Love at First Sight (Harry Potter)

Snape's Grudge

|ALEXANDRIA WEASLEY'S P.O.V|

No one slept in Gryffindor Tower that night. It was a dull affair: everyone cramped up in the common room together, silent. Hermione had joined Harry, Ron, and I just after McGonagall had left. Despite their disagreements, Ron had been more than happy to fill her in about his survival.

At the crack of dawn, our Prefects relayed from the teachers that Sirius Black had, once again, escaped. And our fears only grew.

Black had managed to get inside the castle, which was apparently so protected, twice and without a trace.

The following day, security was tightened around the school. Professor Flitwick taught the front doors to recognise a picture of Black; Filch boarded up every hole in every wall, from abandoned overhangs to mouse nooks. The Fat Lady had returned to her rightful position outside of Gryffindor's Portrait Hole, her picture expertly restored but her persona still rather shaken. A group of burly, thick-headed security trolls had been positioned in the corridor to protect her with their grunts and clubs.

Ron had become somewhat of an infamous hero. People would come up to us between classes, all curious to hear straight from the source exactly what had happened. Unfortunately, each time he recited the story, details would range in their level of dramatics.

".  .  .  . I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know?" explained Ron carefully before the start of Charms. He was sat atop a wooden table casually, his arm propped back to support his weight as he addressed his audience: two very pretty Ravenclaw girls. Harry, Hermione, and I sat properly in our seats beneath him. "But then there was this draft.  .  . I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down .  .  . I rolled over .  .  . and I saw him standing over me .  .  . like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair .  .  . holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches .  .  . and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scampered."

The blonde of the pair, tall and thin with pale green eyes, gasped lightly in surprise. I heard a quiet, almost inaudible scoff from beside me and turned to find that Hermione was rolling her eyes. Her arms were crossed against her chest, chin held high. With an amused smile, I nudged the side of her ribcage with my elbow; she only slapped my hand, unamused.

"You are so brave," said the blonde to Ron, one of her palms placed flat over her heart. And then, she smiled: revealing pearly white teeth that nearly made Ron fall onto the floor — he fought to steady himself, his cool demeanour lost. "I suppose that's why you're in Gryffindor, yes?"

Once the girls had left across the classroom in a fit of giggles to take their seats, Ron slipped down from the table to instead sit in the chair between Harry and I. Slightly flushed in the face but seemingly confused he asked, "Why though? Why did Black run?"

There was a moment's pause. The four of us sat in quiet thought, simply watching as Professor Flitwick clambered atop his pile of books in anticipation of beginning his lesson.

"He must've known he'd have a job getting back out of the castle once you'd yelled and woken people up," said Harry finally, just as Flitwick began speaking. "He'd've had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole . . . then he would've met the teachers. . ."

Ron nodded his head slowly in agreement, but I shook mine instead. As Hermione began to pull out her parchment for note-taking, the conversation decidedly over, I couldn't help but add, "I just can't make sense of it."