Chapter 8: The Great Gryffindor Monster
Disclaimer: I do not claim any rights to Harry Potter or any of the characters from it. They belong to J.K. Rowling. The only character that belongs to me, is my OC, Tabitha Tate.
AN: I've had this written up in my notebook for I don't even know how long now. I also have chapter 9 and part of 10 written out. I'll hopefully get them all copied down on my laptop and post them within a relatively short amount of time. Enjoy. :D
Tabitha rushed down the stairs from the girls dormitories.
"Happy Halloween, everybody!" She cried as she entered the common room.
"Oh yeah, it's your favorite holiday, isn't it, Tabby Cat?" Sirius asked, chuckling at her excitement.
"Yep! Halloween is the best holiday ever!" She sang, twirling through the room childishly.
"Calm down. You're going to hurt yourself, acting like that." Remus told her, smiling good-naturedly. Tabitha stuck her tongue out at him playfully before skipping out of the common room. She wanted to wish Severus a happy Halloween before going to the Great Hall for breakfast.
She smiled, happily, seeing Severus walking up the stairs from the dungeons.
"Happy Halloween, Sev!" She said as she walked over to him. He nodded, noting her excitement over the holiday. She grabbed his hand, gently pulling him to the doors that went out to the grounds.
"Where are you taking me?" He asked, letting her lead him.
"On a walk around the lake." Tabitha answered, smiling.
"What about breakfast?" Severus asked, not wanting to completely miss it.
"There'll be plenty of time for it, since there aren't any classes today." She assured. They walked out of the castle and into the chilly morning. Tabitha hummed softly to herself as they approached the lake. She could see one of the giant squid's tentacles wave through the air before disappearing under the dark surface of the water again.
Severus silently listened to his petite friend hum a familiar tune, thinking it sounded quite nice, despite that she was off-pitch more often than not. He wasn't sure why he had consented to being brought out to the cold grounds instead of refusing in order to go eat breakfast in the nice, warm Great Hall, but didn't say anything about it. There really was no denying that he enjoyed the company of this short, blonde girl. He still stubbornly insisted to himself that he cared far more for Lily, and that Tabitha held a different spot in his rather empty heart.
"Do you have a favorite holiday, Sev?" Tabitha asked after a few minutes, looking up at him curiously.
"No. They all seem rather pointless to me." Snape answered, not having any truly meaningful holiday memories.
"They don't need a point. They're mostly just for fun, in my opinion." Tabitha replied, offering him a small smile.
"Halloween has always been my favorite. It has a much more interesting story than the other holidays and is a lot of fun to celebrate." She said, picking up a decently sized stone and tossing it into the lake. He nodded to let her know that he had heard her, watching as she rubbed her hands together in an attempt to get some dirt off of her hands that had been on the rock originally.
Tabitha, seeing that Severus wasn't going to say anything on the subject, decided that she would just continue to talk.
"I'm probably going to spend most of the day in the library to look for stuff to read that will make the girls from my dormitory uncomfortable. I found a really disturbing one last year. It will be much more difficult this year though, I think. I don't think that the new DADA professor will be anywhere near as willing to give me a note to get into the restricted section." She sighed, disappointed that this year's DADA professor wasn't as gullible as the last.
"You shouldn't mess around with the books from the restricted section. They aren't playthings." Severus told her, his eyes narrowing. Tabitha furrowed her brows, feeling like she was being scolded like a small child.
"It's not like I'm being careless with them. I'm always really careful when handling them." She quietly huffed. She appreciated the concern, but didn't like being reprimanded like that. He was only a few months older than her, after all.
"Don't be so childish. You shouldn't be looking at books like that in the first place." He hissed, irritated by immature reaction to what he'd said.
"I'm not scared of those books. I'm going to be an auror, so, I need to learn about the dark arts anyways. I'm not some helpless baby that can't take care of things." She quietly said, not wanting to argue with him. He scowled, finding it wrong for her to read such dark tomes. She seemed too pure for such things.
Tabitha smiled at him, hoping to get rid of his sour expression.
"If it really bothers you that much, I'll find some other way to creep people out tonight. You'll have to help though, since it will probably require some work." She told him, grabbing his hand again and resuming their stroll around the lake.
"Why must you bother people at all?" Severus asked, rolling his eyes. He thought that the need she felt to unnerve people simply because of the holiday was silly.
"It's Halloween. Other than the feast and pulling pranks with the guys, not much else happens in celebration of the holiday." Tabitha explained, shrugging.
