Anne Wright's Diary

10:38am: The Invite and the Agony
I'm not a student under it, I never will be a student under it, and I only get accounts of it from a cousin I'm still very angry at, but I'm pretty sure I can now call it official: I am a firm opponent of the new Sonora regime.

They're throwing a party before midterm. A party that the entire staff and student body will be at. A party where all the parents that want to come will be, too, but where I won't be. A card with 'you and your spouse' on it addressed to Grayson doesn't include me - probably the person who loves that school most in the world.

When I was at Sonora, I felt alive. Maybe the stress would have killed me eventually, but my God, if there is a more exhilarating way to go, I wish someone would tell me about it. Maybe that makes me a masochist; if it does, I just am. I like having a social life and all, but I don't like only being able to tell one day from another because of whether or not I went out with Chris or Bella or some people. I miss feeling like every day was important, and like it was always about to fall out from under me. Like I was always living on the edge. There's no feeling like it, I swear, there's nothing like it.

I hope Gray has enough sense to stay out of my way for a while when he comes home, because I am not in the mood to hear about what a fabulous term he had and what problems he had trying to take my place.

Anne

10:37am: Shock and Awe
Okay, just who the hell does Gray think he is?

He does not get to just write me out of a clear blue sky and announce that he decided to join the Aladren Quidditch team. He just does not get to do that. I don't know how many kinds of a death wish the kid has, but they're all pretty damn intense for him to do this to me.

That team is mine. Mine. My baby, my creation, my freaking legacy. I captained it for seven years. I loved it like - like - I don't even know. I put my whole heart and my soul in that team, and now my half-blind geek cousin thinks he can just take it away?! He can't take it away! It's mine!

If I were at Sonora, this never would have happened. But no. I'm stuck here in California, I can't even fly anymore, and I'm enrolled in the stupidest school in the world, watching half the people I know vanish into the ether while my former roommate gets to be a superstar and, seeing how my luck is going today, probably seduces my boyfriend.

And on that topic, Helena's up and walked on her. Where does he get off doing that? She was nowhere near ready to take over last year, and while I haven't had any contact with them, I can't believe she's gotten any better. Lenny just doesn't have what it takes. She's a mouse and the world wants lions.

Right now, I'm happy to supply.

Anne

10:04am: College. And Other Unfortunate Topics.
It's September first.

For years, September first was my favorite day of the year, because that was the day I went home. Now, I expect it's permanently ruined for me. Sure, I went to school today, but it is not the same.

I could barely speak to Gray when he was getting on the wagon. If I'd tried, I probably would have just begged him to sneak me back to Arizona in his trunk or something, and that would be lame. He probably thinks I'm mad at him, though, so I'll have to write and patch things up in a few days. The truth is, I'm so jealous I could curse him and never blink.

College is fine. It feels unmonumental. There's nothing special about it. Frankly, I'm kind of bored. They make it way too easy. The biggest thrill I get is out of my alias; since I'm pureblooded, I only technically exist in the Wizarding World, so my Muggle classes all know me as Amelia Winston, daughter of Jake Winston, a weird adjunct. No one seems to know quite why he's there. I tell them he's a cultural anthropologist if they ask me. It's not too far off.

The main perk of college is the DADA practice rooms. Even if I can't find an opponent, I can duel dummies all day long if I like, which is one reason I'm seriously thinking about adding Defense as a minor. They're already starting to know me and be used to my presence, but it's bound to feel less like an intrusion to me if I have a legitimate reason to be there, and it isn't something I plan to give up. Hexing canvas dummies is great therapy.

Right now, though, I'm bored and irritated and sad and I need to get out of my head. Since I can't focus on my work while I'm thinking about Sonora, my options are either to drum up the gang and go party or go make out with Chris, who I hope to talk into joining me at UCLBoring before it's over. I've sort of made friends here, but it's not the same as having my people.

Anne

4:54pm: Panic in the Hot Afternoon
Chris' father is dead.

This is not good, and it does not make it better that I found this out from, of all people, Morgaine. Yeah, that Morgaine. My cousin Morgaine. Hostile weirdo Morgaine. Who took the time at the end of her letter to insult me, but that's not the point. The point is that Chris' father is dead. And that's not good.

