"ARGH!" someone yelled.
"Wha? What happened?" I yawned. It was pretty early and I had been woken up by a scream.
One of the girls in my dorm, Lavender Brown, opened my curtains and said, "We think one of the boys had a bad dream. It came from their dormitory," she said giggling.
"I'm going to the common room and see what happened," I said jumping out of bed and reaching for my new baby blue robe.
"I wouldn't put that on if I were you," said Hermione.
"And why." I stopped because as soon as I felt my robe, I let out an ear piercing scream. My robe was covered in green, sticky goo. The Head Girl rushed in and asked who screamed.
"I did," I told her, "I was going to go to the commons to see who screamed before me, but when I went to put on my robe."
Hermione held up my glop-covered robe with two fingers. With that, the Head girl grabbed my arm and my robe and pulled me downstairs. Instead of staying in the commons, she took me through the other door to the boy's dorms!
"Mr. Potter! Please bring out an item of yours," the head girl shouted.
I was totally confused now. Then, Harry came out of his dorm, covered in the goop that was on my robe, but you could tell he tried to get it off. In his hand was a book, Magical Theory by Albert Waffling, covered thickly in the goo.
The Head Boy followed Harry out of his dorm and took my robe from the Head Girl. He looked at the goo, smelled it, then touched it. He did the same with the goo on Harry's book.
The Head Boy looked straight at me and said, "Come with me."
So, I did. I followed him up through the rest of the boy's dormitory until we reached a small room. Inside was a four-poster bed, a trunk, and a desk with lots of objects and papers on it.
"Sit down, please." He said.
I sat down on the bed and looked at him. He saw that I was puzzled, but asked me bizarre questions anyway.
"What did you do last night?" was his first question.
I told him that after I was sorted, I ate at the feast, went to the common room and strait to my dorm and went to sleep.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"N-no, nothing," I answered shivering. I wished I had my robe.
"Well, Mr. Potter woke up this morning and found himself and all of his belongings covered in this," he started, holding up a small sample. "We had no idea what it was or where it came from. Then, you turned up with this, stuff, on your robe and nothing else."
Since it was only 7 o'clock, I was still a little sleepy. It took about 30 seconds for what he said to sink in.
"You think I did it then," I said calmly.
"Well, obviously. There is no path or anything; just a robe filled in the same goo. The robe belongs to you."
"What if HE is setting ME up?" I nearly shouted. "I mean, what if HE put that stuff on MY robe and made it look like I did the crime! Ever think of that?"
"Why," he started. He stopped to think and restarted his statement, "Why would Mr. Potter want to do something like that to you, Miss."
"Miss Zara. Maybe for the same reason I would want to do it to him!"
"And what reason is that, Miss Zara?"
"THERE IS NO REASON BECAUSE I DIDN'T DO IT!"
I knew I would get in trouble for it, but I got up and marched out of the room. I was almost to the commons when Harry stopped me.
"Why did you do that?" he asked a little shocked.
I just sighed angrily and marched up to the girl's dorm. When I got back everyone, even the second and third years wanted to know what happened. So I told them the whole story about hearing the scream, finding my robe, being wrongly accused, and even having Harry think I trashed his stuff.
"That's just not right," said Mina Star, another first year who also happened to be my cousin.
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.
"I mean," Mina started. "Innocent until proven guilty."
"If I was Harry, this would look pretty guilty to me," I said, holing up my robe. The goo had dried and made my robe as hard as a piece of wood and able to stand on its own.
"She's right you know. Everything points to her so far," said Lavender.
"But she has a witness! I talked to her right before she went to sleep and when I got up to go to the washroom she was still there in her bed!" said Hermione.
"Wait. How did you know she was still in bed? Her bed curtains were closed," asked Mina suspiciously.
"First of all I could hear her moving around and second her." she stopped in the middle of her sentence.
"My what Herm?" I asked eagerly.
".her blue robe was still on her trunk!" Hermione finished.
