Snitches and Spectrespecs

Chapter 1: Christmas Dinner

Christmas was going to change Ginny, even if she didn't know it yet.

Hogwarts was filled with excitement and cheery chattering. The Christmas Holidays had come. Screams of joy could be heard from the many children having snowball fights all over the grounds.

In the windows around the castle, you could see the reflection of a joyous fire sizzling in the corner of each houses' common room.

Hermione, Harry and Ron were sitting by the welcoming fire in the Gryffindor common room, eating delicious home-made fudge that Mrs Weasley had sent them. They had given up on trying to eat Hagrid's rock cakes that might as well have been real rocks. Same as last year, the Weasley twins insisted everyone wore their Weasley jumpers, and forced Ron to wear his ugly maroon one, whilst his friends and brothers chuckled away at his stupid jumper.

BEEP! BEEP! Ginny's watch went off. This reminded Ginny she had to go to Christmas Dinner with her Ravenclaw friend, Luna Lovegood. They were going to have Christmas dinner together in the Great Hall and exchange presents for each other. Ginny, wearing a smile at the idea of the feast and fun to come, quickly stood up with excitement.

"Ginny, where are you going?" Hermione asked.

"Eating dinner with Luna." Ginny answered despite her rush. She then picked up a lilac box filled. It was filled with drawings of nargles and wrackspurts she had drawn by hand the previous night.

"Um. Okay. See you later then" she replied unsurely.

"Er, yeah. Bye Hermione" Ginny spoke swiftly as she quickly strided towards the Fat Lady painting to exit.

She ran down the many staircases, hoping to avoid the usual Hogwarts rush. But it was quiet. No-one was there. Everyone was either in their common room or in the Great Hall. Ginny just hoped that most were in their common rooms so she could find Luna easier.

When she entered the Great Hall, she was delighted to see it was practically empty. There were new decorations of holly and mistletoe hung everywhere, levitating by use of enchantments. There were twelve Christmas trees covering most of the walls. Ginny went to sit down at the Gryffindor table when she realised that all the houses' tables were all put together as one long table in the middle. This at least meant she would be able to sit with Luna without people telling them off during the holidays, because she hated getting annoyed on exciting days like Christmas Eve. Ginny quickly sat down and Luna arrived just a few minutes later, fortunately.

"Hey Luna! Merry Christmas Eve!"

"You too Ginny. Have you seen the way Crabbe and Goyle have been acting lately? It's as if some Wrackspurts have been hollowing out their minds!"

The thing about being best friends with Luna Lovegood is to get used to whatever she says and sometimes pretend to understand it.

"Don't worry. They always seemed to have empty, mindless heads anyway. I guess that's why they stick with Malfoy."

"I guess so... Ooh! Let's exchange gifts!"

As Ginny handed over the lilac box, she was presented with a jar of five fairies posing to make the word 'GINNY'.

"Er..wow, thanks Luna. I'm speechless.. Um, are they real fairies?"

"Of course! You always said you wanted to have some cute pets. I even added instructions on how to look after them and names of other books that might help you!"

After explaining how she managed to bribe the fairies to spell out 'GINNY' inside the jar, Luna finally opened her lilac box.

"Well, what do you think?"

"Amazing! It looks similar to one of my dad's drawings of what he saw in a dream. He thought it was a Crumple-Horned Snorkack when it was clearly a Wrackspurt!"

"Oh yeah? Of course...." Ginny replied politely but still with uncertainty.

The merry conversation continued through the evening. After lots of laughter and silly stories, Ginny and Luna headed up happily to their separate dormitories and rested blissfully as the moon rose in the sky.