What the hell am I supposed to do? What I want to do is curl up in the fetal position and never come out, but I can't do that. It isn't my problem. I mean, it's not like anything has happened to me. Just something happened to someone I like that reminds me of things that happened to me that I really do not like to think about ever.

Janine knows something is up. I practically bolted, and she's probably been listening to me walk up and down the floor ever since. But I can't tell her anything - I've kept what's the deal with us to myself, and I don't even know what it is well enough to tell them yet.

What am I supposed to do? I don't know what to do. I don't know what people do when someone dies. You'd think I'd be an expert, but I somehow doubt totally abandoning him or getting a tutor to teach him etiquette will work. Besides, he probably already had an etiquette tutor when he was a kid.

I think I'm going to be sick. It occurs to me that I'm probably overreacting. I never even met the guy.

Anne

4:47am: Rapid Reading
So much for easing my way back into things.

I've been reading. All day. I've gone through three books and half of a fourth, and I've only stopped because my head started to pound.

Muggle authors. Wow, do they have some interesting minds. This Emily Bronte person was either a genius or a complete nutcase, but in my current state of dazedness, she seems to make a big kind of divine sense. However, my thinking is subject to revision when I'm not holding an ice pack to my forehead and mumbling at a quill.

I still want to be reading. This is not normal. It isn't normal to read so much at one sitting that you give yourself a headache, and it really isn't normal to want to do it again after you do it.

I'm going to sleep before I think about this any more.

Anne

3:46am: Hiatus, Part Three
It's done. It's finished. It's official.

I'm on the outside.

I've actually been out for a few days now, but I've spent most of the time asleep. I think I sort of crashed, the way I did after CATS. That I still feel kind of groggy and irritable is good support for that theory. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of bed now if it hadn't been for my stomach; I woke up really hungry, and Janine was fixing lunch.

She fed me, but she also got me talking. When I realized I was sort of getting way too into everything, I tried to stop, but she told me to keep on. I guess I looked really strung out or something, though she has seen this before. It was kind of weird, actually, having a big kid - I still emphatically refuse to categorize myself as a real adult - listening to me go on about stuff. Like she really cared, or -

Ugh, I can't believe I just said that aloud. It sounds so pathetic. No more dicating things to a quill. Writing by hand definitely works better.

But yeah. I kind of...feel better, now. Maybe it's just because it's summer, so I'm not yet getting it at full intensity, but it's like I've stepped back and looked at everything from an outside perspective and seen that there really is life after high school. Not that it'll be as good a life, probably, but it's there. I still have my talents and some friends and a family. There's something to work with here.

So, yeah. I'm going to finish catching up on the past few months of sleep today, and then I'm going to act like the big kid I'm not and at least pretend I'm getting over myself. It'll let me put off making a decision about what I think of the outside until I have more evidence and make it easier, too.

Anne

10:51am: Legends
Yesterday should have been a great day.

The Concert went well. The Concert went better than well. Geoff was elected Head Boy. Our acts went flawlessly. Crotalus will be working for years to recover its reputation, but a better show than Helena and Spindler as doomed lovers, a second year as O'Leary, and Gwen dressed up as the groundskeeper is hard to imagine. Pecari - with Morgaine's help! - made every effort to mangle up the Fountain of Fair Fortune even further past recognition than Crotalus mangled Romeo and Juliet. Even Teppenpaw put on a good show, if it was in rhyme.

Aladren even won the House Cup. I could have died happy in that moment.

And then Bulla announced that he's quitting.

This shouldn't upset me. I shouldn't care. I'm out of here, and Bulla hasn't been my teacher since I was a second or third year. I've barely seen the man since he became Headmaster. But I still care.

It's the seventh year problem compounded. How many years will it be before the school doesn't even remember any of us? We're already turning into legends - separate from the school, gone, remembered through a filter and forgotten in a few years. If the whole real world thing fails horribly, I can't come back and pretend nothing ever happened, because everything will change when Powell takes over. I'll be stuck out there, alone. One more nobody loser in a crowd full of them, doing some useless little job to fill up time until I finally die and get buried and eventually forgotten about entirely.

John's shrink is wrong. Self-understanding makes nothing better.

