𝙒𝙤𝙡𝙛𝙨𝙗𝙖𝙣𝙚 || 𝙍. 𝙇𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙣

Friendly Foxes

The rest of the week went by quite well except for the fact that people still believed that Ast was a cheat. But people had extended the lie to the point that it was so ridiculously stupid. Like yesterday when she was in the girls' bathroom, she overheard some girls debate on whether she was from Mars or Neptune. Or that Ast had superhuman powers like the ability to turn people she looked at into stone like Medusa. Ast obviously found all the stories bizzare. And even Sirius and James were playing along with the lie claiming that they saw her send messages to intergalactic planets.

She was going to have to stop the rumor at some point but for now, she wanted to see where it got her.

While she was busy thinking about how to stop the story from spreading any further at breakfast, a large group of owls entered the great hall.

That could only mean one thing: the world was in danger.

Either that or it was mail time. Ast was not expecting anything though. So it was a shock to see her family owl, Henry, land in front of her bowl of cereal, causing her to almost knock the bowl onto the floor. He had a letter attached to his leg so she unattached and unravelled it. It was from her parents.

Dear Ast,

We hope that you're having a good time at Hogwarts. We also hope that Oscar is doing well and making friends. We went to the muggle ultrasound today and they say that the baby is healthy.

Anyways, we have to tell you that you and Oscar will have to stay at Hogwarts this winter. Your father has to go back to Bulgaria for urgent work and I need to go with him. We have to stay there for around four months. We're very sorry, Ast, but we will see you soon. You can have a nice time with your friends at Hogwarts.

Love from Mum

She closed the letter and crumpled it up into a ball. She spotted Oscar do the same over at the Hufflepuff table. Jade Gilis, a girl he had been growing friendly with since school started, patted his shoulder.

Ast had never missed Christmas with her family and now they expected her to be fine without it? She'd have no friends to stay back with her because she was sure that the boys would go back home to their families.

"What's wrong, Ast?" Peter asked, looking up from his unfinished potions assignment.

"It's nothing, here let me help you with that." She responded as she pulled his parchment and quill towards her.

                *****

They were leaving the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. It was finally Friday, meaning that it was the weekend but Ast still had masses of homework to complete. Sirius and James were discussing pranks while Remus and Peter were arguing over which Zonkos product was the best.

They approached the entrance to Gryffindor common room, said the password, and entered. They plonked their stuff down and sat down by the fire. Since it was still September, people were going outside to sunbathe and relax.

Remus suggested that they should go outside too but Ast declined, claiming that she wanted to get homework out of the way first. So the boys bid her goodbye and left the common room.

However she didn't have any plans for staying indoors today. She waited five whole minutes before going out of the common room too. Since almost everyone was outside, she could run through the corridors without getting told off. She slipped through the entrance doors and ran to the forbidden forest.

She knew that she wasn't allowed into the forest so she ran in further in case anyone could see her. When she was in far enough, she stopped and transformed.