner in front of them. The four stared at each other in silence for a long minute, and this time it was Derek’s quick thinking that offered them an escape route.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he moaned, dramatically putting his hand to his head and flopping himself over Vinny’s shoulder. The head boy grimaced, taking on the extra weight his friend was now leaning on him (and on his conscience), “This fever has taken me over!”

“I’mtakinghimtothehospitalwing!” Vinny explained to the Headmaster and Professor as he raced past as quickly as he could with a groaning Derek Dobbs on his back. They'd definitely earned their Hogsmeade weekend.

Professor Binns was properly droning on and on against the chalkboard, and now it was time for his plan to unfurl. Vinny wriggled down his seat and under the table, his text books upright and at the perfect height to keep the professor from noticing he wasn’t sitting behind them. It was a good thing he was still pretty short when it came to the rest of the kids in his year.

Vinny squatted carefully under the table, making sure that his head didn’t bang against the wood. His glasses slipped down his nose and he pushed them back up with a short sniffle. He waited a beat to make sure that the room remained as silent as he’d wanted it, and then tugged on the robes of the bloke sitting next to the chair Vinny had just escaped from. In an instant, Derek Dobbs’ head appeared, upside down so that his hair was falling to the ground.

“Where are you going?” he whispered excitedly, not so gracefully slipping under the table as well. “Can I come? I’m coming. Where are we going?”

Vinny’s smile turned wicked as Derek so quickly accepted this plan of escape. His eyes looked side to side, continuing the facade of his super secret mission. He leaned close, and Derek’s eyes widened in anticipation.

“I heard some second years say that the giant squid’s spitting up mermaid bones on the grounds.”

“Oh man!” Derek let out. He quickly covered his mouth to keep his excitement at bay. Vinny nodded quickly, and then motioned for his friend to follow. They crawled swiftly out from under the table and made it to the aisle without much trouble. Vinny made sure that Binns was still indeed focused on the chalkboard before he continued on his knees toward the open door, Derek right behind him.

The door, it was so close! Freedom, freedom!

Vinny somehow managed to hold back a yelp when a black bag was swung right into his face. Derek crashed into his feet and the two sat in a crumple on the floor. Binns’ voice didn’t jump or skip a beat, so they remained safe, for now.

“What the heck, Zeller?” Vinny hissed, glaring up at the girl who was glaring right back at him. Bess Zeller sat stiffly in her chair, holding onto the straps of her bag as if getting ready to swing again.

“If you two get caught,” she said through gritted teeth, “we’re all getting in trouble!”

“Binns doesn’t even take attendance,” Derek countered, and Vinny nodded wildly at the brilliant argument his friend had made. Bess’ nose scrunched and she stuck her foot out as Vinny tried to pass again.

“But what if another professor saw you?” she said, keeping an eye on the ghost professor (who was, yes, still not paying attention to the ruckus in the back of the room). “McGongall knows you two are bad, she caught you trying to get into Gryffindor last week!”

“Prewettstolemybroomstick!” Vinny growled, frowning deeply at the thought. “Zeller, if you don’t move, I’m going to---”

He was cut off, however, when Bess darted her hand out and clamped it over Vinny’s mouth.

“Going to what?” she challenged, looking awfully smug for someone with bucked teeth. Vinny’s face was so red and hot he was quite sure that it was going to explode and his brains were going to go all over Bess’ stupid ironed robes.

“He’s gonna feed your cat to the squid!” Derek answered, his voice going to a higher pitch with each frantic word. Vinny’s eyes narrowed in approval of his friend’s response, and without much thought stuck out his tongue and gave Bess’ palm a great proper lick.

Bess shrieked, and all hell broke loose.

Welp.

“Go, go!!” Vinny exclaimed, grabbing Derek’s sleeve and dragging him along behind him. He didn’t dare look back to see if Binns had noticed their great escape, and the two boys didn’t stop running until they reached the doors of the Great Hall.

“I really will feed that stupid cat to the squid when I get a hold of it,” Vinny said through his panting, slowly making his way down the steps and toward the lake. Derek made a sound of agreement, red in the face. Vinny looked over to his friend and smiled; it was cool to know he had a partner in crime when there were escapes from boring lectures to be made and stupid girls to lick and annoy. He flung his arm around Derek’s shoulders as they slid down the last hill.

“I’m gonna make a necklace out of mermaid bones.”

“I was gonna do that too!”