1:02am: RATS
Day One of my RATS is over. One down, six more to go. I think all six of them are back-to-back, too.

It was Charms this morning, and I think it went okay. I looked like a total idiot in front of my examiner and probably Chris - I was too keyed up to even brush my hair properly before the exam, and my shoes were still different colors - but that doesn't count toward my score. Just the work itself counts, and that was okay. Not as good as it could have been, but okay.

Tomorrow's Defense Against the Dark Arts. I studied until the pages started getting blurry, and now I'm sitting on my bed, kind of wishing I had resisted my second and third post-RATS cups of coffee to keep me awake to study for Defense, and hoping I can fall asleep before I have to get up again.

It's not as bad as I expected. Really. I think tomorrow will be better. I'm still kind of in shock and on edge right now, but it should clear up tomorrow. I know how this goes.

My examiner is scarily well-put-together.

Anne

7:32am: Party With A Rock Star
So, I'm not at the house or Sonora. I'm at Bella's. This is as bizarre to me as it is to anyone else, trust me.

She's auditioning for this band, The Satyrs, here in L.A., so I decided to be a good roommate and come out for moral support. Turns out I wasn't the only one - Chris, Gwen, Nicoletta, and Earl Valentine were all at the club, too. Music actually wasn't bad - not much loudy-screamy-awful noise pollution like I was half-afraid of - but then her sister called in a favor so we could all drink for free. So that was the end of any thought I had of going home.

Gwen got smashed and started dancing with Nicoletta, whose sobriety I am unsure of. Earl and Bella seemed to be getting along fabulously. I danced with Chris.

I've officially been kissed. That's the real point of all this, though I was kind of dilly-dallying about getting to it because I'm still having trouble believing I didn't imagine it altogether. The fact that it was Chris, who I've had an on-again, off-again thing for since we were first years or something and who's...considerably more popular than me, isn't doing much to help with the disbelief thing. Chris could have anyone. Unless he assumed I'd go to bed with him (which he said he didn't), then there is no reason at all for him to be even a little interested in me.

So, yeah. I asked him out (this place must have the most alcoholic margaritas in the world), and he agreed. So we're now sort of together, or...something. I'm not really sure. We'll see how it goes and get back to you, diary.

Anne

5:42am: Loss
My bad feeling was right. We lost.

It was a complete disaster. We couldn't even hang onto the Quaffle when it was on our own end.

I'm going to bed now.

Anne

6:44pm: Spring, Seventh Year Style
Everything has been very busy since midterm ended.

First off (though this started a while ago), Gray has written a play. I had to stand over him through most of the process to make sure he didn't make it too fanciful, which inevitably put us to arguing about dignity and propriety and intellectualism and Greek goddesses and so on a few times, but I can't write creatively and we're keeping it quiet that I was involved, so he basically wrote a play. It's going to be the showpiece for the Aladren group act.

Janine, Alicia, and Grandma have all expressed their enthusiastic approval of this. Annie is less supportive, but at least keeps her mouth shut. Who knows what's going on with John. I'm not sure what Grayson really thinks - somehow, I see him wanting a son who's either macho or like him, not a writer - but he acted proud, anyway. I'm playing one of the roles, so having to practice my lines has been incorporated into my schedule.

RATS have not gone away. I do my best not to think about them, but my teachers are determined that I should not. So I study, try not to panic, do homework, panic anyway, and move on, as I always have.

And Quidditch. We've been practicing so hard, getting ready for our first game, but I have a bad feeling about it. I don't know why. I try to ignore it. Practicing lots helps with this, as does keeping up with everything else on my schedule.

Thank Merlin for Geoff and Bella. If I had to put up with Samantha and all this solo, I think I'd have already lost my mind.

Anne

6:20pm: Last Christmas
It's the Big Day again.

It's Christmas. My last Christmas at Sonora. My seventh Christmas without my mother.

It's weird. When she first died, I thought I'd never think about anything else again, but I go for ages without even thinking of her now. I've even had good Christmases, birthdays, or what-have-you. Valentine's Day still sucks, but I don't even always correct people who call Gray my brother anymore.

I don't even know why I'm thinking about it now. Merlin knows I have enough else on my mind. Except for Mama, I can barely think about anything except having to leave after my RATS and, in all probability, never come back. Maybe that's it - when I'm already down, Mama sneaks up on me and makes it that much worse.