"What time did you get up?" asked Parvati Patil.
"Around 3 o'clock."
"So this must have taken place AFTER 3 o'clock." Mina started.
"4." Hermione cut in.
"What?" I asked.
"I got back at around 4. I stayed down in the common room and watched the fire."
"You didn't see anyone, did you?" Mina asked.
"Well, I was facing the fire, but if anyone was there they must have been able to hold their breath for a long time."
That's exactly when Professor McGonagall, the house teacher, came in and started to question us. We all took turns explaining what we had just discussed. In the end, Professor McGonagall made up her mind that I, Aletta, was not guilty.
Down at breakfast, Harry made sure to sit as far away from me as he could.
"He thinks it was me," I whispered to Hermione, "and he hates me."
"I don't think he hates you," she replied. Then she looked down the table to see Harry glaring at me and muttering under his breath.
"Oh, yeah. You're right, Herm. In fact I think he's rather fond of me," I said, talking into my plate of eggs rather then Hermione.
"Oh get off it," said Mina cheerfully, plopping down next to me at the Gryffindor table. "It's only one kid. I'm sure he'll cool off."
"Are you sure it's only one?" I asked her, looking down the table only to see now that most of the first and second year boys were wearing the same glare as Harry. The only two who at least were half-and-half were Neville Longbottom and Ron.
"That was definitely an understatement, Mina," said Hermione.
There was a long pause, mostly because everyone was concentrating on eating at the moment.
"Well, I'm off to the library." Hermione announced, "Anyone coming?"
"What? Are you crazy? Term hasn't even started yet!" I said.
"I know, but I want to research on that goo," Hermione replied.
"Well, in that case," I said shoving some sausage into my mouth, "I'wl meht woo down dare."
She looked at me in disgust and I smiled showing as much chewed up food as I could. She shook her head and walked away. Then she stopped at the end of the table near the first year boys and started talking. When she stopped, Harry said something to her and she looked a little surprised. She said something else and Ron got up and walked out with her.
"Oooh! You're big chance!" Mina whispered to me.
I swallowed and said, "What do you mean?"
Mina turned and looked at the back of Ron's red haired head and then back at me and smiled.
"You're crazy," I said, and got up to leave.
"Not as crazy as he is about you!" she said quietly.
Then it was my turn to shake my head and leave. I headed to the library, which took me a while since it was my first time going to it. Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, was a great help though. When I got there, I was astonished on how many books there were. Most of them looked at least over two hundred years old! I heard soft talking coming from a corner so I went in that direction. When I was close enough, I stopped to listen in on what Ron and Hermione were saying.
"Is this it?" Ron asked, followed by a soft thud, which was probably a heavy book.
"Yes it is. Thank you, Ron. By the way, what makes you think that it wasn't Aletta." Hermione responded.
"Well, um, I mean, just because that stuff was on her robe doesn't mean she did it. I mean what does she have against Harry?"
"That's what I say, I mean, I saw her robe when I got out of our dormitory."
Ron murmured something.
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing. this just puts me in an odd position."
"How?" You could tell Hermione was getting excited.
I started to lean on whatever was next to me, this was getting interesting.
"Well, it's not easy to explain, I mean, um." Ron stopped because I had started to lean on a pile of books which toppled over under my weight. Of course, I turned bright red, but, thank God, Hermione had a cover-up plan.
"How many books did you try to carry, Letti?" she asked.
Ron looked puzzled as soon as she said Letti. You see, even though I am the first witch of my family, I do have siblings. I have one older brother, Spencer who is not a wizard and a set of littler twins, Leon and Lakotah who could very well be. When it came time for them to talk, I did my best to get them to say Aletta before Spencer could get them to say his name. I almost succeeded until Lakotah started calling me Letti.
"It's a family nick-name," I said.
"Oh, it's, um, nice," he said, smiling and blushing at the same time.
I opened my mouth to say something, I have no idea what, when Hermione said, "Aletta, did you really look for these?"
"Yeah." I said unsure.
