"Excuse me! Excuse me!" Autumn shouted trying to make her way through the crowd.
The day before in her Care of Magical Creatures class, she and Severus Snape were assigned to be partners.
She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that. Sirius and James told her so much about the boy, but she thought he didn't seem that bad. Then again it is James and Sirius, the over-exaggerate every little thing.
She was aware how both parties hated each other and assumed Severus disliked her also since she associated herself with them. He probably thought she was an idiot since he thought her friends were.
Oh how she wanted to prove him wrong, but she was already getting off on the wrong foot. She was late.
Earlier, she thought she wouldn't have to leave early. She left about 5 minutes before their meeting time. She didn't think it'd take long to get there since it's Saturday. She mentally face palmed herself about a dozen times for thinking this way. You should've left earlier, she thought to herself.
Her thoughts, however, were interrupted when she tripped over someone's foot. She closed her eyes tight, bracing herself for her hard impact to the floor, but it didn't happen.
It took her a second to realize that there were arms wrapped around her and upon this realization her eyes shot open.
She looked over and was even more surprised to see Severus, who was staring down at her sharply.
For some reason, her heart began to beat a little quicker. It's because she almost fell, she tried to convince herself as she looked up into Severus's dark, gloomy eyes.
"You're late." he suddenly spoke, interrupting the silence.
Autumn awkwardly stood up and pulled herself out of his grip. Her skin where his long arms had once been burned, and her face suddenly began to heat up.
she tried to find the words to explain to Severus why she was late, but for some reason, her mind couldn't formulate a single sentence and she stared at Severus with her mouth slightly agape. And before she could even begin to explain, Severus started walking back to the library. She facepalmed herself, great, now he thinks you're a total nit.
She mentally prepared herself as she opened the library doors to walk in.
Upon entering, she immediately noticed Severus sitting the back corner of the library with everything already prepared.
Feeling eyes on him, Severus looked up at Autumn with a glare, but his expression softened, just a bit, when he realized it was her.
Autumn quickly made her way to the table and once she sat down, they immediately began to discuss how they were going to go about this project.
Their project, as was everyone else's in the class, was on dugbogs, creatures Autumn has never heard of.
Twenty minutes into their discussion, when they were just about finished, the library doors flung open and in ran her three best friends and another person she didn't know.
It was girl, and judging by her tie and robe, she was a Slytherin student and then realized that she's Remus's partner for the project.
Autumn groaned inwardly, as she saw Severus's expression change to one in disgust.
"Autumn… Snivelly." Sirius started before James nudged him with his elbow.
"There's Dugbogs in the Forbidden Forest!" James said excitedly.
"Okay, and?" Autumn retorted, wanting nothing more than the disappearance of her friends.
"If we captured some, you know what kind of grade we'd get!" he shouted, shaking Autumn by her shoulders.
"You want to capture some?" Autumn asked, looking at her friend in disbelief.
"Yes." Sirius said matter-of-factly.
"You're telling me, that you want to trudge our way through the Forbidden Forest and capture an XXX deemed creature?" She said, still in utter shock.
"Correct." James repeated, as if sounding bored.
"And you're aware that you'd have to be a strong wizard to deal with a creature having an XXX dangerous rating, correct?" she asked slowly.
The boys nodded their head, not quite grasping the big deal.
Autumn quickly got up to place a hand on James's head. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"Checking to see if you're sick. You're not, you've just lost your mind. You've gone mad. Completely bonkers!" she said eyeing her three friends, and the unfamiliar face.
The girl she hadn't known scoffed at her, causing her to stop her rant on the insanity of their little plan.
"Ravenclaws." the girl said rolling her eyes.
"Excuse me." Autumn snapped back, forgetting about the calm, collected personality she wanted to show Severus.
"You heard me. You know, I always wondered… You seem to fit in with these losers," she gestured at James, Sirius, and Remus before continuing, "So why aren't you a Gryffindor?" she asked, pacing around Autumn. "But now I know." she smirked.
Autumn blew hair out of her face. "And what is the reason?" she asked feeling her cheeks begin to heat up in anger.
"Sure you're smart, realistic,and responsible, so of course you'd belong in Ravenclaw, but you could have also been in Gryffindor, but you weren't… Cause your a coward." the girl said as she looked at her nails.
Autumn began gathering her things and looked over at Severus who hadn't said a word. "Severus, I'll see you later tonight with… Them." she said before storming out of the library.
The group were huddle together, right outside of Hogwarts gates, not they were just waiting on Sirius.
Sirius, of all people he'd be the last one, and he'd be the one to do something stupid and get them caught.
As everyone stood quietly, Autumn constantly looked over her shoulder at the castle. Expecting it to suddenly sound an alarm.
She was scared. She'd never been out past the curfew.
If Sirius doesn't get here in one minute , I'm leaving, she told herself but as she finished her thought he had shown up.
"Ready?" he asked them. Though it was dark, Autumn could see the determined look in his face.
She sighed before answering, "Let's get this over with."
The six of them trudged up the hill, silently. Turning left and right and right and left and left and left then right. With all the random turns they were making Autumn was almost certain they'd get lost, and she was right.
Sirius frowned as he looked at the map.
"Where are we?" James asked as he cleaned his glasses.
"This is what get for letting Black lead." Severus snapped.
"Look here Snivelly, no one really asked you to come." Sirius retorted.
"You dunderhead. I think, in all my years, you are the most incompetent person I've ever met." Severus said, reaching for his wand.
"And you're the ugly you ol' git." Sirius pulled out his wand, and shot some sort of spell at Severus, but Severus successfully blocked it.
"Stop it!" Autumn yelled out, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.
James pushed past Sirius and went to comfort her.
"We're lost, and you two fighting isn't going to help anything. Please just stop!" she yelled, now sobbing.
Before anyone could say anything, Severus suddenly yelped in pain.
Everyone's eyes shot over to his direction. "I was bit he yelled."
Everyone stood up and examined the ground under James's wand light. "I wonder what it was." he wondered out loud.
"I reckon it was this little guy." Sirius said, holding up a strange looking dark, small creature.
"A dugbog." Severus said, his voice almost in a whisper.
"There nest is probably around here somewhere. Let's spread out, not too far though." James demanded.
"Severus, can you walk?" Raven asked.
Severus glared at her before shooing her away and slowly stood up.
Autumn noticed he was wincing in pain. "Severus, maybe you should sit for awhile." she said, her voice full of worry.
Severus ignored her, and still tried to walk, but suddenly lost his balance, and just like he did for her earlier, Autumn prevented intercepted his fall.
The only thing was he wasn't as light as her and she wasn't as strong as him, and as gravity would have it, they both went tumbling to the ground.
Autumn giggled after they hit the ground, and Severus glared down at her, but his glare softened, and a smile crept upon his face.
