August 31, 1943

It was the busiest day of the year in Diagon Alley. Shoppers were crammed like sardines in a tin, into almost every store and building, and outside of the shops the streets struggled to contain the abundance of people. It was almost suffocating, had you been a claustrophobic person. If viewed from above in the current state, Diagon Alley would resemble a long, winding ribbon of colors, purples, greens, reds, all sorts of different colors of cloaks, greatly opposed to the neutral browns and blacks of Muggle London.

And what might you ask would be the reason for all this maddness? Well, it just happened that the new school year was starting in two days and the Hogwarts Express would be leaving at 11.00am the next morning. Families would be gathering for one last day of bonding before their children were torn away from them for another magic filled year of learning at the famous school. Freshmen Muggle-borns struggled to adapt to their new lifestyles, procrastinating students were hurrying from one shop to another, desperate to purchase all of their school supplies before it was too late and flustered parents were desperatly looking around for their missing offspring amongst the crowd.

The shopkeepers always looked forward to this time of year, due to the huge influx in business, however the downside was that most employees had to work overtime to makeup for the mayhem of the day. August the thirty-first was both welcomed and dreaded in equal measures. No matter how much money was made on the day, the shopkeepers would always breathe a sigh of relief when the day was finally over.

Perhaps one of the busiest shops in Diagon Alley was Flourish & Blotts, because it just happened to be the only magical bookstore in the entirity of London. Their staff were working harder today than they did on most other days combinded; for nearly twelve hours now the store had been filled with voices, footsteps and the rustling of pages. Every fifteen minutes or so an employee could be seen nipping into the back room for a much needed break.

The back room happened to be where Arianna Blackfinch, was currently hiding. Even though today would be her last working day until next summer, she didn't really feel up to the challenge of having to deal with the frantic rush of people outside.

Summer was nearly over and she had to admit that sadly she had acomplished next to nothing. She still had a stack of homework stuffed somewhere deep inside of her school trunk, and her skin had turned a pasty white from spending two months in cloudy, rainy, miserable London.

She'd been quite looking forward to coming back home and relaxing for the summer holidays while tackling away at the stacks of homework that she had to complete before the holidays were over, but then she'd somehow managed to score herself a job at Flourish & Blotts and soon found that she had almost no spare time on her hands but with more money than she knew what to do with.

So, instead of her summer being filled with lazy days and school essays, it was filled with busy customers and the smell of fresh books to the point where the smell was nauseating. She wasn't much of a reader herself, she found that everytime she had a book in her hands, she just ended up staring at the same page for an age, while her mind wandered off into another silly day dream. 

Arianna couldn't help but wonder what this new year at Hogwarts was going to bring into her life. The last four years had been anything but ordinary, but Hogwarts had been nothing like what she had expected it to be like. Because she was a half blood and her parents were divorced, her Mother being from Muggle descendance had insistited that Arianna attend Muggle schooling for the first 10 years of her life, and now she lived with her Father out in London and she hardly ever saw her Mother who lived somewhere in the countryside on the outskirts of London. The two schools couldn't be anymore different to each other if they tried. Children were so sheltered in Muggle schools, so protected from even the tiniest bits of information that it was almost rediculous. Arianna was well aware that right now somewhere in the Muggle world there was currently raging a world war, so she could almost understand why they were being sheltered, but not to the degree at which she had seen.

"Arianna!" a voice yelled from the front of the store, breaking her thoughts and causing Arianna to jump and hit her head on a stack of books that were jutting out from an above shelf. "Are you back there?"

"Yes," she moaned and glared at the offending books before climbing to her feet, and pulling her angry, black birdsnest of what she called hair back into a ponytail and smoothing out her skirt. She usually took pride in her appearance but whenever a day of work loomed she always pulled her hair back into a messy bun or a tail to keep it out of the way. On a usual day, she'd leave it partially loose or plait it, her hair was so long now that it reached halfway down her back.

Emerging from the backroom, the Manager of Flourish and Blotts, Irvin Aldwinkle, was dashing around the store looking flustered and tired, "Ahh, Arianna!" he exclaimed brightly. "We seem to have shortage of helpers at the present time, would you mind assisting this young lad here?"

Before she could respond, there was panicked yell and the nearest booktable was overturned with a deafening crash. Papers flew everywhere and she narrowly got missed being hit by a flying Divination textbook.

