𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀, harry potter

sixty six

66 || kiss and tell

December arrived, bringing with it more snow and a positive avalanche of homework for the fifth years. Adelaide's prefect duties also became more and more onerous as Christmas approached. She was called upon to supervise the decoration of the castle. She hated it, thought it to be a waste of time. All Adelaide wanted was to be back home with her dog and her family.

The only thing Adelaide truly looked forward to were the DA meetings, to which she had actually went to since the first one. Both her and Harry taught the rabble of students together, Harry was clearly a much better teacher, more patient than Adelaide who couldn't take the fact that some people couldn't get it straight away.

Harry and Adelaide arrived early in the Room of Requirement for the last D.A. meeting before the holidays and were very glad they had, because when the lamps burst into light they saw that Dobby had taken it upon himself to decorate the place for Christmas. The two could tell the elf had done it, because nobody else would have strung a hundred golden baubles from the ceiling, each showing a picture of Harry's face and bearing the legend HAVE A VERY HARRY CHRISTMAS!

Harry had only just managed to get the last of them down before the door creaked open and Luna Lovegood entered, looking dreamy as always.

"Hello," she said vaguely, looking around at what remained of the decorations. "These are nice, did you two put them up?"
"No," said Harry, "it was Dobby the house-elf."

"Mistletoe," said Luna dreamily, pointing at a large clump of white berries placed almost over Harry's head. He jumped out from under it. "Good thinking," said Luna very seriously. "It's often infested with nargles."

Harry was saved the necessity of asking what nargles were by the arrival of Angelina, Katie, and Alicia. All three of them were breathless and looked very cold.

"Well," said Angelina dully, pulling off her cloak and throwing it into a corner, "we've replaced you."

"Replaced me?" said Harry blankly.

"Can't have been too hard," Adelaide joked then caught Harry's glare, "Okay. Sorry."

"You and Fred and George," she said impatiently. "We've got another Seeker!"

"Who?" said Harry quickly.

"Ginny Weasley," said Katie. Harry gaped at her.

"Yeah, I know," said Angelina, pulling out her wand and flexing her arm. "But she's pretty good, actually. Nothing on you, of course," she said, throwing him a very dirty look, "but as we can't have you . . ." Harry bit back the retort he was longing to utter: Did she imagine for a second that he did not regret his expulsion from the team a hundred times more than she did?

"And what about the Beaters?" he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

"Andrew Kirke," said Alicia without enthusiasm, "and Jack Sloper. Neither of them are brilliant, but compared with the rest of the idiots who turned up . . ."

The arrival of Ron, Hermione, and Neville brought this depressing discussion to an end and within five minutes, the room was full enough to prevent him seeing Angelina's burning, reproachful looks.

"Okay," he said, calling them all to order. "I thought this evening we should just go over the things we've done so far, because it's the last meeting before the holidays and there's no point starting anything new right before a three-week break —"

"We're not doing anything new?" said Zacharias Smith, in a disgruntled whisper loud enough to carry through the room. "If I'd known that, I wouldn't have come. . . ."