"Because this is what I was looking for!" she held up a book titled Odd Happenings in the Wizarding World by Taylor Kateb.
She sat down on the far end of a table and opened the book. I sat down next to her and Ron sat next to me. When she said, "Got it!" Ron had to lean over me to see. As Hermione flipped the pages, I felt his breath on my neck and felt his knee go onto my chair as he leaned over more to see. I wish Hermione could have flipped through the pages forever.
"Drat!" she said.
"Wha?" asked Ron.
"Someone ripped out the pages that we needed!" cried Hermione.
"Hey, don't get so upset. It's me that's gonna get in trouble, not you," I told Hermione.
"Or maybe all of you will get in trouble," said a high pitched voice.
I whipped my head around and was face to face with Ron. He hadn't moved until I faced him, because as soon as I did, he blushed, turned around and sank into his chair.
"Wha- wha- wha." Hermione stuttered.
"This," said the old woman, who the voice belonged to, "is the Restricted Section of the library. You are not permitted in here, unless you have permission from a teacher."
Of course we didn't because our first class of the year for another 15 minutes.
"I however will let you pass because you are first years and have not been told. If I catch you back here again however, you will all receive a detention," she said briskly, and walked away.
"Lllllet's go." said Ron quickly.
"Right," said Hermione, quickly shutting the book.
They were all so tense that I just had to do something drastic.
"Race you back to the commons!" I whisper-yelled.
As soon as I turned around, I started walk-jogging. As soon as I was out of the library, I took off at full sprint with Ron and Hermione right at my heels. Of course, none of us knew where our common room was, but we had a grand time running through the castle. Finally, we got to the picture of the fat lady. We were all breathing so hard that we couldn't get the password out.
"Password?" said the fat lady, getting annoyed. it was her third time asking for it.
"Caput. Caput." said Ron breathing loudly.
"Caput Drac." said Hermione, struggling for air.
I took a deep breath and said, "C." when the portrait hole swung open.
"Wha? What happened?" I yawned. It was pretty early and I had been woken up by a scream.
One of the girls in my dorm, Lavender Brown, opened my curtains and said, "We think one of the boys had a bad dream. It came from their dormitory," she said giggling.
"I'm going to the common room and see what happened," I said jumping out of bed and reaching for my new baby blue robe.
"I wouldn't put that on if I were you," said Hermione.
"And why." I stopped because as soon as I felt my robe, I let out an ear piercing scream. My robe was covered in green, sticky goo. The Head Girl rushed in and asked who screamed.
"I did," I told her, "I was going to go to the commons to see who screamed before me, but when I went to put on my robe."
Hermione held up my glop-covered robe with two fingers. With that, the Head girl grabbed my arm and my robe and pulled me downstairs. Instead of staying in the commons, she took me through the other door to the boy's dorms!
"Mr. Potter! Please bring out an item of yours," the head girl shouted.
I was totally confused now. Then, Harry came out of his dorm, covered in the goop that was on my robe, but you could tell he tried to get it off. In his hand was a book, Magical Theory by Albert Waffling, covered thickly in the goo.
The Head Boy followed Harry out of his dorm and took my robe from the Head Girl. He looked at the goo, smelled it, then touched it. He did the same with the goo on Harry's book.
The Head Boy looked straight at me and said, "Come with me."
So, I did. I followed him up through the rest of the boy's dormitory until we reached a small room. Inside was a four-poster bed, a trunk, and a desk with lots of objects and papers on it.
"Sit down, please." He said.
I sat down on the bed and looked at him. He saw that I was puzzled, but asked me bizarre questions anyway.
"What did you do last night?" was his first question.
I told him that after I was sorted, I ate at the feast, went to the common room and strait to my dorm and went to sleep.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"N-no, nothing," I answered shivering. I wished I had my robe.
"Well, Mr. Potter woke up this morning and found himself and all of his belongings covered in this," he started, holding up a small sample. "We had no idea what it was or where it came from. Then, you turned up with this, stuff, on your robe and nothing else."
