Love at First Sight (Harry Potter)

Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback

|ALEXANDRIA WEASLEY'S P.O.V|

Thankfully, the stutter-weighed Professor Quirrell was braver than my friends and I had suspected.

In the weeks that followed, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher seemed to be getting paler and thinner — but it didn't appear to look as though he had cracked yet, something we constantly assured on.

Every time Harry Potter, Hermione, Ronald, and I passed the third-floor corridor, we would press our ears to the door to check that the growling of Hagrid's three-headed dog (Fluffy) could still be heard. Professor Snape was still sweeping about the castle in his usual bad temper, which surely meant that the Stone was safe.

The boys of our unconsciously-formed quartet had clearly had changes of hearts for Professor Quirrell; Potter would give the trembling man an encouraging nod upon passing, whilst my twin began telling people off for laughing at the older man's stutter. Hermione and I, however, had much more on our minds than the Philosopher's Stone. My bushy-haired best mate had started drawing up study schedules and colour-coding all of her notes, both of which she helped me with to assure that I was doing the same as her to be a form of company.

"Hermione, the exams are ages away."

"Ten weeks," She had snapped back at Ron, for him and the bespectacled 'Chosen One' clearly didn't appreciate her attempts of assistance like I did. "That's not ages, that's like a second to Nicolas Flamel."

"But we're not six hundred years old," Ron reminded, refusing to open a book. "Anyway, what are you studying for, you already know it all."

"What am I studying for? Are you crazy? You realize we need to pass these exams to get into the second year? They're very important, I should have started studying a month ago, I don't know what's gotten into me.  .  .  ."

Unfortunately, the school's teachers seemed to be thinking along the same lines of the studious brunette, as they piled so much homework on us students that the Easter holidays weren't nearly as much fun as the Christmas ones.

It was hard to relax with Hermione Granger beside you, reciting the twelve uses of dragon's blood or practicing wand movements — especially when she continued into the late hours of the night in your dormitory, where she voiced her stress levels aloud while you were trying to sleep.

"I'll never remember this," Ron burst out one afternoon, throwing his quill dramatically before turning his gaze to the nearby window.

The four of us were in the library; a place that I felt, during those months, I could recite every detail of even with my eyes shut. Hermione forced us to spend every free moment there, glued to seats pushed into a wooden table stacked high with books of all school subjects.

I rolled my eyes at my brother, but my attention was also drifting from the printed information on Transfiguration clutched open in my hands. As my thoughts wandered to Oliver Wood, whom I had wrongly (but hopefully) suspected I had seen sitting at a nearby table, Ron suddenly exclaimed, "Hagrid! What are you doing in the library?"

The spoken groundskeeper shuffled into view, blatantly attempting to keep something hidden behind his back. He looked very out of place between the rows of books, for he was almost as tall as the shelves and was adorned in his moleskin overcoat.