AN: Hey guys, here's the next chapter I promised you. God, has it really been months? I'm really shitty with this updating stuff.

PS. To you Hermione lovers, you're going to have to tough it out if you want to read this story since I'll probably end up being a bit hard on her simply because I hate her (at least in the first book). I've been the booky girl with no friends but I have no sympathy for her because instead of being a well-adjusted human being and accepting that some people will not like her, Hermione forces herself on others. (ex. Waiting up for Ron and Harry at the night of their duel and scolding them for going out after curfew even as she's following them, thus being a hypocrite by doing exactly as she said not to.) I'll never outright bash ― That's the easy way and far too overdone ― but it's likely my dislike for her may leak out until the story progresses enough for her to change into a character I don't despise. Be assured, that will likely come in a chapter or two.

PPS. Remember, my OCs are actually unnamed characters from the books and movies unless I specify otherwise.


Chapter Four: Running for Your Life


The feather in front of Harry sat mockingly, as if pretending it was completely unaware of how Harry glared at it ominously, the wand he held deceptively lightly in his hand sparking in response to his ire. The boy leaned closer to the rebellious filament that sat at the opposite edge of the long table, his chin almost touching the table, getting about eye-level with the blasted feather and trying to scowl it into submission.

The Ravenclaw first-years were currently in Charms with the Gryffindors and were immersed in the practical portion of their lesson, having already been put through the lecture and notes portion. The classroom was divided as it had been with the 'Claws and 'Puffs in their Potions class, but there was no physical obstruction keeping them apart this time. Harry had taken advantage of the lack of separation to cosy up to Dean and his new friend Seamus Finnigan who had been muffling their snickers while the Granger twit dictated a thesis on the practical application of charm-work to Ron Weasley.

The Gryffindors were an odd set to Harry's ever-observant gaze. He wasn't sure if he'd ever witnessed a group of students that fell so quickly into cliques. Dean, Seamus, and Ron came together by sensing the others' similar disdain for academics, naturally (though unintentionally) orbiting away from Neville Longbottom, the nervous boy with the toad, and Bem Matthews, a chubby black boy that seemed to have no desire for friends. Then there were the girls: The ones that really stood out were Granger and the two giggling terrors that were Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil; the other six ― Fay Dunbar, Kellah Matthews, Rionach O'Neal, Luca Caruso, Gwendoline Darling, and Juniper Nautermeyer ― were practically interchangeable as they seemed perfectly at ease with letting the first three take center stage.

It was all very teen movie. It was as if they were only pretending to be the typical group of students. If Matthews and the unassuming six became any less outstanding, they could very well be replaced with cardboard cut-outs and no one would notice. If he wasn't sitting amongst them, Harry wouldn't have realised that there were more than seven first-year Gryffindors.

Maybe it was another part of the Hufflepuffs' schemes. Maybe the seven background characters of Gryffindor were really Hufflepuffs undercover, strengthening their influence over what would arguably be their biggest opposition if they were ever exposed — Gryffindors were supposed to be the ones that fought bravely after all. By infiltrating the house of lions while they were still unsuspecting, they could learn their habits, making them easier to predict and take out should ever the need arise.

Were those even their real names? Did they take out those that were actually destined for Gryffindor and take their places? Oh, God, there were six of them with the girls but only one of them with the boys; what if they've been doing it slowly, snatching a person up and disguising themselves as the person? Was Dean in danger of having his face stolen?

Note to self: make a proper note-to-self later when no Hufflepuffs or their spies are around about warning Dean about properly maintaining the safety of his face.

For now, Harry was having to pretend he wasn't unravelling their elaborate deception one despicable scheme at a time. He was taking out his frustration in a way that wouldn't tip them off.

"Listen here, you fluttery strand of butt plumage," Harry hissed, a fire in his eyes.

Dean looked at him in amusement and wariness, his own feather already been set on fire by Seamus. He listened as Harry trashed talked the inanimate fluff.

