Padma Patil

Oh, for Laksh Merlin's sake, I'm all right. Just tired.

But thank you for making sure Dunstan and Brocklehurst didn't try pulling back my curtains, anyway. I wouldn't have wanted to start the year off by hexing their noses off.

And no, despite what Midgen said (yes, I heard her!), none of us are 'in trouble'--what put that into her featherbrain? It was just Council business, that's all.

Now, tomorrow morning, be sure there's lemon water by the bed, will you? Ta.

It was snitch of you to have the bunch of us over yesterday. Thank Mr Rosier again, will you?

I do wish the Hogwarts crew had been able to come as well. You would have liked the game we played, Malfoy especially, I think. Hooper brought it. It's called Illusionary. Have you heard of it? Well, you divide into teams and there's a stack of cards with words on, like 'muggle camp' and 'transfiguration' and 'London' and 'snake' and all sorts of things. And there are some props you can use, but you don't have to use them if you don't want to do. Well, each person on your team takes it in turns being the one to get the others to guess what your word is. But you have to make an illusion that illustrates your word to get them to guess, and you can't talk, of course. It was great fun. Thomas was the best at sketching the illusions in the air, of course, but Page was really good at making the props into whatever he wanted.

Well, anyway, then Thomas wanted to go skating, so we did that before tea, which was really not tea at all, but chocolate! But the game had been so much fun that we kept casting spells out on Mr Rosier's duck pond. Oh, and Hooper taught us this completely nift charm he knew, to make illusions and shapes and such out of his breath when it fogged up in the air. He must have pracised forever to be able to do things like that unicorn he made for Parvati. We all tried, but it's difficult to make the shapes quickly enough. I think Lav was getting the hang of it, though!

I think Page really enjoyed getting to speak with Mr Rosier in the library while we were off touring the house again. I know I've been before but we've still not seen the whole place! It just keeps going. I can't believe you said it's smaller than your family's main castle in Ireland, though, Finnigan. I dunno what I'd do with so many rooms! But I knew we'd lose Page in the library. It's quite my favourite room of Mr Rosier's, too. I know it's not quite as large as Hogwarts' library but then, Mr Rosier doesn't need multiple copies of things or quite so many books that no one ever wants to read, does he? It was really kind of him to loan Page that copy of Command of Thought, as well. I'm sure it'll be really helpful for his Dark Arts unit on Curses.

Mr Rosier was right about getting to know some of the others better. I never knew Robins was so witty! Or that Cuthbert and Page would bore us all with broom care as Quidditch strategy, ha-ha! It was loads of fun and now it won't seem like so long before we're all on the train back to school.

loads of times but every time we come into the city, I mean really properly, it seems so strange that so many people used to live here. Dad used to tell us stories about how dangerous it was to even cross a street, with Muggle cars and all. But the only thing we have to worry about is whether the Azkaban prisoners will try to kill Harry, and really, that's not very likely as there are Aurors and chaperones all over the place.

It's been a bit of a game, though. Not that it's funny, or anything, I mean, it'd be snitch if they caught the fugitives and we could all stop looking over our shoulders, but last night we all sat up in our room here at the Horseguards (and it's really grand, by the way, and so very posh!) and talked about what to do if we spotted either of them. Or both? The papers said they might be travelling together, but I think that's rather a daft thing to do. Two fugitives are much easier to spot than only one, don't you think?

Sandoval says that Auror Lestrange figures the one, Snape, won't be able to resist making a grab for Marvolo while he's here and not in Buckingham. So we practised how to call for help and what kinds of spells to cast. Belinda asked if he would have a wand and we pointed out that he might do if he took it from someone else. So the first thing is, protect your wand. And the second thing is to make a great racket so everyone will know you need help. The third thing is to try to stun him or even use petrificus totalis because then he'd not be able to duel properly. And the fourth thing is to send up sparks so the Aurors can find you.

But imagine if it did turn a proper duel. I think that would be really scary, but sort of nift, in a way.

Anyway, we've all be having a little fun with it today, you know, sneaking up behind each other and then saying, 'It's Snape!' or 'Look! Mr Macnair!' and watching each other jump. Morag surprised me with it just coming out of the loo last night before we left the museum, and I got Daphne Greengrass right as we sat down to breakfast this morning. She went bright red after clutching her wand to her chest - I mean, it looked like she wanted to hug it like a doll baby.

But it's not all japes, either. Today we'll be touring the Prophet offices and the WWN, which will be brill as I've only ever been to work with my dad a couple times before (nor has Parvati, of course). Then I guess there's to be some type of talk about how important it is to ensure that the people receive accurate and approved information from our communications centres, which is completely true, of course, but maybe not quite as exciting as being able to say 'Hullo' on the wireless.