Carnival I.M

14

November was buried beneath the snow as December made itself known. All of the fifth-years were kept indoors due to the amount of Homework they were given, and the prefects had much more duties, such as helping Filch in the corridors and keeping an eye on the younger students on their lunch breaks. Emma, as well as a few others, would stare miserably outside the windows at the piles of snow that were begging to be thrown all over the place. But instead they were kept inside with a paper in front of them and a quill, or in Emma's case a pen, in hand.

Classes went on as usual, even as Christmas neared closer than ever. Sabrina's attempts at getting a party on the second last day before the Holiday were terrible, and not many people agreed with her. But she wasn't giving up. No matter how many times Emma or Daphne or even Pansy for that matter told her how much of an awful idea it was, Sabrina would immediately turn the situation around and make it sound easier than what it really was.

"You don't really think all these people would rather waste their energy here than at home with their families," Emma shook her head, sighing as she rested her hand lightly on her hip for affect.

Daphne bit her lip and nodded.

"No - look. I've already got twelve people and it's only been three days since I started getting word around," Sabrina argued, unfolding a piece of parchment with twelve names, including her own, scrawled down in a list. "That's not that bad. The holidays start in eight days."

"Good, I can't bloody wait," Daphne groaned, tightening her scarf, as usual. "All this homework and extra class work is making me want to vomit all over the place."

Folding the parchment and tucking it away, Sabrina said, while keeping her eye directly on Emma, "Just make sure the both of you study while on break so that you don't forget anything."

"So, who's on that list?" Emma asked, strongly interested in switching the topic.

It had been harder on Emma than what it was before. Snape was becoming more arrogant toward her - well, as arrogant as a teacher could be. But she wasn't the only one. Snape was being horrible to Harry as well, purposely failing him or ruining his potion if he succeeded. Her Care of Magical Creatures classes were becoming dispirited with Umbridge there for every single lesson. Professor McGonagall was putting the most pressure on her fifth-year students, constantly giving them tons of homework as well as making them stay behind in class an extra five to ten minutes. Not to mention the most boring class of all, History of Magic which was no better in lessening the homework. Defence against the Dark Arts was a nightmare. So far, Charms was the only class Emma found interest in.

And aside from Emma's classes and homework, she had still not fully made up with Draco. He had finally given up on her and awaited her forgiveness, but Emma wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of running after him. But at least the Slytherin girls weren't glaring at her as much, or talking nastily behind her back. She had even spoken with Harry and his friends a couple times since being 'broken up' with Draco. Everything seemed so much easier when she wasn't friends with him.

"You don't know most of them, heck I don't even know some of them. There are two third-years, five fourth-years, me, Draco possibly...there aren't many fifth-years, they're all exhausted from all this school work and O.W.L preperation...there's Montague. Astoria, Pansy agreed just to make me quit talking about it. And there's the Head Boy. The Head Girl is still pondering it all but I have a feeling she'll come around eventually. Mostly because I'm taking food and drink requests as well as music requests. That's mostly what made people agree to it. Any requests?" Sabrina said brightly, eyes bouncing back and forth between Emma and Daphne.

"Erm...no, not so far," Daphne said awkwardly. Emma noticed her eyes narrow at the sound of her sisters name.

Emma bit her lip, balancing on the heels and the balls of her feet, rocking back and forth. "Oh - what about pizza!"