An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Chapter Thirty-Seven

A/N: Hey crew! I'm officially back! In case you didn't see the announcement on my profile, the plan for the foreseeable future is updates every Thursday :) for everybody who was so patient and kind while I took a much needed break from writing and updating, I cannot *tell* you how much I appreciate you. This chapter is dedicated to all of you.

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"Are you sure there's nothing you can do?" asked Ginny gravely, staring at me as we squared off. "No way around it, no way to change it?"

"Ginny, Harry already sent out the message on the coins. Unless Smith decides to ignore his for some reason this week, I really can't uninvite him from Friendsgiving."

She sighed dramatically, flinging her head back to look at the ceiling. I took the opportunity to attack while she was distracted.

She noticed what I was doing at the last second, darting backwards with a curse before putting up her guard.

"What the hell, Alexa?"

"First rule, Ginny. Always keep your guard up," I said with a grin. "And for the record, you're preaching to the choir about Smith. I don't want him there either. But in the spirit of the holiday, we're going to be nice and try to make new friends. And also seat him as far away from us as humanly possible."

Ginny grinned at me for a second, then launched herself at me in an attack. I blocked, but it was still a good move on her part. She and Luna had both improved immensely since we'd first started their individual lessons.

We spent an hour in total sparring in the Astronomy Tower. Ginny had started to become seriously formidable, and while Luna still wasn't fantastic at any of the things we were trying to teach her, she'd at least become a little more willing to hit us in training. A good first step, for sure.

After another hour or so of sparing and chatting, Ginny and I walked back to Gryffindor Tower together, both of us sweaty and tired. We didn't bother stopping to talk to anyone in the Common Room before going up to our dorms, each of us headed to hit the showers.

I tried to focus on the water rushing over me, imagining it washing away all my stress with it. David had been disappointed that we weren't doing Friendsgiving, but he was busy enough with his research for St. Mungo's that he hadn't dwelled on it for too long.

Still, I couldn't quite get over all the changes this year had brought. Would it really have been so much to ask for a normal, fun senior year? Did it really have to come with all this other bullshit?

I took a deep breath and tried to calm down as I shut the water off. There was nothing I could do to change the situation, so as much as possible, I needed to focus on making the best of it.

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I sat at breakfast with my friends on Tuesday morning, working away on the seating chart for our modified Friendsgiving. It also worked as a kind of alternate roster for the DA, so I needed to make sure the diagram didn't end up in the wrong hands.

"You better not be putting Smith anywhere near us," muttered Fred, leaning in close to whisper in my ear while I worked. I didn't bother looking up at him.

"Join the club," I muttered back. "I'm probably going to end up sticking him with the other Hufflepuffs, which is the opposite of the inter-House interaction I want to encourage, just to keep everyone else from absolutely rioting about having to sit next to him."

"We could always put something in his food," offered George from across the table. I stopped what I was doing and turned to stare at him, Fred and the rest of our friends with me. "What? We could put a sleeping potion or something in it, pretend he just worked too hard during the week and passed out. Then none of us would have to deal with him."