Amelia shrieked as the snowball hit her right on the forehead, one hand flying up to touch the skin as if she expected to find blood there.

“Sorry, Amanda!” Noelle shouted, clearly looking not sorry at all.

Amelia didn’t respond. Instead, she stomped inside without more than a glare, slamming the door behind her.

“Good job, Noelle,” Seth commented, earning himself a snowball to the chest.

Jasper was already crouching down to form another.

Gracefully rising to stand, he declared, “Oh, this means war.”

Noelle looked far too excited as it hit her shoulder, giving her an excuse to immediately throw another one at Jasper.

Within seconds, a vicious snowball fight broke out, with Jasper and Seth battling Noelle and me. I was terrible at aiming and kept missing Jasper and Seth, but Noelle was good enough for the both of us.

We probably would have gone on until the sun went down if Miss Pepperman hadn’t appeared at the top of the steps to tell us to get inside if we wanted some hot chocolate.

Noelle didn’t need to be told twice and immediately dragged me inside after her, Jasper and Seth in tow. After we got ourselves some steaming hot chocolate from the Great Hall, we made our way to the common room.

It was one of the largest rooms of the castle, located on the first floor of the west wing. Students of all ages lazed around on worn-down leather couches and clunky armchairs, playing board games or poring over books. Every once in a while, a teacher would poke their head through the door to make sure that there was no chaos, sometimes sitting down to help with schoolwork or simply chat with the older students.

We managed to hunt down a couch and two armchairs close to the crackling fireplace—the heat it emanated, along with the hot chocolate trickling down my throat, quickly thawed my freezing limbs. With the chill draining out of my body and Noelle’s arm around my shoulders, it was so easy to close my eyes and simply relax into the feeling of warmth, lulled by the chatter all around us and my friends’ quiet conversation.

I probably could have fallen asleep like that, if Seth hadn’t suddenly murmured, “Is it just me or are people staring at us?”

“They’ve been staring all day,” Noelle replied, not even bothering to open her eyes.

Meanwhile I suddenly felt a pit in my stomach. People had been looking at us all day, but not like this, not like there was something to be genuinely shocked by.

My neck tingled as I felt more than a few eyes on me. Some girls from the year below us were staring in our direction, whispering to each other and not even looking away when I met their eyes.

A little farther to the left, two guys were laughing, one of them pointing at us. Even some of the younger students were grinning at us, gawking so obviously that there was no doubt about it—