I've got to pull myself together. I've got the Concert, Quidditch, and RATS all coming up in the spring, and I'll make a monkey out of myself publicly if I'm not all there for all three of them. That's why I stayed here, pretty much alone, this year - so I could deal with being a seventh year and get it all out of my system before I go back to where there is no snow. I love what they've done with it this year - it's wild. Living snow sculptures. The pranks for midterm - nice things, not like Huntley's "jokes" at all - are one of those things I seldom, if ever, think about, but now realize I'm going to miss.

Anne

6:13pm: Too Wrong
I've botched everything up. Coach Cooper was out of her mind to think I was good enough to be the Aladren Quidditch captain, or else she just really, really hated all Aladrens.

This is a disaster. I want my team back. I want to just close my eyes and have everything go back to the way it was, but I know I can't. I'm stuck here.

Anne

10:37pm: Notes on Life
Oh, wow. What a...I forget exactly how long.

Professor Flatt sent word that Geoff is now my Assistant Captain. While I'm not having a big paranoid flip-out like I did the first time, I'm kind of in shock. His return was meant as a one-year, favor-for-a-friend thing, and here he is, the next captain. He wasn't too happy at first, but he finally did calm down and apologize for yelling at me. It never occurred to me that Ben would be replaced, even if he is the same age as me, and I'm not sure he'll even be on the team at all.

Ben was the first friend I ever made here.

Helena is also an Assistant Captain. When Geoff Spindler is gone, Lenny will be Captain of the Crotalus Rattle Snakes. I guess that's why Bella's brother is the Crotalus prefect and she isn't; I don't think they like crossing positions that way if they can help it; if not for Morgaine's record of intractability, I doubt Saul Pierce would have done it, and Geoff Spindler being passed over while Lila got the badge is proof.

There are no words to describe my new Potions professor. There are just none. It's awesome, though. In a 'am I drunk, or has he been sticking his head in way too many cauldrons' way.

I love my classes. And my teachers. And everything about Sonora except Milo Huntley. I may even love him, in a sick and twisted sort of way. Why else would I stay in his class after too much evidence of my unsuitability to be a Muggle liaison mounted? We were talking about how to take over the world in History and making amulets in Ancient Runes. Charms isn't as much fun now that we're all mixed together and Zack and his spandex people are gone, but I still do well. Stress is kind of getting to me, though; I'm not thinking like Taylor well.

It doesn't matter. I love this school. I adore this school. I never, ever want to leave. Ever.

In other news, I'm clinically insane. Good to know, eh? At least I'm being helpful.

Anne

10:56pm: The Last First Day of a Sonora Career
I'm back at Sonora. I couldn't deal with the Feast, so I have no idea who the new prefects are. Nothing is right here anymore.

Kijewski's not our Head of House anymore. Professor Flatt's the new one. I should be happy he is, since I think he probably likes me more than she does, but it doesn't feel right. I could say the same thing about my dorm room. There's two extra beds. Some pair of Salem girls moved in with me and Bella. Twin sisters. It feels claustrophobic with them here, like I don't have enough room. Bella's always had her side with her stuff, and I have my side with my stuff. It doesn't work with the twins in here. Even hanging the Quidditch list didn't feel right when I know Zack and Zoey are gone.

I probably won't even get a team this year. I had so much trouble last year, and I can't play the guilt-trip card twice with Geoff. Bella's also out - she's Head Girl, and she has a life. If she isn't volunteering, it's because she doesn't have time. Merlin knows I know about what that's like.

I think I have to go to bed. I don't know the new girls well enough to be the last one up or to leave the room. Bella's used to me sitting in the common room until whenever, but they're totally unknown commodities. My spelling needs serious work. I don't know if New Girls would go whine to Flatt or not. I hope not. With RATS, there's no way I'll be able to go to bed at this time every night.

Anne

9:42pm: New Beginnings
The definition of my second home has changed.

Since my first home is going to be pretty much inaccessible after next year, I consider this development important enough to report on it. Grayson and Janine, in what normal people call a normal action for a modern middle-class couple and in what my grandmother calls rebellion, bought a house. Instead of the whole family together, it's just them, Gray, and me. No point for telling me which item in the sequence doesn't quite fit.

