It was a few months later as Briar sat in the Slytherin common room, reading for potions, when Pansy and Malfoy had stumbled into the room, hand in hand. They both sank onto another couch in the room and began making out. Briar widened her eyes and began to pack up her things with disgust covering her features just as Professor Snape entered the room.

He looked at the pair with an expression of horror that Briar imagined she paralleled and casted a spell to drive the two apart. With disgust evident in his voice, he drawled, "I want everyone to meet in my classroom in 20 minutes. I have an announcement."

Snape launched himself from the room, the disgust clear in his eyes as he turned, his robes whipping behind him at his rough movements. Briar stood and sighed, "I'll go get any girls in their dorms. Will you get the boys, Malfoy?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes but got up to head towards the boys' dorms. Briar hurried and knocked on all of the girls doors, telling them what Snape said. Briar finished up alerting everyone and then she made her way to Snape's classroom herself.

Once she got there, the seats were all full, so she stood off to the side with the majority of the students. Pansy was standing beside Briar with arms crossed as she waited for Snape to get on with the announcement.

Snape waited until the last students trickled in before he spoke in his slow drawl, "I was told to inform you...of the Yule Ball...we'll be hosting this year...I suspect you all already know...how to formally dance?"

The majority of the heads around the room bobbled in response to his question, but Snape seemed to be ignoring the few students who didn't nod along with everyone else. He sighed, "You should bring...dates...to the ball. If you are not a fourth year or above...you must have a date to attend...Now, leave my classroom."

Everyone shuffled out of the room after the short meeting concluded. Many of the girls giggled and whispered about the upcoming ball, but Briar had already decided she wouldn't go. There were more important things she could spend her Christmas break doing, like painting or drawing or working on her potions essay.

-

Briar and the others were in potions the next week. She was trying to focus on her work while everyone around her whispered about the upcoming ball.

Malfoy and Pansy were going together, and Crabbe had asked Millicent. Theodore Nott had asked Daphne, and she had agreed to go with him just yesterday. Briar was the only one out of their room who hadn't been asked, and she had felt relieved that she was being left alone. She had no interest in going to the Yule Ball.

As Briar was trying to focus on the classwork, she heard the nearby Potter and Weasley whispering to one another with complaints about how they didn't have dates yet.

Ron whined, "This is mad. At this rate we'll be only ones left in our year without dates."

Snape walked past the loudly whispering boys and smacked Ron over the back of the head. Briar widened her eyes as the corners of her lips twitched up. If they hadn't been so loud about it, they could have gotten away with their whispering.

Briar's eyebrows furrowed when Ron's loud whispering continued only seconds later. He murmured, "Well, us and Neville!"

"But then again, he can take himself," Potter joked, but Briar didn't understand the punchline.

Granger's sharp tone infiltrated their whining with, "It might interest you to know that Neville's already got someone."

An irritation had started to settle into Briar's bones, and she felt supremely annoyed that those three were being permitted to continue speaking during class. Her eyes found Snape across the room. He was hiding his face behind a homework folder, but he seemed unconcerned about the ongoing conversation.

In response to Granger's comment, Ron gasped, "Now I'm really depressed."

Potter gaped at her as Ron sunk lower in his seat.

Briar rolled her eyes at them and glowered as she attempted to focus on her homework. Malfoy nudged her with a bony elbow and retorted, "Aren't they insufferable?"

Without looking up, she rolled her eyes and fired back, "You're insufferable, Malfoy. Let me study in peace for merlin's sake."

Once Briar finished her homework, she handed it to Snape and stormed from the room. She felt extra grumpy the rest of the day, but uncertain why. She finally figured it was probably just because she was annoyed at how Potter, Weasley, and Granger always got away with things, even with Snape this time.

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