Pacing in her office, as she frequently did, her head shot up as she heard a loud, rather distressed, scream. Halting, Sarah prayed to herself that it was just in her imagination. However, the portraits muttered in a very anxious tone and she knew that her chances of a calm afternoon were incredibly slim. School hadn’t even technically started and there was already trouble. It was just one of those things that would cause countless of letters to go out in a lame attempt to get her fired.
“You should go now,” said the portrait behind her.
“I know,” replied Sarah irritably, raising her wand. “I’m just figuring out how to pull of the situation like you, Albus.”
That was one thing Sarah could never completely feel comfortable with calling one of the greatest wizards of all time by his first name. However, it seemed only professional to do so and Sarah never wanted to offend Albus Dumbledore, even if he was only a portrait and an echo of the truly great spirit.
The portrait of Albus Dumbledore beamed. “Sarah, I am sure that you are perfectly capable of handling this school without my advice.”
Easy for you to say, thought Sarah as she walked out of the office. Her footsteps were light and she bounced down, only to be stopped by the Gargoyles below, who seemed to have not noticed her presence... again.
“Hem, hem.” Even though it sounded disgracefully like one of her old Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, Professor Umbridge, it seemed to be the only way to grab their attention.
The gargoyles turned around, and, with what Sarah was determined to believe was a smirk, they leapt aside to let her through. Not bothering to listen out for their sniggers as she walked away, Sarah strode forward, not caring that she didn’t actually have a clue where she was going.
Sir Nicolas de Mimsy Porpington, informally known as ‘Nearly Headless Nick’, floated towards her and reported, “It came from the third floor corridor.”
“Thank you, Nicolas.” It had taken a while for Sarah to get out of the habit to call him by his more famous nickname, but the ghosts seemed to accept her and she was going to keep that respect, even if she would have to call the Grey Lady ‘Dame’.
When she had reached the third floor, she knew that she was in the right place. There were loud sobs surrounding the area and in which they entered and a blonde girl was in tears, her hands covering her face.
“Excuse me,” said Sarah cautiously.
Lower her hands, Angela Hallington revealed her face. Seeing Sarah, she gasped, threw her arms around her headmistress and cried, “Oh, Professor Fawcett! It was awful!”
“What happened?”
“There was “ and I “ oh, Professor!” Angela began to hysterically cry on Sarah’s shoulder. She tried her best to pry Angela off her without seeming offensive, but Angela was proving harder to shake off than she had imagined.
“What’s going on?” Sarah froze as Dominic Higgs walked towards them. Dominic was in his seventh-year and often found it very amusing to be one of Sarah’s greatest opponents on the student front. He was a Slytherin and, had it not been for his rude behaviour, a shoe-in for Head Boy. Alas, that opposition was taken over and Dominic apparently was now making it his business to monitor her behaviour.
Angela immediately stopped crying and, with a dignified sniff, said, “Nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing; I heard a scream.”
Biting back to comment on how observing he was, Sarah merely looked at him and stated, “It’s all under control. I would highly suggest that you go back to your common room, Higgs.”
Dominic grinned. “I’m sure everything is.”
Sarah made herself seem a little taller and raised her eyebrows. “Higgs, your common room.”
“I can help, you know?”
Angela glared straight at him. It is no wonder that Angela was a Gryffindor. Nobody would usually show any open dislike to Dominic, who generally seemed like a very tricky character.
“I know you can,” said Sarah calmly. “Nevertheless, I think it’s best that you report back to your common room. As a prefect, it is your duty to make sure that tonight runs smoothly.”
“Wouldn’t this fall into that category?”
“Ten points off Slytherin for cheek. I don’t think that just because it’s the first day, I won’t be willing to give out detentions, Higgs.”
Dominic smirked again, which annoyed Sarah immensely - she truly could not think of another student that she could possibly have loathed more than Dominic Higgs “ and he coolly said, “I suppose so. I hope you get better, Angela.”
As he began to walk away, Angela muttered, “I wish I could say the same for you.”
“Never mind him,” said Sarah sweetly. “Now what happened?”
Angela breathed in deeply. “I was walking down here “ I needed to get away from Demetra Jennings.” Demetra Jennings was Angela’s supposed best friend, who made Angela cry more than any other person managed to do. It really was the perfect example of the saying that it’s your friends who know how to hurt you the most. “Well, anyway, I was walking and muttering about her, when this woman came and held a wand to my throat.” Angela became slightly more teary again and continued, “And kept talking about my sister. But I don’t have a sister!”
“I know you don’t,” replied Sarah.
“Well, she left, didn’t she?”
“What did she look like?”
Pausing for a moment, Angela finally said, “I don’t know, it was too dark. But she scared the hell out of me.”
“Don’t you want to split up?” suggested James, eager to leave Caprilla and walk on his own for a while.
