I tapped my quill against my parchment, little specks of ink splattering onto the page and making an interesting pattern. It wasn't the transfiguration homework that was meant to be there, but it was much more interesting to watch the droplets of dark ink soak into the paper, sinking into the creases and spreading out into various different shapes. That was how I knew my brain had shut down for the evening, yet I remained in my seat, pulling my hair back into a loose ponytail and loosening my tie.
"Are you alright? You look like you might be ready to throw yourself into the Black Lake." I glanced up at the unfamiliar boy who had decided to stand beside me and talk. My expression was neutral, almost slightly blank as I looked up at him, regarding the blue and silver tie that was knotted neatly around his neck.
"And you are?" I ignored his comment, moving swiftly on to finding out who this boy was who had decided it was appropriate to infiltrate my solitude in such a way. Unfortunately, my bitter tone had no effect on him as he focused on my question, and he slipped into the chair beside me with a wide smile.
"Zachary Leiring, I'm a first year like you, in Ravenclaw." He held out a hand for me to shake, which I eyed curiously, yet chose not to take.
"Yes, I deduced that from the tie." He laughed, pulling his hand back but not seeming to mind that I hadn't taken it. "Look at me, deducing things, perhaps I should be in Ravenclaw."
My joke was dry, and my smile was sarcastic as I turned back to my paper, using the nib of my quill to push the ink blobs around, making my paper even more of a mess than it already was. Unfortunately, my dismissive attitude did nothing to dissuade the boy, who simply watched me with that chipper smile of his.
"You're Amelia Cavett, right?" I didn't look up from my paper, despite the fact I was immensely curious as to how he knew my name.
"Ten points to Ravenclaw." I muttered sarcastically, though unfortunately this only served to amuse him, and he released a joyful laugh at my words.
The library was a great place, normally, as it was a place you could come to be left alone. During my first few months of school, I had frequented this place often, mostly as a way to escape others. It would seem that even the library wasn't sacred any more.
"Can I help you with something, Zachary Leiring? Or are you just here to disturb me?" His smile faltered at my short response, but quickly returned with renewed force.
"Well I was working on my homework, over there," He pointed to a table across the room, upon which sat a pile of books, a quill and a parchment, "And I just noticed that you weren't doing any work, just staring at your parchment." I dropped my quill, resting my chin in my hands and watching him with narrowed eyes.
"I have to admit, Zach, I don't see how you could have interpreted that as an invitation." He leaned back in his chair with a shrug, folding his arms over his chest with a sigh.
"I just thought that maybe you might want to give the…" he paused, glancing at my ink stained parchment, "…homework, a break. Go for a stroll, perhaps?"
While I was thoroughly enjoying my time alone, my bum had begun to grow numb, and staring at my blank parchment had started to drive me a little mad. Perhaps a stroll around the castle and grounds would be a good idea, even if it was with a random, annoying Ravenclaw boy. I considered his proposition silently, watching him with curiosity as he shifted a little nervously under my gaze.
My quill was snatched from my hand before I had a chance to respond, the boy choosing to completely ignore my sharp glare as a smile twitched at the corners of his lips. The nib of the quill scratched against the parchment in neat swirls, and I found myself quite admiring his handwriting, though questioning how this particular 11 year old boy didn't have handwriting as though he was scribbling with his toes like all the other 11 year old boys I'd met. I narrowed my eyes, pursing my lips to contain my smile as I read what he had written.
Amelia Cavett, take a break.
"Fine," I stacked my books and paper, shoving them into my bag along with my quill, which left a messy ink stain on the lining of my satchel, "Lets go then, Zachary Leiring, you odd boy."
His grin was far too wide to be endearing, and I quickly let him know that he'd need to tone that down or I wouldn't be going with him anywhere. He had nodded, his smile quickly dropping into a forced frown, that he struggled to hold as the corners of his mouth twitched comically. I felt a smile forcing its way onto my face, but I managed to suppress it, sweeping past him towards the door and leaving him to hurry after me.