The corridors were chilly, and it made her walk faster than she normally would. Graciela’s quickened pace would not ruin her pre-meditated journey, however, and after pulling out her scarf from her bag, she slowed down. If she got to the dorm five minutes earlier than she wanted to, she would run into Bess and Dexter, and they would make her go back out with them, to hold their things or other little favors that the girls did not seem to have a problem asking. The second year had no desire to prance around the castle, especially since she did not have much to prance about.

When she’d pulled out her scarf she had also grabbed onto a book she had brought from home. It was wonderful, it smelled like Portugal, and to read in Portuguese where everything sounded right and made complete sense...oh, she had read this book so many times that the binding was starting to become loose. She did not know the spell to fix it, but was too shy to ask and too nervous about messing up the novel to figure it out herself. But its tattered pages and frayed strings made Graciela love the book even more. It was a comfort that she couldn’t bear to lose.

With her face covered by her scarf, and her nose in the book, it was a wonder that she didn’t trip on her robes as she made it down the third floor corridor. Graciela made sure to trek down the longest length of each level of the castle before making it to the Hufflepuff dorms, and she had done it so many times in her two years at Hogwarts that she could almost do it with her eyes closed (no one should go down the moving stairs with their eyes closed). Instead of watching where she was going, her eyes scanned back and forth on the page. Oh, this was her favorite part---

She stumbled, her book soaring out of her hands. Graciela choked on air and looked down at her feet, surprised to find a potions text on the floor. She bent to pick it up, wondering if it had fallen out of her bag, and as she kneeled she realized that it was not hers. Graciela barely had time to acknowledge this fact when a voice broke the silence of the corridor.

“Hello!”

The girl jolted upright, clutching the potions book to her chest as she searched the corridor for the voice. There was no one here, and her heart began to race; Graciela had never been fond of the ghosts that floated around Hogwarts, even if the Fat Friar did offer her advice on her herbology homework.

“I’m down here!” the voice called out again. A slight movement at the base of a broom closet door caught her eye, and upon further inspection she realized that it was actually a hand, a set of fingers wiggling at her from the small space under the door. Supposing that any person or thing that was stuck behind the door of a broom closet would not prove to be that dangerous, Graciela stepped toward it and dropped slowly down to the ground again. Bending to peer under the door, she caught sight of a boy with brown eyes and long hair.

“Hello.”

Graciela gulped, her hands pressed to the stone floor. “Hi.”

“Could you let me out of here? I’ve been in this closet for quite some time.”

She nodded, though a slight panic bubbled in her chest as she stood. What if this was a trick? What if it was Peeves and he would then lock her in the closet? Graciela felt every nerve in her body tingle and fret, but with one jolt of bravery she shot her hand to the door and turned the knob. The dimly lit broom closet seemed empty, but that was only because the boy was still on the floor.

“Ah!” he let out, standing and wiping off his robes. He was a Ravenclaw, and as Graciela got a good look at his face, she realized he was the one that her housemate Derek had been dragging through the courtyard last week, shouting something about needing a decoy.

“Thanks for that,” he said with a final wipe of his hands down his front. The Ravenclaw bent and picked up his bookbag, and then stuck out his hand, “I’m Edward, I’m--very sorry for tripping you with my book, but I had to catch your attention somehow!”

“Oh---” Graciela said, realizing that the book had been shot towards her from under the door of the closet, not lying randomly in the middle of the corridor. “It is fine.”

It was then that she remembered her own book, and her eyes went wide as she spotted it far down the hall. Graciela left Edward’s side and rushed to pick up the book, as if her latching onto it would heal its wounds. Oh, the binding was completely torn off now, a few pages having fallen loose. Tears prickled her eyes as she pushed them back into place, and she avoided Edward’s eyes as he approached.

“Is it damaged?” he asked, sounding pained at the thought. Graciela nodded, and without asking or even the slightest bit of hesitation, Edward grabbed her book out of her hands. She let out a strangled sound, but watched as he flung out his wand and tapped the binding of the book four times, muttering something of a spell. Graciela watched in awe as the strings of the binding sewed themselves back into place, and with a pop the book was tightly wound and held together.

Edward presented the book to her happily, and then as if realizing he had snatched it from her in the first place, turned a deep, dark red. “I-I--I’m good with books?”

Gingerly, Graciela took hold of her book and examined his work. The pages were still worn, but they were in place and did not seem like they would be falling loose any time soon. It was exactly the spell she had been too scared to figure out.