It's real nice. Very normal. We actually have neighbors now. Gray and I still keep mostly to ourselves, but we've got people we talk to at the bookstore. Separately; everyone says we're so alike, but our tastes are really different. He likes humor. I like drama. We don't bother each other about it, and it works. We'll still have to go down to LA to get our schoolbooks, but it's nice having a bookstore we can walk to and read when the Upgrowns are at work.

Grayson still has his old job, and Janine got a new one. I think she's doing paperwork for a shop; the owner probably feels sorry for her. I can't imagine how awful it must be to be her and still live in the magical world. Reason Number Whatever never to have kids: if I do, one of them might be a Squib, and then me, Husband, Kid, and Other Kids all have to deal with it the way the Lay.

Gray still hasn't finished shelving all his books. His room isn't as much of a disaster area as his old one, but I bet it's just a matter of time. Everyone else is sorted out. There's a very...homey feel to it. There's even pictures on the mantel. Mostly of Gray, but there's an old one of Grayson and Janine at the Grand Canyon, another Grayson and Janine on their tenth wedding anniversary, and one of me at my Sweet Belated Sixteen party last summer. There's an additional two featuring me and Gray together. Very family like. There's been discussions about

I think I may get a Happy Belated Seventeenth soon, just so Grandma can reassure herself that Gray is, in fact, still alive. I doubt I'll get the traditional pearls, but I already have an extremely old set Mama inherited from somebody. I've only worn them once - to the Ball. Not a fabulous decision with those robes, but they're the nicest jewelry I have, and I thought Mama would like it.

I can't think of anything else to write. I'll go downstairs and see if Gray wants to finish our 'rendition' of The Weather in December. The WSD may not be interested in sending us out on tour, but we entertain ourselves. Gotta do something.

Anne

9:49pm: For the Good Times
We won! We won, we won, we won! We beat Teppenpaw, we beat them with almost my team - Geoff and Chris are back, and Ben and Zoey and Zack are all still here, and even Paul's been with us for so long, now. I wish Bella had been with us - I wish we'd had that team I had in my second year. It would have been so wonderful.

I'm crying - thank Merlin I'm not in public anymore, I'm in the washroom, even Bella can't see. I'm going to smudge up all the ink, but I can't help it. I've got everything tonight, and I know that if I don't die tonight, I'll always have to look back on this as the best, the very best, night of my life and that I'll never be this happy again.

I need to walk. I'm going out. At least I can pace and talk back over plays until Bella makes me shut up.

Anne

7:55pm: Legal
Well, it's two a.m., I'm still awake, and it's official:

I'm now a legal adult.

It's weird. I don't feel any different than I did at sixteen, or fifteen, or anything else I can think of. I don't feel capable of getting up, walking out of this school, and saying I'm through - not that I'd want to, but you'd think I would feel different just for knowing that I could. I can't even see getting a place of my own, and I've been wanting to break with the relatives since I was eleven. Of course, lack of money could have something to do with that.

I really should get some sleep. There's early Quidditch practice tomorrow, and I need to edit my Ancient Runes paper for style and possibly do something I can't really remember right this second for Charms or History. I hate it when I get like this - really tired and spacy so that I can't work but I still can't sleep. And apparently can't punctuate - that sentence does not look right, but I can't think how.

I'm going to try to go to bed. Hopefully, I won't wake up the whole girl's half going up the stairs or Bella going into our room.

Anne

5:51pm: Christmas Bells
Midterm's almost over. Geoff and Lenny stayed with me this time - they didn't want to go home. It got cold again, sort of like it did in my first year, but the staff doesn't seem all psycho worried like they did back then, so I guess it's all good.

It was restful. Quiet. I actually felt...okay, whatever that means. There weren't many people here this year, and Bulla had hot chocolate and games for us in the Cascade Hall. We had a lot of fun with that. We all had a lot better times as kids than we do now, and it was nice to go back to that. We holed up in the Literature section of the library and discussed poems a lot, too. It was nice, especially as there was no one around to make us worry about what it would look like if someone walked over.