"You think I'm going to take any shite from a piece of fluff that needs hundreds of its friends backing it up to be of any use? You should be glad that I'm elevating you above normal feather status and letting you fly by yourself! Do you know what happens to ungrateful feathers?" Harry jerked his thumb at Seamus and Dean's crispy fried feathers. "They get set on fire by their overlords' righteous fury!"

Seamus looked on curiously as well. This was his first taste of Harry's company. He shot a glance at Dean and started to ask, "Is he ―?"

Dean shook his head sharply and lifted a finger to his lips in a sign for silence.

Seamus looked confused but complied. He mouthed, "What?"

Dean mouthed, "Just watch." He didn't want that look of murder pointed in his direction.

Harry paid them no mind, too caught up in threatening his feather. He waved his wand at it.

"See this? This wand is capable of taking out creatures far more dangerous than you could ever dream of being. Why, just this morning I battled for my life and defeated a man-eating monster with it! You want to try your luck with me, punk? Are you feeling lucky?"

The feather said nothing but Harry thought he saw it quiver a bit.

He pointed his wand directly at it and growled, "So are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?"

The feather made no reply.

Harry swished his wand in movements that he made up but felt right and intoned, "Win-gar-di-um Le-vi-osa."

The feather didn't move.

From four seats down, next to Weasley, who was sitting next to Seamus, who was sitting next to Dean, Hermione Granger ― she of the massive lung capacity ― looked at Harry with a look that couldn't completely conceal her smugness while she tried to tell Harry what to do.

"I told you that you're saying it wrong. It's Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa. Your emphasis is all wrong."

She had been going on about the rules of magic earlier when Harry idly contradicted her, saying it was useless to try to force logic onto magic when it was the force that made anything possible, especially the illogical. How else would she explain the main staircase? The three Gryffindor boys that had been the target of her lecture fell in line right behind Harry when he said that he'd prove it.

The other three boys looked unhappily at her. Dean looked ready to shove the girl's feather up her nose.

Harry, on the other hand, paid her no mind. He wasn't going to take the words of an over-active infomercial host to heart. It was magic dammit. By definition, it didn't follow rules. If it was something that could have limits put on it, it wouldn't be called magic in the first place. Harry wasn't learning atypical particle-wave physics and the practical application of probability field manipulation, he was learning and doing magic.

He poured his belief in magic's lawlessness and stabbed his wand angrily at the inert feather.

"Lift, damn you!"

Granger made to rebuke him again, probably about his lack of proper incantation, but choked on her words when ― against her carefully formed logic ― Harry's feather shot up off the table as if it had been shot out a cannon. Harry's delighted, "YES!" drew the attention of the other students who then began to ooh and ah. Dean punched the air and the other two boys whooped.

Harry climbed up on the bench and danced about with his wand in the air like a conductors baton. Professor Flitwick cheered as Harry directed the feather in its flight, making it dance and twirl, even moving it to tickled Granger's nose as she gaped.

"Well done, Mr Potter!" the short man praised. "Well done indeed! Take ten well-deserved points to Ravenclaw. That's the best control I've ever seen during a first lesson!"

"B-but― what ― how did ―?" Granger spluttered at Harry, completely thrown by the perimeters of her reality being defied. Honestly, you'd think she'd be more open-minded after learning that magic was real. She wore the crushed indignant expression of a fangirl that had been confronted by the reality that her OTP would never exist outside of her imagination. "But you can't . . . You didn't even use an incantation! All the books I've read stress the importance of proper pronunciation! You didn't even say the words! It makes no sense!"

As he bounced on the bench, Harry returned Hermione's previously concealed smug look with one of his own, sprinkling a bit of superiority on top just because she had worn it earlier when she managed to complete the spell first. Laughing a bit, he dropped down into a sitting position mid-bounce and bumped fists with Dean.

"As I told you, Granger, it's magic; It's not supposed to make sense."


Posing as a statue was a weak means of disguise, especially if you're standing among real statues and don't look anything like them in their grey stoniness. Posing as a statue of a tree was an even weaker means of disguise when one considered that ― besides the aforementioned lack of stoniness ― trees didn't wear clothes or have faces, and the people in need of the disguise were generally in possession of such things.

