Let's Just Talk All Through The Night

[Sam Prince]

It was late, past midnight perhaps, he wasn't really a great time keeper these days. Long nights of study passed Sam by in a daze and left him struggling to count the hours of sleep he got the next morning. Four hours of a deep sleep was pushing it most nights, and small dark rings began to appear under those big blue eyes of his. It had been weeks now since he had fallen into a proper slumber and woken up not feeling one bit tired. This bizarre sleeping pattern was solely to do with the stress of his upcoming NEWT's. He tried his very best to keep up this year but that still didn't make up for last year's efforts. Plus, things took an unexpected turn this year when Indianna transferred. Of course it probably was one of the best things that could have happened to Sam, but probably one of the worst to his academics. He really did spend all of his time with her which cut out a lot of studying time, naturally. And the idea of being 'study buddies' was simply out of the question. Not that they had actually attempted it, but Sam just knew very little exam preparation would be done in those periods of time.

His wand arm was outstrectched in front of him shedding a dim light that broke up the suffocating darkness around him. His bare feet padded along on the cool marble floor and tucked tightly under his right armpit, was a book. It was his DADA book, notes sticking out left, right and center. Apart from the rhythmatic sound of his feet, there was just silence within the darkness. He knew, as a prefect, he shouldn't be wandering about at this time - whatever time it happened to be - but he simply could not study on an empty stomach. There wasn't much point trying to cram a years worth of theory when all he could think about was how quick it would take him to get down to the kitchens and back. His stomach began to grumble at the thought of food. Brain food as Sam liked to call it. Sam pushed the door open with his broad shoulder and slid into the kitchen. Candles were full ablaze about the room and in the corner, he noticed, two of the Hogwarts elves. He offered them a small guilt ridden smile before stepping further into the room and lowering his now, unlit wand.

Another growl erupted from Sam's empty stomach, the thought of being fed seeming so much more realistic now that he was actually in the kitchen. It was enough of a sign for Sam to start poking around the room to fill the empty void that was his stomach. What he craved more than anything was an orange and put it down as one of those weird late-night cravings. He placed his heavy school book and wand on the grand wooden table in the center of the room and ran his fingers over the fruit bowl on said table. Putting each orange through a tough screening process, until he finally found a large, plump and what he could tell to be, a juicy orange. With a free hand he pulled out a stool from underneath the table and sat down onto it. The kitchen was quite cool at this time of night, and the tips of Sam's toes were beginning to lose any sort of feeling they used to have. Yet Sam just reached over for his DADA book and simply ignored his feets wishes for a pair of socks. He opened the book on a page with a folded down corner, it was also stuffed with pieces of parchment but without really glancing at his poorly handwritten notes, Sam just began to peel his orange. At this point, in the night, in the month, in the year, easing his hunger seemed just a little more important than the quickly appraoching NEWT's.

 

[Jennifer Wilkonson]

NEWTs were soon approaching and thankfully almost everything in Jennifer's life was settled or at least as settled as she could ever expect it to be. She was happy in her relationship with Amaryllis even if they weren't completely open yet, she wanted to talk to the people closest to her first but due to studying it was difficult to tell them that she was dating someone new... someone unexpected. It wasn't something she wanted them to hear from the grapevine or through owl so she had to do it in person so Jennifer and Amaryllis would have to be secretive until then. Little did she know that soon the secrecy would be over because as she held her girlfriend's hand and walked her dorm to her dorm room she felt extremely hungry. Missing out on dinner to sneak around tended to cause that so with a lingering kiss on Amy's soft lips and a quiet goodbye, Jennifer went to the kitchens so she could get some food and go to bed like she knew she needed to. It was hardly the healthiest thing to stay up until two in the morning and get up again at five-thirty but there were so few hours in a day and she wanted to get so much in. And, as always with Jennifer, eating just happened to be the last of her priorities.

Although Jennifer would not admit it to anyone, walking the dungeons on your own at this time was still quite scary to her. When she had been holding Amy's warm hand she had not noticed just how dark it was but now that she was alone, as far as she knew, it gave her anxiety. It reminded her of her childhood when she had to go to the washroom in the depths of the night and would run from her bedroom to the washroom and back to have the safety of any light. She had been so frightened that monsters would be there, surrounding her in the darkness and as she walked down with quick steps she knew not much had changed. There might not have been any monsters in the dark as a child but there was no human that would not admit to the fact that the dark was ominous and there was something behind that 'silly' fear of monsters under the bed. What one could not see was what one could not know and that was frightening to most people... including Jennifer Lydia Wilkonson so she was relieved when she walked into the kitchen and could light up the tip of her wand without getting any trouble from sleeping portraits.

The kitchen was a place that she had been once or twice in her time at Hogwarts because she had thought that it was silly of her to try to make her own food when at the times for meals there was already great food provided for her. So the ins and outs of the kitchen was not something she had learnt which was exactly why she had stubbed her toe and cried out in pain from the contact. "Merlin's saggy left -" she cut off as she slipped her foot out of her flat and looked down at her throbbing big doe and scowled down at it as if it had wanted her to suffer before she muttered off something unintelligible. Looking back up she glanced around her and smiled impishly as she saw a house elf come towards her. "Midnight snack?" she asked it quietly before it rolled it's eyes at her and left, presumably to bed. Normally the elves were so understanding but now she had a feeling she was not the only visitor in the past hour or so but her growling stomach caused her to forget all about it and focus on the task at hand: making a sandwich.​