Counting Stars || Poppy Snape

CHAPTER 13

I didn't really revise hard for the upcoming assessments, and I only realised how stupid that was when I sat on a desk, in-front of a blank piece of paper asking me to write a one thousand page essay on the goblin rebellions in the 18th century.

What was even worse was that everyone had had four years of practice at this. But this was only my first year. My first assesments as a witch, and I'd probably fail all of them. What a great start to my Christmas break.

But to be completely honest, I didn't really care. I was never one for studying, although my dad always told me that I needed to work harder to achieve "greater things in life", whatever that meant...

Anyways, it was the day after the end of term and the castle was eerily quiet and empty. Lanti had gone to her house along with Pen, since she wanted to introduce her girlfried to her parents. Things were apparently getting serious between them so they wanted to meet each other's families.

I also knew that Sarah had gone home too, as well as our other Gryffindor roommates. Meaning that I had the whole dorm to myself.

I had decided to go find more information on the snake like man from Father's memories. And I knew I could definitely find that in the library. As much as I despised that place, I kept telling myself that this was for a better cause than my school assesments.

Surprisingly it wasn't very hard to find information about him, considering he was in almost every modern history book.

After about ten minutes of searching I had found half his lifestory. His name was Voldemort, more commonly known as 'He who must not be named'. He had stirred chaos amongst the Wizarding World and separated people into sides.

I kept flipping through the pages and my jaw dropped open when I saw Harry's name come up. He was famous. Not just famous, like famous famous.

He had stopped the most evil wizard as a one year old baby. Now that was skills. However, in the process he had lost his Mother and Father, who just so happened to be Lily and James Potter. Two names that I had seen before.

As I flipped the page it all clicked into place, Father and my mother had never gotten together. I was the mistake. Harry wasn't.

I didn't exactly have time to dwell on that as I was snapped out of my thoughts by a familiar voice from behind me.

"Studying hard I see" Said the Hufflepuff boy, as he walked towards my table. He pointed to a chair next to me "Is this seat taken?"

I shook my head, "Actually I was just about to leave"

"Great!" Cedric exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "I'll go with you. It's time you got a proper tour of Hogwarts."

I smiled at him, a real smile. I wasn't sure why though, considering I'd just found out I wasn't even meant to be alive.

"Alright" I said simply

He sent me handsome grin and something stirred inside of me. Keep it in your pants, Poppy

We walked out of the library side by side, and he turned to go outside. I raised my eyebrows at him but he just shrugged.

"The outside is always better, besides the snow is pretty"

Together we walked all the way to a big tree by the Black Lake.

"So, got any plans for the night?" Asked Cedric as we sat down in the snow, not caring about the coldness. "I mean, it is Christmas Eve after all."

I shrugged "Not really. You?"

"Maybe I do now" He said, a smirk playing on his lips.

I turned away quickly to stop him from seeing me blush. That's when I felt something cold hit me right in the back of my neck, dripping down my robes.

"You. Did. Not" I said turning around slowly. I saw him look at me with a smile and decided to be a bit coldhearted. After all, no one hits Poppy Snape-Evans with a snowball and gets away with it.

I suddenly changed my emotions and looked really sad, his grin started disappearing as he looked at me with concern, "Poppy, are you-"

But he didn't get to finish, I had thrown a snowball the size of my fist right at his face.

"That's for not aiming properly"

His grin reappeared as he started wiping the snow off and he stood up, reaching his hand out to help me. "Alright then, I guess we're for real now. You have five minutes to prepare."

I took his hand and pulled myself up "No magic allowed" And with that he started walking towards one side of the tree, as I went towards the other. Before I reached a place that seemed good enough to make it my snow fort, Cedric called out from behind me.

"Oi Poppy!"

"Yeah?" I said, turning around.

"I won't need magic to beat you at a snowball fight!"

"We'll see about that Cedric!"

That was how I spent my first Christmas Eve as a witch. And I loved it.