"Merlin's beard! I'm so, so sorry!" a familiar high-pitched voice sounded from under the pile of books. Arianna and Aldwinkle watching in astonishment as a hand emerged, horror style like, from the sea of textbooks. Not long after, a head covered in messy blond hair also popped out and a boy managed to pull himself out of the mess. His face pulled into a smile when he saw Arianna, "Arianna! So, good to see you....sorry about the mess..." he smiled sheepishly and she couldn't help but suppress a giggle. His expression suddenly turned to one of embarrassment when he realised that he had an audience. "I was only trying to....I didn't mean for this to happen. Lo-look, I'll clean it up."

"No, no, it's more," Aldwinkle said, and with a simple flick of his wand, the table neatly rearranged itself. "It happens more often that you think," he said with a wink before turning back to his customer.

In a few minutes the store had ressumed it's normal busy pace and the events of the last few minutes had quite been forgotten. the disheiveled looking boy approached Arianna at the counter, "Arianna, it's good to see you. How's your holidays been?"

The boys name was Dylan Greenfield, the twin brother of her best friend Angela Greenfield. The three of them were all in Ravenclaw, and attended classes together. She stepped around the counter to give him a hug, "It's good to see you too, " she said pulling away from him. She looked around the store, "Well, as you can see, I picked up a summer job here...I guess you probably heard that from Angela though..." she phrased her last sentence as a question and she eyed him curiously.

He shook his head sadly, "She hasn't been telling me anything, told me to send you letters myself, the thing is my owls not in the best of shape right now, think she's getting to the end of her days. She is an old thing though...Angela wouldn't even let me borrow her owl, think that's mighty selfish of her. I would've written though, had circumstances been different though." 

She patted him on the back, "It's alright, now I can't stand around talking, but I can help you with your books. Now, what do you need?" 

~

The rest of the day passed by in a sort of rushed frenzy, and it was with sad regret that Arianna recieved her last paycheck for the summer and she left the bookstore. Part of her was excited to go back to Hogwarts, but the other part just wanted to stay huddled up in her room in a sort of neverending summer, so that she wouldn't have to worry about homework, exams, and wonder about what weird things were going to happen this year. The only thing that she could be half curious about this year was in regards to the letter that she had recieved in the mail from Hogwarts, during the first week of Summer break.

Dear Miss Blackfinch,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected to serve as Prefect for Ravenclaw House. Your school record shows that you have exhibited quick-thinking in stressful situations, an enthusiasm for knowledge, and the ability to lead others.

We are certain that you will continue to be a model for your peers and will take your new responsiblities seriously. Enclosed please find your Prefect Badge, which should be worn on your school robes at all times. Congradulations!

Sincerely,

Miranda Godshaw

Head of Ravenclaw

She'd more than a bit surprised at being selected as a school Prefect, never in her life had she even had a second thought about the possibility of becoming a prefect, and then the next minute she was standing in the middle of her bedroom, a letter in one hand, a Prefect badge sitting in the palm of her other hand. She'd taken no time in sprinting down the stairs at once to show it to her father who relished in the news and at once sent an owl to her mother. She'd almost immediatly after sent a letter to Angela who couldn't have been happier for her. Most friends might have been jealous, spiteful even of not being presented with such a thing themselves, but not Angela. Angela hadn't wanted to become Prefect, she was too carefree, and was too much of a secret trouble maker to want to have that sort of responsibility on her shoulders.

Arianna, on the other hand looked at the badge as a badge of honor. That she among all the other fifth years got picked to be the girl Prefect for their house. She'd wear that badge with as much pride as she could muster. It then got her thinking about who the other Prefects were going to be. Who was going to be her fellow Ravenclaw Prefect, and who was going to represent the fifth years from the other houses? Sadly it would have to remain a mystery until the new year began.

She wandered out of the Leaky Cauldron onto the streets of London, it was raining again, but then again thought Arianna smugly, when isn't it raining in London? She hailed a passing bus and spent the entire bus trip worrying about how she was going to struggle through all of the homework that she had somehow managed to neglect down at the bottom of her school trunk before the new school year started. First world problems she giggled to herself.

~

Stuffing the last of her school papers back into her trunk, Arianna sighed, "I think I'll finish the rest on the train..." she said out loud to herself. Her mind was whirring and spinning with so many thoughts buzzing around that she didn't know if she was going to be able to sleep at all. She was just too excited about the prospect of being back at Hogwarts, seeing her friends, walking the halls, eating in the Great Hall. She peered through the bars of her Owl, Snow's cage. The owl cooed at her softly and she smiled and poked some food through the bars which she nibbled on.

Arianna smiled as she crawled into bed and closed her eyes, she tossed and turned for what seemed like an eternity before she at last fell into a sleep where she dreamed about long stone corridors, hallways full of student, textbooks and exam papers. Those were the dreams of a student.