Harry was holding himself immobile among the centrepiece of the fountain in the Transfiguration Courtyard, channelling his inner plant as to fit in with the trinity of stone trees spouting water from their limbs. He wasn't sure exactly what he had been thinking when searching for a place to hide, but he was certain there had been something about hiding in plain sight. That was the last thought he had before jumping into the fountain and clambering past the statues of nymphs paying homage to the trees.

'I'm a tree in the wind. I'm a tree in the wind,' Harry thought as a breeze ruffled his hair ― his leaves, he rebuked himself. If he was going to be a convincing tree, he had to put all human thoughts out of his mind.

Harry idly wondered if trees had minds.

He also wondered if he would have been better off pretending to be one of the nymphs instead. At least they had faces.

It was the start of the second week of school and the professors had eased them into homework that grew progressively more difficult as they went along. They certainly didn't hold back when they believed their students capable. The first few lessons had been followed by assigned reading and essays sprinkled throughout. Harry had been a bit disheartened by the fact that none of the meat-heads he had his eyes on appeared to need any assistance with their homework. Thankfully, that had changed when the professors seemed to agree as one that it was high time to cram knowledge into their heads faster.

Visions of Galleon signs danced through his head as Harry discreetly interviewed prospective customers on their openness to . . . assisted homework completion. He didn't bother with the other Ravenclaws ― the pride they took in being the smart ones made them utterly closed off to paying someone off to do their homework for them, but Seamus had been up for it, as had both Matthews, Luca Caruso, and Rionach O'Neal. He also talked himself into the patronage of Mssrs. Crabbe and Goyle, Gabriel Spinks, and Mauricius Pike, all of Slytherin.

He was still too uneasy to approach the Hufflepuffs because even if ― and this was a bi if― they weren't juvenile mafia, they were the house of fair play and hard work, they would likely feel uncomfortable with assisted homework completion. He'd approach them when Justin could confidently tell him that they wouldn't mob him on sight and try to steal parts of him as trophies.

Fans were terrifying.

At the moment, Harry was both playing hide and seek with Dean, Justin, and Morag MacDougal ― a fellow Ravenclaw he made friends with after she caught him creeping out of the dorms at five in the morning ― while they also played keep away from Granger. Officially, Morag was It, but it was also silently accepted that if Granger enters the vicinity, the first person to spot her was to scream and run away, efficiently warning their comrades while also getting a head start.

Harry acknowledged that screaming and running away at the sight of her would likely hurt Granger's feelings a bit, but it wasn't as if Harry had meant to turn it into a kind of game among his friends; he had just panicked and reacted automatically, it wasn't like he was purposefully being mean. Ever since that Charms lesson where Harry had blown her self-inflicted limits on reality out of the water, Granger had been popping up like an unlucky penny, hounding him for answers. It was enough to give anyone a complex! What did where he grew up have anything to do with how he did magic? He didn't even want to imagine how she'd be if she ever found out was earning money by doing other people's homework.

Really, when she had come up behind him when he was actively going off the usual path to lunch just to avoid her, it shouldn't have been at all shocking that he squealed like a stuck pig and bolted out the nearest window ― that it was a window two stories up, directly above a tree was also irrelevant; Dean had even had a betting pool going about exactly how he would crack when he did. Morag and Justin had split the winnings since they had both been half correct, Morag saying he would scream and run away, Justin saying he would jump out a window.

Since then, it had been a running gag among them. Harry honestly couldn't restrain himself if Granger came up behind him, but the others had declared it great fun and had taken to bolting at the sight of her outside of class. He felt bad when he heard Lavender and Parvati teasing the other girl about it ― saying some nonsense about boys and being overbearing ― but he wasn't going to apologise for his survival instincts, especially since she had conditioned the reaction from him by herself.

He stiffened further when he heard the sound of girlish tittering headed his direction.

Think tree! Think tree!

Harry filled his mind with thoughts of leaves, dirt, and photosynthesis.

