Inglorious Bastards [Theodore Nott]

Chapter Sixty

December arrived faster than they imagined. Snow fell from the skies, and unlike before where they could have snowball fights, the students were stuck inside the castle with decrees forbidding them of any form of fun. Along with the mountains of untouched snow that have created a white canvas on Hogwarts begging to be touched were their mountains of homework. Drowned in their books, Carina had so much homework to do that she has been drowned in ink morning, noon, and night. There were times when a load of essays was too much that she would mix them up together, luckily, Theodore was there to correct her before she could ruin her parchment. And, like how he would look out for her academically, Theodore would often have to point out many ink smudges at Carina's face, or sometimes clean it himself with magic when she was too busy with what she was doing.

Of course, their load was not as heavy as what Ron and Hermione were facing. As Prefects, they were tasked to do rounds and as well as help decorate the castle. And Carina had to agree, watching the Prefects have war with Peeves over the Christmas balls was a show worth watching, which was why she insisted that she and Theodore did their homework at the Great Hall, to have a front-row view of Peeves choking Ron with the silk ribbons. But, the fun would stop when Headless Nick would come along with the Bloody-Baron to reprimand Peeves.

Along with the changes happening in Hogwarts with the festivities were the house-elves. They have stopped cleaning the Gryffindor common room because of Hermione's little hats that she put out for them, they found it offensive and refused to clean the common room. Carina, seeing that she hated such mess, took it upon herself to clean the room while muttering about Hermione's wrong approach towards house-elves, and since she didn't want to hurt Hermione's feelings, she would often rant about it to Theodore (as Roman was far too busy being with Morgan). Dobby, the only elf who saw the beauty of freedom, have been taking the hats from time to time and would join Carina in cleaning the common room. As a thank you, Carina gave Dobby one of her old scarves and promised to get him a sweater in Hogsmeade as a present.

Meanwhile, D.A. meetings came more frequent and have gotten better. In one of their meetings, they were working on Stunning. Everyone had paired each other to practice. Roman has paired with Morgan, which left Carina with Cedric, who invited her. Carina admits that Cedric was a good dueler, and has shocked her with unspoken spells, luckily, she managed to block his spells with the Shielding Charm. But, Carina was not letting Cedric win a duel. It wasn't in her nature to lose.

"Orbisogmeo!"

A whip was formed at the end of Carina's wand and with a quick flick of her finger, her whip wrapped around Cedric's hand that held his wand and dragged him down. Cedric let out a grunt of pain but then laughed when he realized that she has outsmarted him.

"Playing dirty, Black?" Cedric said.

"Force of habit," Carina chuckled.

"Carina, we're supposed to practice Stunning," Harry called out from where he was instructing Neville.

"Sorry!" Carina winced. She then had her whip disappear and helped Cedric to his feet. "Good match."

"Good match."

As the holidays neared, their meetings were to be paused as almost everyone was heading home. She was told by Maisie that Charity and Tom were planning on joining celebrating Christmas in London, to see Big Ben. But Carina saw through the little code and knew they were spending it in Grimmauld Place with her father. Mrs. Weasley had other plans and invited them to celebrate the Holidays in the Burrow, but Carina has already her mind set to be with her father then.

"I'll celebrate with you," Harry said. "I'm sure that would brighten Padfoot's mood."

"Thank you, Harry, he'd really like that."