"That would be great! I bet dad would be excited if he got a letter by muggle post for once. I could send a card that way!"

She laughed along with Adrien () at the image of her as the tree topper and then remembered that she had to put it up. Holding onto it, she shook out her wings and took off for the top of the tree, hovering right nearby it and positioning the tree topper carefully. Once it was in place, she gracefully fluttered back down and landed on her feet, admiring the tree for a moment before reaching out for an iced sugar cookie and sinking her teeth into it with a contented moan.

"These are soooo good!"

( ) Adrien watched in awe as Aderyn flew to the top of the tree. "Whoa... that was brilliant!" He looked at the tree in silence, enjoying the atmosphere and laughed as Aderyn mentioned the cookies. "The elves really outdid themselves with these," he agreed as he took another bite of his brownie. "I could eat these all day!"

He took a gulp of his pumpkin juice and turned to address at Gaia and Aderyn, "What are you two have planned for break?"

Gaia had to admit she was impressed with her friend. "Hey Aderyn! Can you cast the spell for the eagle topper to go in circles around the tree every hour? It also moves the streamers around the tree! It is a glorious thing." Gaia figured it was easier to do a proximity spell when you have wings to get you there. "Adrien we can choose some postcards from the pile and then I can show you both how to do muggle mail." Gaia grinned "I am staying here with Aderyn and causing mischief." Gaia giggled and then added "I mean we are studying."

( )

Adrien chuckled at Gaia's answer, "Yeah, studying alright. Well maybe I'll see you guys around! I'll be here definitely not causing mischief either." He grinned, excited to know his new friends would be here over the break. "I'd rather spend the holiday with people. I hardly see my parents when I'm home as is." He picked up a stack of postcards, "Hopefully they'll be excited to get a different kind of post this year!" He started flipping through them, tongue sticking out a little bit as he tried to find the perfect one for his parents.

() "You are welcome to use any of my owls to send your post! Unless home is really far away then my owls can take it to muggle mail office." Gaia beamed "You can always join our little party on Christmas. Nothing like hot chocolate and opening presents!"

"Me too! But if I kept eating these all day, pretty soon I'd be too heavy to fly!"

She nodded at as the other girl asked her to enchant the tree topper.

"Sure!"

Taking off again, having stuffed the last of the cookie into her mouth, she pulled her wand from her pocket and pointed it at the tree.

"Aquila mobulus!"

The eagle immediately sprang to life and began to circle the tree, causing the streamers attached to it to swirl around it, too, as though they were dancing in the firelight. Fluttering back down, she joined the others at the table.

"Well it's not entirely untrue. I'm sure we'll study a little... at some point. Just to keep up appearances, anyway!"

She grinned and picked up a post card, turning it over in her hands and admiring the landscape printed on it.

"I might take you up on that offer; you can never go wrong with hot chocolate," Adrien beamed at Gaia, "And thank you, but you can let your owl rest, I'm sure my owl would love to go stretch his wings for a little. He loves to go out flying in the snow."

He turned to watch Aderyn () enchant the tree topper, eyes lighting up as the eagle came to life and circled the tree. "We definitely have the best tree, and it's not even done yet!"

"Yeah... might as well stay on top of things while you can, but have fun at the same time. I wonder if Hogwarts could handle a few mischievous Ravenclaws. They probably wouldn't even think it's us, since we're the 'quiet ones who study.'" He smiled at the two before taking another sip from his pumpkin juice.

"I'm sure the Slytherins would be their first suspects. Or the Gryffindors... No one ever suspects us."

She giggled, fetching herself a small glass and filling it with ice cold pumpkin juice and taking a sip. Refreshed, she dove into another box, pulling out some festive candle holders that would look just fantastic over the hearth.

( ) "Did I hear someone say we need to visit Zonko's?!?!" Gaia laughed at the idea of being the ones pulling pranks around; she did like Peeves,but her attention went back to the tree. "That is amazing spell casting Aderyn!" She then turned to Adrien "Would you like to hang the star ornaments and enchant them to twinkle and sparkle even when it is completely dark?"

"That's the best part! We can get away with anything prank-wise," Adrien said, laughing along with Aderyn.

