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Christine should have realised she would be able to get through a month in the company of her friends, without any adult supervision, and avoid any more talk about her future. Or lack thereof, to be more specific.

Holidays were supposed to be all about relaxation and forgetting, at least for a short time, about all the problems that were waiting for you when you returned home. As far as Christine had heard, at least. Apparently, the other Slytherin girls had never gotten the memo. Because they had very different ideas about what they should be doing while they were all away.

A more perfect chance to gang up on Christine over the fact that she was, apparently, throwing away her future would never present itself again. That it was the last thing Christine wanted to talk about during their trip didn't matter. Giving up such an opportunity would be foolish, and they were anything but that.

One way or another, they were going to get to the bottom of it. Christine knew her friends well enough to know that they wouldn't give up on the topic until they'd gotten a satisfactory answer.

And 'I'll figure it out', was far from satisfactory. Even if it had managed to hold them off for a few days.

Which is how Christine knew exactly what Anna wanted to have a heart to heart about when she crept into her room a few nights later, when everyone else was asleep. Christine doubted anyone was actually asleep. They were all too acquainted with each other's sleeping habits for that story to fool anyone present. But it had become a way of saying they needed some privacy. Or just some time apart from the madness that tended to happen when they were all together.

And that made a perfect opportunity for Anna to corner Christine all by herself. Without any of the others around. So, Christine wouldn't have any excuse for her usual bravado. And that'd leave Christine with no choice to be sincere.

Anna knew her too well for her to get away with any such false audacity.

So, when she sat herself down on the end of Christine's bed, they both knew what was about to go down between them. That didn't make it any easier, though. For either of them.

Christine sighed, and gave Anna a look which clearly said to get on with it.

With an uncertain smile, Anna obliged.

"It's scary, you know," she began, nudging Christine with her foot, "Seeing you like this. For all of us."

Christine couldn't help but scoff at that. She understood that Anna was trying to be serious, she really did. But it was just too unbelievable that her friends, the girls who were in their own ways, the personification of Slytherin ambition, were scared by her lethargic behaviour. To Christine, it was a simply ridiculous notion.

"I'm not joking, Kit," she told her with a frown, leaning toward her and forcing Christine to giver her full attention to her, "You always undervalue yourself. And you've never had any idea how important you are to us. Or how much everyone else looks up to you."

"Anna," Christine tried to halt her ranting on about how much she had to live up to, "I'm her friend, not some idol they spend half their lives fawning over."

Anna refused to be stalled.

"You're both," she declared.

Christine gave up to argue the point, and flopped back onto the pillows at the head of her bed. It was a nice bed, she thought distractedly. Fluffy pillows, soft mattress, and a soft duvet. And it was a double. Much roomier than the four poster she had at Hogwarts, and the bunk beds she shared with her little sisters.

"Look, you remember how it was back in first year?" she asked softly, knowing it was a set of memories all involved loathed to look back on. It wasn't their finest hour. "Half our house was raised by pureblood fanatics. Me included. And Harrio. And you made each and every one of us eat every bad word we said about you. You made us all think differently."

Christine grimaced, hating thinking about those difficult few years after she'd first started at Hogwarts. How angry she'd been. How she'd taken that anger out on any and every one of her fellow students that pissed her off. Like she said, it wasn't her finest hour.

"What's that got to do with anything?" she snapped, the feeling of guilt and shame making her too angry to bother being polite to Anna over the issue. Luckily, her friend knew how her mind worked well enough not to take the outburst personally.

"I'm saying you're the most ambitious person I know. And considering who I hang around with, that's saying something," Anna told her as she grabbed Christine's arms and forced her to sit up again, "I told you you'd never change my mind about you. You did. It's the same with everything else people say you can't do."

Christine smiled at last. Anna was right about her. Doing the impossible. Proving people wrong. That was one of her greatest pleasures in life. She couldn't deny it, even if she wanted to. Which she never would.

"I'm still not sure what you're getting at."

