AN: Evie goes out to visit a dog. Oh, and it's night time. Plus, there's a murderer on the loose. And, she doesn't tell anyone. She may be slightly suicidal?
IMPORTANT! Evie goes on a few conversational rambles that are rather funny and build her character but are unnecessary to the plot. I put /*****/ before and after the section to close it off if you didn't want to read it, but it's a really good part of the story so I recommend you still read it.
I did not have any self-preservation instincts besides memorized book knowledge of survival tactics and the rambling creativity of an active imagination (as well as twitchy nerves due to human evolution but I'm talking about conscious instincts). Therefore, one could not blame me for flippantly ignoring the fact that Sirius Black was on the loose to, instead, sneak out to see a dog.
This being said, I did give it a passing thought and was more worried of getting caught by the teachers than him honestly. The fact that I felt more fear at the thought of the disappointment on Professor Sprout's and Dumbledore's face rather than at the thought of death was concerning. The reach of my suicidal tendencies did not limit themselves with me, however. Because if one of my friends considered the actions I was currently taking I would shout them deaf and tie myself to them as a human shield if they wouldn't listen.
So yes, my survival instinct was low, but that didn't mean I wouldn't jump at every single noise in the castle whilst I was on this suicide mission. It seemed my adrenaline was on board with my body in trying to keep me alive so that was something.
This base instinct was evident in my thudding heart and roiling stomach as I silently swung out of bed and swiped the second and third knapsack as well as a conjured lidded bowl of water out from under my bunk. After placing a feather-light charm on them, I balanced them on top of each other and carried them under my robes.
If I didn't know any better I would have thought that you could hear my heartbeat two dorms over and through the rhythm it beat into the ground; but I did know better so I didn't think that.
(Much.)
As I slinked silently through the – thankfully – deserted common room, I threw the hood of my dark cloak over my head. The door of the cozy Hufflepuff common room was at the end of a short 5-meter tunnel of earth, but that tunnel was a godsend for muffling the noise of the door and hiding in until late night studiers went back to bed or fell asleep.
After sneaking through the door and into the empty corridors, I kept to the wall. This would probably be the furthest I'd gone in a night and I wasn't taking any chances. Getting caught tonight would be dreadfully mortifying.
Luckily for me – as not many Hufflepuffs would appreciate this – the corridors around our common room were always blissfully empty and unpatrolled. The teachers really had too much faith in us badgers. Our motto was hardworking, just, and fair (and kind and loyal and protective), not rule following, spineless saints; no offense to the Fat Friar of course.
I only had one patrolled corridor to go through to reach the outside where I would be blissfully free from most eyes besides Hagrid's and the occasional professor's looking out a window. But considering my black cloak and moonless night I had the comfort that it would be very hard to spot me even if someone was trying to.
After practically sprinting on soft feet moving from heel to toe (because I've found that's the quietest way of walking) through the gloriously vacant corridor, I shimmied through the thin, glassless, floor height windows and ran as fast as I could whilst also remaining in a ridiculously low crouch.
I wasn't even sure if my self-taught stealth maneuvers were beneficial to me or pure rubbish, but I wasn't going to stop using them now.
Once I reached the edge of the forest, I sat down and called softly to Paddy. I hoped he was somewhere nearby but if not I would just leave the food and water in anticipation of him returning and finding it. If not, I was stopping by at the end of lunch to drop more off anyways.
Surprisingly – very surprisingly – the dog came out of the woods almost immediately after I arrived. It was unnerving and felt almost as if he'd been waiting for me. I shook the thought from my head and smiled warmly at him.
"Brought you some water this time."
I sat down by the closest tree to the edge and beckoned him over.
"All right?" I asked
I was trying to have a conversation with a dog. So what? Bugger off it isn't that weird. Everyone in my family does it so it can't be that weird.
(But it is that weird, Evie. You just don't care and are going to treat this dog like a long-lost friend because you're weird like that and you do it with every animal and that's okay.)
And that's how I got to discussing my life with a dog.
I told him about the day I found out about magic and about my excitement and how I had always felt like I was an outcast and how I felt I had had a brand-new world I might be able to belong to. And how I was so very heartbroken the first time someone called me mudblood and how I learned fast how very backwards and hostile this new world was. I told him how the muggles everyone degraded were more advanced than they were in so many aspects but that wizards were blind to their prejudice.
I told him that no matter which world I was in there was always so much hatred and division and my 14-year-old heart couldn't take the sadness that came with it. I told him that I wanted to fix it all and make everything fair and right and kind but that it couldn't happen because even I wasn't always fair and right and kind and I couldn't expect that of others and how frustrated that made me.
