𝐕𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 - the wizarding world

VII. CLOCKTOWER SHENANIGANS: PART II

VII. CLOCKTOWER SHENANIGANS: PART II
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Ivy watched as Angelina and Katie stared out of their dorm window in confusion.

"It's not normally this light out at this time, right?" Katie questioned out loud, pulling her robe over her uniform.

Ivy shrugged, leaning against the wall as she waited for her mates to finish getting ready. "Maybe the sun decided it wanted to get an early start. Tricky bugger, it is."

"Glad to know you and the sun are on speaking terms," Angelina spoke, walking past Ivy and opening the door. "Now, are you two coming?"

Together they made their way down the ever-changing stairs, toward the Great Hall, where breakfast had already been set up by the House Elves. The smell of freshly baked pastries filled Ivy's nostrils and she was compelled to the table. Harry stared at his cousin with an amused look as she took the seat next to him, his own friends at the other side of the table. Angelina and Katie, who were slowly getting used to hanging out with the 'boy who lived', both summoned tea to their cups.

"How's life?" Ivy asked, a strawberry in her mouth.

Harry shrugged, his head leaning on his arm. "Fine," he grumbled, staring off into the distance.

She followed his gaze across the Hall, all the way to the Ravenclaw table, where a raven-haired beauty was sitting and laughing with Cedric. After coming out to Cedric, he had begun moving on. It had only taken a day and he had already talked to Ivy many, many times about his growing crush on Cho Chang and she was glad that Cho was reciprocating his fancy. However, it turned out that he was not the only one who fancied her.

"Ouch..." she muttered, patting Harry's shoulder. "That can't feel nice."

He blinked and quickly averted his eyes. "What? No? Nothing. What?"

Chuckling at his sudden red cheeks, she pulled out her time table that she had still not memorized. "Anyone got a free period?" she asked.

A chorus of 'no, sorry' sounded at the table.

Ivy wasn't disappointed for long, as the Great Hall filled with an array of owls, large and small, dark-feathered and light-feathered, all of them clutching the Daily Prophet in their claws. One of them swooped down and dropped the newspaper right in front of Ivy. She grabbed it and unrolled it, immediately turning to the very last page, where the puzzles and funnies were located. She didn't notice the sudden hush that had fallen over the Great Hall or the many students that shot sneaking glances in the direction of the group of Gryffindors at the table.

"Five letter word for the plastic end of a shoelace?" Ivy muttered, nibbling on the end of her ballpoint pen. "I didn't even know that had a name."

"Aglet," Hermione piped up.

"Uhh..." Harry spoke up awkwardly. "Is it me or is everyone looking at us?"

Ivy's head perked up, looking through the Hall. Each time her gaze landed on a student glancing their way, their heads would snap back to whatever it was that they were doing.

"Ivy..." Hermione said quietly. She pointed at the front page of the Prophet. "Look."

She turned the paper over. 'GALPENNY ACADEMY OF HEALING IN DISARRAY AFTER APRIL FOOLS PRANK,' the front page article's title read, a picture of the academy shown largely beneath it.

"Okay?" she questioned out loud. "That hasn't got anything to do with us, has it? I mean, unless you lot found time to travel to London and back?"

"No, here," Hermione said again, pointing to the top corner of the page: 'HOGWARTS CHAMPION FINDS LOVE?, read the article by Rita Skeeter on page 2.'