CATS year doesn't seem nearly as stressful for him as it was for me. He didn't even have his workbook out, and I know he has two, because me and Mark both supplied one. Lenny's the more worked up of them - she's kinda gotten a control complex or something when it comes to those groups she has to do in class, and it's bringing out her neat-freak tendencies and stress or whatever. Even she unwound a little, though.

She got me a gorgeous scarf, and he got me a book. He also said he'd cook for me this summer, which will be nice. I got her a nice necklace and him a book of sheet music. We were all very happy.

This is the best Christmas I've had in years. It might be the best one I've ever had in my life. I don't want everyone to come back and classes to start again and for everything to get awful again.

Anne

10:14pm: Eggshells
I finally had to ask Geoff to help me. To my pleased shock, if he had any issue with it, he took it out on someone else for a change. I was expecting to hear about how hard this would make studying for his CATS until Christmas at least. All I can think is that he's got a no-mistakes-allowed complex I do, and that's impossible. I'm the one who worries about what he thinks of what I say, not the other way around.

Hopefully we can keep things okay. Neither one of us needs more stress right now.

12:31pm: Just Ain't No Keeping the Keeper
Sometimes, I want to hit something.

Sometimes, I don't know why I don't just haul off and do it.

I have no Keeper again. I don't even have seven players, and that hasn't happened since my first year. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do next year if I can't even make ends meet with Zack and Zoey on board.

I've got Geoff and Bella to fall back on, but there's a whole nother set of problems. Bella distracts Ben enough as it is, and I'm still sort of walking on eggshells around Geoff. I'm up to my neck as it is without having to pet him out of the sulks. Geoff and his moods will be the death of me. Even now, there's still days I want to slap him and tell him to suck it up and take it like a woman. We don't get to pout and flounce nearly as much as men do.

Taking it out on the wrong person again. I have to cut that out. I don't see how anyone puts up with me, sometimes. I won't bother him if I can find a way out of it. Maybe I could dance on a table in the common room for applicants.

Anne

12:23am: Revelations in the Common Room
On the bright side, I've made up with Geoff.

On the not-so-bright side, I'm a horrible person.

The story, I suppose. I was putting up the Quidditch sign-up list. I was about to go back to my room when I almost walked into Geoff, who wanted to talk. I don't know why I agreed, unless it's that my subconscious knows better than I do what's for the best. So we went out to the Pitch and talked for a while, and now I know why he was so touchy about me asking questions last summer. I won't even write it down - no way I'll ever forget this, and I don't want to think about what would happen if this diary fell into the wrong hands as it is - but he had every right to be touchy or worse, especially to his alleged best friend, who should have noticed something was wrong and been understanding instead of offended.

After that, we moved back to the common room and spent forever just catching up. They've had an awful time of it at home, but he made it all sound like a joke, or a game - making fun of Lenny taking over, talking about how Mark can't cook, you know. He made me laugh. That's one of the things I missed most last year. For my part, I tried to avoid talking about last year since I didn't have anything good to say about it and mostly stuck to things I could tell as sort of funny, like trying to teach Grayson how not to trip over a broom (I never managed it completely, but I suppose I shouldn't be too upset if Amy Fox couldn't do it).

As for why I'm horrible: while I really do feel bad about Everything, I'm more happy to have him back and know it wasn't entirely my fault I lost him to begin with, and it does not help that I'm also secretly pleased that, though he didn't actually say it, I think he might have missed me almost as much as I missed him.

I'll make it up somehow.

Anne

11:37pm: CATS
I passed! I passed! I PASSED!!!!!!!!!

I got CATS back today, and I passed everything - even COMC and Astronomy, and I didn't even really try on those! I'm so happy. The paper is totally going to be kept forever.

C.A.T.S. Results for Anne Eileen Wright

Ancient Runes: O

Astronomy: A

Charms: E

COMC: A

DADA: O

History of Magic: E

Muggle Studies: E

Potions: E

Transfiguration: O

I rule!

10:46pm: Fifth Year in Five Paragraphs
Well, I'm back on the Farm, which really is a dumb name for it considering that nothing but Janine's force-raised buttercups ever grew here, but I digress. I have no particular reason for writing today, but I'm so bored I could scream and there's nothing to do but catch this petite histoire. That sounds so much better than "diary" would on paper, or even plain old English "pathetic little notes on my mundane existence nobody else will ever read but me but I still like to call it a history"...And I'm wasting space again.

