Halle's POV ~ Journal:

Oh my goodness! I haven't journaled in sooooo long! Tonight is the Halloween feast, and I am so excited! To make up for not journaling in the past month, I will explain what has happened in the past two months.

So far, my favorite classes are Transfiguration and Charms. History of Magic & DADA is also pretty fun. I HATE Herbology & Potions though! One, I don't get why we are required to take Herbology. Why do we need to learn a bunch of plant names and how to take care of them? In my opinion, it should be an optional class... I should write an essay to McGonagall about that.... And potions is just boring. I see why we have to take it but Professor Slughorn just bores us all to sleep. I did some research on him, and supposedly, he came out of retirement to work at Hogwarts right before the Battle of Hogwarts. In my opinion, he should go back into retirement.

Things between James and me have gone great since we met in the Library! I'm still not sure if he likes me or not though, or if I like him, or if I even want him. Gracie and I have gone great! She's amazing at DADA! She's been helping me improve. Not that I'm bad at it, but she's WAY better. In return, I help her with Charms. She's not bad at that either, but it's always nice to have help. Dom and I have been pretty good. However, I can't say the same for her and Gracie. Ever since Dom told on her to McGonagall and Gracie hexed her, they've been pretty distant. Time to go to the feast!

Halle's POV:

I followed the crowd of excited students to the Great Hall. When we finally got to our destination, I saw Gracie, James, and Louis waving me over. The ceiling had hundreds, maybe thousands of candles and Jack o'Lanterns. The normally sunny sky was a dark, stormy night. 

"Hey, Halle!" James shouted to me.

It took a while, but he finally, to my relief, stopped calling me swangirl.

"Hey!" Gracie smiled at me.

It took a while, but James and Gracie are finally on decent terms.

"Hi, guys!" I greeted them, "How's it going!"

"Nothing too exciting, I meant it isn't my favorite day of the year!" James joked.

We laughed and I went to join Dom and all of our Ravenclaw first-year friends.

"I still don't know why you hang out with Rivers," Dominique greeted me.

"Hello to you too," I smirked.

"Greetings Halle Swan," she exaggerated, "I hope thys ego is compensated by my warm welcome ."

We all giggled as McGonagall got up and spoke to us.

"I don't want to talk for too long, so you all can eat, but I just want to tell you all that a student was expelled last night for going into the forbidden corridor. Luckily, Mr. Filch caught the student before it was able to doom us all. I just want to remind all of you to never step foot in there, or you will sentence us all to a life worse than death"

We all got very quiet as she used such a powerful statement.

"I hope I have made it very clear that no one is to step foot in there. Thank you."

Everyone gaped at her as she sat down. It was still quiet after about a minute, so she motioned for us all to eat. I looked at my food and slowly ate. Hushed voices whispered about what our Headmistress just told us.

"I think it's a bunch of baloney," Dominique declared.

"Why would she joke about that?" Scarlet demanded, "That was no joking matter."

Gwen and Bella murmured their agreements along with me.

Dom frowned at us,

"Do you guys think I'm stupid? I'll go in there myself then, to prove you all wrong."

"Are you insane!" I yelled at her, "If you are so 'pro house points' then you are asking to lose all of them! Besides, you heard her. A student got expelled for going in there."

"I told you, I think it's a bunch of baloney. I'll prove them wrong, and I'll get rewarded with house points for being brave enough to go in. I'm telling you, their just testing us with this, to see how far their students will go into the faces of danger."

"Are you going insane!" Gwen screeched, "At this rate, you'll get yourself killed!"

Dom rolled her eyes but just continued eating her food.

'Someone has to keep an eye on her', I thought, 'McGonagall must have something incredibly dangerous in there if a student got expelled.'

I closed my eyes and blocked out all other distractions, foreseeing what Dominique would do.