"Hermione, one of your earrings is missing"
She lifted a hand to her earlobe as if to check for herself that the little star-shaped jewel was indeed missing.
"It must have caught in my clothes when I changed back in my dorm room earlier" she replied before putting down her fork.
Rain had been pouring down all day, but that didn't stop Hagrid from making them feed very ugly and slimy looking creatures during today's Care of Magical Creatures lesson. Afterwards, every Gryffindor had rushed back inside the castle to shower and change before dinner.
Dinner had been quick. With laboured breaths, Hermione, Ron and Harry climbed the stairs towards the astronomy tower. They had shared-third-year astronomy class with Slytherin tonight. After much self-motivational inner pep talk, they accepted earlier at dinner the fact that any plan of spending the evening warming up with a cup of hot chocolate in front of the fire in the common room was out of the question. Fate had decided that the weather should clear tonight, thus making it absolutely perfect for resuming their study of the stars.
Each of them set up their lended telescope towards the sky and got out parchment from their bags to map down the sky. Ron cursed as he angled his towards the sky. Apparently, the previous user had forgotten to wipe the telescope's lens and left blurred fingerprints on it. Harry and some other Gryffindors laughed when Hermione declared that Ron took the exact same spot as last Wednesday and that she knew for a fact - because of the disastrous wether conditions all week - that nobody had used the astronomy tower since then.
The air was chilly and Harry wished he thought about bringing his scarf.
Hermione was shivering, her hair being still damp from her shower. She lifted her wand and cast a drying spell. Her frizzy hair flew against the wind.
"Someone please tell Granger to tame that? I can't see the sky anymore with that monstrosity flapping against the wind"
Ron was interrupted from swearing against Parkinson when Professor Sinistra pointed the class to a bright star of obscure name making its apparition as the last remaining cloud finally cleared away.
Everyone but Harry turned their telescope toward the star. Something shiny had caught his gaze while glancing past the professor's shoulder towards where Parkinson and Malfoy were standing.
Something small was sparkling in Malfoy's own scarf, reflecting a moon's ray of light.
Apparently, someone else noticed that as well, as he saw Pansy Parkinson reaching towards the shiny object with furrowed brows. She held it in her right palm and stared at it with a curious look on her face.
Harry didn't see what happened next because Ron tapped his shoulder to ask him to lend him a lens wipe. But when he looked back to the pair again, Parkinson looked as if someone had made her eat a particularly nasty fruit, while Malfoy hastily put something away in his bag.
The lesson dragged for half an hour longer before Professor Sinistra deemed they gathered enough material for the essay they had to turn over before the beginning of Christmas break.
Students started chatting again while putting away their things and covering down their telescope with protective sheets. Two things happened simultaneously, as Harry accidentally dropped the content of his bag while a gush of wind prevented one particular Draco Malfoy from putting down the drop cloth on his own telescope. The blond wizard cursed as he sprinted to catch the sheet before it flew beyond the railing.
Nobody seemed to stop on the fact that the wind had set down some time earlier own, as Harry discreetly put away his wand back into his cloak and told his friends to go ahead of him while he picked up his things.
After Ron and Hermione had gone, he creeped towards Malfoy's previous spot and quickly stole the shiny object buried in the blond's bag to put it in his own.
Harry exited the rooftop and descended the tower staircase with haste. As soon as he could hide, he slipped in a nook behind a statue representing a wizard levitating a tiny solar system. He dived in his bag for a cold metal object.
A small star-shaped earring stared at him from his open palm.
A sneaky fic.
Can't afford long chapters for the moment, so next part is being posted right now to make up for the shortness
Thank you for reading my first post (posted on Tumblr originally)!