Christmas comes over the castle.

It was the end of November and we were ever nearing the start of our Christmas holidays. The castle had been transformed overnight into a Winter Wonderland, fake snow fell in every corridor and everywhere there were floating candles that gave off the smell of fir trees, those were so amazing. But overall, the Great Hall looked the best. Twelve humongous Christmas trees had been put up, all covered with house decorations, three trees per house, miniature Santas flew around on toy brooms over all the tables and a group of ghosts were always sat in the corner singing Christmas carols.

We only had three days left until the holidays.
"Can't you wait until the holidays?" I whispered to Sam during Potions.
"Like, le Duh!" Sam said all to loudly.
"You two, quiet!" barked Prof. Malfoy.
Laurie and Tash behind us started giggling uncontrollably.
"Oh, Shut up, Tash!" I hissed over my shoulder.

The bell rang and we all got up and left for our next lesson, Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Ok then class. What do you think we're going to do today?"

"You're going to show us how you did in the Dark Lord?" Laurie piped up.

"Oh come on loser, you're so stupid. It's obvious that he's going to teach us how to duel." Luella sneered.
"Luella, five points from Slytherin. Ok class, today we will be doing a practical lesson on simple combative spells or otherwise known as disarming spells. Ok, if you can get out your notebooks and take down the notes and spells written on the board then we can get started."

We quickly finished taking our notes. He paired us up with random people, some of whom we had never met before.
Sam was paired up with her Slytherin crush, Delphinus Malfoy. She went bright red when she made his wand fly into her hand.
Unfortunately, Laurie was paired with Petunia Pygge, whom immediately got to work in attacking Laurie, it was all she could do to protect herself on the onslaught of hexes.
Tash was paired with Peter Broom, a tall Hufflepuff boy who was very clumsy.

I was then paired with a boy whom I had never met. His name was Scott McCraig. He was in Ravenclaw but I had not come across him. He was the most charming, handsome and witty boy I had ever met. I went so bright red when he flicked my wand out of my hand. It was so embarrassing.

The lesson soon ended, thankfully, and we went to go have our dinner. We all sat in our usual seats and we talked.
"OMG, I duelled with Delphinus! He was so cute when In took his wand! What about you Laurie, what was your experience in being *ahem* hexed?"
"Painful. Excruciatingly painful! So humiliating!!! What about you Tash?"
"Fun, Peter Broom was so clumsy that he tripped over his own feet every few minutes! Hilarious! What about you Annie?"
"Well, first off, pass me a sausage from the plate on your right, then I'll tell you. Thanks. Right. You see that guy down there on the other side of the table chatting with Brown? That is Scott McCraig. He is so charming, handsome and witty! He was so amazing! I actually blushed!"
"Wow, Annie! It seems that there may still be hope yet to turn you into a girl!"
"That's not the end of it. At then end, rather than hitting my wand out of my hand, he accidentally knocked me over with his spell and he blushed furiously when that happened. He stuttered an apology and helped me back to my feet."
"Brilliant! Well, it seems that all we need to do now is to make Annie into a proper girl!"
"Do you know what time it is? I'm expecting an owl from my mum saying if I can stay here for Christmas. I need to go at 6:30."
"Oh. it's 25 past right now. You should go. For that matter, I'm done. I'm going upstairs. Anyone joining me?"

Sam went to Gryffindor Tower and we went to Ravenclaw tower.
I knocked on the door-knocker and it said in a wheezy voice,
"You heard me before,
Yet you hear me again.
Then I die, 'Til you call me again
What am I?"

"That's simple. A phoenix."
"Nope!"
"Um, is it a... um... an echo?"
"You may enter."

We went into our common room and I promptly got a letter from Sam.

Dear Annie,
I've just seen the strangest thing.
I went into my common room and waited for my owl when someone came in. I didn't look round,
but obviously, they didn't see me and went and sat on one of the chairs by the fire with a book.
I swear she looked just like you. Except that she was wearing golden snitch earrings, but when I last saw YOU, you were wearing nimbus 2000 earrings. Strange.
EXPLAIN!
Bite.
xxx

Oh no! She'd seen Sophie!