Dinner tasted as amazing as it always did. Of course, Harry had to ruin it.
"Hey, Delilah, have you heard?" Daphne said, sitting next to her.
"Heard what?"
"You know, about Harry and Umbridge?"
"What did he do now?"
"Apparently he yelled that You-Know-Who is back and that he killed Cedric. It caused quite the stir. I heard he got detention for a month."
Delilah sighed.
"Of course he did."
"Sorry. I thought you already knew," Daphne apologized.
"Don't worry, it's fine. Thank you."
"Of course, see you later." Daphne left for her other friends.
Why did Harry always find the exact way to get people to hate him? Sure it also made some people love him, but he always got the wrong people angry with him. It was one of his skills.
"Aren't you going to say something to him?" Draco asked.
"Why would I? He doesn't listen to me and it wouldn't change anything. Plus, Hermione probably has tried to talk some sense into him."
"True."
Delilah stared at her half-finished pudding and sighed, setting her spoon down.
"We should go start our homework. It'll only be worse tomorrow."
Draco groaned.
"Can I at least finish my pie?"
Delilah stood up.
"If you want, but I'm not too hungry."
He stared at his food a moment longer than got up with her.
"Nah, I won't let you suffer alone."
She laughed.
"Thanks for your sacrifice.
"You're welcome," he solemnly said. His straight face made her laugh more.
The next day it was pouring. Rain crashed against the lake so hard that the ripples were visible from the Slytherin Common Room. It was even more obvious during breakfast. None of the rain drops actually hit the floor, but some Ravenclaws *cough* Lyra *cough* enchanted the rain so that it hit specifically the Slytherins.
By the time they started heading to Transfiguration, they were all completely drenched. Draco in particular was very miffed about it.
"My hair is ruined," he muttered.
Delilah resisted the urge to laugh.
"It's just wet, it'll be fine."
"But now it's completely unstyled."
She smirked, and ran her hand through his hair messing it up.
"There, now it's styled."
He stared at her.
"Thanks."
Delilah nodded.
"No problem."
They sat in their normal seats and waited for McGonagall to start the lesson.
"You cannot pass an O.W.L.," said Professor McGonagall grimly, "without serious application, practice, and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an O.W.L. in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work. So... today we are starting Vanishing Spells. These are easier than Conjuring Spells, which you would not usually attempt until N.E.W.T. level, but they are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested on in your O.W.L."
She was right. By the end of class no one had been able to do it, at least not fully. Delilah had managed to vanish her snail's shell, and Draco had managed to vanish the actual snail, minus the shell, whatever that part was called. McGonagall told everyone to practice the spell. Thankfully she didn't give any other homework.
They weren't as lucky in Charms.
"What you must remember," said little Professor Flitwick squeakily, perched as ever on a pile of books so that he could see over the top of his desk, "is that these examinations may influence your futures for many years to come! If you have not already given serious thought to your careers, now is the time to do so. And in the meantime, I'm afraid, we shall be working harder than ever to ensure that you all do yourselves justice!"
They then spent more than an hour reviewing Summoning Charms, which according to Professor Flitwick were bound to come up in their O.W.L., and he rounded off the lesson by setting them their largest amount of Charms homework ever.
During lunch Delilah and Draco grabbed some sandwiches then finished the last of their homework from the day before. Delilah even managed to get a head start on the Charms assignments. Then it was time to go to Care of Magical Creatures.
The day had become cool and breezy, and, as they walked down the sloping lawn toward Hagrid's cabin on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, they felt the occasional drop of rain on their faces. Delilah grinned up at the sky. Rain, especially when it was only sprinkling, was amazing.
Professor Grubbly-Plank stood waiting for the class some ten yards from Hagrid's front door, a long trestle table in front of her laden with many twigs. In front of Delilah and Draco, the Gryffindors were already beside Professor Grubbly-Plank.
"Everyone here?" barked Professor Grubbly-Plank, once all the Slytherins and Gryffindors had arrived. "Let's crack on then — who can tell me what these things are called?" She indicated the heap of twigs in front of her. Hermione's hand shot into the air. She indicated the heap of twigs in front of her. Hermione's hand shot into the air. Behind her back, Blaise did a buck-toothed imitation of her jumping up and down in eagerness to answer a question. Pansy Parkinson gave a shriek of laughter that turned almost at once into a scream, as the twigs on the table leapt into the air and revealed themselves to be what looked like tiny pixieish creatures made of wood, each with knobbly brown arms and legs, two twig-like fingers at the end of each hand, and a funny, flat, barklike face in which a pair of beetle-brown eyes glittered.
"Oooooh!" said Parvati and Lavender.
Delilah, and even Draco, who hated Care of Magical Creatures, was impressed. Sure, Hagrid was a great person, but he wasn't the best teacher.
"Kindly keep your voices down, girls!" said Professor Grubbly-Plank sharply, scattering a handful of what looked like brown rice among the stick-creatures, who immediately fell upon the food. "So — does anyone know the names of these creatures? Miss Granger?"
