First Year Hufflepuff Girl's Dorm- 7:00 pm

Annette, her normally wild hair tamely braided down her back, shrugged her robes off and jumped into a pair of comfy pajamas and a perfectly worn sweatshirt, ready to go to sleep. But she couldn't even think about going to sleep, she'd gotten a letter that afternoon from James, and she'd resisted the urge to jump up and down like a geek until she ran up to her dorm during a free period. She was an Aunt! Annette flopped down on her sheets and reread the letter her brother had sent her.

She was waiting for Alice to walk in so she could tell her. Nette was just so excited. She tried calming herself down with a little reading, but concentration had run off with emotional containment and Annette was a jittery excited mess. She crinkled the piece of parchment her owl had brought, a little excited Jim had dealt with her owl even though he was deathly afraid of birds. Annette heard the door click open and she flopped around to see the door, it was another one of her roommates just grabbing an inkwell so she could study in the common room. Annette frowned, she didn't even have homework to distract her. Nette rolled over onto her back, staring up at an Amortenia poster taped to the ceiling above her bed.

"Alice! Hurry up and get here already!" Anni sighed to herself, looking at the letter in her hands for the billionth time that day.

Alice dragged her feet slowly through the common room, bags sagging under her eyes. She dragged her bag on the floor, too tired to carry it on her shoulder. She had had the day from hell, one assignment to the next, and to top it all off, she had nightmares the night before, dreaming of Mark's death over and over again. And now, her sleep deprivation and the weight of her books that she had been carrying around wither her all day was putting her in an over exhausted mood.

She shuffled into her and Annette's room, her bag strap falling from her grasp, as she fell face first on to her bed and into her pillow. "I'm so tired!" She yelled into it, not realizing that only muffled noises came out of it.

Annette resisted the urge to pounce on top of Alice the second she came in. "Don't fall asleep! I have to tell you something important!" Nette tiger leaped from bed bed to Alice's. She sat, cross-legged, playing with Alice's hair. "You won't believe it, it's just to amazing for words!" Annette bounced up and down on her friends bed, then jumped back to hers, narrowly missing the bed posts from connecting with her face. She flopped over on her tummy and put her hands under her chin.

 "Guess what happened! I bet you can't it's just too amazing to handle."

She groaned as she turned over to her side, as Annette leapt around the room. "What is it?" She asked, looking over at her friend who clearly couldn't stop changing positions. She slowly curled up under her sheets, not worrying about not being in her pajamas nor bothering with brushing her teeth. She was much too tired for all of it.

Sometimes it seemed that Annette had so much energy that it made up for the both of them. She put her head on her hands that were sandwiched together. "Did you get a new inkwell? Does it sparkle?" She asked.

"No, but I wish I got a sparkly inkwell" Annette stifled a squee. "I'm an aunt, Jim had a kid! Isn't that exciting!" Nette knew Alice had had a tough few days with her brother being poisoned and all, and she hoped her good news would cheer her up a bit, "Look, he sent me a letter." Letters from James were like small pink pearls, they only came around once in a while, and they were normally small. Annette loved it when her brother sent her letters, or when she got any kind if letter, her mother sometimes wrote to her, but she'd write down a shopping list and send it to her daughter. Octavian would rarely write, and Jim's letters were the ones she liked best anyways, even though Eliza wrote to her weekly.

Alice smiled at her friend's news. "That's great. Good for you." She said, non sarcastically. "Now, can I go to sleep?" She said turning over to face the other way, as she took off her glasses, sloppily tossing them at the table. They fell on the ground with a clatter, but Alice didn't care. She was much to tired tonight. It was then that she realized she had news for Annette as well.

"Oh, Mark and Julie are having a baby." She blurted out along with a yawn, as she snuggled down deeper. "So I guess I'll be an aunt soon too." She said

Annette frowned slightly at her friend's lack of excitement for her and her brother. And now, apparently, Mark's fiancé, whom Nette had only met a few times, was pregnant. "WHAT?!" Annette shrieked, jumping up to her feet, she hopped off her sheets, picking up Alice's glasses off the floor and put them on the side table so Alice wouldn't step on them tomorrow morning.

"We're both going to be aunts, and you're not excited at all?" Annette tapped on the wood around her bed frame. "Well, I guess it's not that exciting, maybe because I don't know who my nephew's mother is isn't the best thing to talk about before bed. Annette understood why Alice wasn't all that excited about it though. Everyone in Oulton Broad knew that her brother was a player, and Annette guess everyone had been expecting it for a long time.

As Annette continued to blab on and on, Alice was trying to fall asleep. "It's kinda cool, I guess." She said, begrudgingly, just wanting to sleep."I mean, good for James. And you, good for you too." She got the idea that her friend wasn't too happy with Alice's current attitude, so she sat up in her bed, looking over at the tan blob that Annette looked like right now.

"I'm sorry, I'm being insensitive. That's great. What's her name?" She asked, plastering on a smile. "Does she look like James?" She asked, trying to stop a fight from starting between the two Hufflepuffs.

"His name is Paul, but Jim calls him PJ, because his middle name is John." Annette sat up a littler straighter as Alice sat up in her bed. "I also haven't seen a picture of him yet, but my brother says he has the birthmark and everything." Nette wasn't sure if she had told Alice about her birthmark on her neck. She pulled down the neck of her sweatshirt to reveal the lotus blossom on her neck.

"When did...Julie find out?" Annette said, suddenly hooked on the topic of kids and families.