Lavender and Parvati walked arm in arm down the corridor. Their giggles echoing about the walls and disturbing various lessons that continued cruelly past the last bell.
"So then Seamus said that Luna was caught stroking this, like, invisible thingy in the woods."
"What-"Lavender's reply was cut off by Professor McGonagall.
"Will you girls be quiet? Yes, these are retests but even imbeciles," she looked back into the classroom and glared at nervous students who scribbled down wrong answers, "need silence."
"Sorry, Professor." They whispered in unison, heads down and rushing along the corridor until they saw the staircases approach.
When they knew they were out of ear shot and thus safe, they looked at each other and leaned against a wall, breathing out.
"I've heard some weird things about Luna. She seems nice enough, but… It just seems a bit like an act, you know?" Lavender continued, combing her hair with her fingers.
"I've just seen it too many times. It's not that difficult to make friends." Parvati agreed. They paused for a moment, reflecting on this new and bizarre character that had arrived at their school.
Whilst Lavender peered in horror at her split ends and thought of a new topic to discuss, Parvati let out a desperate yelp.
Lavender jumped back in shock and pushed Parvati who was now clamouring onto her arm away.
"What's wrong?!"
"It's a s-sp-spider. Guh I hate them get rid of it get rid of it please get rid of it I hate them so much please Lavender." Parvati said in fear, reeling away from the creature who was no bigger than a ten pence coin.
"A spider?" Lavender said to her friend, "a freaking spider? How old are you! It's probably more scared of you…"
With a patronising sigh at Parvati and a holding back of her cloak, she stamped on the spider.
"There! For goodness sake!" She giggled at Parvati and gave her a hug whilst she shook nervously.
"C'mon, bring it in. What's wrong with you today? Is something wrong?"
"Sorry." Parvati replied in a muffled voice amidst a great mass of Lavender's thick hair. "I'm just not in the mood for any stress today. I've had two tests, completely screwing up Flitwick's…"
"I know, Parvy, I know, but it's over now. It can't be changed so STOP WORRYING, you daft bat." She giggled.
Lavender continued her comforting words: "God, I wish I had hair like yours."
Lavender leaned back and admired Parvati's hair. After she combed her fingers through it and stroked the soft, dark tones, she realised that Parvati wasn't moving.
Then she saw her face. She was frozen with terror.
"Parvy?" She began to turn to see what Parvati was so terrified of, "Parvy what's wron…"
She didn't gasp. She just stared in shock at what stared back at her.
And then it spoke.
"Do you really think we would be scared of such petty humans? Quite the contrary. Step aside, child," A giant, hairy, black spider crawled down from the corner and faced them, whilst other, smaller- though still of great proportion- spiders simultaneously wound their way down to the floor. "Only one do I intend to kill tonight."
Using a back leg it kicked through a door and scuttled through as its dozens of children followed.
Lavender and Parvati stood there for what must've been hours in their minds.
After a few minutes of complete and utter silence, they slowly turned to face each other.
They gulped, turned and ran down the corridor, back to the classrooms.
"PROFESSOR MGONAGOLL!"