Two girls ambled in his direction, talking at a moderate decibel to each other. One was a dark haired girl of moderate height, looking around maybe fourteen or fifteen. Her companion was noticeably taller than her, almost a full head taller. She was a blonde-hair, blue-eyed type that Harry recognised as a prefect. They slowed as they notice the additional figure among the fountain statues, then realigned their direction so they were walking directly at Harry.

Harry kept his mild panic from his face. He could do this. If anyone could do this, it was him.

Bark. Roots. Resin. Branches. Erm . . . Pollen. Chlorophyll.Cell

"What in the world are you doing?"

ulose. Dammit.

Harry was tempted to remain as he was, ignoring the girls' attempt to talk to him. They might eventually be convinced he was just an astonishingly life-like statue and leave him alone. One furtive glance at their ties dissuaded him of going that route; they were Ravenclaws, they'd wait him out all night if they had to, just to get their answers.

He reluctantly moved out of his carefully chosen pose, flexing his poor muscles to rid him of the cramping in them. Lowering himself into a sitting position and the base of the trees, Harry affected a nonchalant, almost bored look, one that said 'Yes, I was just doing whatever it was you just saw and I don't care that you saw since it's a perfectly ordinary thing to do. Are you saying that you don't?' It was rather a mouthful of an expression and he was relieved that he was no longer obligated to say it out loud.

It was the dark-haired girl that had asked the question, bewilderment practically screaming from her hazel eyes. Harry remembered her vaguely as the sympathetic older girl that had scolded the younger girls away from him when they had questioned him long after he had wanted to go to bed. MacDuff, he thought her name was.

"Ladies," he greeted, nodding at them.

"What are you doing?" This time, the question came from the blonde prefect. Her name started with a 'c.' Cage? No, that wasn't right.

"Oh, you know, just . . ." How was he to explain this without being thought a nutter? "Just relaxing in the serenity of the fountain. The nymphs were calling to me."

"The nymphs were calling to you," The blonde repeated back at him, tucking a strand of fringe back into her bob-cut.

Maybe the name started with a 'g.' Greg? No, that was a first name, not a surname.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "They were saying, 'Harry, come play with us. Let us worship you as high dryad, lord of the tree trinity.'Naturally, I agreed — it would have been rude of me to deny them."

Craig! That was her name. Something Craig. He really needed to pay more attention to these things.

"Of course it would . . . " MacDuff agreed, drawing her words out slowly. He must have done a poor job of not sounding like a nutter. She shuffled a bit closer to her friend as if she were worried Harry would go ballistic and attack them.

How to casually leave this conversation before it could go any farther than pleasantries?

"Well, I best get back to it before" Harry was saved from his attempt at basic human interaction by a sharp scream.

It sounded vaguely of a child's shriek of terror and a bird-of-prey's battle-cry; it even warbled a bit at the end like a distressed songbird. It was also the exact scream Justin always gave when he saw Granger approaching from a distance and had time to work up a good, long shout.

Harry was proven correct when Justin came tearing through a tall hedge bush on the other side of the courtyard like his arse had been set on fire, wailing like a fire-engine. Dean and Morag soon followed, Morag holding her robe hem up so it wouldn't obstruct her running and Dean wearing half a suit of armour that he likely 'borrowed' from the hallway while the other half was in his arms, both also screaming like lunatics.

Harry saw Granger paused a distance away, likely wearing the expression of confusion and irritation she always affected when Harry and his friends got up to what she called 'absolute nonsense.'

Speaking of running away . . .

Harry tipped an imaginary hat at the befuddled older girls, saying, "Ladies," before he climbed out of the fountain and ran, dripping wet, away as fast as he could.

Not two seconds later, he heard the pounding of feet behind him and looked back to realise with astonishment that the two girls were running away with him, confused fright on their faces.

"Why are you running?" he shouted over his shoulder, not slowing down. Smaller than them though he was, Harry was faster.

Craig shot him an incredulous look. She called, "A herd of first years just ran screaming as if they had just seen the face of evil. I don't care what exactly it was that had you all running, good sense dictates that we run too!"