Anna smiled at her return and just kept going, not ready to get her point.

"Remember when Snape told you it wasn't possible to get twelve Os when we were in fifth year, tried to get you to drop a few subjects?"

"Yeah, I didn't listen," Christine confirmed her friend's reminiscence, though she still wasn't entirely sure where Anna was going with this conversation.

She'd expected a lecture. Another round of urging her to take one of the numerous job offers she'd been receiving since half way through their seventh year. Not whatever kind of weird pep-talk this was turning into.

"And you got twelve Os."

"I did."

"You didn't even give up any of your extra subjects, which was mental," Anna chuckled, "Who really needs to know that much about Magical Theory and Muggle Music?"

"Anyone who wants to know more about than anyone else about them," was Christine's answer to that.

It was the same answer she always gave whenever one of them asked that question. Something like that could easily get annoying. But Christine knew they only meant it as a joke, and to get her to say exactly that.

"But you don't want to work with anyone who's reached out to you over the last six months. Hell, most of our classmates'd run starkers through Diagon Alley for some of the positions they're begging you to take."

"I guess I just don't have the same kind of ambition as the rest of you do," Christine sighed, more than sick of the subject by now.

"Exactly," Anna said with relish, clearly, she'd gotten to her point, "You don't want any of them cause they're easy. Tell me, when was the last time you've done anything the easy way?"

Christine shrugged. She couldn't think of any time she'd gone the easy route. If she wanted things easy for herself in school, she sure as hell wouldn't have been sorted into Slytherin. And she couldn't remember any incident before or after that when she bowed out or took a shortcut when things got hard.

Which seemed to be the exact point Anna was intent on making. Given the way she positively lit up when Christine failed to come up with an example.

"Alright, spill. What're you getting at?" Christine relented.

"You need to find something impossible, then do it," she declared happily, and very proud of her epiphany, "It's the only way you'll be happy with what you do."

Christine laughed at that. It was just like Anna to come up with a solution like that. It was the ace up her sleeve, always, seeing differently to everyone else. And coming up with solutions to problems were so out of the box they went right into the category of pure and utter insanity. Strangely, they almost always worked out.

"You don't think I should go work for the Ministry, like Trish? Or Emily? Harrio? Come on, tell me you don't think that'd be just perfect," Christine teased, reaching out and poking Anna in the ribs with her big toe.

"Fuck no," Anna declared once she'd stopped giggling.

Christine knew Anna's strengths all right, but she knew her weaknesses too. And being extremely ticklish was probably her biggest one.

"Why not? Am I not the perfect model of wizarding society?" Christine joked, knowing the ridiculousness of the idea of her, of all people, being an example of a jolly, law abiding witch.

"Ha! Way too many rules," Anna wagged her finger at Christine exaggeratedly, "You'd end up getting fired, or staging a coup and becoming a dictator within a few months. Tops."

Christine laughed heartily at the image of her that Anna had just painted. It was a pretty damn accurate one, if she said so herself. If Professor McGonagall and Professor Snape's combined efforts couldn't get her to follow the rules, no ministry bureaucrat had a hope. Getting sacked, or instigating a hostile take-over, would be two outcomes too likely to happen if she ever got severe enough brain damage to make her think entering the ministry was a remotely good idea.

Their little late-night chat took a much better turn after Anna had aired her feelings on the matter of Christine's job prospects. The two of them stayed up most of the night, well into the morning, talking about everything and anything else they could think of. Laughing and joking about their families, their former years, their old teachers.

Like had happened often during their later Hogwarts years, Christine had one of her friends fall asleep in her bed, mid-sentence. Just like then, Christine didn't bother to move Anna. And she didn't bother to move herself either. There was plenty of room. She fell asleep right where she was, too.

A/N - Hello again, this author's note isn't here to try and explain my meaning or any fuck ups. It's here so I can ask all of you a question. I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure out what kind of wand Christine would have. Usually, I can make a pretty good guess as to what would suit my characters, but I'm stumped. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!