Chapter 4: Danger Is On The Plate
Things had been weird in the past month, I kept seeing the big black dog everywhere on the grounds. I'd be walking to care of magical creatures, and would see the dog sitting at the edge of the forest, or I'd walk by a window and see it prowling across the grounds, even Fred and George had both seen it. But, they didn't think as much of it as I seemed to, maybe they didn't realize that the thing was practically stalking me.
Luckily, weird things aside, it was almost Christmas. We weren't going home for the holidays, mainly because it was easier just to stay here and not take a train across the country. Christmas meant that the castle was extremely festive, and extremely cold. It also meant that homework for the fifth-years was at a solid high, and I was trying not to stress out about it, I still did though. Something I couldn't help about myself was my overwhelming desire to succeed.
"God I am so happy that was our last class." I said, plopping down on the couch in front of the fire, coincidentally beside Ron and Hermione, who were looking quite glum for it being the christmas holidays and everything, "Uh, what happened, did somebody die?" I said, perhaps insensitively, for these days you never knew what could happen.
"No, but somebody's probably going to." Hermione said while Ron nodded, the both of them not moving.
"What?!" I exclaimed looking between them, "You better explain because that is too serious of a statement to say with no explanation." I said holding my hands up.
"You know that whole hippogriff Malfoy thing that went on a few months ago?" Ron asked, I only had a small idea what he was talking about, as I wasn't keen on third year issues, but I nodded anyways, "Alright, well it was Malfoy's fault that it happened in the first place, but because his father practically controls the ministry, the hippogriff, his name is Buckbeak, is being sent to a trial, and we want to help Hagrid but we really can't imagine him winning anyways, because he's half giant, and it's just a big mess." Ron said this all in only two breaths, impressive.
"Wow, that really sucks."
"Yeah, it does." Hermione said bluntly, I felt bad, but I didn't want to hang around this negativity any longer, I spotted Angelina walking across the common room towards the portrait hole with her broom slung over her shoulder.
"Angelina!" I called out, getting up and going over to her, "Quidditch practice?"
"Yeah, why?" She said, stopping.
"Excellent, I'll join you." I said, sticking my wand out to the side and muttering a quick Accio to summon my cloak, hat, and mittens from the couch I was just previously sitting on.
"I thought that you thought that practice was boring." Angelina said, giving me a quizzical look.
"So is sitting up here," I rolled my eyes when she didn't move, "Come on!" I tugged at her arm and she just shrugged and followed after me as I climbed out of the portrait hole.
Angelina noticed my shivering at the blustery December weather as we got to the pitch, this of course, only served as fuel for her uproarious and very contagious laughter, which I could even still hear in the teachers stands, which were sheltered from the wind.
I was looking down, fixing my mittens and flexing my fingers, when a rather audible thump was heard beside me, I jumped, and when I looked up to see what is was, I almost felt like catapulting myself out of the stands.
That fucking dog. It was just sitting there, I don't even know how it got through the door at the bottom of the stairs leading up here. It was a doorknob, dogs don't have opposable thumbs, so what the hell was it doing sitting up here just staring at me with a somewhat smug look on it's face?
"Uh, hi." Oh my god I'm talking to a dog, a stalker dog at that. Maybe dogs just did that when they liked you? I don't know, I've never had a dog. I tried to ignore it, it was a big dog, but not really threatening, so I didn't feel scared, and I always had my wand. I was still shivering, and it was still cold, but watching the practice did sort of beat sitting up in the common room, so I wasn't exactly complaining.
I turned my back on the dog, to give full attention to the practice, it was definitely a him, I hadn't checked, but I feel like it just was. I had that feeling. He didn't do anything else for awhile, I kind of forgot about him, until about five minutes later when I felt a nudge on my leg, I turned around, a bit freaked out still and saw him just sitting there, except now there was a cat.
"What the fuck is going on?" I was so confused, and the only place I could seek solace was inside, where multiple quadrupeds couldn't follow me, I was done with tonight.
But, of course, tonight wasn't done with me yet, when I tried to leave, he blocked me, the dog blocked me, the cat just sat there, and I took a closer look at it, hadn't I seen a cat like that before? It clicked as I realized that this cat, was Hermione's cat, Crookshanks was it's name. Excellent, now I had leverage.
"Crookshanks you better get your dog friend to let me goddamn leave!" Was I cussing out a cat? Yep. I had heard that cats never listened, but I'd never seen a cat with this utterly bored of an expression on its face. It looked like it was personally mocking me, felt like it too.
"What do you need?" I whined, finally losing it, the practice wasn't anywhere near over yet, and half of them didn't even know I was here, so they didn't notice my argument with these two. What I said though, got the attention of the dog, who stopped his stoic guarding of the door and came over to me wagging his tail, to which I backed away. A dog that could understand english, okay, it was obvious that this was more than just an ordinary dog, but I was here now.
"Alright, well, let's figure this out, wag your tail once for no, and twice for yes." His tail stopped wagging immediately, and he looked ready, god it was so odd. "Do you need help?" Two wags, "Alright, do you need shelter?" One wag, "Nope alright, Food?" Two wags, "Alright so you need food, anything else?" One wag, "Great, food it is, I can manage that, come with me, and wait outside the castle while I get you something, is that okay?" Two wags.
I walked down the stairs and waved goodbye to Angelina as I left, she looked confused for a moment, but was quickly pulled back when Oliver yelled at her about something. I made the trek up to the castle, aware of how strange it looked that I was flanked by a giant dog and a ginger cat, I could only hope that no one would see me. I didn't say anything as I left him sitting there and walked the familiar path down to the kitchens, tickling the pear, I was allowed in and immediately swarmed by the elves, as per usual.