MacDuff nodded as she panted. They were now streaking through the Charms Courtyard, forcing groups people to jump aside lest they be run over. MacDuff eventually asked in a winded tone, "What are we running from anyway?"

Harry couldn't contain a grin as he thought of Granger's look of anger when confronted with his irreverence.

"Craig wasn't far off the mark! 'The face of evil' is exactly what we should call it."


Morag MacDougal was an Amazon of a girl, standing at a towering 5 feet 8 inches at only eleven years of age. On a usual day, she braided her brown hair into a mid-length rope down her back, adding onto the no-nonsense attitude she exuded through her firmly pressed uniform and stony expression. Morag was not the sort of girl to fuss with her hair or giggle at boys, indeed she was almost agendered in her dealings with other children her age, almost robotic in her polite distance. If one wanted to pick out a young witch to be their model of serious, sombre student, they would pick Morag after one glance.

What wasn't known by those that held themselves apart from her by her aloofness was that Morag was actually a very kind girl that was quick to smile and laugh once her aversion to strangers was overcome. Instead of a hate for humanity like most of her dorm mates assumed, it was actually a defensive mechanism to not be hurt by others and their casual cruelty that had her flinty-eyed and stiff-jawed. It was hard to seem easily hurt when one looked as if they could commit murder in cold blood.

It was Morag's unwavering countenance that made her tentative hope at meeting a potential friend go unnoticed. While her heart jumped, her face was as blank as ever.

She had recognised a kindred spirit in the wild-haired boy with genocide in his eyes when they were being Sorted. While her default expression was bored disinterest, she saw that there was more beyond the look of violence, and she had been inwardly triumphant when the same boy now identified as Harry Potter had proven her intuition correct by being perfectly personable if not downright cheery not five minutes later when the pressure of being Sorted was alleviated. It was then she concluded that when Harry Potter was nervous, his expression becomes one of someone on the verge of physical violence.

Nothing came from her insight until nearly a week later when she had woken up unusually early and had decided to relax in the common room instead of lying about since she felt completely awake. She had been sitting a squashy arm-chair, idly reading an article on the life-cycle of the centaur tick, when she heard a suspicious creak from the stairs leading down from the dorms. Not being the sort to get nosy about potentially un-important things, Morag had sunk further down into her chair, easing out of view while still reading her book, so she wouldn't startle whoever it was and they could just continue on without bothering her either.

She didn't expect to see Harry Potter creeping almost silently through the common room with an empty pillowcase in one hand and a house-elf dressed in a tasteful servant uniform piggy-backing on him. It took her a few seconds to process what exactly it was that she was seeing before she did a most un-Morag-like thing — she blurted out, "What in Merlin's name are you doing?"

Potter and his elf froze, becoming the oddest statue ever created. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye before slowing turning his head toward her. The rest of his body then followed suit. They stared at each other for a long moment, Potter, surprised and considering, Morag, bewildered and nervous.

Finally, Potter said, "I didn't know your face could move." This was said in a mildly surprised and wondering tone.

Morag huffed a bit but didn't let herself be deterred.

"What's with the house-elf?"

Potter paused before answering, looking over his shoulder briefly as if he hadn't realised there was an elf on his back.

"Ah, this is Mimsy, my elf," He said as if it explained everything.

It didn't.

Morag was torn between wanting to ask more questions and minding her own business when Potter relieved her of the choice by saying, "Mimsy's friends with some of the Hogwarts' elves so we're off to raid the kitchen for snacks."

There was another pause wherein Potter gave her a speculative look before smiling almost imploringly.

"Do you want to come?"

Morag was the sort of girl that would have naturally scared other children off through her intimidating height even without it being coupled with her forbidding attitude. She had come to Hogwarts' without the hope of making friends with anyone in her year group since the only people that had ever been not put off by her height were those that were years older.

In the face of a short boy likely the shortest in their year, didn't even look five feet tall, the sort that usually avoided her the most that was also cursed with terrifying expressions actively requesting to spend time with her, Morag didn't hesitate beyond the two seconds to completely understand what he had just said.