"Bowtruckles," said Hermione. "They're tree-guardians, usually live in wand-trees."
"Five points for Gryffindor," said Professor Grubbly-Plank. "Yes, these are bowtruckles and, as Miss Granger rightly says, they generally live in trees whose wood is of wand quality. Anybody know what they eat?"
"Wood lice," said Hermione promptly, which explained why what Delilah had taken for grains of brown rice were moving. "But fairy eggs if they can get them."
"Good girl, take another five points. So whenever you need leaves or wood from a tree in which a bowtruckle lodges, it is wise to have a gift of wood lice ready to distract or placate it. They may not look dangerous, but if angered they will gouge out human eyes with their fingers, which, as you can see, are very sharp and not at all desirable near the eyeballs. So if you'd like to gather closer, take a few woodlice and a bowtruckle — I have enough here for one between three — you can study them more closely. I want a sketch from each of you with all body parts labeled by the end of the lesson."
The class surged forward around the trestle table. Delilah teamed up with Draco and Daphne.
"You know, Father just told me at breakfast, Umbridge is being promoted. I meant to tell you earlier, but I got distracted by all that O.W.L. talk."
"What do you mean, promoted?" Daphne asked.
Draco shrugged.
"I don't really know, that's just what he said. That and that there will be some big improvements to Hogwarts."
"Hm, weird. I guess we'll find out later," Delilah said off handedly.
Daphne and Draco continued talking about Umbridge, but Delilah focused on her drawing. She didn't want more homework.
She finished just as it was time to go.
"Ready for nap time?" she said to Draco.
He grinned.
"Of course. I hope there isn't more homework. I already have too much."
They made it in time to get the best seats in the back corner. The bell rang and Binns opened his mouth. Delilah's eyes closed.
The next moment she was floating, higher and higher until she was in space and earth was a small dot in the distance. Then something hit her.
Then she was strapped to a cold, metal table, a green alien hovering over her, a needle in hand.
And she was back on Earth, running through the Forbidden Forest, a friend following in her wake. Then the ground started to shake. She struggled to keep her balance.
"You need to wake up," her boyfriend told her.
Before she could respond, the ground opened up, and she fell.
"Wake up," he said, shaking her as she fell. Her eyes shot open.
It was Draco. And she was snuggling with him. Nice.
"What's happening?"
"Actually we just finished History of Magic."
"Good, did anything important happen?"
"I don't know, I fell asleep too," Draco answered.
Delilah yawned.
"Good thing I don't care about that class."
"We should at least try and get a good grade."
She smiled, looking at him.
"When in doubt, make it up. Who knows, maybe you'll be close."
Draco shrugged, a smile touching the corner of his face.
"I guess that's true. Want to head to dinner?"
"Yep."
At dinner, the Ravenclaw table was lightly snowing. It wasn't as bad as the rain, but it still made quite a few of them glare at the Slytherins. They're frustrations would only increase the next morning. Snow was nothing compared to what Delilah had planned.
"Hey, tonight I'm going to try and sneak into the Ravenclaw common room, want to join me? We're getting some revenge for the rain and that thing they did to the fireplace?"
Draco nodded, scowling.
"So, what are we doing?"
"I already have some Canary Creams and Metamorphic Mints which we can just put around their Common Room, plus some other stuff. And we can put glitter everywhere."
He grinned.
"You are brilliant. If we really wanted to be mean, could we enchant their books or something? Make it so they only say one thing?"
Delilah whistled.
"Let's wait until A, things get that extreme, or B, we have a death wish."
Draco laughed so hard he choked on his drink.
"I'm not doing the Heimlich."
"The—" Draco coughed "—what?"
Delilah sighed.
"It's the Muggle form of Anapneo."
He nodded, catching his breath.
"Cool."
Delilah finished her food and turned to Draco.
"Ready to go?"
"I just almost died, give me a minute."
She laughed, shaking her head.
"I wouldn't have let you die."
"I know," he said, kissing her head. It wasn't always a bad thing to have a tall boyfriend.
He quickly finished off his dinner.
"Let's go."
The Slytherin Common Room was empty; everyone appeared to still be at dinner, but even as Delilah and Draco sat down, people slowly started filing in.
"I already have the prank stuff ready, so we just have to wait until most of them are asleep, around two should be a good time."
"That late? Wouldn't midnight work?"
Delilah shook her head.
"According to Lyra some Ravenclaws pull all nighters, but two would be the best time I think. When it's almost then I can grab the stuff and we can sneak up."
He nodded.
"Let me guess, we'll be doing homework until then?"
"Until we're done, hopefully that isn't until two."
He laughed bitterly.
"I cannot do homework for more than a few hours. How about just until midnight? We still should be done by then."
Delilah nodded.
"That sounds fine."
She tried to focus, but she didn't want to do it. She finished half of her homework before quitting.
"I think that's enough for tonight, we can do the rest during breakfast or lunch tomorrow."
Draco wearily nodded, setting down his homework.
Then he collapsed onto her lap.
"Why do we have so much homework?" he complained through a yawn.
