.(ˊ▽ˋ*). Vacation at last!
In the blink of an eye!
The school year had reached its end, and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's End-of-Year Feast was finally being held as scheduled.
As was customary, after tonight's End-of-Year Feast, Hogwarts would officially close for the holidays first thing tomorrow morning.
Then the students in Years One through Six would have a full two months of summer vacation. They wouldn't return until September 1, when the new school year began and a new batch of first-years arrived. They'd have a long, long time to relax and have fun.
The reason only students in Years One through Six were included was that some people would never need to return to Hogwarts again.
That was right!
After this final dinner, the seventh-years would graduate!
They would leave Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and make their own way in the world, seeking work wherever they could find it to support themselves.
Of course, if the job market in the Wizarding World was poor, they could always keep sponging off their parents at home—as long as their parents had enough savings, or their families were wealthy enough to let them do nothing at all.
But whatever the case, it was true that most of them would probably never return to Hogwarts for the rest of their lives.
And they might never again get to enjoy a free dinner as sumptuous as tonight's.
So when Annie came bouncing into the Great Hall, after who knew where she'd been having fun, she found it packed with people. The pillars, walls, windows, tablecloths, and ceiling were all decked out in the green and silver of Slytherin House. Even behind the professors' seats at the High Table hung an enormous banner emblazoned with a Slytherin serpent.
She also