So, I told him that I wished that we could at least make a world where the meanness and the cruelty wasn't based on labels from birth. That maybe that world still wouldn't be perfect but at least it wouldn't have meaningless oppression and suffocating hatred.
I told him that I was still odd for a wizard and that it was because of something I only recently found in a Muggle psychiatry book that made me recognize that I would never be normal anywhere. About how ADHD was so seemingly innocuous yet it stunted my social growth so badly that basic communication was often confusing and how I was unable to express myself properly because of my racing thoughts. I told him about my adversity to the word annoying and how people used to make fun of me with it. About that word being the sharpest insult to my heart and soul and how it didn't make any sense at all: how very painful that word was.
I told him about the wonders of Hufflepuff. About how the kindness and the support of my friends made all the hurt and pain of this world worth it. About how they washed away all the backwardness of it all with one soothing word and warm pumpkin pasties from the kitchen. About how no one in Hufflepuff believed in the blood purity nonsense except maybe Zacharias Smith but that's okay because he's an arse anyway. About how my friends stood up for me when they found out what Pansy Parkinson and her lackeys said about me. About loyalty and friendship and the happiness that radiated off the walls of the common room and how it was always sunny.
/******/
('And oh, there was this one time that I was the first to get the charm down in the class. And how proud I was of it! We shared it with Slytherin too, and you should have seen their faces, Paddy! How horribly satisfying that was indeed to see the looks on some of their faces that me, a muggleborn, could beat them! Oh Paddy, it was brilliant! I don't even think Slytherin's a bad house but boy do they have some bullies…. '
'I could go on about how frustrating it is when people underestimate us Hufflepuffs. you know? It's codswallop if you ask me. None of our house traits make us any less capable or smart so I don't get it. I, for one, am proud to be a Hufflepuff! Was that a snort Paddy! I see you have some house biases, you mangy mutt…'
'That Potter's got it awful, you know? Just awful. He's always being accused of something or being chased by admirers and now, murderers! It's just right foul luck I'd say. I personally think it's pretty cool he can talk to snakes but some people are still freaked out about that one. I mean come on, it's not like he's some evil dark lord reincarnate or something. He's best friends with a muggleborn and his parents died fighting You-Know-Who. I have a hard time believing he'd go on a blood purist murder spree….'
'Did I tell you what the hat said when I was sorted? He said I was brilliant, Paddy! Brilliant he said! But he said I could never fit into Ravenclaw. That my brilliance was purely imagination and fantasy and that I didn't really have a thirst for knowledge that would put me in Ravenclaw. But he still said I was brilliant and I couldn't be happier about it….'
'I think I like girls Paddy. Is that normal? Nobody ever talks about that and I'm not quite sure it exists but I feel something strange talking to girls – the same thing I get with the guys I like – and I could swear it feels just like a crush. Am I so odd in both worlds? I don't know if it's a bad thing but nobody ever talks about it so it must be weird. I'm just so tired of feeling weird Paddy…'
'If liking the same gender is normal than I'd swear Malfoy's got a thing for Potter with how crazy he acts over him. Just last week he was…'
'Why is it that muggles have gone to the moon but wizards haven't even considered it? And the purebloods still think I'm lying…'
'I swear Hannah and Susan go to the bathroom together with how attached at the hip they seem…'
'I would probably die if I got a detention…'
'Just the other day Ernie said that Potter got a detention for…'
'Moaning Myrtle tried to attack me with a broom because I called her pretty and she thought I was lying…'
'Do you know why she's a ghost Paddy? She seems rather new…'
'Are you still listening Paddy? You can fall asleep, you know? I wouldn't mind….'
'You're a very odd dog, Paddy. I think if you were human, we'd get along very well…')
/******/
And he listened, and listened, until I was sure that I only had two hours to get back to the dorms.
If it makes you feel any better about the fact that this info dump may be considered animal cruelty, he seemed content to listen and didn't seem to want to run away from my rambling.
(Which was nice 'cause it would be embarrassing if a dog got so bored he would walk away from my life story and personal emotional rants.)
Instead he laid his head on my lap and stared up at me with attention that seemed almost hominine as I alternated between gesticulating wildly and petting him slowly.
He seemed content with that and I relaxed so much I almost fell asleep. By that point, I really needed to head back and said goodbye with the promise of returning for lunch and hopefully after dinner as well; either before or after curfew.
He gave an almost imperceptible nod as I stood up before plodding off like he knew exactly what I said.
He was a strange dog. A very strange and very sad dog indeed.
AN: If you read through those rambles, yes I made a Drarry joke. No, it wasn't serious. Please don't read into it. Thank you!