Since it was only 7 o'clock, I was still a little sleepy. It took about 30 seconds for what he said to sink in.
"You think I did it then," I said calmly.
"Well, obviously. There is no path or anything; just a robe filled in the same goo. The robe belongs to you."
"What if HE is setting ME up?" I nearly shouted. "I mean, what if HE put that stuff on MY robe and made it look like I did the crime! Ever think of that?"
"Why," he started. He stopped to think and restarted his statement, "Why would Mr. Potter want to do something like that to you, Miss."
"Miss Zara. Maybe for the same reason I would want to do it to him!"
"And what reason is that, Miss Zara?"
"THERE IS NO REASON BECAUSE I DIDN'T DO IT!"
I knew I would get in trouble for it, but I got up and marched out of the room. I was almost to the commons when Harry stopped me.
"Why did you do that?" he asked a little shocked.
I just sighed angrily and marched up to the girl's dorm. When I got back everyone, even the second and third years wanted to know what happened. So I told them the whole story about hearing the scream, finding my robe, being wrongly accused, and even having Harry think I trashed his stuff.
"That's just not right," said Mina Star, another first year who also happened to be my cousin.
"What do you mean?" asked Hermione.
"I mean," Mina started. "Innocent until proven guilty."
"If I was Harry, this would look pretty guilty to me," I said, holing up my robe. The goo had dried and made my robe as hard as a piece of wood and able to stand on its own.
"She's right you know. Everything points to her so far," said Lavender.
"But she has a witness! I talked to her right before she went to sleep and when I got up to go to the washroom she was still there in her bed!" said Hermione.
"Wait. How did you know she was still in bed? Her bed curtains were closed," asked Mina suspiciously.
"First of all I could hear her moving around and second her." she stopped in the middle of her sentence.
"My what Herm?" I asked eagerly.
".her blue robe was still on her trunk!" Hermione finished.
"What time did you get up?" asked Parvati Patil.
"Around 3 o'clock."
"So this must have taken place AFTER 3 o'clock." Mina started.
"4." Hermione cut in.
"What?" I asked.
"I got back at around 4. I stayed down in the common room and watched the fire."
"You didn't see anyone, did you?" Mina asked.
"Well, I was facing the fire, but if anyone was there they must have been able to hold their breath for a long time."
That's exactly when Professor McGonagall, the house teacher, came in and started to question us. We all took turns explaining what we had just discussed. In the end, Professor McGonagall made up her mind that I, Aletta, was not guilty.
Down at breakfast, Harry made sure to sit as far away from me as he could.
"He thinks it was me," I whispered to Hermione, "and he hates me."
"I don't think he hates you," she replied. Then she looked down the table to see Harry glaring at me and muttering under his breath.
"Oh, yeah. You're right, Herm. In fact I think he's rather fond of me," I said, talking into my plate of eggs rather then Hermione.
"Oh get off it," said Mina cheerfully, plopping down next to me at the Gryffindor table. "It's only one kid. I'm sure he'll cool off."
"Are you sure it's only one?" I asked her, looking down the table only to see now that most of the first and second year boys were wearing the same glare as Harry. The only two who at least were half-and-half were Neville Longbottom and Ron.
"That was definitely an understatement, Mina," said Hermione.
There was a long pause, mostly because everyone was concentrating on eating at the moment.
"Well, I'm off to the library." Hermione announced, "Anyone coming?"
"What? Are you crazy? Term hasn't even started yet!" I said.
"I know, but I want to research on that goo," Hermione replied.
"Well, in that case," I said shoving some sausage into my mouth, "I'wl meht woo down dare."
She looked at me in disgust and I smiled showing as much chewed up food as I could. She shook her head and walked away. Then she stopped at the end of the table near the first year boys and started talking. When she stopped, Harry said something to her and she looked a little surprised. She said something else and Ron got up and walked out with her.
"Oooh! You're big chance!" Mina whispered to me.
