survivor | HARRY POTTER

-Chapter 7-

For a few days, the entire school could talk of little but the attack on Mrs Norris and who could have possibly done such a horrid thing. Filch didn't help, keeping the incident fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked as if the attacker may come back and try to finish what it had started. He had even been seen by multiple students scrubbing over the terrifying message daubed onto the wall with Mrs Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but it had no effect. The message still gleamed as darkly as ever on the stone. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was prowling red-eyed around the corridors, lunging out at random students and trying to put them in detention for 'breathing loudly' or 'looking happy'.

Alyssa had seemed deeply disturbed by Mrs Norris's fate, and almost burst into tears when Jess told her not to worry and that the school would catch the nutter who did it and have them thrown out. On top of all of that, Seamus, who apparently had the worst possible timing, developed a habit of saying hi to Alyssa every time she was in the corridors and constantly trying to talk to her. It would have been cute if it weren't for the murderous glares he would receive from a certain raven haired Potter whenever he did.

The attack had also had an effect on Hermione. It was obviously usual for the bushy haired beauty to spend large amounts of time reading, but now she was doing almost nothing else. It wasn't until they received no response from her whatsoever when everyone tried to find out what she was doing that they decided to take matters into their own hands.

Harry had been held back in potions so Snape could make him scrub tube worms off the desk, and after a hurried lunch, he ran upstairs to meet the others in library, and saw Justin Finch-Fletchley, the Hufflepuff boy from herbology, coming towards him. He had just opened his mouth to say hello when Justin caught sight of him and turned around abruptly, speeding off in the opposite direction. Harry found Ron, Alyssa, Millie, and Jess cramped around tables at the back, measuring up their History Of Magic homework which was a three-foot long composition on The Medieval Assembly Of European Wizards. "I don't believe it!" Ron was exclaiming angrily, tossing the tape-measure on the table and slumping back in his seat, sighing heavily. "I'm still 8 inches too short!"

Millie snickered at him, her face going bright red. "Why don't you just do what I did? Write really big. I think I only have three sentences on mine about who they were, what they did, and how no one cares and should just move on with their lives because it happened 500 years ago." Alyssa shrugged, Jess scoffing as she copied the girl's work. "I'm going to get detention for this, aren't I?" The Gryffindor asked, and Alyssa nodded sympathetically and patted her head. "Fine. If you don't want to use my method, why don't you just copy off Hermione? She's done four feet seven inches and her writings tiny."

"Where is she anyway?" Harry asked as he grabbed a tape measure and pulled his own work towards him. "Somewhere over there." Millie shrugged, pointing along a row of shelves on the other end of the library. "Looking for another book. I think she's trying to read the whole library before Christmas." Ron groaned. "Been there, done that." Alyssa said, not looking up from her work as she high fived Jess. Alyssa glanced up at Harry when he didn't say anything, her eyebrows furrowing together as she saw his concerned expression. "What's up with you, asshole?" She asked, Harry's head swivelling towards her. In a hushed whisper, he told them about what had happened with Justin.

"Dunno why you care, I thought he was a bit of an idiot." Ron finally gave in and started making his writing as big as possible. "All that rubbish about Lockhart being so great-" He was cut off however, when Jess trod painfully on Ron's foot and Alyssa coughed a "Hermione."

Hermione emerged from between the bookshelves, seemingly irritable and finally ready to talk to them about what she was up to. "All the copies of Hogwarts: A History have been taken out. And there's a two-week waiting list. I wish I hadn't left my copy at home, but I couldn't fit it in my trunk with all the Lockhart books."
"Why didn't you shrink it?" Alyssa asked at the same time Harry said "why do you want it anyway?"