Adrien turned to face , "Yes! We have to go to Zonko's and stock up. This holiday is going to be exciting. And you got it: sparkling stars, coming right up!" Adrien beamed and went back to the boxes, picking out the stars as he went along.

Aderyn pondered the idea.

"I think I can manage that. I'll have to look up the charm, but it shouldn't be too difficult! Set them there, I'll be right back!"

She dashed across the room to the large book shelf in the common room, looking through the volumes kept there. Finding a book of holiday magic, she flipped through it until she found the necessary spell. She committed the words to memory and flicked her wand a few times to perfect the movement before closing the book once more. She brought it back to the table with her so that they could get more ideas for fun things to do afterward and set it down as she picked up one of the star ornaments. As she moved to hang it, she smiled at Adrien().

"Hogwarts will never know what hit it! They'll think Peeves has gone and turned the place upside down!"

( )

"The tree is looking amazing! You have done a great job! I think we might be able to recruit Peeves in our mischief." Gaia looked around "Erm... I mean have him help us keep guard while we study"

"Oh, but we have to be careful... That poltergeist is a turncoat!"

She giggled and bounced on the balls of her feet, taking off into the air and fluttering around the tree, hanging several of the star ornaments Gaia had mentioned. Once they were in place, she landed once more and pointed her wand at the tree, waving it as per the textbook.

"Astrae scintillo!"

Immediately, the stars began to sparkle and glow, illuminating the tree with a soft, warm light.

Adrien smiled back at Aderyn () as she hung the ornament and continued putting some aside for her to hang as he looked. He giggled when mentioned recruiting Peeves, "I wonder if he would help us? We probably have to do something for him, but getting him on our side would be great!" He watched as the stars illuminated from the spell Aderyn cast, watching the tree glow in the light of the stars. "It's perfect!"

"We'd never pay off the debt we owed Peeves if we wanted him on our side. He'd have us bowing to him every time he came around a corner for the rest of our time at Hogwarts!"

She beamed as Adrien admired her wand work, glad that she was good at this type of magic, at least. Dueling be damned - she preferred charms anyway.

All of the excitement (not to mention all of the cookies!) had made Ethel zone out for a bit. She shook herself back to awareness in time to see Aderyn () woosh to the top of the tree, topper in hand.

"Brilliant!" She cheered, clapping at the display. "The tree looks great!" When Aderyn added to the display with the stars she whistled her admiration. "We've definitely got to have the best tree at Hogwarts."

After grabbing another cookie, she flounced into a squashy arm chair. "What's this about a prank war now?"

"Yeah, you're right. Or he'd make us be the butt of his jokes for the rest of our time here," he added to Aderyn's () speculation.

Adrien admired the tree for a moment more before making his way closer to the fire. He sank into a couch and grinned at Ethel (). "Well, we were thinking of staying behind to cause a bit of mischief - I mean... we're going to be doing quite a bit of studying. No one would ever think it's us, like Aderyn said, they'd probably just blame the Slytherins or Gryffindors."

[img align=left]http://i.imgur.com/zjrcte5.png[/img]Beth picked up a handful of garland and a string of lights and walked towards a window. She carefully wrapped the string of lights around the garland. Looking around, she moved a nearby chair next to the window and began hanging up the garland.

The gears clanking together in Ethel's head were almost audible as she processed Adrien's comments. There was a beat of silence and then she clapped her hands, pleased with herself. "Oh! Right, studying gotcha. We can study so many things over the break, I'd bet. We'd learn a lot of useful charms if we put our heads together." Then she nodded thoughtfully in response to the idea about involving Peeves. "You're both right. Plus he's too much of a wild card! You can't leave anything to chance when you're...er... studying."

Aderyn grinned at Ethel.

"Thanks! I bet we do, too. Who knows, though - those Hufflepuffs can get pretty crafty."

She turned to Adrien, glancing between him and Ethel.

"Okay, so we're on our own then. We're in agreement that Peeves is a bad idea, and we can still blame him as long as he doesn't catch us so he can't turn around and turn us in!"

Noticing that Beth was putting up some garlands near the window, Aderyn bounced over.

"Do you need a hand?"