It seemed to take much longer to return to Ravenclaw than it took to get to the potions room. I had reached the seventh floor when I saw a small shadow of a figure moving across the floor. It stopped and meowed before running off down a side corridor no doubt going to report back to Filch.
"Mrs. Norris!" I hissed. "Get back here, you little…"
"Is someone out of bed?" I heard Filch's voice and my heart seized.
I looked frantically around for somewhere, anywhere I could hide. I hid behind a small pillar with a vase depicting a scene from the Giant Wars. A strip of moonlight shone across my knee. This spot was no good. I could hear footsteps coming closer and the small tinkling of Mrs. Norris's collar.
I noticed a door across from the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy that I'd never noticed before. Every other door I had tried had been locked but I ran quietly and tried this one anyways. It opened revealing a dark cluttered room. There were bookcases, towers of objects, furniture, cupboards, and wardrobes. I quickly hid behind a large stack of books. I heard the door creak open.
"Is anyone in here?" Filch's snippy voice groaned. "You shouldn't be out of bed."
Mrs. Norris appeared at my side and began meowing loudly. I tried shooing her away but she meowed louder. A small dark lump on the floor caught my eye. A dead mouse. I muffled a sound of disgust. I could hear Filch coming closer. I couldn't think of another option so I took a deep breath and picked up the mouse by its cold limp tail and threw it away from me. Mrs. Norris chased after the dead thing and moments later Filch followed her assuming she had found the student. I held my breath as he passed and hoped he didn't look down. As soon as he was past, I hurtled myself from my hiding place and back into the corridor running silently as I could from Filch and his nosey cat.
I was never more relieved to see the eagle knocker on the Ravenclaw entry.
"What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?" It questioned.
I repeated the riddle once in my head before the answer clicked. "A river."
The entry opened and I rushed inside. I ran past the statue of Rowena up to my dorm. I slowed just outside the door before quietly twisting the knob. I shut the door silently behind myself and crept to my bed.
"Where were you?" I heard someone whisper.
I looked up to see Susan sitting up in her bed.
"Er, toilet." I said wondering if she had been up the whole time or had just woken up.
"Why are you wearing your robes?" She asked clearly suspicious.
"Er, I was cold." I said throwing my robe on a chair near my bed.
She stared at me for a while as if searching for any sign that I was lying. I hoped the darkness hid any clues from my face. She finally pulled the covers back over her shoulders and laid on her side facing away from me.
I silently exhaled with relief and crawled into my own bed. I closed my eyes and fell into a collage of dreams about Severus.
The next day after lunch Susan and I sat in the library working on homework together. I had been thinking about Severus's and my meeting since I woke up this morning and had been planning a reason to leave Susan after supper.
"I've, er, been thinking." I said.
"Yeah?" Susan questioned?
"You're right." I said. "I shouldn't give up on the Defense club because it's getting more difficult."
"Good." She said. "So I suppose Monday night you'll be back to that."
"Actually tonight." I corrected.
"Tonight?" She asked. "But it's Saturday."
"I know, but tonight is a sort of dueling competition." I told her.
"I see."
"I'm going to go to that after supper."
"Well, have fun. I'm glad you've decided to stick with it."
"We'll see how tonight goes."
She looked at me for a bit and went back to her assignment.
The rest of the afternoon was filled with the sound of quill scratching parchment. Mark joined the table at some point which added an element of sporadic giggles and intense googly eyes. I wish I could say I looked at them with nothing but disgust and annoyance but I was also overcome with a pang of jealousy. I saw the way he looked at her when she wasn't looking and I wanted more than anything for a man to look at me in that way, not just any man though, Severus. I felt my stomach melt with the realization that that was never going to happen.
Supper was more of the same since Mark decided to sit with Susan and I. He sat next to her in my spot and I sat across from them, the obvious awkward third wheel. Though it was much easier to keep an eye on Severus. He seemed at ease as he conversed with Flitwick, every now and then his eyes would flick to my location.
After a while he placed his napkin over his plate and walked from the Great Hall. I waited for a while and looked around anywhere but in front of me where Susan and Mark were beginning to kiss. I pushed my food around on my plate before I couldn't take the sound of smacking lips anymore.
