CHAPTER 10

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'It was Lily that noticed it at first' Anastasia said. 'The way you kept looking over in our direction in class. I was sure you were looking at Lily- I mean, she was so pretty, everbody liked her.' She paused for a second, thinking of Lily. She missed her...

James and Sirius sauntered into the common room, and over to the table were Ana and Lily were sat.

It's your lucky day, Lily' James grinned. 'Turns out Slimy Snape doesn't like you after all.' He and Sirius both looked as if they were about to burst out laughing.

'What's so funny, you two?' Peter Pettigrew called from the other side of the room.

'Snape' Sirius replied. 'Turns out he's not interested in Lily' He paused. 'Ana, on the other hand...'

Snape had sat down now on the edge of the desk, listening intently.

'When Sirius said you liked me, I was really pleased.' Anastasia blushed a little. 'I hadn't told anyone, but I liked you too. I hadn't told anyone because my friends would have laughed at me. Besides-a Slytherin and a Gryffindor? It would never have worked.'

Peter didn't share Sirius's amusement.

'But..but he can't!' He stuttered. 'Anastasia is far too good for him!'

Anastasia, who was already red, blushed harder. She should have known Peter would get jealous, it was an open secret that he liked her. Not that she was interested. She only had eyes for one person...

'Anyway' Anastasia said, trying to change the subject. 'Have you lot finished your plans for your little end of term joke?'

'Ah, that would be telling' James replied. He waved a bit of paper at her. She thought she read the words 'polyjuice potion'. 'Remus is off now, putting together the finishing touches.'

Anastasia and Lily looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

'Once I thought about it for a while I decided that I had to tell you how I felt, so, on the last day, I wrote you a note' Anastasia explained. 'I was on my way to the owlery when Peter walked into the common room. He offered to take the note for me and, stupidly, I let him. I had written in the note that I wanted to meet you after classes had ended.' She looked at Severus; his face showed no expression.

It was the last day, lunchtime. Anastasia had gone up to the dormitory to finish packing the last of her belongings. After all, they had an early start in the morning.

'That's odd' she thought to herself. She was sure that she hadn't packed her dictaphone (she had quite a collection of muggle gadgets, and she found the dictaphone the most fascinating of them all). Her blue robe had gone too...

'Ah well' she said to herself 'I must have packed them after all.' She smiled to herself-she had been so busy thinking about what she was going to say to Severus that she hadn't been paying attention to what she had packed. She turned and left the dormitory. She didn't have time to rummage about in her trunk to see if they were there...