"Fine. As long as it doesn't get me into trouble, I'll help you." Severus told her moodily, finding it preferable to her wandering around in the restricted section of the library. The small, green-eyed witch grinned, quite happy about him agreeing to assist her on her mission to freak people out. She chattered about different ideas throughout the rest of their walk.
Later that day, the two could be found in the third floor girls' bathroom. Severus was brewing a potion that they had decided to use in the plan they'd come up with. Tabitha was sitting nearby, keeping Snape company. She rested her eyes, relaxing while she waited for him to finish making the potion. Severus appreciated her company, even though she wasn't saying anything. She dozed off after a little while, sitting with her back against the wall. He woke her up once he had finished brewing the potion.
Tabitha startled a little, waking up as Severus gently shook her shoulder.
"Oops. I guess I fell asleep." She softly said, smiling at him.
"Indeed. The potion is ready." He quietly replied. Tabitha stretched and got up, dusting off the back of her robes.
"That's good. All we have to do now is wait until it's time to use it." She pointed out. It was still early in the afternoon and the potion was going to be used during the night. Snape nodded, glad that the entire day hadn't been used up. He was hoping to spend some time with Lily. Tabitha frowned a little, clearly able to see that Severus would rather be elsewhere.
"I'll see you tonight to get the potion, Sev." She said before departing from the room. She figured that she would spend the rest of the day with Remus, James, Peter, and Sirius, since she could tell that Severus wanted to go find Lily. She walked up to the common room. The blonde witch smiled, seeing Sirius asleep on the couch across from the fireplace.
"Wake up, Padfoot! Halloween is no time for a nap!" She exclaimed, playfully trying to pull him off the couch.
"Ugh, don't do that, Tabby Cat. It's a perfect time to take a nap." Sirius yawned, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her onto the couch with him. She squirmed, trying to get away.
"Nope! Let's go~ Naps are boring and they're for babies!" Tabitha argued. She started to make Sirius have silly expressions with her hands, determined to make him get up.
"Fine. I'll get up." Sirius relented, gently pushing Tabitha off of the couch before sat up.
"Good. I knew you'd come around. Let's go find the others. I'm bored." Tabitha replied, getting up. Sirius yawned and ruffled his hair, giving a small nod.
"Lead the way then." He said. Tabitha grinned and led him out of the common room. She knew that they would probably find their friends at the quidditch pitch. They promptly left the castle and crossed the grounds, soon arriving at the quidditch pitch. James was chasing an old snitch around on his broom while Peter watched and Remus was sitting in the stands, reading a book.
"Hey, Prongs, want to start a two-on-two game?" She called out to her flying friend.
"Sure. As long as Moony's on your team." James replied, flying closer. Remus sighed, knowing that he would have little choice in whether or not he'd play with them.
"That means that you have to ref, Wormtail." Sirius told their short, chubby friend. Peter didn't seem to mind, but that wasn't surprising, since he always did whatever Sirius and James told him to do and he was horrible at flying on broomsticks. The group spent the rest of the afternoon out on the pitch, only going in once it was time for dinner.
After dinner, Tabitha met up with Severus to get the potion from him. She was quite excited about using it to scare her housemates. She grinned impishly as he handed the bottle to her. Her grin faded as she looked up at him, able to see that he was upset about something.
"What's wrong, Sev?" She quietly asked, concerned.
"It isn't any of your business, Tate." He sneered, covering up his unhappiness by being unpleasant.
"I don't care if 'nothing to do with me.' You're my friend and it bothers me a lot when my friends are upset. Tell me what's wrong, or I'm going to worry about it all day." Tabitha sighed, reaching out and gently grabbing his hand. Severus looked away from her, knowing that she was sincerely bothered by the fact that he was unhappy.
"Does it have something to do with Lily?" She guessed, gently squeezing his hand.
"It doesn't matter. There's nothing that can be done about it." He answered, scowling.
"So, it does have to do with her. Don't worry. I'm sure she'll come around." She said, offering a reassuring smile. He slid his hand out of hers and walked away, still unhappy.
Tabitha hid the bottled potion in a pocket of her robes and returned to Gryffindor Tower, thinking about what could have happened between Severus and Lily. She snuck up to the girls' dormitories and hid the potion in her trunk. After it was safely hidden away, she returned to the common room and sat in front of the fireplace. She closed her eyes, letting herself get swept away by her thoughts. Her line of thought was soon interrupted by Sirius and James. The two burst into the common room, loudly discussing the finer points of quidditch. She rolled her eyes in bemusement, wondering why the two felt they had to be so loud. She smiled at Remus, seeing him follow James and Sirius into the room.
"Good evening." She greeted, getting up.
"Hello, Tabby." Remus replied, smiling lightly.