"Well, it's time for me to go to that…thing." I said pushing my plate away and standing up from the table.
I turned on my heel and through the doors. I took long deliberate strides carrying me through the halls and out onto the grounds. I turned the corner and the Whomping Willow was within view. There was a tall length of black against the blue snow that shown in the moonlight just out of reach of the Willow's branches.
He turned his head as soon as he heard me advancing through the snow. I stopped at his side, he looked down at me.
"Hi." He said.
"Hi." I replied.
There was a long moment of silence. I shivered.
"Wait here." He said and began walking towards the Willow.
Once he got to a certain point he started sprinting. One of the limbs of the tree swung down almost hitting him but he dropped into the snow and began army crawling quickly to the trunk. He rolled out of the way of a branch once before he reached his target. His hand hit a small knot on the base and the limbs froze.
"Follow me." He instructed and disappeared.
I looked up at the still limbs and then to the spot where Severus vanished. I ran quickly through the snow just in case the Willow began whomping again. I looked around the base and saw a dark hole under some of the roots. I sat down and slid inside of it. My feet found ground but the passage was cramped so I hunched down. I couldn't see anything around me, only darkness. I felt something cold grab my hand, I jumped and pulled it away.
"It's only me." I heard Severus say.
His hand wrapped around mine again and he began leading me through tunnels I couldn't see. Winding through tunnels with nothing to guide me but Severus was strange but for some reason I trusted him not to let me run into or trip over anything.
Eventually we emerged into a slightly less dim room. It was strange being on wooden floors after being in the dirt floored tunnels. Severus walked to a table and waved his hand to light a single candle.
The small amount of light from that one candle was almost blinding to my eyes that had been adjusting to complete black. It lit a coffee table, two moth eaten blue chairs with white flowers splattered over them, and a rose colored couch with a magnolia flower pattern and a large rip down the middle from which stuffing spilled out. One of the chairs was missing a leg and was sprawled on its side.
"Where are we?" I asked as I walked toward Severus.
"The Shrieking Shack." He answered.
I froze. "The Shrieking Shack? Are you crazy? This is the most haunted place ever!"
He let out a sort of airy laugh. "No it's not."
"Yes it is." I argued. "Haven't you heard about screams coming from here?"
"It's not ghosts." Severus tried convincing me.
"Well that what is it?" I demanded.
"Werewolf." He answered coolly.
I felt my face drain of color. "A werewolf? And we're still here? We have to go."
"He's not going to be here." He said.
"How do you know that?"
"One, it's not a full moon and two, he just isn't."
I tilted my head at him. "Are you the werewolf?"
He smiled. "No, not me."
"Then who?"
"I can't say."
"But you know who it is?"
He nodded his head and took a seat on the sofa; more stuffing spilled out and a loud creak sounded.
"Well, then I guess that's it." I said and started walking back to the tunnel hoping I could feel my way back to Hogwarts.
"Wait, what?" He jumped up from the sofa and walked quickly after me.
"I think one of the things we agreed on was no more secrets." I said.
"But I'm not at liberty to tell this one." He argued. "I'm even sworn by Dumbledore."
"I guess I'm not at liberty to be your friend then." I felt bad for toying with him like this. I had no real intent on leaving but I wanted to know he was going to be true with me.
"Ruby, don't do this." He said. "I can't tell you."
"What's this?" I teased. "I'm going back into the tunnel. Bye, Severus."
"Fine, it was Lupin." He said.
I turned quickly and saw him staring at me. "What?"
"Remus Lupin." He clarified. "He was the werewolf who used to be here. It was Dumbledore's idea for him to come here when he would change. That's what all the screams from here used to be. Sirius Black thought it would be funny into tricking me to come here a few years back on a night Lupin was changing.
He rolled his eyes. "Potter stopped me before any harm could come to me. I hated him even more because he showed kindness even though he hated me. Potter and his greatness."
"Wow." I said. "I always thought Lupin was the most normal of that group."
"You can't tell anyone." Severus said.