Delilah put her hand in his soft hair.
"You know why."
"Why do we have to have O.W.L.s? Can't we just take our end of year exams like we normally do?"
Delilah smiled.
"Because the teachers are trying to see what careers we would be good at."
Draco didn't respond. Delilah glanced down and smiled. He was fast asleep. She reached for a blanket near her and draped it around him.
Yawning, she closed her eyes.
"Aren't they cute?" a voice said.
"Shut up, you'll wake them."
"Why do we care?"
Delilah opened her eyes.
She was tangled with Draco... on the floor. How had they gotten there? Last she remembered they were on the couch.
"Oh look what you did," Daphne said, glaring at a second year, who backed away.
"Yeah, you woke them before I could get any blackmail!" A sixth year complained.
"Shove off," Draco muttered, moving even closer to Delilah.
Everyone went back to their business, or at least pretended to as Delilah and Draco got up, but Delilah noticed people glancing at them, snickering.
"I'm going to go get freshened up, see you soon."
Delilah lightly kissed him. She hurried to her room to check that no one put any marker on her face.
Draco and Delilah stuffed their faces with breakfast before they needed to go to Alchemy.
Surprisingly Snape didn't start the lesson by mentioning O.W.L.s., or even by giving them the recipe. Instead he gave them a reading assignment, a rare thing for him to do.
Draco and Delilah worked together to go quicker and then finished the rest of their homework.
They weren't as lucky in the rest of their classes. Professors Sprout, Grubbly-Plank, and Sinistra gave them more homework. They might not be able to do their revenge until later that night.
Finally classes were done for the evening, yet Delilah didn't go to dinner like everyone else.
"Where are you going?" Draco asked.
"I'm going to do the prank."
"Can I come?"
She nodded.
They quickly grabbed the needed gear and slipped up to Ravenclaw tower.
Delilah didn't know for sure, but if the Gryfindor common room was in Gryffindor tower, it made sense for the Ravenclaw common room to be in Ravenclaw tower.
"Why are there so many stairs?" Draco complained.
"We're almost to the top, don't worry."
Then they were there. The door looked normal except for the door knocker, which was a bronze eagle, go figure.
"What can you break, even if you never pick it up or touch it?" the eagle asked.
Delilah flinched, even though she had been expecting it.
"Um... it's obviously not something literal... someone's spirit?"
She swore the eagle was laughing at her.
"What? You can't touch a spirit, but you can break it, well, sometimes, and I guess you can kinda lift it up.... Nevermind, that doesn't really work."
She pondered, but no brilliant solution came to her. She looked at Draco, who also was deep in thought.
"I got it!" he exclaimed, looking pleased with himself.
"Thank goodness, I am crappy at riddles."
"You are? I thought you'd be great at them."
"Only at finding the loopholes. Anyway, what's the answer?"
"A promise," Draco proudly announced. "Because you can break it, but you can't touch or pick it up."
The door opened.
"You are brilliant."
Draco's grinned, his face pinkening.
"Learned from the best."
The Ravenclaw common room was stunning. The ceiling showed the galaxy and broad windows outlooked the grounds with a staircase that led to the dorms. But what took Delilah's breath away was the huge bookcases that lined the walls, organized by genre alphabetically.
"We should get started," Draco finally said after a moment. "Where's the glitter?"
"Oh, right." Delilah shook her head to clear heer thoughts and pulled out bags of green and silver glitter. "I'll take the left, you take the right?"
"That works," he agreed.
She handed him a bag of each color and they started working.
It didn't take long. After five minutes the whole common room, even the front of the bookshelves — not the books — were covered in glitter. Then they filled 2 buckets and made it so once the door was opened again it would pour glitter on them.
"I think we're good. Let's leave before anyone comes back. I'm surprised no one is here. I thought for sure that there would be at least one or two Ravenclaws working."
Draco nodded. They left the gorgeous common room.
As they almost reached the bottom of the staircase, Delilah heard voices.
"Lets act as if we couldn't get in," Draco suggested.
Delilah nodded.
"That stupid door," she muttered.
"Right? I mean we planned everything out and then it didn't work," Draco agreed.
"Exactly, what kind of door doesn't open? That's their job."
Their efforts weren't needed; there were no Ravenclaws climbing, or even near, the staircase.
Laughing, Delilah and Draco went to their own common room.
Friday dawned sullen and sodden as the rest of the week had been. Everyone was relieved for the weekend, even if it would be spent catching up on homework.
"Guess what," Draco said.
"You're it?" Delilah responded.
"What?"
"Just a Muggle game, what?"
"Gryffindor keeper tryouts are tonight."
"Cool, I wonder who it'll be."
Draco grinned.
"I hope they don't choose anyone good."
Delilah rolled her eyes.
"That's the point of tryouts."
That night everyone who cared about Quidditch — and some who didn't — waited in the common room for the news to come. Finally, a group of young Slytherins who were disguised as Ravenclaws — Delilah didn't understand the logic — came back with the news.
"It's Ronald Weasley!"