Yes, Professor Malfoy?

t w e n t y - t h r e e

SUPER IMPORTANT A/N AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER <3:

Before I knew it, Thursday had come and gone and it was Friday afternoon; we were sat in our last lesson of the day - period four of five.

"I swear the lessons are getting longer." Iris groaned into the wood of her desk. She had her face pressed into it, and I stopped my note-taking to look at her.

"Just one more hour and then we can start celebrating." I reminded her quietly, my eyes flickering between my own notes and Professor Slughorn.

"How are you getting this? Honestly, if he talks any slower I-"

"Miss Iris Thawhorn, quiet please." The professor called to our table with a disapproving shake of his head but kind smile and she sat up in her seat sheepishly.

I bit back a laugh at the disgruntled look on her face, elbowing her gently in encouragement. "We can leave in under an hour - but not before then, so the least you could do is try to write something down."

"Why would I do that when I could just use your notes?" She huffed and I rolled my eyes. "What are you wearing to the Halloween bash?"

I exhaled quietly and fidgeted my grip on my quill, looking back up to the professor. "You'll have to wait and see."

"Tell me! Please? You know I'm impatient, Fayre."

"Really?" I muttered in mock disbelief.

"I guess we could talk about something else, then..." Iris began curling her hair around her wand, quill still discarded on the table along with the fairly blank pieces of parchment. "How's Professor Malfoy?"

"Iris-" I whacked her arm, finally taking my full attention away from my notes and putting it on her instead, causing her to smirk widely.

"Yes?"

"So..." I coughed and changed the topic before she went into detail in the middle of freaking Potions class. "Halloween... Never mind me, what are you going as?"

Iris knew there was a party to celebrate Halloween; she didn't know it was joint with her birthday party. The castle's decorations had been building up in intensity during the last week. Coloured lights now hung from archways, even more strolling skeleton and zombie-like structures.

"So, they're like dead?" Scorpius had pulled a disgusted face from his place on the grass. We had laid him down on after he had fainted merely from the sight of one.

"I mean technically they're the undead. Kind of like vampires." I tried to explain, still running my hands through Alicia's hair; she was laying with her head in my lap.

"Vampires?" Evan questioned with furrowed brows.

"Merlin, am I going to have to show you more muggle movies... But yeah, it's another 'legend' in the muggle world. They have all sorts - it's really quite fascinating." I said excitedly, recalling the one time I spent Halloween's Eve out in a small, local village with my friends from Beauxbâtons. This would be my first Halloween without them in over a decade.

"How strange." Alicia laughed.

"I'm fairly sure they exist in our world too." I shrugged and laughed with her. "We live in a place of talking books and arachnids the size of houses, who are we to judge?"

"My grandfather does." Scorpius pointed his finger around. "I hope I don't have to see him when I go home this Christmas."

And so we sat for the remaining half hour of the lesson quietly, and subtly, discussing our outfits and those of the others.