I nodded my head and walked across the room to take a seat in the chair with all of its legs intact. I turned my attention to the tear in the sofa. I flicked my wand and the stuffing shoved itself back into the hole which then sealed itself. I lifted my wand again.
"Stop fixing things." Severus said.
"Sorry," I apologized. "Did it hurt?"
"Did what hurt?" He asked and took a seat on the newly repaired sofa.
"When he gave it to you." I said and placed my hand on the inside of my forearm. "The mark."
"Like nothing else I'd ever felt before." He told me refusing to look at me. "I could feel it running through my veins before it surfaced. Like liquid fire. I thought I would turn to ash before it could be done."
"Did you know that it would hurt?" I asked.
"I'd heard that it would." He said.
"Then why would you do it?" I wondered.
He shook his head. "I wouldn't expect you to understand, Ruby. It's good that you don't. You talk about your family with nothing but love, I never knew family could be like that. I'd never had any friends until I met Lily. Then I met more people like me when I came here. They were all tended towards dark magic and I found I too thought it interesting but Lily kept me from diving fully into it. Once she ended our friendship I had no one to keep me away. I joined the Death Eaters because it's where my friends were. I was part of something the closest I'd known to a real family, I was treated like a friend and brother. Voldemort acted like he cared about all of us and made us feel that what we were doing was the right thing."
My heart jumped into my throat at the use of his name.
"Before long Voldemort more resembled the father I had known; abusive and spiteful. We no longer followed him because we wanted to but because we feared what he would do to us if we stopped. When Lily became a target I begged him to let her live, only her. He said he didn't make promises of life, that's when I left and went to Dumbledore for help. He still trusted me even after what I'd become. I couldn't have expected more of him than that."
I kept my eyes on the curtain of hair that hid his face as he hung his head while he told his tale. I didn't realize my mouth was open.
He looked up at me finally. "What?"
I jumped out of my stupor. "I wasn't expecting all of that."
"Oh." He hung his head but not before I caught the red blossoming on his cheeks.
"No, no, it's good." I said reaching to touch the hand that was laid out on the arm rest but recoiling at the last second. "I like it."
There was a span of silence. I pulled nervously on a loose fiber on the chair. I caught a good hold of it and yanked. A small tear in one of the magnolias appeared and dirty grey stuffing burst out.
"So you just left?" I asked. "How?"
"I wasn't really that important." He said. "I wasn't part of his core plan, every once in a while I'd hear something that I could report but I doubt he nor anyone else noticed I was gone."
I pointed my wand at the new hole and repaired it. I looked around the room discerning everything thing I could in the dim candle light. The wall paper peeling from the walls was also of a floral pattern with a dark colored background. A few spots had scratch marks from ceiling to floor with ribbons of wallpaper curled at the bottom. Curtain rods with the fabric still attached lay strewn around the room. The windows were boarded up completely from the outside.
A frigid gust of air blasted across the room causing the flame of the candle to be extinguished. My hand flew to Severus's on the arm rest of the couch. I held my breath in an attempt to see if I could hear wind blowing outside. As the seconds ticked by in silence I clung to his hand tighter and tighter. There was a loud crash on floor above my head and I launched myself into the air into Severus's lap and wrapped my arms around his neck tightly.
"You said this place wasn't really haunted!" I squeaked.
"It's not." He said calmly.
There was an odd creaking noise in the next room and I instinctively clung closer to him. I felt him move and the candle flickered back to life. My eyes locked on his face in the dancing light casting different shadows all around us. His face was smooth and he looked at me with nervousness. His eyes held mine and I felt his hand move to my hip. A burst of electricity exploded where his fingertips pressed into my side. I unclasped my fingers from behind his neck and placed my right hand on his cheek so that my fingers slid into his hair. My eyes flicked from his lips to his eyes over and over rapidly as he leaned in closer to me. He closed his eyes and in the last second I closed mine. I felt soft, gentle lips press against mine and my stomach erupted with flames. I ran my fingers deeper through his hair and pressed my mouth harder against his.
I slowly pulled away and opened my eyes. His face looked as scared as I now felt.