I was a scrawny first year. Looking back at pictures, that much is obvious. Though at the time I distinctly recall thinking otherwise, after all, I had just gotten into Hogwarts, which was so wonderful and so amazing and wow, look, Hogwarts! And I got in! Wow!
I liked to look back fondly at my younger years at Hogwarts and think about how trouble-free I was. Of course, if I thought about it accurately, I would remember how miserable I was during first year. I had finally gained some friend-like acquaintances, yes, but I had to continually lie to them and keep them an arms distance away.
Of course, my feeble excuses were not enough for the pack, and they soon became suspicious. Peter was the one who came up with the original hypothesis that I was a werewolf, which I was very shocked to hear. Apparently, Sirius and James were leaning towards the theory that I was some sort of secret spy from the ministry, but they were both man enough to admit that Peter's guess made more sense when he brought it to their attention.
The rest is history.
It wasn't, actually, but I was being pulled away from my thoughts at the current moment and that seemed like a nice way to end it. Though I thought nothing of it at the time, while I was reminiscing, the other members of the pack were whispering fervently, but they now stopped, and an eerie silence filled the room.
I glanced over at them, the three of them huddled on Peter's bed, and had a sudden feeling of certain doom. "Um," I said, and they looked at me with wide eyes. Sirius and James were smirking fiendishly. "Um," I repeated, "New prank planned for the Slytherins?"
"Not for the Slytherins," Peter replied, fidgeting nervously.
I raised an eyebrow, "For…Snape?" Peter shook his head. "Me?"
Sirius laughed and hopped over to my bed, "Aw, you look so awkward when you look awkward." James snickered, suddenly at my side; I was surrounded. I stuck the book I was previously pretending to read under my blanket, for safekeeping.
"You're going to panic," James told to me, and then he turned to Sirius and said, "He's going to panic."
Peter started to bite his nails, "Maybe this was a bad idea."
"I'm already panicking," I informed James. This statement caused Sirius to sit on me, so I couldn't escape, I assumed.
I did not expect him to turn into a large, black dog.
For the record, I did not scream like a girl, but I did yell and push the creature off me. It barked indignantly and slobbered on my sheets. I proceeded to have a well-deserved panic attack.
My head was buzzing, and though I could not put together a coherent thought at that moment, if I could it would probably be something like this: I've always let them get away with too much, and especially now that I was a prefect, I know I shouldn't, but I've always been worried that they would decide I wasn't worth it and I would end up a lonely first year again, but this, this was going way too far; this was illegal, and if Sirius was ever found out, I would surely get part of the blame, and oh, what if James and Peter did it too, I don't want to get kicked out of Hogwarts!
The grammar-loving part of my brain wept.
I decided the best thing to do was to go to Dumbledore, and ran out of the dormitory as fast as my shaking legs would allow.