We'd quickly grown bored of the school corridors, exiting through the doors that sat adjacent to the great hall and out across the courtyard, crossing the rickety wooden bridge and ending up at the top of the hill that overlooked Hagrid's hut. We hadn't spoken all that much so far, between my sort responses and lack of conversation continuation, the poor boy had struggled. However, there was one thing that I had quite enjoyed, and that was the way that he had spent the whole walk so far doing whatever he could go get me to smile. He had almost been successful on a couple of occasions, but I had held my steely demeanour very well.
"Come on Amelia, I've seen you smile plenty of times with your friends. I know you're not really this serious." I quirked a brow, turning to look at him with a curious gaze.
"Have you been watching me, Zach? That's a little creepy." His hand rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly as he chuckled, shaking his head and coming to a stop, leaning against a tree with his arms folded.
"You have a nice smile, I'm just trying to see it is all." I froze in my tracks, turning to face him with narrowed eyes, before I realised that he was being completely serious. The edges of my lips quirked again, though this time it wasn't with amusement, but shy happiness. But he couldn't know that. I planted my hands on my hips, forcing a big toothy grin on my face, eyes crinkling in a way that probably more resembled a grimace than a smile. His face told me all I needed to know.
"Well that's just terrifying." I couldn't help it, it was a mixture of his horrified expression and how I imagined I must have looked in that moment, that forced the genuine and uninhibited smile onto my face, accompanied by a loud laugh.
His lips pulled into a grin to match mine, a proud twinkle in his eye that showed just how pleased he was with himself for finally getting me to smile.
"There it is!" He waved his hands in the air, shaking his fists over his head in celebration.
"Okay, fine, you win." I waved his celebration off, flicking my hair over my shoulder as I turned away, hitching my bag onto my shoulder and leaving him to chase after me once again.
"You know, I've heard that Hagrid is banned from doing magic because he got expelled from this very school." I frowned, glancing towards the hut with a furrowed brow.
For some reason, the idea of this made me immensely sad. Hagrid was a kind man, always there to help when you needed him and always sporting a wide smile underneath that big bushy beard.
"I wonder what he could have been expelled for… he seems far too kind to cause that much trouble." Zachary hummed quietly in response, both of us jumping slightly as the door to the hut swung open with force, hitting the wall with a thud. Our eyes were wide as the bushy haired giant emerged from the hut, large gars of blue pellets in each of his hands.
"Oh, 'ello you two," He grinned, stepping down from the doorway and heading in our direction. "Lovely afternoon for a stroll around the grounds."
"Oh yes, it's a beautiful afternoon." I hurried to respond, slightly panicked that he might have heard our earlier conversation.
"Miss Cavett, weren't it?" I nodded with a smile, relaxing slightly as I realised that he couldn't have heard us.
"An' young Mr Leiring." His smile dropped for a second, eyes narrowing and once again I began panicking about our gossip. "I 'ope you two weren't out 'ere to get up to any… funny business…"
"Funny business?" Finally Zach spoke up, querying the odd comment.
"You know… kissin' and the like."
If I'd had a mirror in that moment, I would have surely seen my skin turn a deathly pale, right before my cheeks flushed a deep crimson. Luckily I didn't need a mirror, as I could simply look at Zachary to see exactly that.
"Oh we're not a couple!" I hurried out, fingers clutching my bag strap so tightly one might have thought it was about to fly away.
"No we've just met, about twenty minutes ago." Zach followed up on my comment, and Hagrid's expression softened, a smile returning to his face.
"In tha' case, you two 'ave a lovely evenin'. I better go sort out these flesh eatin' slugs… all over our cabbages they are, every year." He continued to mutter to himself as he wandered away, leaving us alone to stew in the embarrassment of what had just happened.
"Well… that was horrifying." I couldn't help myself, snorting out a laugh at Zach's grimace, which quickly morphed into a grin as we descended into a fit of laughter.
"Oi, Cavett, where the hell have you been?" I was accosted the moment I stepped through the door to the common room, turning to the fireplace with wide eyes only to see Blaise, book in hand - as usual - and a smirk on his face.
"You scared me half to death Zabini." I crossed the room, dropping onto the sofa with a huff just before he sunk into the cushions beside me.