A smile broke out on her face, softening her features. She tossed her book on the table, saying, "I'd love to."

Needless to say, Morag then began feeling comfortable enough to stop being so hard-faced all the time. That had been the start of a mutually beneficial friendship.

There had been points in time since then that Morag suspected she might have been getting the better deal in becoming friends with Harry.

With the odd boy came two other potential friends that quickly upgraded from potential to certified though they had their own flavour of personality. Justin Finch-Fletchley was obviously from a well-to-do background, with a genteel manner that couldn't be overlooked even when he was shrieking like a little girl and running about. Dean Thomas, in contrast, came from firmly middle-class with an easy laid-back way about him. And they were both distinctly muggleborn. Toss in Morag from a minor noble family on top of Harry's devil-may-care persona and they were a flock of odd ducks.

But they were still friends and that was more than Morag had ever had. It was because of that that she wasn't sure if she was giving as good as she was receiving when it came to this friendship thing. Harry had brought in two more friends and they had given her reasons to smile and laugh. What had she given them in return? She didn't think she was especially funny or fun to be around. Was she being a bad friend?

It was probably that train of thought that led her to where she was gasping for frantic breath at the moment.

Dean had been curious about the third-floor corridor since the Headmaster had warned them away from it. She acknowledged that expressly forbidding something was the surest way to make someone want to do exactly what they had been told not to, but she felt no interest in visiting a place that threatened a violent death. Harry agreed and Justin sided with them on the topic though it was obvious he was curious as well.

It later just so happened that they had been exploring the castle when the staircase shifted while they were still on it. Being the jumpy sort that Hufflepuffs were known to be, Justin had loped off the staircase as soon as it had settled into its new position, worried that it would move again when he wasn't ready. The remaining three of their quartet obligingly followed after, recognising the sense in finding stable ground.

That was when Dean realised something that made an unholy grin spread across his face. With too much glee he said, "This is the third floor!"

Justin groaned and smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand.

"If I didn't know the castle moves by itself, I would have accused you of setting this up."

"Me?" Dean said, far too pleased. "As if! If anyone could be responsible for this, it would be Harry."

They had heard from Harry about his astonishing tale of traipsing about the castle on the first day. They were then amused by how well Harry then knew of the school and how he seemed to pull secret passageways and shortcuts from out of his pocket. Morag agreed that if they were pressed to blame anyone, Harry would have been the likeliest suspect.

"I resent that accusation," Harry retorted, a look of mock offence on his face. It melted away under an expression of mischief. "But since we're here now anyway, let's have a look!"

Irritation settled on her face.

"I thought we had agreed that actively seeking out danger was stupid and suicidal?"

Harry shrugged.

"That still stands. But we didn't mean to come to this floor; we were quite literally dropped here. The opportunity has been thrust upon us — we didn't seek it out. Since we're here anyway, why not?"

"'A most painful death,'" Morag ground out, repeating the headmaster's words from the Sorting Feast. "I'm not sure about you three clowns, but I prefer life, especially when it's not prefaced by 'painful'."

Justin looked like he was on the verge of agreeing with her when Dean eyeballed him challengingly. That, of course, meant that he would lose his masculine pride if he didn't follow through, so Justin merely straightened, visibly trying to psyche himself up.

"Come on, Morag," Harry continued cajolingly. "It's not like we're going to kick open the door and charge in screaming battle-cries, we're just going to have a little peek at what the fuss is all about and we'll leave. It won't take more than five minutes."

Morag had relented, assuaged in the knowledge that if they had not all been in agreement, they wouldn't have gone in. That satisfied state had promptly flown out the window when upon hearing Justin almost choke on his gasp as he took the first look they had all scrambled to get the next look and had fallen in a pile in front of the then wide open door.

A monstrous three-headed dog had greeted them with snarls and rows of sharp teeth. They had run faster than they ever had, only Harry's quick thinking saving them from being chased as he slammed and locked the door behind them. They ran blindly, not even paying attention to where they were going, the fright of such terrible and immediate death giving strength to their soft limbs, adrenaline preventing them from tiring.

