Anthony Lawrence Goldstein

I have been promised chocolate if I manage to write in this thing without ripping out a page, rolling it into a ball, and tossing it at Michael's head. I shall attempt this miraculous feat, only for Michael.

I suppose that I can't go almost a year without writing in this thing without mentioning the passage of time. Time has passed, and I've gotten approximately 8% less attractive since most of you have probably last seen me.

Speaking of seeing me, I've been working at the Hog's Head for some amount of months, and everyone that I've ignored ought to come see me. It's possible that I actually miss seeing all of you every day. As Abe announced, half-price "fruity girly drinks" on Valentine's Day. My par- Stop in because I told you to. I should apologize for ignor-

The best thing I've overheard today made talking about the weather exciting: "And I can see the strong wind blowing the sun towards us." I'm so bo-

I demand my Honeyduke's now.

Obviously I failed in my endeavor to capture the seventh year population, plus some, in picture form. I was distracted by other things, such as parties, holidays, and kittens. Kittens, you ask? Well, more like one kitten, to be exact. Enigma Goldstein, the newest addition to the Ravenclaw population, thanks to my Michael. You're more than welcome to come see him-slash-her when I get back to school.

I do hope everyone's holidays have been going as well as mine. Michael's family is right brilliant, and I've gotten a bunch of gifts. Yes, I know, none of you have received yours from me; I was just too lazy to give it you all of you before I left, and now I'm left without an owl. Oh, and before I forget, as I probably will forget to thank each of you individually, I send a thank you to everyone who thought about me this Christmas.

How are things back at Hogwarts? Quiet without me, I hope? I'm sure the first years that stayed miss me greatly, as I play a wicked game of, well, anything that involves first years. Wand fights and spork fights are my specialty, though I believe Megan might beat me on the latter.

I think Michael's little sister is adorable, even if she offered to keep my cat one too many times for me to be sure that she won't take it without my permission. We hung up some mistletoe around the house the other day, rather I believe I did, and she watched. Short people get all the luck. (Though, really, Michael's the tallest. He should have hung it up.) Maybe he and I co-

Speaking of Michael- He tol- I wish I ha-

I really ought to go back to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night, and couldn't go back to sleep, and so decided to attempt to catch up with people outside of the Corner household. Being near them makes me mis- And Michae

Right. Make sure you make good resolutions for the New Year, yeah?

I have been lax lately with my quest to capture the entire seventh year class, plus some others, before Christmas break in picture form. So I offer you my third installment. I decided to shake things up a bit and try and capture an 'in motion' shot. Many thanks to the both of you for holding that position for as long as it took for me to draw it. (My apologies for being such a perfectionist.)


It looks like it's going to snow just in time for the Hogsmeade weekend. You know what that means? Us vs. You in a snowball fight to the death. I need a Captain for the other team, and people to volunteer for both sides. Don't worry. If you don't volunteer, you will be forcibly recruited!

Merlin, I'm

A special installment of my series. Enjoy!

I have decided that it was not in my best interest to pay attention in Muggle Stu- to continue to doodle on my notes, and therefore my doodles have ended up here. I think I should start a series, perhaps even finish all of the seventh years that I li by the holidays.

Anything to keep my mind off of-

Any criticism is welcome. Beware, you could be next.

I have no excuse for why I haven't used this thing for a while. Well, actually, I have a myriad of excuses, but I wasn't sure if everyone would like to hear about them.

Oh, you do? Brilliant!

1 - The Giant Squid. Yes, I know, the weather is growing colder and, yes, that does make the Giant Squid slightly less accessible than usual, but, really, it's quite a splendid little monster. It's willing to offer you its home and make you some special underwater tea. All you have to do is put up with a few wandering tentacles and a worrying friendli- Anyway.

2 - Michael Corner. Some people just don't know how to get better, and then go away. As though you haven't given me enough germs over the past few weeks, Michael, you insist upon sticking around. And if you are planning on sticking around, have a few Bertie Bott's and momentarily satiate my hatred of you. By hatred, of course, I mean complete adoration.

3 - The painting of the man with the partially severed head on the fourth floor. Despite several conversations now, he continues to insist that he is not, nor is he related to, Nearly Headless Nick. I found this astonishing, and I wish to get them together so they can both ruminate on their... partial headliness. Perhaps we should get them both a journal, though the implications of that are such that I'd rather not figure out how to get one to each of them.

4 - Potions. As I am an expert in Potions-brewing, some may wonder why, precisely, this has made my list of excuses. It has made my list of excuses because in the past few days, I have managed to brew up a Shrinking Potion and have subsequently lost it. In other, completely unrelated news, has anyone seen Mandy's cat lately?