“Thank you,” she said, full of earnest. “I love this book.” Graciela was sure that this was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her at Hogwarts, and it was probably the most she had spoken to anyone since enrolling at the school. Edward beamed and without hesitation leaned forward to read the title.

“Is that Portuguese? You speak Portuguese? Do you think you could find a copy in English? Do you think the translation would be decent enough to understand what the author’s trying to tell us?”

Graciela could not help herself, she let out a giggle and let the Ravenclaw inquire about her book, allowing herself to forget that she had a place to avoid, and letting him put away the past two hours of loneliness in the broom closet.

It was easy to get lost in the presence of Adamina Hooke. She was the best looking girl in their year and even though they'd been dating for a good three months now, Tim could stare at her in awe and she'd cause him to forget that she was his until her lips were on his. It had taken him a long time to admit how he felt for her; he'd hated the idea of lusting after her like the other boys he knew. Of course he'd agreed that she was feckin' gorgeous, but announcing it felt wrong, like she deserved better than being gawked at. He wanted to make her understand how she made him feel.

And he did, or at least he tried to, every day they were together. At the moment however Tim had found himself under Adamina's force in a demonstration of how she wanted to make him feel.

Tim let out a groan as her lips trailed up his chest, feeling his skin burn wherever her body was touching his. It was good to know that they had the dorm room to themselves for most of the evening; it allowed their usually frantic time together to slow down, giving in to the urge to savor every bit of each other. Tim's mouth dropped open to try and catch a breath as the trail of her lips reached his shoulders, then his neck. His hands gripped at her waist, his fingers slipping under the elastic of her already-barely-there knickers---

"Oh---oh---ow---OW!"

Tim's yelp was sure to be heard through the Slytherin dorms. His hands shot from their comfortable position on Adamina's backside to his neck. She quickly rolled off from on top of him, her hands to her mouth. Adamina hovered nervously over Tim, her eyes wide with concern.

"Did it hurt?" she let out quietly, reaching out to touch the tender spot. Tim sat up jerkily, his hand still pressed against his throbbing neck. "Are you okay?"

"Are you part vampire?" he asked, a grin sliding on his face. It felt like she'd taken a chunk out of his neck! Tim immediately regretted the comment as his girlfriend's face fell. Tim's arms reached out and held her securely in his lap, which was creating enough friction for him to almost completely ignore the pain the bite to his neck had caused. "Aw, no--I'm fine, I'm just joking, Mina."

"I wanted to spice things up," Adamina whimpered, her hair wild around her head. Tim watched as her eyes welled up with tears, her hand tugging on the waist of his underwear. His dropped from her face to her hand, and then trailed to her stomach, her chest, to her collar bone---he wondered if she recalled how nearly naked she was; how could she 'spice things up' even more? She had just been flush on top of him, making every last bit of him burst into fire from just her touch. Why had they stopped, again?

"You must think I'm so boring," she admitted. Tim blinked quickly. Boring? How could Adamina Hooke be boring? She made him come alive in ways he hadn't known before, she captured every last bit of his attention and he'd never get it back again. She had him completely and utterly captivated for however long she wished to have him, "What kind of Slytherin girl is so--nice in bed? I could be naughty, I really can be, Tim!"

Tim simply gawked at her. At this--beautiful woman sitting half-naked in his lap. She wanted to be naughty? In bed, she wanted to be---with him? There was no way he could think any more about it. He lurched forward to grab at her again and kiss her hard. Adamina squeaked but obliged--only for a moment, before she pushed back.

"But Tim! Don't your roommates ask how the Slytherin sex is?"

"Yes," he muttered as he rolled Adamina on her back. She let out a sound of surprise as their switching of positions, but her eyes shut in a pleased manner as he began kissing her neck, taking small, definitely not as piercing, bites. Tim's lips hovered by her ear, "I tell them it's fucking fantastic--"

"Oh---oh--"

He was a gigantic, stupid prat, but he was a helluva snogger. Andrea giggled into Charlie Spinnet’s mouth, breaking apart from the kiss to whack him in the chest. His hands had crept around her waist to pinch her bum and she hadn’t fought too hard to keep him away.

“How did you manage that through all my layers?” she murmured, biting his chin with just her lips. Charlie grinned and kept his hands firmly planted on her behind.

“Well, I mean---it’s just so big, ow!” he let out with a laugh, jumping back as Andrea hit him again, this time much harder than the teasing slap from just moments before.

