Emily smiled at Nika. She had a friend! This was her only friend at Hogwarts. Well, there was Beth, but Emily hadn't seen her recently. She was probably making other friends. sigh
"Well I'm not so good with muggle science. Or maths. That's why I'm not looking forward to arithmancy. My sister said it has something to do with numbers..." sigh again

"Hi..." Emily said as Heather came over."I'm good. How about you?"

Rex came through the portrait. He had been busy studying and at the lake the whold day. He \see a girl using her wand in the common room. " Hi, my name is Rex Tridwell" he introduced himself to her. " I am not sure if we have ever met at HogWarts" Rex said to her." Nice wand work" Rex told her. "Are you ok? Rex asked her. He saw she tripped over clothes. He helped her up to her feet.

Christopher read the letter over and over again. He couldn't believe it.... He had over a year left this summer, now.... just a few months. This would probably be their last Christmas together in a few months. What would he tell El? He clutched the letter in his hand tightly, not sure what else to do. He might as well show her sooner or later. Christopher opened the envelope, reading it one last time before stuffing it back in.

Quote:

Dear Chris and Elyie,
Your mum and I went to the doctor again this week. He told us some awful news. I'm not quite sure how to tell you this, but I actually have less than a year. The cancer is spreading more quickly and since there is no cure, I may only have until New Years. I know you wanted to stay at Hogwarts over the holidays, but this may be our last together. Dr. Rodes said that I should just enjoy my last months, so they've quit putting me through the chemotherapy, which is a plus.
Can't wait to see you over the holidays.
Love,
Dad

Taking a deep breath, he sighed, folding up the letter. Once it was inside the envelope, he slipped it in his bag, leaning his head back on the chair.

Ruby took the parchment back and grimaced at him as he reminded her about the photo. She had forgotten about that part of the deal. When they were done and the camera was safely back in her hands, she was going to butcher him, just watch.
She held the parchment up in front of her chest and flashed her eyes dangerously, her mouth twisted in a sort of growl-to-be. Maybe the picture would scare him whenever he looked at it--she certainly couldn't make it seem like she happy to be in the picture. Ignoring his yelling about 'saying cheeeese', Ruby waited until the flash blinded her eyes and they were done.
"Hurry up, I wanna hurt you already," She murmured.

Selina ducked her head through the portrait hole and fixed her hair. Looking around the Common Room mid day she saw very few stragglers. A lot of people were either in class, down on the grounds, or otherwise predisposed in a closet somewhere. She saw Christopher sitting with a letter in his lap. Why a letter? First Adam, now Christopher. It seemed like every time she saw a piece of post now it was bad news.

Gently she sat next to him and said, "Hey Christopher. How are you?"

Christopher jumped when Selina sat down next to him. He gave a nervous laugh and crammed the letter in his bag. "Hey Selina... erm... I'm good. Great, never better." He knew she could tell something was up. Quickly trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, he said, "Oh I asked out Violet. She said yes."

Braeden took his sweet time fixing the camera's settings, moving at a sluggish pace just to torture Ruby some more and make sure that she held the sign long enough to get some looks from the other Gryffindors in the room. Hehehehe. Once the girl was starting to grow impatient (reminding him that she had every intention in the world to cause him pain), Braeden pulled the camera up to his face and pressed the shutter. Bright light filled the room for a brief second, and the image of Ruby holding a sign praising Braeden was permanently printed onto the camera's negatives. Along with 987837458 random pictures of Ruby and Braeden wrestling.

"There you go," said Braeden innocently, handing Ruby back the camera as if he had just been doing her a favour, taking her picture because she had asked him to. "I'll be looking forward to seeing those developed, and um…" He coughed, holding out an empty hand and raising a dark eyebrow at Ruby. Marshmallowwssss?

"Pretty good. A bit tired." Heather admitted. "I've been studying a lot lately." She said to them both.

Raven smile back at Alicia. "No, Kurumi is acting like my big sister, actually I teased her to a guy name Adam Burn --fellow gryff, third year" I luff her as my big cookie sister, she knows my weakness, haha, food!! Raven said
"Yes, Al, we need those spell, specially at potion, because the professor, is like Drag-- Dragon, just any gryff called her" Raven add.

Alicia's action is likely very excited, good thing she didn't get the correct word, like him in the first attempt. "err, Al, don't do it here, we sure find, a classroom vacated, or in the charm practice room" He stop Alicia as quickly he can.

