"I come home in the morning light
My mother says 'when you gonna live your life right'
Oh mother, dear, we're not the fortunate ones
And girls just wanna have fun
Oh girls just wanna have fun"

…

"…course, you know? I just could not believe her that –"

"Ooh, Lavender, look at this, wouldn't it be amazing to wear that?"

"What? Oh my gods, yes! What magazine is that?"

"But Parv, that one doesn't look that good with our coloring, try it in red…"

"Teen Witch, and –"

"Yeah, that one's nice, but what do you think of this one for me, you two?"

"Has anyone seen my hairbrush? I want to redo my hair, Ernie liked it yesterday…"

"Ernie? Do you have a crush on him?!"

"Yeah, I thought you couldn't date, Ashira…"

"Come off it! Really?"

"Well, no, but… we're at Hogwarts! What they don't know can't hurt them, right?"

"Better you than me – my parents are strict!"

"Yeah, ours too…"

"What about you Amy? Are your relatives strict?"

"Er…" Amaryllis looked around at the other three girls, who were propped on various pillows and things on Lavender and Parvati's beds, and stalled. "Well, yeah…"

"How come?" Parvati asked. "I mean, you're you. You're like, amazing and defeated a Dark Lord. You can take care of yourself."

"Um…."

Amaryllis silently thanked whatever deity it was that got Hermione to walk in at that moment, ink stained and carrying a way too high pile of books in her arms, with an apple rolling precariously atop the stack.

"Oh, my gods! Here, Hermione, let me help you!" she exclaimed, and hopped off the bed, thankfully avoiding knocking over Lavender's purple nail polish (The girl needed to close her things, really, her nails had dried half an hour ago) as she scrambled across the room.

She stopped just before her curly-haired friend, and carefully took the top ten or so books from her, just allowing Hermione to see over the top of her now-smaller armful. "Thanks," Hermione smiled.

"Not a problem," Amaryllis shrugged. "Here, you want to hang out with us? Lavender found this amazing tailoring charm, and we're trying to re-size some of our clothes to fit better, or fit each other, it's really cool –"

"–Thank you, Amaryllis, but no," Hermione said stiffly, no longer smiling. "I rather think I'd like to do something productive with my time, and you should be, too. Now, if you'll excuse me…" Hermione dropped her books onto the desk by her bed, and snatched the others from Amaryllis' arms. "I need to study. You are welcome to join me."

With that, the older girl flounced into her desk chair and turned her back on her roommates, beginning to pore over one of her books.

Amaryllis blinked. Then blinked again. Well. Alright, then… She slowly turned back to Ashira, Parvati, Lavender and Padma, who had snuck past the Fat Lady by pretending to be Parvati earlier, and who were all being shockingly quiet for once.

They'd been having fun… Why was Hermione angry over that?

Ashira held her arms out for a hug, and for once, Amaryllis accepted, not flinching and just wrapping her arms around her friend. Why was Hermione being so mean? She may not like makeup and gossip and giggling and all, but that didn't mean other people couldn't…

"For the love of the gods, Hermione, you are so rude!" Lavender exclaimed, waving her arms angrily. "You think you are so much better than us because you spend, like, forever reading, and get good grades –well guess what? We're not stupid, we aren't failing all our classes, and we actually enjoy our lives. Stop picking on Amaryllis for being friends with more than just boring, plain, uptight you! Some of us actually like life, you know!"

Panting, Lavender turned and dropped from her knees to sit on her feet, the duvet twisting beneath her. Hermione's back stiffened throughout her tirade, but the brunette didn't say a word, merely continuing to switch between her two open books – referencing, Amaryllis thought.

"Hand me my want, Padma," Lavender snapped, still fuming. Of all the girls, she got the most upset at Hermione's… swottiness. Which may have something to do with Hermione picking at her about it more than the other girls – Hermione tended to think of Lavender as a 'vapid, shallow, utterly useless blonde cow! How can you stand her, Amaryllis?'

Hermione wasn't shy about sharing that opinion to Lavender's face, either.

Lavender took her wand silently, and took a deep breath, then scrunched up her face to concentrate. "Silencio," she whispered, moving her wand to encompass the two beds. She opened her eyes. "OI! HERMIONE!" she shouted, and Amaryllis flinched. Hermione, however, didn't.

"What in the…" Ashira mumbled, eyebrows disappearing under her fringe.

Lavender looked inordinately pleased with herself. "I did it!" she squealed, clapping her hands together and bouncing excitedly. "I did it! I did it! I did it!" She turned to the other girls, absolutely ecstatic. "I did a fifth year charm! I did a silencing charm on the beds so she can't hear us! Oh my gods, I DID IT!" She squealed again and hugged Padma and Parvati, who were on either side of her, close around the shoulders. "This is so cool!"

"How'd you manage that?" Ashira asked, shocked. "If it's an OWL spell…"

The blonde girl smiled smugly, insanely (and rightly) pleased with herself. "Well, you know my Mum's a spell crafter – I used to follow her around her lab, and she always talked about how will, visualization, and surety of result are the most important parts of spell casting." She shrugged. "Magical power is supposed to be important, too, but it's harder to, er… qualify? I think that was the word, anyway. But yeah, mind over matter or whatever. So I've been practicing that spell since school started and I finally did it!" She giggled again, hugging the twins tighter.

"Congratulations!" Amaryllis laughed, extracting herself from Ashira's arms to join the group hug. "That's fantastic!"

"You're completely brill at Charms, Lav," Ashira agreed, crawling behind the blonde girl to join the group hug.

