Matilda Matlock

Hit Hard

"An O!"

Ginny's exclamation caused both Matilda and Luna to jump in their seats at the Hufflepuff lunch table. The redhead had slammed her hand down on the surface, and underneath her palm lied an almost wrinkled roll of parchment that appeared to be an essay.

"McGonagall gave me a bloody O!" Ginny laughed with glee, sitting down.

"On your essay?" Matilda blurted, eyes wide. "Gin, that's brilliant!"

"It's all thanks to Luna," Ginny smiled, nodding to her friend across from them. "Helping me go into a deeper analysis on the significance behind the Inanimatus Conjurus Spell totally saved my arse... look, she even commented on that paragraph!"

Matilda and Luna leaned over to peer at the girl's paper, and sure enough, a comment was scribbled in McGonagall's neat handwriting beside it reading, impressive analysis, excellent perspective on it.

"That's wonderful, Ginny," Luna said with a warm smile. "I knew you could do it."

"What would I do without you?" Ginny sighed, pulling her paper back.

Luna continued to beam at her and the two locked eyes for a moment, their goofy smiles reflected upon each others' faces before the moment was quite elongated and thus caused them to quickly look down, Ginny's cheeks a noticeable pink.

"Well, I envy you, Ginny," Matilda said between bites of her sandwich. "I'm sure I didn't do well on that essay considering how much other rubbish I've got going on."

"Nonsense," Ginny scoffed. "I saw you working on it just the other night, it seemed great to me."

"I only squeezed in a half hour of it before I had to switch to D.A preparations for the meeting tomorrow!" Matilda whined.

"I'm sure you did fine, Tillie," Luna said calmly. "Are you sure you don't want any help on lesson prep?"

"No, I think I'm alright, but thanks," Matilda sighed. "I think the next lesson will just be a variety of practices... you know, disarming spell, stunning spell, possibly some blocking?"

"Sounds great," Ginny said with a mouthful of bread. "Last lesson went pretty good with the stunning spell... I must admit, it was quite funny when Fred nearly launched George to the back of the room."

The trio laughed, recalling the moment, and Matilda felt a bit of relief... it did seem like everyone was enjoying themselves and, to her delight, drastically improving. It also didn't hurt that Justin was nothing but laughs and proud grins his first time at the meeting the week before, after things had been so tense between the two of them for a couple months.

After lunch came Defense Against the Dark Arts, another dreaded lesson where all they did was simply sit and red through their useless textbooks. Matilda felt as if she wanted to stand up and shove the woman over every time Umbridge passed by her desk, carefully surveying each student.

It was a miracle that D.A hadn't been caught yet. The Room of Requirement meetings in the evenings were working like a charm... they snuck through the door and it closed well before anyone could ever turn the corner and spot it.

Things were going well. She only hoped they would stay that way.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Later that evening, Matilda sat laughing with Seamus, Harry, Ron, and Ginny in a common area of the castle after running into them on the way back from the library. She had been hard at work finishing a paper due in History of Magic as well as labeling a Herbology sheet that was due the following morning, so it was nice to relax with friends for a bit before heading off to bed.