Sweater Weather: Year One

Chapter Four: Halloween

The months passed quickly and soon it was almost time for Halloween. The castle was overthrown with Halloween decorations, especially the Great Hall, Giant pumpkins lined the room with thousands of live bats sitting on the walls and hanging from the ceilings, the candles floating above the tables cast a creepy glow over the food, that appeared just as suddenly as every other day. I was hurrying to the Great Hall after running to the common room when I overheard a Gryffindor first year, Lavender Brown telling her friends,
    "Yeah and then he said, ' Oh she's horrible no wonder she hasn't got any friends.'" Lavender paused for dramatic effect, "But she heard him, and now I heard she's been crying in the dungeon bathroom since potions" I rounded the corner, having a sneaking suspicion who she was talking about.
    "Who's crying in the bathroom?" Lavender turned, shocked for a split second that I had overheard her, but her need to gossip overcame her surprise,
    "Hermione Granger," She said, "Ron Weasly was making fun of her, has been all year, but I guess today was too much."
    "Why that little-" I  turned and walked furiously into the Great Hall. I ignored the decorations and my friends waving at me from the Hufflepuff table and stalked right up to Ron, who was sitting with Harry, George, and Fred,
    "Oh hey, "Fred said, a smile fading when he saw my face.
    "What has she ever done to you huh?" I said to Ron, who looked dumbly back at me,
    "Nothing! That's what, you're just mad because she's smarter than you, and you think she makes you look stupid well news flash! You do that all on your own!" Harry laughed,
    "And YOU!" I said rounding on Harry, who stopped laughing immediately,
    "I expected better from you, the boy who lived, you're just as bad as he is, sitting there and letting him make fun of her like that you should be ashamed of Harry Potter, ashamed."
    "She's crying, in the bathroom, because of you two, get your heads out of your arses."  Fred stared at me in awe and George started a slow clap. I ignored them and stalked back to the Hufflepuff table.
    "What was that about?" Hanah asked,
    "Nothing," I said. Just as I was cooling down, Professor Quirrel ran into the Great Hall, turban unraveling.
    "TROLL!" he screamed, "TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!" And then he fainted. Chaos erupted. People started freaking out, looking around widely unsure of where to go. Dumbledore stood, and raised his wand sending purple sparks in the air.    
    "Prefects, lead your houses to their dormitories, quickly and quietly, staff, to the dungeon," he said calmly. The prefects took charge, leading their houses out of the Great Hall.
    "Hermione." I whispered.
    "What?" Susan said, she twirled a braid in her hair nervously,
    "Nothing, I um, gotta go,"
    "Go? Go where?" Marie cried, but I was already gone,I pushed my way through the Ravenclaws and passed the Gryffindors, but someone caught my arm.
    "Where do you think you're going?" Fred said,
    "Dungeons." I said twisting in his grasp,
    "What? In your dreams,"
    "Hermione's down there, let go!" I pulled my arm free and dashed away as fast as I could,
    "Y/N!" He called after me. I ran down the stairs to the dungeon, and almost crashed right into Harry and Ron,
    "What are you doing down here?" I cried,
    "Us? What are you doing here?"
    "Rescuing Hermione of course," I said,
    "Well, so are we," Harry said, I stopped and crossed my arms,
    "You are saving Hermione?"
    "Yes," They both said, I rolled my eyes and ran to the bathroom door. Pushing it in, I stopped short. The troll was advancing on Hermione, smashing everything in its path.
    "Distract it!" I cried,
    "How?" Ron said,
    "I don't know! Just do something!"
    "Oy! Pea-brain!" The troll turned towards us, forgetting about Hermione, he started towards them,
    "Ok, what now?" Ron said,
    "I don't know if it was all I had!" Harry ran and jumped on the troll, his wand accidentally going in the troll's nose. The troll howled and dropped his club. Ron whipped out his wand,
    "Wingardium Leviosa!" He cried, the club went up, up, up and then down, with a loud crack on the trolls head. He fell to the ground, unconscious. All four of us stood there, breathing heavily, processing what just happened. I recovered my senses first, rushing to Hermionie,
    "Are you alright?"
    "Yeah, I'm ok, thanks to you guys." Harry bent and pulled his wand out of the troll's nose and whipped the boggers on the troll's shorts,
"No problem." Footsteps came from outside the bathroom and Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Dumbledore burst in,
"What on earth?" McGonagall said, "What are you four doing here?"
"I uh, we, umm," Ron began,
"They came to find me," Hermionie said,
"Ms. Granger...."
"I thought I could beat it on my own, I had read so much about it, they came after me and helped defeat it. If they hadn't come I would probably be dead." I gaped at Hermione, she was telling a lie? To a teacher? McGonagall rubbed her head,
"Very well, Ms. Granger, 5 points will be taken away from Gryffindor for stupidity," She turned to the others, "5 points for each of you for pure dumb luck. Now go to your common rooms!" All four walked somley out of the bathroom, climbing the stairs, I burst out laughing, the other three looked at me like I was crazy for a second, then slowly started laughing as well.
"You stuck your wand in a troll's nose!" I said between laughs. 
    "It was the only thing I could think to do at the time!" Harry protested. Separating to go to their separate common rooms, I looked back at the three of them, now walking side by side, and  began to think that maybe they would all be friends now.