"Where's Peter?" Tabitha asked, tilting her head slightly.
"The hospital wing. He ate too many sweets at the feast." He answered, chuckling. Tabitha giggled, glad that she hadn't gone overboard like that on the sweets.
"I'm guessing you've already come up with a way to scare the pants off our housemates?" Sirius questioned, grinning mischievously.
"As a matter of fact, I have." Tabitha told him, grinning back deviously.
"Are you going to tell us what your plan is then?" James asked, quite curious about it as well now.
"Nope. You'll have to wait and see what happens, just like everyone else." She told him, letting him know that they weren't safe from her plot.
"You aren't even going to exempt your dearest friends from your malicious scheme?" Sirius teasingly asked, pretending to be horrified.
"Of course not, you drama queen." Tabitha answered, laughing at his dramatics.
"Whatever shall we do, Padfoot?" James asked, joining Sirius in his silly display of childishness.
"I don't know, Prongs. I'm so scared, I can't even think straight." Sirius replied, dramatically pretending to sob.
"You could both do the world a favor by beginning with growing some brains." Remus suggested bemusedly marking his place in his book and closing it. Tabitha giggled and picked Borris up, who had been rubbing against her legs and meowing insistently.
"I'll talk to you guys later. I have to give my cat some food." She told them before heading to the girls' dormitories.
It was about eleven o' clock that night when Tabitha decided it was time to put her plan into action. She silently snuck out of bed and collected the potion from her trunk. All of her roommates were asleep, so she felt that she was safe from anyone seeing her with the potion. She unstoppered it and quickly downed the contents. She had the odd sensation of pins and needles as she became transparent. Her eyes itched a bit as they started to glow ghoulishly. She grinned, able to see her spookily glowing eyes in a nearby mirror.
Tabitha took a deep breath before letting out a piercing shriek, sounding quite crazed. The other girls startled from their sleep and quickly started letting out fearful shrieks, seeing a creature with hellish eyes throwing things about the room manically. None of them could see that the being was Tabitha, since the only thing truly visible was her glowing eyes in the dark. She chased the girls into the dark common room, letting out shrieks and wails. She went to the boys' dormitories once the other girls had left, wanting to see how they would react.
It turns out that the boys were all awake already and were getting up to find out why the girls had all been screaming. When Tabitha appeared in the doorway. she was plucked off of the floor before she could do anything.
"You couldn't fool us, Tabby Cat." Sirius chuckled.
"Damn! Oh well, the potion'll start wearing off any minute now anyways." Tabitha sighed disappointedly.
"You should've known that you wouldn't be able to scare us, Tabby." James said, grinning. Remus merely yawned and returned to bed. Peter kept looking at Tabitha, unnerved by her glowing eyes.
"It was worth a shot. My roommates all left the tower completely." She said, shrugging. She was already becoming visible again.
"I'd suggest going to bed soon. We have classes tomorrow." James said, chuckling. Tabitha nodded and bid her friends goodnight.
The next morning, all the girls, minus one Tabitha Lynn Tate, were insisting to anyone who would listen that a monster had made a mess of Gryffindor Tower the night before. Lily didn't seem as convinced as the others, but Tabitha had expected as much. Lily was quite good at figuring out when she and the others were the culprits. She waved to Lily when she had looked over at her suspiciously.
Tabitha left the Great Hall once she was finished eating her breakfast. She wasn't really looking forward to sitting through an hour of listening to Professor Binns drone endlessly about the Goblin Wars. She did want to tell Severus about how well things had gone last night though. She walked into the classroom and smiled, seeing Severus sitting at one of the long tables. She sat down next to him, placing her book bag on the table.
"Hi, Severus. The potion worked perfectly last night." Tabitha quietly said, holding out the small glass bottle that had previously contained the potion. It was spotlessly clean now, since she had cleaned it thoroughly, thinking that Severus would want it back.
"Where did you find out about that potion in the first place?" Snape asked her.
"A prank book that I got for my birthday last year. It was the only place I'd ver seen anything about it." Tabitha told him, shrugging.
"That isn't surprising. It isn't a very useful potion at all, since the effect only lasts for ten minutes." He replied.
"It served its purpose, so I'd say it's useful enough." Tabitha said, smiling lightly.
"Oh! Did Lily ever come around last night?" She quietly asked, wanting to know if his Halloween had gotten any better, since he had seemed pretty unhappy.
"She and I studied in the library for a little while before curfew." He answered, carefully hiding his happiness about it behind his usual cold demeanor.
"Good. I told you she would." Tabitha softly said, secretly trying to push down her jealousy.