The five of them sat like that for a few minutes, just happy for their friend, until Padma squirmed out of the hug. "So, like I was sawing, what do you think of the red – or maybe a turquoise color…?"

Giggling at each other, the girls let magazines and makeup once more take precedence.

...

"… and then when Hermione realized we couldn't hear her on the beds, she wouldn't talk to me for the whole rest of the weekend," Amaryllis finished, slumping unhappily against Neville. He patted her shoulder awkwardly, not sure if she would jerk from the touch or not. Amaryllis sighed. "I just want everyone to stop fighting… Dorms aren't any fun when everyone's mad at each other. I liked it when the year started, and we all got along."

Neville rubbed Amaryllis' shoulder comfortingly. "Maybe we're all just getting used to each other? My Gran, she's still friends with her dorm mates from school, even though her and Hortense fight all the time. Didn't you ever fight with your cousin?"

Amaryllis chewed her lip, thinking of Potter Pummeling and learning about holes in fences and good climbing trees and who left their rubbish bins out just so she could hide from Dudley and his gang. "We… didn't get on. At all," she finally said, and Neville nodded slowly, not saying anything. A moment later, he stopped short, turning Amaryllis to face him.

"Forget them," she said simply, holding her shoulders so she looked up at him. "For right now, let's think about choir and having fun. We don't need to think about them."

"B-but, Ashira's in choir, and she'll pester me and –"

"Forget her," Neville repeated. "If she asks, just ignore it, and sit by me. Besides, Professor Flitwick doesn't like talking during practice, so were okay."

The boy smiled nervously, and Amaryllis grinned. Neville, the shyest person she'd ever met, was giving her advice on how to avoid confrontation. Well, who would know better, right? She nodded, and they walked arm in arm into the music room, Merton, Patricia, Orsino and Tonks were playing while the other kids danced and sang and goofed about before rehearsal started.

Both first years stared for a moment at the twirling and jumping before laughing and diving in headfirst.

"I love choir!" Amaryllis shouted to Neville before they got separated in the crowd.

Neville just smiled.

Half an hour later, Professor Flitwick was wrapping up directing the dancing from atop the piano, and they all slumped into their seats, exhausted and happy. Flitwick was clapping, getting their attention and keeping them from falling into a fuzzy stupor. Meanie.

"Very good, students!" The tiny man exclaimed. "Very impressive – I take it you enjoyed dancing?"

Well if that wasn't a silly question! The students cheered, and Flitwick nodded, motioning them to quiet down. "Perfect! In that case, I have very good news for you! The annual Ministry Charity Ball is in three weeks, and as always, Hogwarts Choir will be performing!" There was a slight pause while some of the older students groaned, before Flitwick ploughed on. "However, what do you say we give them a surprise this year, yes? Instead of simply singing, we're going to engage the senses with a dance number!"

Amaryllis' mouth dropped while the choir members cheered, babbling ideas and jumping excitedly. She'd heard about the Ministry ball before – ever December, there was a big ball, with popular singers and the Hogwarts Choir, while important people rubbed elbows and donated to various charities and made deals and talked politics. It was some old tradition from a billion years ago or something that was important, even though nobody would really explain why. The choir members that had been to it before always said it was boring – they sang the opening and closing acts because it was traditional, and maybe two people paid attention to them. It was supposed to be boring.

But apparently not this year. Amaryllis gripped Neville's hand with a squeal, watching Flitwick's amused gaze sweep over them all for a few minutes before calling order again.

"Yes, yes, we're all very excited!" he said. "Now, if anyone has any suggestions, please put them on the list I will be posting here and by the Charms classroom – they're sympathetically linked so that anything you write on one will appear on the other, no need to worry that I won't see it! Do try and come up with some dances to go with your selections – and remember! This is a Hogwarts tradition, and you are upholding the fine name of our school. Nothing inappropriate!"

The students all nodded enthusiastically, not saying a word past the various grins and smiles pasted onto their faces. Flitwick eyed them shrewdly, before nodding and smiling once more. "Very good! Now, who remembers the song we started last week? And one, and two, and three…"

Music was awesome, Amaryllis thought, opening her mouth to sing once more.

Practice ran late again, like it normally did, so dinner had already started when they left the music room – Professor Flitwick didn't like to have them sing after eating. He said they sang better when their throats weren't coated in sugar or milk or when they weren't stuffed so much that they fell asleep.

Amaryllis didn't mind – she'd tested it to see if he was right, and had decided that if pre-dinner practice meant she could sing well and still eat dessert, that she was okay with them.

Hogwarts had the most brilliant treacle tart.

She spent most of the meal chattering with Neville and Dean, while Hermione sniffed and ignored her from behind her book – she'd seen Ashira come out of the music room behind Amaryllis, and had been huffy since they sat down. Amaryllis decided to listen to Neville and ignore her. She had Runes club after dinner, and she wasn't going to let stupid fighting ruin club day!

So, alright, Runes club wasn't as amazing as she wanted it to be, because the other ids thought she was weird or silly or something, and Professor Babbling frankly wasn't quite sure what to do with her, but she still liked it. Runes were interesting, after all.

And she needed to talk to Babbling about her rune cage – it was working on her piano canvas, but it didn't work on the trumpet she'd asked a fourth year to conjure for her. But it worked on her guitar. She thought the runes might not transfer well, and Professor Babbling had said that sometimes you just couldn't make a generalized rune scheme, so maybe this was something like that?

Eurgh, why did confusing things have to be so much fun?

And she still needed to track down Tracey Davies. One girl should not be so hard to corner after Potions class!

…

So what did you think? Remember, review, enjoy, and EatYourRikkios!

1:08 PM 17 January 2014