𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

8. OF LIES & EERIE SIGNS

The sun had just risen in the east above the misty mountains, sending near-vertical golden lines through the pine trees and across the landscape of the Highlands, when Alice stepped outside, her hand pulled forward by Luna who skipped cheerfully every few steps. They went past Sprout's greenhouses and the whomping willow on their right, and the practice pitch on their left. The Quidditch Stadium, with all its tall towers, greeted the morning sun proudly as its flags and banners waved in the breeze, its hundreds of seats bereft of loud voices and cheers. At either end of the pitch the golden poles with hoops on the end turned for a few brief moments into the perfect frames to encompass the sun, should one be standing on the ideal point, directly across the rising sun. Quidditch practice wouldn't take place today, and all broomsticks, the Bludgers, the Quaffle, and the Snitch, were resting, snug safely in their cupboards, lockers, and cases.

There was a certain serenity across the field that Alice found more bewitching than she'd ever anticipated. Before crossing the large gates and stepping outside the Hogwarts grounds, Alice turned her eyes to the castle. This would be the first time to leave its walls since the day she'd arrived. Worry brewed in her chest, but she took the step her friend encouraged her to and followed Luna on the road that was laid before them. Alice had just enough time to read the old, weathered wooden sign on the side of the road, near an ancient Pine tree.

"ℌ𝔬𝔤𝔰𝔪𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢 ☞"

Her brows knitted a little as she couldn't, once again, recognize the name. The Road to Hogsmeade was a bifurcation leading off the road to Hogwarts. Luna led Alice towards the first trees of the Forbidden Forrest.

"Are we...are we supposed to go there?" she mumbled, halting her steps a little, and slowing down Luna.

"Yes, all students can go after their 3rd year. We might meet a friend there, too."

Alice didn't know about Hogsmeade other than the little chatter in the corridors on Saturday mornings such as this, when older students would venture out of the castle, leaving it in a rare, serene state, with solely the muffled sound of the house-elves echoing in the corridors, as they moved around for the chores. Alice thought of them as rather adorable, though she was struggling to understand what prompted them to become life-long servants like that.

Some of the elves were kind and sweet, others feared anything but their own shadow, and there were one or two who were constantly moody and grumpy. Their long noses and pointy ears had frightened Alice the first time she'd come across one of the elves when it had entered the dormitory to clean up and stood not too far from Alice's bed. Recalling it now, Alice wondered if it was indeed she or the poor creature who got scared the most. Only afterward she had learned that the elves were not only in the kitchens of the castle, but they also moved trunks and baggage to and from rooms, cleaned dormitories, and presumably other areas of the castle as well.

"Almost there, Alice, look!" Luna pointed in front of them, and Alice's eyes were raised to the faint outline that was slowly turning visible through the morning mist. Hogsmeade was a picturesque little village of cottages and shops, with enchanted candles hanging in the trees. It took Alice a few moments to register her exact location and figure out that the village was not too far from the train station used by the Hogwarts Express; the train that had carried her here.

Her free hand clenched slowly into a worried fist, and she nibbled on her lip, hoping that none would be able to recognize the fugitive from the law and then had boarded the train not too long ago. Her eyes got distracted by the enormous stack of cauldrons outside Ceridwen's Cauldrons and the glimmering, cracking fire that one could see through the glass front of the shop, warming a self-stirring cauldron for the witches and wizards to see. But the cauldron shop, as peculiar as it seemed to Alice's eyes didn't hook her attention as much as the moving posters she saw, a few steps down the High Street, right outside Dervish & Banges.