Welcome to Hogwarts

The End of Term

Alexia awoke with a start and rubbed her eyes sleepily. She squinted in the dark again and noticed everyone else was asleep. She could feel her heart pounding hard against her chest and took in a calming breath, closing her eyes.

'You remind me of that no good father of yours,' Snape's words echoed in her head, and she massaged her temples as she tried to get herself to calm down. 'Always confrontational because of his jealousy, and his stupidity.'

Rubbing her eyes, she groaned and looked towards Hermione's bed. She squinted in the dark and bleariness as she tried to focus on the bed.

She grabbed her wand and held it over her head. "Lumos," she whispered and light came from the tip of her wand, illuminating the dark room. She checked Hermione's bed again to see if the light would help her see better.

Alexia shook her head when Hermione was nowhere in sight, and heard some of the other girls breathing loudly as they slept. She idly looked towards them to make sure she didn't wake any of them.

"Nox," she whispered and the light on her wand turned off. She got out of bed and held her wand as she made her way downstairs into the common room. 'I bet she's doing some late night research.'

After creeping downstairs, Alexia stepped inside the room and glanced around to see it was empty. She absently ran her hand through her messy hair and began to turn away, but stopped upon seeing Trevor on an armrest.

"Trevor," She said in confusion and took a step to him. After her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she looked down and stopped in her tracks, finally seeing Neville in a full body-bind curse. "Neville!"

She ran to his side and knelt down hovering her wand over his body. She stopped and widened her frightened eyes, trying to think of a spell.

"This looks familiar," she whispered in a panic and relaxed her arm as she looked down at him. "I heard something about a counter curse a bit ago, what was it? What were the movements?"

She thought back to her mum talking to her about a spell that would terminate all magic effects in anything. It would be something that could be taught in Charms in the future but her mother wanted to show her earlier in case of emergencies.

"Finite Incantatem."

Neville's body relaxed and he sat up as he rubbed his jaw. He sniffled and wiped his eyes from frightened tears before he turned towards Alexia. "Th-Thank you, Lexie."

She sent him a brief smile and studied him worriedly. "What happened?"

He averted his gaze and rubbed his jaw. "I caught Harry, Ron and Hermione sneaking out again. I tried to stop them, they keep getting us Gryffindors in trouble!"

She raised her brows in alarm and felt her heart skip a beat. "Which one of them did this to you?"

"Hermione," he cried. "The others didn't do anything to stop her, th-they just left me here! I don't know how long I've been like this, it felt like hours!"

"That..." Alexia whispered and breathed out a sigh. "That wasn't very nice..." she mumbled and drummed her fingers on her knee. 'They were talking about the Philosopher's Stone, and going through the trap door. That's where they might've gone.'

She faced the portrait suspiciously and idly fidgeted with her wand. She didn't know how long they were gone and wanted to follow them but a thought was stopping her. She didn't know how to get past Fluffy, they must've forgotten to tell her.

"Lexie," Neville called quietly. "What're you thinking? Are you about to go after them? Please don't."

"No," She faced him and shook her head. "I'm gonna get help," she said and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Stay here, I'll be right back."