The Boy With Black Eyes

Learning More

Melissa was halfway up the steps of Ravenclaw Tower before she stopped to catch her breath, leaning on the wall, hand on her chest, feeling her heartbeat flutter on her fingers like a startled bird. The extra weight of the stolen diary weighed on her shoulder like a lead brick in her bookbag, her uniform all out of place from trying her hardest not to run as far and as fast as she could on her way away from the Potions professor. 

In a moment of clarity, she wondered if she could report the threat to her pumpkin juice. 

Her second thought was to laugh at herself and continue on her way up the stairs. Who would listen to her anyway? Her Head of House? The Headmistress? That was rich. Even the thought of it had startled laughter burbling up out of her throat, freaking out a third year on his way down the stairs, who gave her a sideways glance before continuing on his way. 

Coming to the top of the staircase, she was greeted with a gaggle of first-years looking very confused, but who shrieked in happiness when their Head Girl came up behind them. One of them even wrapped spindly arms around her middle as they pleaded for her to let them in. 

Apparently the knocker was being particularily insufferable.

After a quick moment to console the fledglings, the Head Eagle adressed the brass doorknocker, hushing the chirping that occured beneath her wings in an attempt to listen. The brass knocker spoke with authority, and if she was hearing it right, the littlest bit of exasperation. A heavy sigh began their riddle: "A woman shoots her husband, and then holds him underwater for five minutes. She then hangs him. But half an hour later, they both go out to a wonderful dinner together. How is this possible?"

Melissa scoffed at the knocker. "Oh that's not fair."

The spindly little girl who had her arms wrapped around Melissa's middle looked confused. "How?"

"How many of you are half-blooded or Muggle-Born?"

One of the eight raised their hand, before Melissa turned back to the knocker. "She's taking pictures of him. Let us in." 

The door opened inward on hinges as old as the castle walls around it, causing a horrific squeal to ring throughout the circular common room. The first-years scattered, except for the one that had attached themself to her waist, one she cradled by the back of the head to what had been established as a safe spot. 

Not the steps up to the girl's dormitory, nor the steps down to the boys beckoned to her, with the third and final set spiralling up and away into a turret on the eastern side of the tower. Each of the common rooms had a set of concealled stairs up or down to a room reserved for the Head Boy or Head Girl. In the case of the Hufflepuff Common Room, a false bookcase lowered into a set of stairs into a nook above the kitchens. Always warm. Always smelling nice. Made her jealous of her Hufflepuff Head Boy counterpart. 

He cared for the Gryffindors as well as his own house, where Melissa cared for her eagles and the snakes. It lead to a fair bit of healthy competition along the divide, but encouraged comraderie at the same time, considering Christopher and the Head Boy, Alexander were dating. 

That was all very hush-hush though.

"Melissa, are you having tea-time?" The young girl attached to her hip asked, big brown eyes looking up into Melissa's eagle-yellow ones. 

"Don't I have tea-time every night?"

"Well, yes, but..."

"You can be first, kiddo. Don't worry." A comforting arm remained  around the younger girl as Melissa took the spiralling iron stairs up into the turret, greeted by her familiar, a saker hawk named Turul, with a letter from her father clutched in his talons. The bird, smallish in size but harsh in talons and beak flapped to her outstretched arm, before shuffling up the young woman's arm to her shoulder and nuzzling against her jaw. The letter he dropped into her waiting hand, and as the young girl sat down in a low-backed chair, the Head Girl busied herself with making tea, dropping the bookbag to her bedside. "Sorry, sweetie, I don't remember your name?"