An American at Hogwarts

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Starting Tuesday morning with History of Magic turned out to be a blessing and a curse.

On the one hand, I saw my Slytherin friends and told them to spread the study word first thing in the morning. I also got to spend the period making a few more Jeopardys, Quizlets, and Kahoots for after dinner.

On the other hand, class bored the hell out of everyone and put us in a discouraged, brain-dead mood.

Nothing managed to bring us back before lunch time. I relaxed a little in Herbology, but we went to Potions right after which took me right back to brain-dead and exhausted. The one bright spot was being with Hufflepuff, since I got to invite all of them to study night.

We headed to lunch after Potions, and I tried to rest up as much as possible. The heaviness hanging over the entire school was starting to feel suffocating, and tonight couldn't come fast enough.

My post-lunch schedule started with Arithmancy, and it gave me the chance to see David and tell him to spread the study word to his friends. After making it through a double period of Charms, we only had a few hours left before some insane competition mixed up our mundane schedules.

I ran back to the dorms before dinner to get all my many, many electronics for the night. We needed projectors and devices for everybody to play from, but thankfully Ana kicked ass and could easily handle making a wizard-friendly interface for a few competitive quiz games. I knew not to expect 100% turnout, but I had enough devices for everybody anyway, just in case the stress of finals drove some of the nastier Slytherins to finally make peace.

I plopped down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall next to all my friends as dinner started, dropping a massive bag of all the things I needed on the floor with a thud.

"Good God Alexa, what is in that bag?" asked Angelina, leaning over the table to peek at everything I'd just dumped on the floor.

"Literally so many different electronics, it's ridiculous. You have no idea." Angelina raised an eyebrow as she sat back down, and I could already tell she was more excited for this study session than she had been before.

Ah, the power of mystical muggle technology.

"So, when is this happening then?" asked Fred as he chowed down on a roll.

"As soon as everyone's done with dinner. That's when the stressed out upperclassmen take over."

"Can't wait," Fred and George chorused.

I split my attention between eating and double and triple checking that everything was in order on my laptop. I wanted to be productive, but if I actively tried to study for another second then I would go insane. Skimming through everything for the games one last time was my compromise.

It took everyone a long time to file out of the Great Hall. I don't think anyone really wanted to get back to studying, which is what everyone had to do when they left, even if they weren't getting ready for O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s. Finally though, the last second-year straggler wandered out of the dining hall. All the teachers were long gone, and the fifth and seventh years were the only ones left in the room.

Not everyone stayed, but most did. Adrian and Myrah were the only Slytherins, and there were only five Ravenclaws including Penelope and David, but it was honestly a better turnout than I expected.

Every person in the room was looking at me with exhaustion written all over their faces.

"Alright guys," I said, standing and climbing onto the table so everyone could see and hear me. I needed to breathe some life into this crowd, and I couldn't do that by sitting down. "We're all stressed and we need a little fun in our lives, but we also can't waste even a single second not studying. So, we're going to study with games. I'll show you how it works, and it'll be super easy, so don't even worry about it. First thing's first through: we need to move these tables."