She giggled. "Ahh you!" stuck her tongue once more and poked him. "HAHA food is awesome! obviously!" She agreed. Her eyes widened and she gulped when Raven mentioned dragon. "You mean the professor is a dragon?" She asked in disbelief. But she tried to make herself belief as nothing seemed impossible in such a wizarding world.

She shrugged and nodded. "charm practice room. I went there once." She recalled. "Oh man, I hate attending classes..." She sighed, unwilling to go to the practice room. "I'm sure we have some secret rooms here that we can actually use. What do you think?" She winked her eyes.

"I think that muggle science is my favorite subject! I am awful at math though. And in that case I don't think I would do to well in arithmancy either. Great just when I thought I was done with math it comes to haunt me once more."

"Studying... What fun. I am awful at studying I can never stay focused on one topic! What subjects are you studying?"

Raven laugh weakly, Look like Alicia didn't get the joke he throws.
"No, the professor it something temperamental, seem like easy to burst anger" Raven explained.
"you don't want charm classroom, but the professor will help us happily" Raven say "ohh, I have others suggestion, we will practice to this vacant room"

Selina caught him jamming the letter into his bag. Something was up, but she would not pry. That was officially Violet's job now. And if he wanted to tell her, he simply would.

"Really..? Well, that's good."

"I already know about Violet," Selina laughed, "Well I knew on the train, but you forget she is my best friend. I knew the moment you two got back from the lake. I'm so glad that the walking on egg shells faze is over. It drove me nuts." Selina laughed.

Patroclus welcoming cry almost made the brunette jump backwards since it had startled her somewhat. Pulse beating a bit faster than usual Sophie took the gestured seat next to her co-prefect and friend. "Runes were definitely a good first class of the year." she agreed. "I didn’t think that it was as difficult as it was. I hadn’t taken Runes before this year though so it was a bit of a shock." Sophie thought back to the lesson and said with a small smile pursing her lips "I managed to totally damage a rune spell by sneezing in the middle of it. It was quite embarrassing." It was nice to get back into the study flow.

"No problem. That’s what’s friends and fellow prefects do for each other. What kind of studies does your father do?"She asked curiously. Honestly it had worked out okay without any real problems. "The first years were full of questions but I managed to answer all of them without trouble." Except one which she had had to steer in the direction of Evan, snake prefect.

"Divination." Heather said simply. "I even bought my own deck of cards. Want me to do a reading on you?"

Rubiey wandered into the Common Room, flustered after turning up to Hogwarts late. She was gutted she had missed everything - the sorting, the beginning of term feast, even the beginning of some lessons! She couldn't see any of her friends, so she flopped down onto a squishy chair by the fire, running her hand hrough her newly-dyed red hair.

It felt good to be back.

Emily laughed. "Maths, stinks!" she said simply "Don't worry, we can study together if we get stuck!" Ah, friends were the best!
"You should have been in charms class! It was so fun. We had a water balloon fight!"
Where the educational value of that lesson came in, Emily wasn't sure.

Urg, Divination.
"Do you actually believe in divination? I think the subject involves too much guessing..." She didn't realise her tone might have been a bit mean.
But there was only one word to describe divination...

Urg!

He took his sweet time, walking slow as a snail and grinning stupidly at her before the camera flashed. If he had taken one more second, she would have given him a black eye.
And then they were done. Ruby eyebrows shot up as he handed her the camera back, still smiling. Was he really as stupid as he looked?! Shocked, she pocketed the camera and blinked at the hand he had stretched out. At first, she had thought he wanted a handshake (AS IF!) but then she remembered the other part of their deal. The child wanted his marshmallows. Slowly, Ruby's mouth twitched into a grin and then she laughed out loud, a high pitched laugh, loud enough to wake the dead.
Shaking her head, she said, "You honestly think I'm going to give you marshmallows after you've already given me back what I wanted?" She couldn't believe it. After all his little acts of making her sign rubbish and threatening to throw her camera out the window, he had failed at the end. Apparently, he really didn't know how to negotiate properly.
"Well, it was nice doing business with you, Braeden (that was his name, right?), and I'll be sure to burn all the pictures you took of us, including the one of me holding that abominable piece of parchment once I develop them," She said as she smirked at him.
Gathering herself, Ruby made to walk out the portrait hole, but then she remembered something else.
"OH, and I'll be sure to enlarge the one of you stuffed with marshmallows and hang it over the Great Hall for everyone to see, eh?" She cackled again and walked the rest of the way to the portrait hole, still laughing to herself. She honestly had never met anyone stupider, or more naive, than this kid.