"What can we get Ms. Vern today?" One squeaked, I couldn't get mad at them for that.
"Could you please get me a nice cooked steak?" I asked, watching as almost instantly, a large steak was delivered to me, "Thank you very much." I said, but nearly couldn't get the words out due to them ushering me out again, the elves never liked someone staying too long down here.
I walked back upstairs, trying to look as inconspicuous as I could while holding a wrapped up steak under my cloak. I pushed open the doors and ran down the steps to the dog, who hadn't moved. "Alright I got steak, hope you like it." I crouched down, placing my hands on my knees, he looked intently up at me, "I did this for you, and to be honest you kind of freak me out, so if you don't mind, do me a favour and stop following me around. You may think your sly, but I always see you watching me out the windows." I smiled, and he gave a wolfish dog grin back, it really looked like a smile. I unwrapped the steak and placed it in front of him, "See ya." I said and without looking back, I went inside and up to bed, never stopping to think about the strange night I'd just had, with the strange dog, with the strange grey eyes.
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A trending theme in my life was that people only took me seriously when I was angry, and since I wasn't exactly angry at the dog when I told him to basically screw off, I still kept seeing him. I was serious when I told him to stop stalking me, but maybe I wasn't angry enough, or maybe his english skills only went so far. I didn't know, and I'd stopped caring. All I knew was that in the snowy days leading up to Christmas, I was seeing him everywhere again.
Angelina and Alicia had gone home for the holidays, so had almost everybody actually, except for me, Harry, Hermione, the Weasleys, and a select other few. Them going home meant that I got the dormitory to myself, and it was nice not being woken up at the crack of dawn by them getting ready for a morning quidditch practice. So, when christmas rolled around, it was wonderful to take my time waking and getting up. Until I heard several thumps on the door.
I knew it couldn't be Fred or George, even they hadn't found a way to get up the girls staircase, or if they had, they hadn't told me. This made me worried that one of them had actually found a way to get up them, so I quickly shot out of bed and flung open the door and ran down the stairs to the main set of stairs that lead to the common room.
Fred and George lowered their wands, and the books that were floating, and looked primed to fly up the stairs and hit my door, dropped to the ground. "Did you think we had found a way up or something?" Fred asked, somehow reading my mind, like he always seemed to.
"Of course not." I said snottily, smoothing down my hair as I came down the rest of the steps to the common room, which was currently empty apart from Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who seemed to be bickering about something anyway.
"We have to go to breakfast, it's so late already, come on Vern!" George said excitedly, shoving me past where a small pile of presents with my name on them waited, sweet. I had gotten Fred and George muggle tricks, they found them interesting because magic couldn't explain how they worked.
After we had breakfast, I went back up to my room to open my gifts. George had gotten me a book that I had been wanting, bless his soul, and Angelina and Alicia had both pitched in to get me a joint gift of some new clothes, which they knew I didn't get very often. Fred's gift was the most surprising though, probably because I couldn't find it.
I looked everywhere, the staircase to my room and the common room, Fred and George had already left and I didn't know to where so I left the common room in search of them, why would Fred forget to give me a present? That's not like him at all. Usually Fred was the most punctual with christmas and birthday presents, and his were always the most thoughtful, so the fact that I just didn't get one was strange. Also, it wasn't unusual for him and George to tag team a present, which would make sense too. But it was nowhere.
Walking through the halls was cold, but bearable, since I had forgotten my coat. I checked the great hall, near the lake, and the library (I'm not sure why), but I couldn't find them. It turned out that they were the ones that found me actually, when I was walking back up to the common room, which was now guarded by some stupid knight who changed the password nine times a week.
"Hey, Vern! We've been looking for you!" I heard from behind me, as I was walking up the last set of stairs.
"Funnily enough, I have been too." I said, smirking and turning around, looking down at the two of them.
"What you've been looking for yourself?" George said, cocking his head, looking fake confused. I rolled my eyes.
"You know what I mean, anyways Fred-"
"Shit, I forgot that Lee needed me to help him pull off the perfect christmas prank this morning, smell you later alligator." George cut me off, and left, quickly disappearing from sight behind a tapestry.
"What was that about? Where's he going?" I sputtered, this morning was getting weirder and weirder, though wasn't everything lately?
"I believe he just told us where he was going." Fred said, climbing up the stairs to stand beside me, "What did you want? You said my name before George interrupted."
"Oh, yeah, I couldn't find your present this morning." I said, crossing my arms in front of me and looking into his clear blue eyes, which sparkled with mischievousness, even when he was acting serious.
"Are you so arrogant that you believe I must have gotten you a present? Maybe I just forgot." Fred teased, but he was smiling as he said it, I shoved him in the side.
"Come on! I know you got me something! And it has to be something really good, or you wouldn't make me wait this long to open it!" I whined, laughing a bit as I lightly pummeled his shoulder, he grinned.
"Alright, alright, calm down crazy lady." He laughed and pulled a little box out of his pocket and handed it me, he looked kind of awkward as he did so, strange. "Here, I just didn't put it with the others because I was afraid it would get lost, you can open it whenever, but I do have to go help George and Lee, so, see you." He quickly walked away and I tried to call out after him, it was strange that he didn't wait to watch me open it, but he was already gone.
A/N: Sorry this took so long, school's been pretty hectic but it's all cool now, I'm expecting to do the next chapter for Wednesday or Thursday.