Gasp. Pant. Wheeze. Groan.

The exhaustion of vigorous exercise catching up to her, Morag didn't even see when Justin pulled up short next to Dean and Harry who were bent over and panting. She ran directly into Justin, causing them to tumble into the other two boys, resulting in another pile-up on the floor.

Groaning, Morag asked, "Why did we sto?"

The question was cut off when she saw the looming form of Professor Snape staring balefully down at them from his superior height. As they were now, Morag thought he looked exactly how Death would when he came calling.

As the four first years untangled themselves, Snape snapped, "Explain yourselves." His tone was stringent and uncompromising.

In complete contrast to the dread his friends were feeling, Harry was plainly relieved to see the potions professor.

On his feet again, Harry said, "Thank goodness you're here, sir! There's a vicious beast somewhere off the main staircase!"

Snape's eyes drilled holes into them and his mouth turned down further.

"A beast?" He loomed over them more. "You little miscreants have been snooping around the third floor then. You were expressly forbidden!"

Morag was ready to confess and beg for mercy even though her countenance had turned to stone once again and didn't let a hint of guilt through. Justin and Dean were too terrified of Snape to be expressing anything but terror, but it was Harry that once again was the odd man out.

"The third floor?" He said in a confused tone, urgency leaking away under incomprehension. "Is that were we were?"

Snape's ire deflate a touch.

"You mean to tell me you didn't know?"

"Well, we had been on the stairs when it suddenly changed on us, so we decided to get off. We'd never taken that route before since none of our classes were in that direction so we figured we'd have a look around. See more of the school, you know? That three-headed dog sure does discourage curiosity though."

"You were told to stay away for a reason."

The panic the first-years had experienced was fading, the fact that Harry seemed to be talking them out of trouble with Snape calming them. Dean and Justin leaned on each other a bit in relief as they realised that Snape wasn't likely to dismember them. At least, not at the moment.

"What in world is it even doing there?" Harry asked, mind still on the monster dog.

"That is not for you to know, Potter. All you need to know is to stay away and that there are reasons we are not obligated to give you." Snape lifted his nose at the still panting boys leaning on each other and spared a perfunctory glance at Morag standing stock still like a sinner before their god. He turned back to Harry. "I'll let you off with a warning this time but if I ever catch you lot sniffing around the third floor again, you will suffer my displeasure."

They nodded weakly.

"Now off with you."

With that Snape strode pass them at a determined pace.

They held their breaths as the sound of Snape's footsteps faded.

Dean released his breath noisily and slumped where he stood.

"Christ, I thought we were dead for sure!"

"When that thing tried to eat us or when Snape showed up?" quipped Justin wearily. He smoothed down his dark-brown hair back into its usual order.

"Does that even matter? At both points, we were in danger of dying."

"I suppose that 'a painful death' was not an exaggeration then," Morag grumbled. "How stupid were we to even risk it?"

"None of that," Harry admonished. He was looking unreasonably unruffled after such an ordeal. "What's life without risk?"

"Safe."

"Unexciting," he countered without missing a beat. "I'll agree that the giant beast from hell was a bit more excitement than I was planning, but our curiosity has been cured and we have learned something important."

"Snape's as terrifying as a flesh-eating monster?" Dean asked.

"A spare change of underpants is a must-have in every situation?" Justin chimed in, shifting uncomfortably.

Morag didn't want to even follow that train of thought.

"Rules exist for a reason?" Morag added in her dead-pan voice.

"No, but thank you for trying," Harry said. He jerked his head in the direction they had been running and lead them in a stroll. "We have learned that something massively important and potentially expensive is being kept at Hogwarts' despite the danger to the students. That dog was a guard-dog and it was standing over a trapdoor. If they're going through all this trouble, it's obvious that someone's after it."


AN: And there it finally is! Thank you to the winners of my little challenge for their lovely OCs, Morgan Lycoris MacDuff and Ailsa Craig. I have plans for further use of them and I hope you enjoy their parts.

I don't usually ask but reviews for this chapter would be great; I'm not very confident about this one.