Hardly fluttering my eyes open, I rolled over and felt something warm collide with my hand. Half drowsy, for a moment I thought Sirius and I had fallen asleep on the sofas in the common room again.
"Sir?" I drawl into the darkness, my eyes not yet adjusted.
But if this was the common room, where was the fire? And where was the gleam of red? And why was there a- ouch- nail sticking into my back?

Fuck.

Snape. That bastard.

I rocketed up to my feet in a second, wand out and heart pounding. I could begin to see cracks of light filtering into the room. Where was I? The windows seemed to be boarded up. Splintering wood was covering everything I could see – the floor, the walls, the- the door! Brilliant.
But before I could congratulate myself on the victory, my eyes fell to the large black huddled shape next to me. The warmth that my hand had felt… I had half an instinct to prod it with my wand. However, the heavy breaths coming from it told me that this was not a thing that I wanted to wake.

"Lumos," I muttered under my breath and a glow of light spread out from my wand.

No.

No.

No.

What the hell was Snape thinking?! For once, I was completely at a loss for words. All bravery was swept from my body in an instant. This cannot be real. I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like it had a golf ball wedged in it.
If this is what I think it is… Then I'm in real shit here.

Okay, okay. Calm down. You're a Gryffindor, Erin, think, you can do this, I thought, whilst trying to concentrate on not forgetting to breathe. You just need to get to the door and out of this place without waking up the giant werewolf lying right between you and the exit. Great, easy, should be no problem.

After a minute of building myself up, I finally got the guts to lift up one foot and place it down a few inches to my right. I cringed as the creaking of the floorboard echoed. My whole body was tense as I kept my eyes on the werewolf. There was enough light now to make out some of its yellowing fangs hanging out its giant mouth. Yuck. It shuddered in its sleep and moved one of its sharp claws slightly.

I took a few more careful steps, ending up halfway to the door, right in front of the boarded window. And just as I was thinking this was going to be easy, the werewolf did the exact opposite of what I was hoping: it woke up.

At first it just snuffled and shook it's snout as if a fly was buzzing around its head. Then slowly, oh painfully slowly, it stretched its spine, each bone cracking along the way. It flicked open its eyes curiously, revealing glowing golden orbs, and started to sniff the air. Oh please, tell me that I still stunk of flobberworms enough for it to not realise that there was a tasty human standing just out of eye line.

Almost immediately after I thought this, its gaze shot to the left to where I was standing. I felt like my stomach dropped to the centre of the earth. Snape was going to have me murdered. This was so far past fear; I didn't think I could ever remember what 'safe' felt like.

The werewolf let out an ear piercing howl, throwing back its head, freezing me to the spot. But as it made to swipe at me, instinct took over and I dived out of the way, right into a chest of drawers. The werewolf's claws lunged right where my throat had been a second earlier and it ended up taking out a few of the panels nailed to the window. I stumbled to my feet, trying to ignore the sharp pain in my shoulder where I had collided with the corner of the drawers and sprinted to the door, having to leap over its tail on the way.

The werewolf span hastily and hurdled after me before I could even tug open the handle. I screamed as if my throat was being ripped from me and dropped flat to the floor. It leapt over my head and straight through the thin wooden door. Covering my head with my hands, I felt the splintered pieces rain over me. Get up, Erin. Get up. Get up. Get up.

Clutching my wand as if it were my lifeline, I stumbled to my feet. My legs gave way on the first attempt and remnants of door were collecting at my feet. With my breath held, I scanned the corridor outside the room and saw that the werewolf was recovering in a ball just to the left, at the top of the stairs, whining slightly. A bannister stretched out in front of me, revealing a square lower level. I didn't want to make another move and get the werewolf's attention again. But then again, I had no choice. Panic was squeezing my chest. This is actually life or death.

The stairs were out – I was foolish to even consider that that I could sneak past that monster. It wouldn't remain curled up forever. There was only one thing for it. I was going to have to jump off the bannister to the bottom floor.

The creature sniffed the air again as I stood in the doorway contemplating how many broken bones I would be thankful to get if my plan worked. Another pining howl brought me to my senses. And then it was running for me again – each lunge carrying it more distance than I could imagine.

I did the only sane thing I could think of. Holding my breath and willing my legs not to shake, I closed the distance between the door and the bannister in a second and used one hand to vault myself over. I fell through the air, screaming my lungs out. Wind rushed around my hair and robes. And then. Crack. I let out another piercing scream as I landed in a heap, my head whipping forwards. A shooting pain ran up my leg and arms. My palms were bleeding and… oh no, please. My ankle was twisted in a strange way and was throbbing so painfully that it sprung tears to my eyes.

There is no way I can run now. That's it. I'm done for. I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath.

I knew from the heavy sounds of paws on the floorboards coming down the stairs that it was taking its sweet time to get to its pray. Playing with me. Teasing me.

A heavy creak signalled that the werewolf had reached the ground floor. It only had to stride over to where I was and-

I let out a sob and forced myself to look into those golden eyes.

But just as I turned my head, the strangest thing happened. I was sure I had gone mad. Snape had addled my brains as well as try and let a werewolf kill me. Because a stag and a huge black dog could not have leapt out of a wide trapdoor and rushed towards the wolf. They could not be pushing it back up the stairs. The stag could not be using its wide antlers as a guard between me and the monster. The dog could not be growling heavily, its fur on end at the now retreating wolf.

As I stared, completely wide eyed in shock at the scene, I felt a tiny nip on my thumb. Startled out of my skin, I flinch heavily and stare down to my hand, where a chubby rat was flitting back and forth as if trying to catch my attention.
"D-did you just-?" I stutter, before it bits my hand again and starts to move towards the trapdoor from where the animals came.
Okay, so a rat wants me to follow it. I am definitely insane. That's it.
"M-my ankle," I feebly whisper, as I shuffle into a crawling position. Black spots dotted in my eyes.
The rat didn't care about anything except showing me the way to the trapdoor.

Scraping my splintered knees across the floor, I had to bite my lip to stop myself from crying out in pain. I was taking longer than the rat was comfortable with apparently, because it disappeared quickly up the stairs to where the rest of the animals were. Bitter at its abandonment, I forced myself to keep going, shuffling as fast as my aching limbs would carry me.

The howl of the wolf drove a shot of fear through my veins. Quicker, Erin. Get out of here! Not far now! Just when I thought my ankle couldn't hurt more, the black dog padded down the stairs and over to me. Its silvery eyes looked for a moment as if they were full of pain. I thought I had imagined it, but when it tucked its head under my arm and started to help me over to the trapdoor, I wasn't so sure.

I couldn't help but whimper pathetically when I had to change position to sit up, my legs dangling into the dark tunnel underneath. The dog nudged my side with its head, urging me on. When I saw the wolf, having escaped the stag's defences, pounding down the stairs again, its teeth open wide, I didn't have to think twice before throwing myself down into the darkness.