The day before The Ball

The mask was hidden, the dress stowed away. She was all set and ready to get her stuff put together, and on, and make herself beautiful the following day. But for now.. Faith had pushed all the nonsense about the ball out of her mind, and was concentrating on her school work.

She had a stack of books piled in front of her, parchment was littered across the desk with half-written essays. Even though the ball was coming up, the professors hadn't lightened their workload. It was days like today.. with the cold October sun coming through the windows onto a dusty, wood desk, the smell of ink that had splattered onto her nose at some point.

A typical Ravenclaw, sitting in a typical fashion in a typical corner, the only difference to Faith was the slightly shining Prefect badge that sat against her chest, and her flaming red hair, which at the moment was tied back with a ribbon and looked extremely tangled, like she had just recently been messing with it, before tying it back. There were even small specks of black ink on the tips, where it had obviously been falling into her ink just moments before.

Avis had no friends with whom she could talk about boys, dates and the upcoming ball. Only her annoying mother who announced that she wanted to go shopping with her in London. That was when she got herself the blue gown, mask and those high heeled shoes which looked more like a murder weapon in Avis' eyes. But her mother insisted, and besides the jewelry, they also got her a new hairstyle.

Her hair, that was light brown only the day before, was now dark brown. And as odd as it was – she actually liked that. Her new haircolor was the first thing in which she agreed with her mother. This color brought up her pink cheeks and lips, which usually looked as white as snow.

And yet, though not only the students were exited about the ball, they recieved hell loads of homework. Avis' face was tired and with shadows under her eyes, she was more than “ready“ to go to the ball next day. She had to finish two essays, finish one book, and then brew another potion. And did they serve any purpose? Nope.
Carrying her heavy books which were supposed to help her with her heavy homework, she stopped. Oh, so her favourite table was taken? That, for the first time, didn't disturb her. Perhaps it was because her companion was a Ravenclaw? Oh how she loved people who were smarter than her! „May I?“ Avis asked raising her eyebrows at Faith.

Faith looked up, wiping her nose with her hand and leaving yet another smudge across the bridge of her nose and under one eye. A girl stood there sporting just as many books and looking just as tired as Faith felt herself. Glancing around the area, Faith knew the girl was speaking to her, but it always surprised her when someone addressed her in public and wasn't asking about how to get somewhere. "Oh erm.. sure, go ahead."

Faith picked up her wand and waved it once towards the seat across from her. It scooted out so she could sit down if she wanted to. "Day before the ball and we're in here working our butts off.. wonderful professor's we have eh?" Faith said casually as she reached up and pulled on her hair, to tighten the pony it was in, leaving yet more black smudges across the red locks.

Faith grinned and sat up slightly, stretching out her back with her hands over her head, and smiling once at the other girl, all of a sudden extremely aware of her prefect's badge, so she dropped her arms down and looked around the area. "This is a nice little spot though, I come here quite often."

Avis thanked the girl for her kindness, and then she took a seat, placing the books on the table. Oh god, she was not in the mood of writing and thinking about anything, yet, she and other students were commited to do so.
Avis sighed, smilig at her new companion. "Yes, and funny fact: they also tell us that we need to sleep at least ten hours a day, and that's what we get." Her smile turned into a bitter grin, but before she could comment any further, she just lost every emotion on her face. Avis figured that they did all this for their own good! This community deserved smart children.

Taking a deep breath, she reached out and took the first book. She had to write about transfiguration and the dangers that may occure when a person has turned him- or herself into a solid object. The topic itself wasn't difficult, but professor wanted to know every single thing about it, and she was even reccomended many books. More and more reading awaited her! Splendid.

Avis looked up again. "I use this spot, too, when I come here." Again, she smiled at the redhead and looked at her homework. "What's your assignment?"

Faith looked down at her half completed essay and sighed slightly. "Have to write an essay for potions about Everlasting Elixirs. Not exactly a hard topic.. but they always make it more difficult by making them extremely long, and have to look at like, ten different point of views, and read two books to boot." She sighed and read over what she had written quickly before waving her wand and drying the ink on the parchment. "Handy spell that one is.." She said smiling at Avis. "One wave of the wand and your essay looks like you completed it last night and it's all dried."

"That was always my problem in my first couple of years you know.." Faith raised her arms over her head and let out a small, involuntary squeak in the process, her face going red afterwards. "All of my professors would assign essays at the same time.. and the last essay I had to finish didn't have enough time to dry I had written it so quickly and turned it in so quickly.. got a few bad grades in the early terms because of it, finally in my third year someone showed me this spell and well.. it's been a lifesaver, that's for sure." She smiled looked at her parchment again, unrolling the scroll to see how much she had left and sighed.

"It's not like I don't know what to write down... it's just that it's a lot of writing.." Faith looked up at the other girl with a small smile.

To be honest, Avis never expected a Ravenclaw to complain about their homework. They seemed so witty and smart and the ones who enjoyed their homework and enjoyed being smart. That was the quality she envied about them. Avis felt that she was lacking the intelligence, and she wasn't smart enough. So there was a good reason. Some people would disagree with her on that, though. Her house,- and classmates figured that because she makes potions and can handle tension and pressude which comes along with the extra homework, she has a good head on top her shoulders.

Avis smiled at Faith. She knew that spell, it was quite useful, but usually she finished her essays few days before the date. Today, however, and overall, this week, was an exeption. Avis realized that thanks to the upcoming ball, it was quite difficult to keep her thoughts on one track.

"Yes, a lot of writing," she agreed, smiling back at her. Avis took out her quill and dipped it in the black ink. She had found an interesting fact about transfiguration and without hesitation, she was about to write it down. "Sometimes I wonder how our professors can be so cruel..." Little lioness sighed with a slight smile on her lips while writing on the parchment. "It is as if they don't have a heart and they enjoy our suffering by giving us loads of homework..."

And not to mention the upcoming exams! Was she really destined to die in this school?

Faith shrugged at her essay again. "I enjoy reading more than writing to be quite honest. Learning new things that way.. instead of having to prove I learned them. Everyone seems to think that Ravenclaws love homework.. I don't think so." Faith picked up her quill again and dipped it into her ink, jotting down some new note onto her paper in a neat cursive style writing. "I think Ravenclaws just overall have a love of learning.. I love to learn, I love to read, and I love things of the like, but having to prove myself with pointless essays, that I'm almost positive the professors don't read.. well."

Faith sighed and bent over her essay, scribbling for a few moments, before glancing up at her when she spoke of the professors. "I don't think they are cruel.. I just think they don't consult each other much about what the other one is doing. In one of my classes, I had to write three essays, read two books, and practice a spell, and then in another I had to make two potions write another essay, and read two more books, but it was due in a week, all of it." Faith took a deep breath, before writing again. "Needless to say that even when the Ravenclaws couldn't finish it, they realized that their assignments were too much of a workload, and they had to start consulting each other more, because it simply wasn't plausible, and those were only two classes, let alone all the others piled on top."

Faith stopped talking after that, realizing she had said a lot, she quickly set about working on her essay again, her face beet red.