survivor | HARRY POTTER

-Chapter 8-

Christmas was coming, exciting the castle inhabitants beyond belief. On a cold morning mid-December, Hogwarts woke to find itself covered in several feet of snow, the lake frozen solid and the trees bitten by frost. Jess, Millie, and Alyssa had teamed up with the Weasley Twins and bewitched a bunch of snowballs to follow Quirrell around the castle, bouncing off the back of his turban. The few owls that had managed to battle their way through the stormy sky to deliver post had to be nursed back to health by Hagrid before they could fly again. Alyssa, Millie, and Jess had decided to stay at Hogwarts over the break, partly because they knew that Christmas in the castle would be unlike anything they had ever seen before, and partly because they had a larger chance of trying to figure out what it was Quirrell was after if they remained in the proximity of the castle library.

The three eleven year olds had spent a great amount of time with their noses stuck in a large pile of books, desperately searching for any clue that might lead them towards what the monstrous dog on the third floor was guarding. They woke early to rush to the library and remained there until closing time, and even then they spent the entire night awake in the common room flicking through pages. The teachers chalked it off as studying as final exams were six months away, but the their tiredness was starting to show. Purplish bruises hung under their eyes, their hair was knotted, skin pale, increasingly thinner from lack of food, and always falling asleep at the worst moments, including potions lesson when Snape had given them a detention for drifting off during his lecture.

Despite all this, however, they did try to stay awake in classes in hope of learning any decent information which could possibly help them during this new mission of theirs, Alyssa and Jess even fighting to stay awake in History Of Magic. It didn't work, of course, and the two generally managed to catch up on their sleep during that hour. Hermione had tried to convince them that they were doing too much and that they had fallen behind drastically in their studies, but they didn't see the fuss as they had gained points from the teachers with their new found knowledge. Except for Millie. Every single bit of information she learned seemed to go in one ear and out of the other.

"You should really listen to her, Ali, your not looking so good." Harry had frowned, placing a hand on her cold forehead. Alyssa jerked away and slapped his hand, glaring at the boy. "Yeah, well, I should listen to a lot of people more often, Potter, but what are you gonna do?" Harry had sighed and dropped the subject, which Alyssa was extremely thankful for as it meant she didn't have to worry about him breathing down her neck every second of the day.

"We haven't eaten yet!" Alyssa had whined as Jess tried to drag her towards the library. "But we haven't done any research! You don't each much food anyway!"
"Jess, why do you make it so hard to take the easy way out?!"
"Why do you not make taking the easy way out so hard?!"
"Because I like the easy way out! Now come on! I don't care if we fail at this mission, if I don't shove a cheese sandwich down my throat I'm gonna fail at not starving to death!!"
Millie had watched the whole thing with raised eyebrows as Alyssa finally dragged Jess to lunch, the Gryffindor refusing to talk to her until Alyssa had bribed her with some fries.

"I wonder what it would be like to have someone else's brain." Millie said as she closed the heavy book sitting in her lap, Alyssa and Jess turning to stare at her incredulously. "To be honest, it would be kind of cool. Although I would not want to switch brains with Millie." Jess said, her eyes widening as she shook her head. "Oi!"
"She has a point. Every time I would try to look at my eyes in the mirror your brain would keep leaning in going let me see! Let me see!" Alyssa said, Jess snickering as Millie threw her stuffed elephant at the Ravenclaw. "Hey! Well, I wouldn't want to switch brains with you two either. There's a lot of scary stuff in there!" Jess and Alyssa glanced at each other and smirked, chuckling evilly before both replying with "thank you." at the same time. Millie shuddered and shuffled backwards a little.