His feet crunched in the snow on the ground and Andrea tightened her scarf around her neck to decline him any further access to it. The courtyard was empty save for some firsties building a snowman, so even though it was below freezing it was the perfect place for a snog. None of the professors would bother coming out to snoop behind the bushes if they weren’t fully decked out in their winter gear.

Charlie put his hands out as Andrea’s went behind her back to cover her supposedly big behind.

“It’s a good thing!” he exclaimed.

“You leave me be, Spinnet!” she snapped, but her serious tone didn’t last long as a grin cracked across her face. Of course she appreciated that boys found her assets nice, but she didn’t have to let him talk about it--her--in that way! Even if she did go on about Charlie’s strong arms and his rather nice arse as well---completely different scenario! “If you don’t watch it, I’ll chop your hands off the next time they take to roaming.”

“Is that a challenge?” Charlie asked, a gleam in his eye. His sneaky expression was made laughable by the redness of his nose and the floppy eared hat on his head. Andrea figured she didn’t look much better with her scarf so tightly wound around her neck and a hat made of rainbow colored fuzzy balls of yarn. She jumped up on her toes as he started toward her and darted away and out of the bushes.

“Oy! Get back here!” he shouted, and a snowball whizzed by her head. Andrea shrieked and did a quick jump onto and over a bench. The chase went through the courtyard, around the huddle of first years, and into the corridors of the very warm school before heading back out into the snow-covered grounds. She could probably outrun him for hours, but Andrea was feeling generous and let Charlie catch her around the waist.

She let out a shrill laugh as he left her up from behind and they dropped into a snowbank. His arms around her were warm, and Andrea wasted no time in pushing through the snow around them to kiss Charlie on his red nose. A kiss on the nose led to a kiss on the lips and soon she was burying him deeper and deeper into the snow.

This snowy courtyard really was the best place for a snog.

Matt may have had a little too much to drink. Well! Well.

“I am---I am sho bad at this game!” Matt hiccuped, his body slowly moving in a circle as he sat cross-legged on the floor of the common room. He wasn’t even sure how he’d gotten this drunk, but he was going to blame it on his terrible, terrible luck. He frowned at Drystan and Odette, who sat across from him and looking much more sober than he. Noralie lay on the couch beside them, having taken only two shots of the firewhisky before drooping into an intoxicated sleep.

“It’s all luck, Matty,” Odette teased, reaching for the deck of cards. Matt watched intently as she picked up the top card, and then let out a groan as she flipped it over and it was yet another red suit. “Drink up!”

“I knew I shhould’ve picked black!” Matt whined, sticking out his shot glass and allowing Odette to fill it up. The bottle had been smuggled in by Drystan, who was on rather good terms with a house-elf named Hinkle. He saved her from Peeves one day and the little thing had been granting Drystan his every wish since the beginning of term. Matt frowned in dismay as he drank the shot, letting his head drop too far back. He was thrown off balance and fell back to the floor, arms splayed out to the sides. The shot glass rolled under the couch as his opponents roared with laughter.

This was the stupidest game he’d ever played. It was only played to get drunk, really; two teams, one deck of cards. Pick a color, if your color comes up, take a shot. Everyone should be feeling nice and tipsy by the time they were halfway through the deck, but it felt like Drystan and Odette hadn’t taken a drink in years, and Matt had taken on the brunt of Noralie’s drinks once she’d conked out.

“Sshomeone tell the room to sshtop sshpinning!” Matt slurred, putting his hand over his eyes, but that just made his head whirl around even faster and he rolled over to his side, groaning as he held back whatever was trying to come up his throat.

“No you don’t!” Drystan let out, and he scrambled forward to lift Matt off the carpet from under his arms and drag him into an upright position. Matt’s eyes shot open in surprise at the sudden movement and he blinked furiously, trying to regain some sense. His shot glass was transfigured into a rubbish bin, which even in his drunken stupor Matt found highly amusing; all that liquour he’d taken in was going right back where it had come from.

“First one to puke loses!” Odette cheered, nudging Matt’s rib cage with her toes. He swung a nearly limp arm out at her leg and the motion caused his stomach to lurch. His head dropped down into the rubbish bin and the echoes of his projectile vomiting bounced off the common room walls.

Drystan and Odette shared the same squeamish expression. With a sigh, Drystan stood and began to put his arms under Noralie to carry her back to bed. He stepped on the pile of cards and caused them to flip, spreading out on the floor. Odette hurriedly swept them back up before Matt could lift his head and notice the blaringly suspicious lack of black suits in the deck.