Nika giggledemily did my reading during divination, but you can do one for me too! It would be fun!! Nika said smiling. Wow charms sounded like an interesting class. Nika laughed math was awful.

Nika wasn't too sure of divination either but she started to like the class."I actually like divination. I didn't think I would like it but now that I went to the class I think I like it!"

Poor naive, innocent Braeden honestly and truly believed with all of his heart that Ruby would be a fair player and give him his marshmallows. But she didn't. Instead, she let out the most shiver-worthy and bloodcurdling cackle that Braeden had ever heard in his life, one that caused his empty expectant hand to drop and his feet to take a step back in instinct, in fear. Merlin, this girl was frightening! And a liar! As she poked fun at him for his naivety, Braeden's jaw dropped to the floor, disbelief written in his widened brown eyes. That wasn't fair! He'd done his part of the deal! Dammit. He knew he should've thrown that camera into the fire when he had the chance… But she had looked so worried, he couldn't do that. She didn't look so worried now, though. GAH.

And then she was threatening to hang his embarrassing picture on the Great Hall once developed.
Braeden's bottom lip quivered; he looked like he might just burst into tears any second and whether it was because he felt betrayed or because he felt like the biggest gullible idiot of life, was hard to tell. BUT. Lions don't cry. So he quickly composed himself and watched the Evil Lioness walk away cackling like the maniac she was. He didn't know how he was going to stop her from hanging his embarrassing picture in the Great Hall, but he did know where to start - he could NOT let her keep those pictures once developed, or the negatives. He'd have to steal them somehow. And that would require some following the Evil Lioness around. So Braeden didn't stop her as she walked away and out the portrait hole looking triumphant. Once she was gone, he pulled out his wand and conjured up a 1920s-style mustache and some shades. Oh yes. Ruby would never recognize him now! Mwaaaaahahahaha!

Once all disguised and unrecognizable (or at least that's what he thought), Braeden walked over to the portrait hole and out into the corridor, leaving the common room behind.

"Yeah, well it was fun with you" Emily smiled "And reading the cards was fun, but I don't think anything we predicted will come true"
She was sorry to be such a downer, but divination was uh!

Nika smiled she did enjoy the *** a lot and she knew it wouldn't be as fun if she sat with someone else. "Yeah, I'm extremely happy that we sat together!" Nika listened to Emily tell her side of things. Although Nika didn't agree with Emily she didn't say anything because they were such good friends and she didn't want a class to come in between them. "well you never know our predictions could come true" Nika said in a mysterious tone while wiggling her fingers. And then She giggled some. "I guess I really like the class because it's not very hard for me and the mood is very laid back! And the professor is pretty nice too." Nika thought the *** was a lot of fun and so far it was probably her favorite class.

Emily laughed at Nika being mysterious. "Yeah, you never know... And yeah the professor was really nice."
Let's get off the topic of Divination. It was giving her a headache.
"Have you given any thought to jobs outside of Hogwarts?"
Great, she was an 11 year old giving career advice!
"I know we're only in first year and all, but I think I already know what I want to be..."
She drifted into a daydream...

Nika loved being with Emily she felt as though she could goof off without being made fun of. Nika laughed with Emily and when all the laughter finally came to a stop her stomach started to hurt. All that laughter.

"Ummm actually", Nika felt a bit embarrassed. She doesn't know anything about being a wizard. Her father is a muggle dentist for crying out loud. I suppose maybe there are wizard dentists.... But then again, they could just zap there teeth straight. Could they? "Err well you see..." she started, "I don't really know what sort of jobs are out there." She thought about what she said and quickly added, For wizards." Nika listened to herself how stupid what's out there? really... "What I mean is that I don't know what kind of jobs wizards can have." yeah that sounded a little better... sort of. Nika's face turned a shade of bright pink. Most of her friends in the muggle world knew what they wanted to grow up and do. But Nika. She was the only undecided.

It's only your first year. You are 11. You don't have to know yet. Emily is just ahead of the game, that's all. Just a little head start. She is bound to change her mind anyways. She tried to reassure herself. Nika's little conversation in her head helped ease her. "Well what do you want to be?" Nika said curiously

Alice walked into the common room looking forward to see her bestie Rubiey. It seemed like they hadn't seen each other in forever, and they had both been so busy so far this term that they hadn't had any time to chat with one another. Alice walked over to the couch and plopped down, keeping an eye on the portrait to make sure she didn't miss Rubiey walking in while pulling out two small cups and a jug of pumpkin juice from her bag. She had bought some over the summer and figured now was as good a time as any to use it. Pouring out two glasses full Alice waited excitedly.