The Choice Is Yours // a.lightwood

[07]

Daniel's eyes went wide, as he looked at the man that was standing before them with tattered brown hair. He gulped, the last thing he needed was to get in trouble on his first night at Hogwarts.

“Well, um...” He stammered out, looking for Arabella to say something.

She grabbed his hand and began to walk away, “We were just on our way.”

Once they were away from the man and close to the Great Hall, she let go of his hand. He looked back to see the man walking behind them, probably making sure they were going back to the feast. He looked down at the man's feet to see a cat with red eyes, that seemed to have been kicked around a few times. It kind of reminded of Church back home at the institute, though the cat didn't seem as grouchy. Daniel always had a thing for animals and someday wanted to open up an animal hospital.

“Who was that?” He asked as the two walked into the Great Hall.

She sat down at the table, “That was Filtch. He's the caretaker at Hogwarts.”

“He looks a bit...mentally unstable.” He whispered as Filtch passed them.

“I'll say.” She said before looking over at the Gryffindor table.

Daniel turned to see who she was looking at and noticed a redheaded boy looking at them. He raised a questioning eyebrow, confused as to why he was staring. The boy glared at Arabella and she gave him a flirtatious wink, causing the boy to blush.

“What was all that about?”

“Oh that, that was nothing.” She told him.

“Sure.” He said, slightly laughing.

He may have only been twelve years of age but he was dumb, he could tell when someone was flirting with someone else. Though he didn't know much about love, he had a feeling that she liked the redheaded boy. He glanced back once more and noticed the redheaded boy, talking to the Weasley twins. He turned towards the teachers table as Dumbledore walked up to the podium.

“To our new students, welcome and to our old students, welcome back! Another year full of magical education awaits you…But first, I have a few start of term notices I wish to announce. The first years please note that the dark forest is strictly forbidden to all students. Thank you, now tuck in.”

Daniel looked at the headmaster confused as to why the forest was forbidden. He turned towards the food that had appeared in front of him and a wide smile crept on his face. He grimaced at the sight of carrots and piled his plate with mashed potatoes, peas and a small piece of steak.

“Why's the dark forest forbidden?” He asked as he cut into his steak.

“There are lots of things that lie in the forbidden forest, that you don't want to run into. Like centaurs, giant spiders and werewolves, things like that.” She briefly explained.

He paused for a while and thought about what it would be like to explore the forest. He figured there must be thousands of different species that haven't been discovered yet.

He looked up from his food and smiled, “Cool!”

“Don't go and do anything stupid.” She warned him.

He looked at her dumbfounded, as to how she had come to the conclusion that he would do anything stupid. He did want to see what the forest looked like, but he was stupid enough to actually go wandering around inside of the dark forest. He picked up his cup, taking a sip of the drink inside. He made a disgusted face, which made Arabella laugh and he slowly spit the drink back into the glass.

He grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped his tongue, “Gross! What was that?”

“How can you not like pumpkin juice?” She questioned.