Howling at the Moon

13. An aftermath.

The day was warm, a rarity in the months coming up to winter. A small group of giddy Hufflepuff girls sat in a haphazard triangle basking in the last of the good weather. Tahlia, the more boisterous one of the group sat dangling from a tree above their heads. Her copper hair trailing under her, uncontained, shining with the same autumn colours as the leaves around them.

"Faith, pass the water would you?" She called down, shuffling slightly to the side, causing a flurry of dead leaves to drop on her friends below. Penny huffed indignantly and dusted them off her text books. Faith merely shook them off her face with her eyes scrunched.

"Get it yourself Tal, I don't want to get up." Faith groaned, turning to side. She lay with her head resting in Diondre's lap.

"Bitch." She called down. "If Diondre asked you would have been right up here." She muttered under her breath afterwards.
Diondre decided to come to her friends plight and stood up suddenly, letting Faiths head drop to the floor. The impact made a small doink sound followed by a groan.

"I'll get you for that!" Shouted Faith, making her way to her feet, slowly, giving her friend time to run. Di faced her and grinned, sprinting the few steps to the tree, stopping only to collect her wand and Tahlia's fallen one.

"Guys, can I just study for ten minutes without the drama?" Said Penny. It was unusual for Penny to join them in her free time, she often spent it alone or with the Ravenclaws engaged in some philosophical debate or another, she may have been misled by Diondre's sudden interest in studying, believing it to mean the group had calmed down. But as long as Tahlia and Diondre were in mere meters of each other mischief prevails. Diondre's hands slipped on the branches as she dragged her way up the tree, away from Faiths reach, grinning cheekily.

"You'll have to come up here first!" She said.

"Oh? Do I now?" Faith was not one for heights, or climbing or really anything active. "I think now is as good a time as any to see what you've been doing with Professor Scars all those Thursdays!"
She reached for her wand in time for Di to pass Tahlia's hers.

"Cover me Tahl!" She yelled, flinging her way further up the tree. Shots of light flew past her as she sturdied herself on a branch and lifted her wand for the fight.

Faith had been hit with a giggling charm and was rolling around the floor in gleeful agony. The battle would have been won then and there but Penny raised a lazy hand, head still in her book said the counter curse. A moment of confused buzzing swirled around Diondre's head, the words sounding unfamiliar even though she was certain she knew the spell for that. Maybe Penny had discovered another one. She dismissed it for now and readied herself for another attack now that Faith was back on her feat.

"Traitor!" Tahlia called down, Penny responded with a small cheeky smile, eyes still on the words in front of her.

Diondre had just learnt the confusion charm yesterday and was keen to practice, she raised her hand for the wand movements with a smile on her face, a smile that quickly dropped the moment she realised she didn't know it. She didn't even remember the word for it. It wasn't a hard one, in fact the spell had been similar to the word confusion itself. She was sure it was, she grabbed and grabbed into her mind but came away with nothing. Diondre froze up, having got hit by Faiths freezing charm she felt prickly all over unable to do anything but let her mind roam. She watched Tahlia and Faith battle on, the words and curses sending new waves of confusion through Diondre, she didn't recognize any of them. Panic stirred in her, panic she could do nothing about in her current state.

Tahlia finally got Faith back with a bat bogy hex that made her run off in embarrassment, and then swung carelessly down the tree to free Diondre with a large proud grin on her face. Part of her hair had been singed off but she didn't seem to care, Tahlia hardly ever did about things like that. She had her mind on celebrating their success but stopped short at the look on Diondre's face.