Ravenclaw/Gryffindor

It was the afternoon of Halloween. A willowy girl enters, ankles prominent and jagged beneath her kneesocks, and takes a desk in the front row. A look of determination settles on her brow. She WILL pass this class! All obstacles be damned!

Rachel waltzed into the Ravenclaw Common Room, with an expression of sheer willpower on her face, along with a long dark blue cape, and the black pointed hats they gave out at the beginning of the year. Might as well dress up a little for the holiday.

Anyway, she was determined to get the best of this class and her crazed Gryffindor partner. Today they were going to practice making objects float, and was not going to let her partner take control of it. She needed a good grade, and she wasn't going to be brought down.

The spriglike student eyed her Ravenclaw partner. What on earth was that on her head? A cowl? Those were AWFUL for defense points. She reached up and scratched furiously at the reddish-ochre mop sprouting from a single point near the top of her head. "What're we doing today?" she asked.

"We are making objects floating using the basic of all flying spells, the Levitation Charm." explained Rachel primly as began to take out her materials for this class, and she turned to look at her partner, Molly. "Didn't you listen to Professor Flitwick last class?"

"Of course I did." Molly Lewis spoke in a near-archetypal posh accent that her manner and appearance infinitely defied. "Haven't we been doing that nearly all year?"

"No. We've been doing more basic stuff. If you listened to Professor more often, you would know that!" Rachel snapped, before turning back to Professor Flitwick.

"Err, alright students!" he began in his nasally, and squeaky voice. "I am going to pass out the feathers in a few minutes, but we're going to review a little first..."

Molly joined in the collective groan that rose from the room. She'd always hated reviewing, be it story details or class information. It felt to her as if review was all school ever was.

"Alright then!" With a slick flick (No rhyme intended) of his wand, the feathers magically disrupted themselves to everyone. "I'll let you go then! Ask me for help whenever you need it!" he said cheerfully.

Within ten minutes, Rachel was struggling very much with her feather, and began poking at it furiously, but she wouldn't lower herself to asking help. And, her anger just began to grow worse when that Granger girl managed to make her's float up in the air, and SHE was a Muggle-born!

Molly just sat there with her wand pointed at the feather. She looked horribly bored. When were they going to get out there and USE this stuff? Why couldn't she just slay the dragons already and move on to legend for the rest of her young life? Where WERE the dragons? "Wingardium Leviosa," she uttered blandly, not moving her wrist in the slightest.

"WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA!" Rachel shouted, moving her hand crazily in all sorts of directions before poking Molly with it in the nose.

She did not take too kindly to that. "WATCH IT!"

"It was a mistake!" Rachel shouted back. "Calm down and do you work, will you?!"

"Hey, uhm, I can tell you how to do it if you want," a little blonde boy said shyly. He had been sitting behind Rachel and Molly, and had already gotten his feather to float.

Rachel whirled around to see who dared try to help them. She was about to get really mad at him, when she recognized him from her house, and she softened slightly.

"Um... it's okay Nathaniel, I don't any help." she said, looking at him before pointing at her feather. "I think something's just wrong with my feather."

"I thought his name was Nelson," said Molly, flicking her wand between her fingers. "Leviosa."

"It's Nicolas," he corrected politely. "And you're just doing the spell wrong. It's swish and flick, not just flick."

Molly then 'swished' her wand in a manner one would slash a rapier. "No effect!"

"Well, um..." Rachel did the 'swish and flick' movement, like Nicolas described, but no luck. The anger inside of her began to boil up again. A Muggle-born better than her, a Pureblood, at a spell! If only her father knew, and she turned around to Nicolas.

"Why don't you just get back to work, that way you, the Know-It-All can get go ahead and get all of your shiny O's and gloat with your nonexistent friends!" she snapped, before whirling back around, to try again.

Amanda was behind Nicolas, and watching cautiously as the scene played out. Her feather had floated already, a couple times actually, and she was getting bored. Sometimes she prayed that if she did really well, she'd get bumped up to an upper clansmen class for... reasons she kept to herself. Even if that didn't happen in Hogwarts, a girl could try, eh?

After Nicolas stepped in, Amanda's attention drifted when she noticed there was a spot of dirt where the socks should have covered (If she didn't bunch them down.) She slowly bunched them up in a way to cover the spot up. This was one of the days she went down to the Quidditch with a book in hand and watched Harry's practices. The Gryffindors were turning out to be a pretty spectacular team. She still favored the Raven Claw team though, of course!