[Private to DA]
5 - I have reason to believe that these privacy hexes can be broken.
[/Private to DA]

5 - Justin. Padma. Terry. Ernie. Morag. Professor Slughorn. Draco. Luna. Professor McGonagall. Theodore. Anonymous.

( Private to Self )

What occurs once in a minute, twice in a moment and never in a thousand years?

( Private to Self )

As I was walking by a classroom today, I spotted a spider. Now, this wasn't just any spider; this was a spider of massive proportions. A baby Acromantula, if you will. Except I'm fairly certain that it was poisonous, and definitely hazardous to my continuing good health.

So I fed it a first year as a peace offering.

Unfortunately, no amount of first year sacrifices can save me from Michael and his latest cold of doom, which is slowly becoming a bigger danger to my health. I sneezed on someone today. He was very unhappy about this, but at least I later offered him a tissue and an apology.

Merlin, I have got to find something more exciting to use this thing for besides keeping a record of my mistakes and bothering the school's general population.

( Private to Self )

I really like weekends, mostly because they allow me the time to sit around and do absolutely nothing with my time. The problem is that I didn't just sit in bed and do nothing today. I decided to use my time wisely and head down to the Library and work on that ridiculous Transfiguration essay that I haven't even started. I would have probably finished it if something hadn't happened to cause my downfall.

No, literally, my downfall.

It wasn't so much of a downfall as it was a trip-on-the-stairs-land-on-a-comfy-first-year-apologize-profusely-then-laugh-in-their-face. Still! Any other time but on a weekend, I would have landed on a big, bulky person who would have really broken my fall, not some cozy little first year who I seriously thought I killed.

For the record, no one was injured in the making of this journal entry. Except for me. And maybe a little bit of my pride.

Oh, and in other news, did anyone see those papers scattered around the school?

I figured that I should write in this thing before I wander off to Hogsmeade and do my wizardly best to corrupt the younger years with promises of chocolate and good-tasting Bertie Bott's beans. That does not mean, however, that I have anything too important to say.

I have discovered the joy of befriending the younger years these past few days. Just the other day, I aided several of the fourth year boys in building a working model of the Giant Squid. (For anyone who doesn't know, the Squid and I are pretty close friends.) Of course, it didn't turn out to be much more than a small pile of mush that moved only very slightly when prodded with sharp objects.

Nonetheless, I don't think that they liked it when I became a large frier, and made myself a good bit of calamari. I believe I saw one of them tear up.

It was delicious, and I don't even eat calamari. Figure that one out.

Some other things worth a mention:

Eat your vegetables. Michael snores. Padma is a lovely Head Girl. Justin just has a lovely head. Paintings have feelings too. Loch Ness and the Giant Squid are engaged. The Carrows are-

( Private to Self )

I'm going to be late meeting Padma if I don't start getting dressed soon.

If I had remembered that I had this thing earlier, then I probably would have written something in it before. Unfortunately, I shoved this journal underneath a corner of my chair to keep it from wobbling as a quick fix, and then promptly forgot to replace it with something a bit more long term. So here I am, and here is my writing. (Though I'm afraid there is a circle permanently imprinted on the cover.)

I was walking through the hallways earlier, and I crashed right into this girl who turned the corner so suddenly that there was no way to avoid the collision. She dropped to her knees to pick up all her stuff, mumbling apologies to me. I went to help her pick up her things and she just kind of brushed me off. Now, I'm not one to be brushed aside, and I was about to help her again when I realized that she was crying.

Now, I can deal with a lot, but I do not know how to deal with little second year Hufflepuffs bursting into tears in the middle of the hallway. So I ask her if she's all right, and she ended up not telling me, but instead just pulls me into a hug. So, for a lack of anything else to do, I hug her back.

I must say that it was one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me in all the years that I've been here. So afterwards, I helped her gather her stuff up and walked her to her class in silence. That was all that happened, really. It wasn't anything earth-shattering or ground-breaking, but I just felt a need to write about it. I kind of hope that the girl is all right. And that the Carrows had nothing to do with it.

In other news...

If I get another cold this season, I swear that someone is going to be blamed. I don't know where they're coming from! It's not a schoolwide epidemic, nothing. It's a Hello-Anthony-Goldstein-how-would-you-like-to-cough-up-a-lung-or-five-and-feel-completely-miserable-for-an-entire-weekend-or-more? Not hello-whole-school, or hello-fine-Ravenclaws, or even hello-you-miserable-wenches, but Hello-Anthony-Goldstein!

It's all right, however, since I feel much better now, just in time for Hogsmeade. Coincidence? I think not. A warning, however, to try and get out of my way if I look like I'm about to sneeze in your directon because, well, I probably will.