How To Annoy A Gryffindor ; harry potter

Step 47: Be a Rowle with Pride

At Hogwarts the atmosphere was so tense Ember thought that it would snap with any sudden or unexpected movement. Draco wouldn't stop going on about his love potion theory, which Ember denied many times because she couldn't bring herself to believe that one of her best friends would ever do that to someone. Blaise also didn't believe it, he was convinced that he was truly, madly, deeply in love with Georgia. It was exhausting coming up with all these theories on why she'd changed so much.

"It's Cullen's birthday tomorrow," Ember whispered to Billie in the middle of Transfiguration while they were practising turning their eyebrows different shapes. "What do you think we should do? Snape and the Carrows would go absolutely mad if we did any sort of thing like he did for me last year."

"Quidditch party," Billie suggested, biting her lip as she held her wand to the middle of her head and chanted a spell under her breath which didn't do anything.

"No, he'll get mad at us — I think he'd sour that Blaise made the team last year and he didn't," Ember said, shrugging.

Billie frowned, "Blaise is just better at Quidditch, it's not his fault. Plus, if Cullen was on the team then I wouldn't be able to play and we all know I'm the only good player on our team. I mean, come on! Vincent and Gregory are just big lumps who can't even fly."

"You say that as if the team's still going," said Ember, shaking her head.

"Sensitive subject, Ember," Blaise said, swooping in on their conversation and patting Billie on the shoulder comfortingly as she glared at Ember.

"Sorry... Do you have any ideas about what we can do for Cullen's birthday?" Ember asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Professor McGonagall stood at the front of the classroom looking around the room. Her forehead was creased with annoyance, looking as if she wanted to tell everyone who was speaking to stop but she never did it because they were all Slytherins and if the Carrows found out she was targeting their house it was not going to end well. Ember secretly hoped that McGonagall would do something to stand against the Slytherins. Even she would be happy to let McGonagall do her own thing, as long as no one got hurt on the way.

Nothing was going well at Hogwarts and it only got worse as Cullen's birthday came around. His happy manner for the entire day only earned him several punishments, not just from the Carrows but also Snape and other teachers. Though they were never as bad as the ones that many other people were getting. 'Dumbledore's Army' were risking their lived by staying at Hogwarts and trying to recruit. It was getting harder too. Apparently Draco had been ordered to take Luna Lovegood to the Malfoy Manor during the Christmas holidays because her father was going against the Dark Lord in his newspaper.

Many of the Hufflepuffs were randomly disappearing which terrified Ember because that just meant that slowly and surely everyone was going to just vanish at one point. Perhaps they were going into hiding or maybe it was so much worse than that and the Carrows had something to do with it. No one wanted to suffer the wrath of the Carrows.

"We're going to the kitchen," Blaise said with a cheeky grin as he barged into the girl's dormitory.

Ember launched herself over her notebook so that what she was writing was covered and she glared at Blaise, "You're barking mad if you think you can get away with going to the kitchen and not get caught. There's no way I'm coming."

"Chill, Em, it's for Cullen. His birthday is tomorrow and he will murder us if we don't do anything for him. Of course, I came up with the brilliant idea of baking him a cake without any help from the house-elves. Billie's totally in on it, even Vaisey said he'll help because apparently his father is some sort of baker... Draco's not so sure but if you go then he'll come around."