I swallowed and said, "What do you mean?"
Mina turned and looked at the back of Ron's red haired head and then back at me and smiled.
"You're crazy," I said, and got up to leave.
"Not as crazy as he is about you!" she said quietly.
Then it was my turn to shake my head and leave. I headed to the library, which took me a while since it was my first time going to it. Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, was a great help though. When I got there, I was astonished on how many books there were. Most of them looked at least over two hundred years old! I heard soft talking coming from a corner so I went in that direction. When I was close enough, I stopped to listen in on what Ron and Hermione were saying.
"Is this it?" Ron asked, followed by a soft thud, which was probably a heavy book.
"Yes it is. Thank you, Ron. By the way, what makes you think that it wasn't Aletta." Hermione responded.
"Well, um, I mean, just because that stuff was on her robe doesn't mean she did it. I mean what does she have against Harry?"
"That's what I say, I mean, I saw her robe when I got out of our dormitory."
Ron murmured something.
"What?" Hermione asked.
"Nothing. this just puts me in an odd position."
"How?" You could tell Hermione was getting excited.
I started to lean on whatever was next to me, this was getting interesting.
"Well, it's not easy to explain, I mean, um." Ron stopped because I had started to lean on a pile of books which toppled over under my weight. Of course, I turned bright red, but, thank God, Hermione had a cover-up plan.
"How many books did you try to carry, Letti?" she asked.
Ron looked puzzled as soon as she said Letti. You see, even though I am the first witch of my family, I do have siblings. I have one older brother, Spencer who is not a wizard and a set of littler twins, Leon and Lakotah who could very well be. When it came time for them to talk, I did my best to get them to say Aletta before Spencer could get them to say his name. I almost succeeded until Lakotah started calling me Letti.
"It's a family nick-name," I said.
"Oh, it's, um, nice," he said, smiling and blushing at the same time.
I opened my mouth to say something, I have no idea what, when Hermione said, "Aletta, did you really look for these?"
"Yeah." I said unsure.
"Because this is what I was looking for!" she held up a book titled Odd Happenings in the Wizarding World by Taylor Kateb.
She sat down on the far end of a table and opened the book. I sat down next to her and Ron sat next to me. When she said, "Got it!" Ron had to lean over me to see. As Hermione flipped the pages, I felt his breath on my neck and felt his knee go onto my chair as he leaned over more to see. I wish Hermione could have flipped through the pages forever.
"Drat!" she said.
"Wha?" asked Ron.
"Someone ripped out the pages that we needed!" cried Hermione.
"Hey, don't get so upset. It's me that's gonna get in trouble, not you," I told Hermione.
"Or maybe all of you will get in trouble," said a high pitched voice.
I whipped my head around and was face to face with Ron. He hadn't moved until I faced him, because as soon as I did, he blushed, turned around and sank into his chair.
"Wha- wha- wha." Hermione stuttered.
"This," said the old woman, who the voice belonged to, "is the Restricted Section of the library. You are not permitted in here, unless you have permission from a teacher."
Of course we didn't because our first class of the year for another 15 minutes.
"I however will let you pass because you are first years and have not been told. If I catch you back here again however, you will all receive a detention," she said briskly, and walked away.
"Lllllet's go." said Ron quickly.
"Right," said Hermione, quickly shutting the book.
They were all so tense that I just had to do something drastic.
"Race you back to the commons!" I whisper-yelled.
As soon as I turned around, I started walk-jogging. As soon as I was out of the library, I took off at full sprint with Ron and Hermione right at my heels. Of course, none of us knew where our common room was, but we had a grand time running through the castle. Finally, we got to the picture of the fat lady. We were all breathing so hard that we couldn't get the password out.
"Password?" said the fat lady, getting annoyed. it was her third time asking for it.
"Caput. Caput." said Ron breathing loudly.
"Caput Drac." said Hermione, struggling for air.
I took a deep breath and said, "C." when the portrait hole swung open.
