Wooo! Third chapter! Written by yours truly, Ellie.
Again with the disclaimer: "We do not own Harry Potter, any part of Harry Potter, or anything that has to do with Harry Potter, and we never will."
Enjoy, everyone:
Chapter 3:
I quietly made my way down the staircase. Running a hand through my hair, I stared blankly at the common room in front of me. What was that dream all about? It was certainly… different.
As I plopped down onto one of the couches close to the fire, I couldn't help thinking of my mother. She was dead. She had been dead for years now, ten to be exact. I toyed with a piece of hair and tugged a blanket onto my body.
"Oh well, Colette. The only way to get over this dream is to think of something else." I whispered to myself. "What's new? Let's think…" My voice trailed off and eventually stopped. My eyelids fluttered a few times before they closed completely.
"Colette?"
I woke with a jump.
"Colette! Come on, you're going to be late for breakfast."
"Right, right. Five more minutes, Dah," I slurred, returning back to my comfortable position.
"Uch. Colette!" Lily shook me slightly.
"What, what?" I sat up straight and looked around anxiously. "What… um… what time is it?"
"Seven fourty,"
"What the hell? Leave me alone,"
"Classes start at eight thirty," Lily grumbled at me. Her night had obviously been disturbed by my dream, and she wasn't happy.
"What? Fine…" I tore the blankets off and stood up, scratching at my eye. "See you… uh… what class is first?"
"You would be so lost without me. Potions, dear." Lily joked as she walked out of the common room.
"Right. Right. Po.. po.. potions," I stifled a yawn and walked toward the staircase. One thing I learned that day was not to close your eyes and yawn on a staircase.
"Oh, excuse me," I apologized after running into someone on the staircase.
"No no, excuse me," he responded. "Oh, morning Colette,"
"huh? Oh, Remus! …Hey… I have to... get clothes on and stuff… bye!" I spun around him and raced up the stairs, tugging nervously at a piece of hair. Hi I have to get clothes on, bye? Brilliant, Colette. You're brilliant.
I glanced down at my outfit. A tang top and boy shorts. Blushing slightly, I rushed into my room and changed.
Minutes later, I emerged clean and changed. A polo shirt, knee-socks, a tie and a sweater. I shifted my books and trotted down the staircase, out the portrait and to the Great Hall for breakfast.
As I entered the large room, I took the nearest empty seat I could find and plopped my tiny self down onto the chair. I glanced down the table and found myself not surprised to see food running along the table again
I yawned again, then rested my head in my palm. What was I thinking of bout before I fell asleep again last night? To think of something else. What was I thinking of? What bloody day was it?
"Colette! You've decided to join the living." I heard Lily say to me as she took her own seat next to me.
"Ha. G'morning to you too…" I grumbled, biting off a piece of toast.
"Excited for your first day?"
"Hardly,"
"Hah," She began to make her own breakfast, while I still stared lazily at nothing. Not a morning person, you could say.
As soon as Lily was finished eating, I dragged her out of the Great Hall and to the dungeons for Potions class. I didn't want any more "run-ins" with Lupin. It was embarrassing enough to bum pinto him on the stairs in my pajamas, I didn't need to spill my books in front of him as well.
The dungeons were certainly different from the Gryffindor tower. Cold, dark and unhappy, I didn't feel at home at all. All of the other fifth years around me, however, didn't seem to notice the atmosphere at all. Everyone took seats and pulled out textbooks.
"You'll sit next to me, okay?" Lily told me as she took a seat. I sat next to her and glanced around for the teacher.
"Who teaches potions, Lily?" I asked.
"Professor Slug-"
"Good morning, class!" called a voice obviously belonging to the teacher.
"-horn," Lily finished in a whisper.
"First, I would like you to take out last night's homework assignment," He said. He was a fat man, not to be rude, but it was very true, who waddled around, taking a look at all the students and their scrolls. "Ah, our new student!" he exclaimed as he came over to where Lily and I were sitting. "Bristow, Colette, I see. Well, I'm sure you'll make an excellent addition to our Potions class, don't you think so, students?" The class responded with a few moans. He didn't seem to notice the unenthusiastic response. "Alright. For today, brewing potions to heal…" He walked to the front of the room and picked a piece of chalk up, then began to scribble words onto the tiny black board. I turned to face Lily.
"He seems alright," I whispered to her.
"Yeah, he's fine," She whispered back. I glanced back up to the board, which was already half full of notes. Slughorn was blabbering on about some potion to heal a wound.
Suddenly, the creaking of a door echoed through the room. Heads turned to face the back of the room, including Professor Slughorn. A group of boys, not surprisingly the Marauders, entered the room. Slughorn crossed his arms.
"Do you four have a pass?" He asked.
"Do we have a pass? Um… no, but," Sirius said, grinning sheepishly. "We do have an excuse."
"Oh? And what would be our excuse today, Mr. Black?" Slughorn asked with an unexpected patience in his tone.