Life after my last entry was chaotic. Chaotic is the best intelligent-sounding word I can think of for it. I was running nine different ways trying to keep all ends meeting in the middle, and I don't think I got a single pair of them tied. Lucas (who, rather hilariously, addressed me as "Professor" in his letter; I kept it and put it up with the now very old letter from Coach Cooper and Lenny's letter of congratulations on the Captainacy) accepted the Keeper position, which was a huge load off my mind, but Zack had some conflicts of interests and it took all of my inconsiderable stock of self-control to keep from screaming at him sometimes. This was not so much because of my deep-seated regard for the feelings of my subordinates as simple practicality; upsetting him might cause a departure, and you just don't express your true feelings to a prefect who might be the next Head Boy anyway.

I think my CATS went mostly okay, though Merlin knows I was nervous enough to blow up the entire Cascade Hall. Mercifully, that didn't happen. One rather embarrassing incident did occur, but it wasn't really obvious, unrectifiable, or of a caliber that would warrant expulsion from Sonora. The Ball was also okay. The music was, like Bella's, not my cup of tea, but the food was good and I felt - and it's embarrassing to say this, because, well, it's stupid, but no one's ever going to read this so I can say it - pretty, though my robe color wasn't a hit with me or myself or I. Aunt Emma - yes, you read that right; the S.M.'s decided it wouldn't do to allow me to show up in public looking like some poor provincial Wright girl when everyone knows I'm half theirs - picked them out, apparently.

Gray made great progress last year - his final marks were fantastic. I was - another thing I probably shouldn't admit, at least not to adults - really proud of the kid. When he got his results back, he came running up to me in the common room yelling "Anna, Anna!" - kinda embarrassing, though not as bad as if he was older. I guess it looked like he was my little brother, since I'm not entirely sure even Bella knows I don't, you know, have one. Anyway, I told him "good job, Kid" when I finished reading, and he looked like I'd handed him the Quidditch Cup or something. He's a weird kid like that. Speaking of which, Aladren didn't do half-bad in the House Cup, which has given me back some of my confidence that we'll eventually win the Cup even if we are the smallest House.

Oh, good, time's passed. This'll be it until something worth mentioning happens - I've promised Gray I'll help him with his flying, even though I still have no intentions of letting the kid on the team to get himself hurt and it be my fault. Should be entertaining, if not a little nerve-racking - he really is hopeless.

Anne

10:44pm: On Optimism and the Observation of Social Niceties
Midterm is over, and Hyana's gone. I have no idea where or why, nor do I really care. It's kind of hard to see past the fact that I am, for the third time in four years, being forced to scrounge for a Keeper. I'm about to start seriously wondering if there's some kind of curse on the position. I've heard other people say there's a curse on the Transfiguration job, so why not the Aladren Keeping job?

And I just think how happy I was when we managed to get an extra even without Geoffrey. I really need to work on decimating my remaining stores of optimism. They don't pay off at all.

I wrote to Lucas to offer him Hyana's position. It'll be just my luck he turns it down. I don't know what I'll do if he does. Go around begging in the common room, I suppose. Playing without one is possible, if me and the other Chasers are prepared to work overtime, but it's not advisable, and I don't want to do it.

Bah. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back to sleep, but I need to work. I didn't get nearly enough done over the holidays, and I have to have something to show to Ben before tomorrow - I can't look behind. I'm not sure about it, but I think I might have an essay that needs completing, too. I hate fifth year.

In other news, there's going to be a ball at the end of the year. Yippee. I mean, what could be greater than yet another chance to show off my lack of refinement in front of a lot of condescending elitists, all of whom appear to be drowning in breeding and good taste? Don't even mention the fact that the only date I'm likely to get is a date with Bob, my imaginary friend from Pluto.

That's actually kind of funny. Maybe I'll play it up. Turn up at this shindig in bright red, low-cut robes with a rose hanging out of my mouth, snapping my fingers and carrying on a one-sided chat with Bob. Think they'd have me committed, or would Grandmother and my uncles see through the ruse and draw straws to see who got the pleasure of killing me?

Anne