I left Transfiguration class as soon as students were let out and moved quickly to my next class: Potions. On my way towards the dungeons, I weaved my way through the crowd of students heading one way and others towards the opposite direction.
"Quidditch practice today-" I heard as I squeezed passed a group of students.
"I'm going to fail!" A student moaned.
"Maybe if you'd studied more-"
It was as if every wizard and witch traveled in groups or in pairs. Even the first years had made fast friends. I began to feel a sense of longing then. Here I was, surrounded by a crowd of my peers and yet I was alone. Too absorbed in my studies and too fearful of being discovered for what I was, I kept to myself, spending all my free time in the quietness of the library.
"Sorry," I murmured as I tripped over a pair of feet. The couple looked at me briefly and then went back to their conversation, looking enamored with each other. Couples were everywhere. One pair was leaning against one of the castle's pillars, lips locked in a passionate kiss, appearing so engrossed in eating each other's faces that they were unaware of the throngs of students that ambled past them. Love was in the air.
And Valentine's Day was right around the corner.
Love potions were popular concoctions amongst the girls who I can't say used them sparingly. It appeared that girls of every year had procured a bottle of the banned substance. There were whispers too of students brewing the potion to be used on their love interest in the girls' bathroom.
After wading through the mass of students lingering outside of classes, I turned down one corridor and headed downstairs. The Potions classroom was nearly empty, save for a few students seated near the front, pulling out their bottles of ink and parchment. Damp and cold, it was hardly known for its ambience. But it was quiet, just as I liked.
I took a seat near the back and scanned the room, taking in the many shelves of ingredients, the many vials and jars, the cauldrons on each table. Here in the dungeons, silence dragged on, except for the occasionally sounds of shuffling parchment and coughs.
Outside, I heard the faint murmurs of laughter and, once again, felt the pangs of loneliness.