It was hollow and completely empty - but the moment I opened it, the most horrible noise, a loud and screechy wailing, filled the room. The nearest thing to it I had ever heard was the ghost orchestra at Nearly Headless Nick's Deathday Party, who had all been playing the musical saw, for fuck sake.
"Shut it!" Fred bellowed, his hands over his ears.
"What was that?" Seamus said, staring at the egg as I slammed it shut again. "Sounded like a banshee... maybe you've got to get past one of those next, Daisy!"
"It was someone being tortured!" Neville said, who had gone very white, and spilled sausage rolls over the floor. "You're going to have to fight the Cruciatus Curse!"
"Nothing I haven't done before." I tossed my hair, and Gryffindor cheered.
"Don't be a prat, Neville, that's illegal." George said. "They wouldn't use the Cruciatus Curse on the champions. I thought it sounded a bit like Percy singing... maybe you've got to attack him while he's in the shower, Daisy, Harry."
There were mountains of cakes and flagons of pumpkin juice and Butterbeer on every surface; Lee had let off some Dr Filibuster's Fabulous No-Heat, Wet-Start Fireworks, so that the air was thick with stars and sparks; and Dean, who was very good at drawing, had put up some impressive new banners, most of which depicted Harry and I zooming around the Horntail on our Firebolts, though a couple showed Cedric, Krum, and Fleur with their heads on fire.
"Want a jam tart, Hermione?" Fred said.
Hermione looked doubtfully at the plate he was offering her. Fred grinned.
"It's all right." He said. "I haven't done anything to them. It's the custard creams you've got to watch -"
Terry, who had sneaked into Gryffindor Tower and just bitten into a custard cream, choked and spat it out.
Fred laughed. "Just my little joke, Hopper..."
Hermione took a jam tart.
Then she said, "Did you get all this from the kitchens, Fred?"
"Yep." Fred said, grinning at her. He put on a high-pitched squeak and imitated a house-elf. "'Anything we can get you, sir, anything at all!' They're dead helpful... get me a roast ox if I said I was peckish."
"How do you get in there?" Hermione said, in an innocently casual sort of voice.
"Easy." Fred said. "Concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit. Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and -" He stopped, and looked suspiciously at her. "Why?"
"Nothing." Hermione said quickly.
"Going to try and lead the house-elves out on strike now, are you?" George said. "Going to give up all the leaflet stuff and try and stir them up into rebellion?"
Several people chortled. Hermione didn't answer.
"Don't you go upsetting them and telling them they've got to take clothes and salaries!" Fred said warningly. "You'll put them off their cooking!"
Just then, Terry had the audacity to cause a slight diversion by turning into a large canary.
"Oh - sorry, Hopper!" Fred shouted, over all the laughter. "I forgot - it was the custard creams we hexed -"
"Canary Creams!" I shouted to the excitable crowd. "The twins, Terry, and I invented them - seven Sickles each, bargain!"
It was nearly one in the morning when we all went up to our dorms. I collapsed into bed after tossing an empty crisp packet at Lee, and watched Terry as he hopped out the window on his broomstick. I kept watching until he was out of sight, though I did wonder why he was heading towards a ground floor window near the dungeons instead of Ravenclaw Tower...
***
I thoroughly enjoyed double Divination once the school had gotten back to classes. We were still doing star charts and predictions, but the whole thing just seemed funny to me. Trelawney, who had been so pleased with us Gryffindors when we had been predicting our own horrific deaths, quickly became irritated as we sniggered through her explanation of the various ways in which Pluto could disrupt everyday life.
"I would think," she said, in a mystical whisper that did not conceal her obvious annoyance, "that some of us" - she stared very meaningfully at Harry and I - "might be a little less frivolous had they seen what I have seen, during my crystal-gazing last night. As I sat here, absorbed in my needlework, the urge to consult the orb overpowered me. I arose, I settled myself before it, and I gazed into its crystalline depths... and what do you think I saw gazing back at me?"
"An ugly old bat in outsize specs?" Seamus muttered under his breath.
I fought hard to keep my face straight.
"Death, my dears."
Parvati and Lavender both put their hands over their mouths, looking horrified. Terry and I both did the same, mocking them.
"Yes." Trelawney said, nodding impressively. "It comes, ever closer, it circles overhead like a vulture, ever lower... ever lower over the castle..."
She stared pointedly at Harry and I, who yawned very widely, obviously, and simultaneously.
Later on, after class, Hermione caught up with Harry, Ron, and I as we were just about to step through the portrait hole, screeching that we had to come with her IMMEDIATELY.
"The fuck, Mynee." I said as she seized my arm and started to try and drag me back along the corridor.
"What's the matter?" Harry said.
"I'll show you when we get there - oh, come on, quick -"
I looked around at Ron; he looked back at me, intrigued.
"OK." Harry said, starting off back down the corridor with me and Hermione, Ron hurrying to keep up.
"Oh, don't mind me!" The Fat Lady called irritably after us. "Don't apologise for bothering me! I'll just hang here, wide open, until you get back, shall I?"
"Yeah, thanks." I shouted over my shoulder.
It turned out that Hermione had found Dobby while investigating the kitchens. Dobby had been employed by Dumbledore, and was lovin' it like McDonald's. That cheeky trip brightened our moods for the evening, and it didn't hurt that we also got to stuff our pockets full of cakes.
"Miss Potter! Finnigan! Will you pay attention?"
Minnie's irritated voice cracked like a whip through the Transfiguration class on Thursday, and Seamus and I both jumped and looked up.
It was the end of the lesson; we had finished our work, the guinea-fowl we had been changing into guinea-pigs had been shut away in a large cage on Minnie's desk (Neville's guinea-pig still had feathers); we had copied down our homework from the blackboard ('Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches'). The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Seamus and I, who had been having a sword fight with a couple of Fred and George's fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Seamus now holding a tin parrot, and me, a rubber haddock.
"Now Miss Potter and Finnigan have been kind enough to act their age," Minnie said, with an angry look at the pair of us as the head of my haddock drooped and fell silently to the floor - Seamus's parrot's beak had severed it moments before - "I have something to say to you all.
"The Yule Ball is approaching - a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament and an opportunity for us to socialise with our foreign guests. Now, the ball will be open only to fourth-years and above, but you can invite whoever you like -"
Then she told Harry and I that we were basically being FORCED to get partners, as the champions and their partners traditionally stared off the dancing at the ball.
"Fuck." Harry said as we left class.
"Well, that shouldn't be too hard for me." I grinned cheerily. "I've got a boyfriend!"
As it turned out, I spoke too soon.
"I'm sorry, Daze." Draco told me, smirking, as our squad met in the courtyard to hang out later. "I'm already going with someone else - just for the bants, though. In a friendly sort of way. No romance involved at all."
"Seriously, Dragon?" I huffed. "Who is it?"
"You'll see." He winked at me. George cracked up behind us.
"As long as there's no romantic intention there." I said. "Okay?"
Draco nodded. "Obviously."
"Well, I'm asking Fred, then." I spun around to my red-headed best friend, who was chilling in the tree with Terry. He spluttered, almost falling off his branch.
"What?!"
"Fred, will you go to the Yule Ball with me?" I said.
Fred's shook face peeked through the leaves at me. "Um - er - fuck, yeah!"