"Sorry, Ammy. Couldn't resist." He winced dramatically as I shoved his shoulder with my own, dropping his book onto the seat beside him.
"My goodness, what a drama queen." Reclaiming his book, he wound it back as though he was going to smack me, bringing it down and stopping just before the hard back touched my arm.
"Oh Blaise, I dare you. Let's see if you enjoy the repercussions of that." His eyes narrowed as they flicked between me and the book a few times. Thinking better of it, he dropped the book again, throwing an arm over my shoulder instead.
"I think I'd rather live to see another day."
"Wise choice."
He opened his mouth to reply, though instead of his own voice, I heard my name being called somewhat frantically by Nina.
"Mia!? Amelia Marceline Cavett is that you?!" I raised a hand as she descended from the staircase that led to the dorms, a slightly wild look in her eye.
"I have been looking for you bloody everywhere!" I slipped out of Blaise's hold, crossing the room towards her with concern.
"Why, what's wrong?" She entwined her fingers with mine, heading for the common room door and dragging me along behind her.
"Not here… come on!" I barely managed to offer a wave over my shoulder at Blaise before I was back out the door and into the hallway, tripping over my feet as we hurried to goodness knows where.
"You what?!" Well, Nina's escapades from the previous night were news to me. I had been sound asleep, completely forgetting about the plans, and had assumed that she was also asleep in the bed beside me. But no, apparently she had slipped out in the middle of the night, not so much as a note left behind in case I woke up, and had buggered off on a secret adventure to the third floor without me.
"I know, I told you I would wake you but you were so sound asleep and after your nightmare the other night I wanted you to get a good nights sleep." I narrowed my eyes, folding my arms over my chest and leaning back in the chair I had claimed in the abandoned classroom. She was right, I needed that good night's sleep, to make up for all the lost sleep I'd suffered the last few nights.
The nightmares weren't a new thing, they were regular and always the same. I didn't remember a thing but was left with this horrible feeling of dread. I'd learned to brush them off as silly dreams, probably caused because of eating too many sweets just before bed.
"Don't you try and act all chivalrous, like you were doing me a favour." Her hands flew up into the air in exasperation.
"Can you just stop getting mad at me for one second so I can tell you what happened?!" I let out an irritated huff, but fell into silence to allow her to continue.
She went on to describe how they are almost immediately bumped into Filch's cat, Mrs Norris, and had been forced to flee along a corridor that had ended up being a dead end as the doorway was locked fast. Thankfully they had been able to unlock it and slip into the room without getting caught.
"Okay, so what was in the room?" I asked with bated breath, excited to find out what they had found. She paused, something flickering in her eyes that I couldn't quite decipher, as though she was coming to a decision in her head right in that moment.
"Nothing." I frowned, wondering why she had led me to such an immense anticlimax.
"Nothing?"
"Nope, just a trap door and a harp… It was all very odd." Yes, something certainly was odd but it wasn't the third floor corridor I was worried about right now.
"So why would they make it off limits?" She shrugged, resting back on her hands with a thoughtful look.
"I mean, the statues in the corridor were a bit spooky. Covering their faces one minute and looking right at us the next. It was awfully unsettling." I hummed in response, suspicious of the story I had been told, though silently accepting it nonetheless. I could feel it, in the hollow of my chest. Something was wrong.
"We should probably get to bed then, it's been an awfully long day… not that I've seen you at all today. Where have you been?" Hopping up from the chair, I shrugged dismissively.
"The library, mostly… though I did meet a rather odd Ravenclaw boy. He convinced me to go for a walk around the grounds, as I was staring at my parchment ready to tear my hair out." This piqued her interest, and her curious eyes bored into me as we strolled through the corridors in the direction of the common room.
"A boy? Is he cute?" I shrugged, not offering much in the way of a response other than a quiet statement about how he was very forward yet nice.
I had a feeling, from the way she was grinning at me as we stepped through the door back into the common room, that this wasn't something she was going to let go. Besides, I highly doubted that I had seen the last of Zachary Leiring.