"Well, see, there was this big explosion and-"
"Take a seat, please." He interrupted and pointed to empty chairs. Sirius shrugged and plopped down onto a chair. The other three followed. "As I was saying, dragon scale is a wonderful ingredient to use because…"
The next hour of class was bloody dull. Taking notes on how dragon scales effect the texture of the potion did not capture my interest at all. The only exciting part of the class was when it ended. I gathered my things and hurriedly walked out of the classroom, Lily trailing behind.
"Exciting class, eh?" I heard the familiar over-confident voice say behind me. I couldn't help but smile. It was funny to see Lily fight with James.
"Yes. In fact, I found it amazing how dragon scales make the potion a pudding like, substance, didn't you?" She sneered out to James before running to catch up with me. I giggled slightly.
"Nice," I whispered, watching as a smile crept up Lily's face.
"It's my specialty," She said back.
"What? Making James mad, or getting you mad?" She kicked me softly.
The next few classes were equally as boring. I was relieved to get to lunch and talk to Lily.
"So, what do you have next?" I asked her as I set my plate up with food.
"Care for Magical Creatures," She answered. "You?"
"Oh… I have a free period." I said, disappointed that I didn't have that period with her. "What do you do, exactly?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like, where do I go? To a classroom?"
"Um… we usually just go out on the grounds. It's a bit cold, but most people hang out there," she said, shrugging.
"Oh. Alright," I said, unsatisfied with her answer. The grounds? She meant the open land in front of the school, right? But the grounds were huge! How could I be sure I wouldn't get lost?
Lunch soon ended, and I found that several people were also going out to the grounds. Not many, but enough to follow to find out where people went. As I followed them, I saw that they had spread from the group and all went their separate ways. I tugged on my thin sweater. It was colder than I had thought it would be. The wind blew, tossing leaves across the dying grass. There wasn't anything really exciting about the grounds at all, especially since I was alone.
I noticed a forest at the edge of the grounds. It looked dark and mysterious. I smirked to myself. I was Colette Bristow, and I was always up for an adventure.
I walked over to the forest, examining the tall trees with dead leaves falling off their branches. There wasn't a path or anything, but I just assumed that was because no one wanted to go into the forest. It wasn't very inviting at all. It even looked dangerous. But honestly, how dangerous could a little forest be?
My footsteps snapped twigs and crunched leaves. It was awfully quiet in the forest. Mysterious animal sounds I had never heard before were echoing through the trees. I pushed branches out of my way to keep walking forward. This was better than walking along the path in the front of the school.
Suddenly, a startling noise, it sounded like a growl, sounded behind me. I spun around and glanced around anxiously.
"What was that?" I asked myself, tugging at my sweater even more. I heard the growling noise again. "Hello? This isn't funny." I called out, walking backwards and spinning around, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. "Hello? Hello?"
My breathing began to become quicker and shorter. I found myself running to escape the noise, but it only grew louder.
Panicking, I stopped and leaned against a tree. I hugged my arms and sunk slowly to the ground. "Oh god. Oh god. What's out there? Why did I come in here? Why…"
The frightening noise sounded again. I could feel hot tears building up behind my eyes. What was out there? Could it kill me? As the noise grew at a steady pace, I couldn't help it anymore. I let out a scream, though I knew I was too deep in the woods for anyone to hear me. Alone and lost in a dark forest. This was not good. But then…
"Colette?" I heard a voice call out. I immediately stood up and glanced around. "Colette, are you out here?"
"Of course she's out here, you can see right there on the map."
"Well, I wanted her to hear me."
"You didn't have to say it so stupidly."
"Since when is Sirius not stupid?"
"Hey!"
"Kidding, mate."
I smiled at the bickering, then wiped at my tear filled eyes. How on Earth those boys found me was a mystery to me, but the point was that they found me, and that's all that mattered.
"COLETTE? COLETTE?" one of the voices called out again.
"James, shut up! What if someone hears us? We'll be in a ton of trouble. Why did I even bring you three? I should have just looked for her myself." I heard the familiar voice of Lily snap at James.
"Well, you would be lost as well if you had just wandered out here. You should be thankful we agreed to help you, Evans. COLETTE?"
"See, Moony? Calling out does help."
"Or so says James,"
"I'm here!" I shouted out.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah. Colette? Colette!" I saw the group of people walk toward my direction. My head rushed with relief, and I found myself run straight to Lily and hug her.
"Lily! Oh! I was lost! I thought there would be a path through the woods and then I heard a noise and-"
"It's okay. Just don't go in here again, alright?" She said, and I let go, nodding. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and turned to the boys.
"Not to be rude, but why did you come to find me?" I asked in the politest tone I could say. The boys merely grinned.
"They… have something that would help me locate you," Lily said, although she didn't seem happy about having to ask them for help.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Just a handy map," James said, waving the supposed map in front of me, though it looked more like a dirty piece of parchment.
"Oh, well thank you. Thank you so very much." I smiled at all of them, then turned back to Lily.
"We have to get back. They'll be wondering where we went." She told me. I nodded again, and then we all started back to the castle.