“Right, and then you ditch me.”
“What does it matter? We don’t need to be a team!”
Raising her eyebrow, Caprilla said, “So you admit that you want to ditch me?”
“You know what, yes, I do. Now that we’ve gotten that sorted “” Looking at Caprilla as he spoke, James didn’t even notice himself smash straight into the woman in front of him.
She was tall, dark, and James had to admit, very attractive. Her eyes set on James and regarded him with a mildly interested expression. “Sorry,” she said dryly.
“No problem,” replied Caprilla, just as unemotional as her.
“You’re a Potter boy, aren’t you?”
Taken aback by the abrupt comment, James answered, “Yes, I am.”
Nodding her head, the woman revealed a lopsided grin. “Impressive. I never thought I’d get a chance to meet a Potter boy. And you are…?”
“Caprilla.”
“Hmm…” The woman didn’t seem the least bit intrigued by Caprilla until her eyes lowered down and her face became a frown. “Heading off to post an owl, I see. Pretty late, don’t you think?”
Caprilla clutched to the letter by her side more tightly, replying, “I was bored.”
“But “”
“Professor Fawcett never mentioned an addition to the staff.”
“Must be a Ravenclaw,” said the woman, sounding both bored and annoyed. When Caprilla glared at her, she then said sweetly, “They’re always so eager to question these things.”
“And you must be a Slytherin,” retorted Caprilla. “They’re always so keen on not answering.”
The woman’s laugh seemed earnest. “I like you. No, I’m not a member of the staff, I was just… popping in?”
“You can’t Apparate.” This time it was James.
“Well, most people can’t Apparate. But I must be going down.” Her eyes lingered on the two for a moment longer. “Have a good year.”
As the woman walked away, Caprilla hissed, “I’ll bet you a Galleon that she was behind that scream.”
James rolled his eyes and continued to walk on, closely followed by Caprilla. “I know she seems a bit odd, but that doesn’t mean that she’s evil.”
“But she’s an adult Slytherin who’s wandering around the corridors for no good reason. In my History books, there’s a correlation with those kinds of people.”
“You’re in the past.”
“You know what they say. ‘History repeats itself’.”
“What?”
Caprilla shook her head. “Never mind.”
They continued to walk on, listening for something to hint to them as to where the trouble was. Eventually, they gave up on the search and stopped in the middle of an abandoned corridor.
“Where are we?” asked James, looking at his surroundings.
“I have no clue,” replied Caprilla, “I was following you.”
“Fantastic,” said James sarcastically.
Walking in a circle, Caprilla tried to figure out their exact location until she heaved a sigh. “So you don’t recognise where we are at all?”
“I just said “”
“All right, all right.” Turning away, Caprilla mumbled, “Just checking.”
“James!”
He could hear Lola shouting for him around the area and rushed towards the voice. Caprilla followed him, but had a scowl of her face that made him shiver every now and again, something that he did not find a very pleasing experience.
Lola’s hair was loosely tied in a pony tail and there were bags already forming under her eyes; she was the kind of girl who needed sleep. When she saw him, she exclaimed, “Thank God. I heard a scream and “”
“You thought the highly feminine scream was me?”
“No,” replied Lola, who was now grinning. “What I thought was that you might have been involved. I’m going to take a wild guess and suppose that you were looking for her just now. That’s why you left so suddenly, wasn’t it?”
“No, it was “” James stopped when he remembered why he actually left so suddenly. The scream echoed again in him mind, sharper than ever, but he shook it off. Instead, he stood up firmly and said, “I just felt a bit ill.”
“That’s why you went to the girls’ bathroom?” inquired Caprilla.
Hating the girl that bit more, James snapped, “I wasn’t aware of what was going on.” He then turned to Lola, explaining, “I felt really ill.”
Lola nodded, but James was firmly under the impression that she didn’t believe a word of it. She began to walk and both of them followed her, while she said, “Anyway, you guys should have come back anyway. If you were ill, James, you could have gone to the Hospital Wing “ what do you have there?”
James followed Lola’s eye line to the letter in Caprilla’s hand. Noticing the same thing, Caprilla snatched it away from Lola’s sight. “Never you mind.”
There was something in Lola’s eyes, that James guessed was suspicion, that cancelled out the casual way she waved her hand and said, “Just asking.” The other reason that James thought otherwise was that her eyes were fixed on the letter.
Caprilla might have thought the same thing, as her hand was now protectively covering her pocket as they began to walk away. James felt awkward between the two women as he began to wonder about what the letter was exactly, and why it was affecting the two so much.
The moment Caprilla was out of sight, Lola pursed her lips and James almost asked what that was about, but he then remembered that it was the first time that they were alone together since his dream. He tried to calm himself down by telling himself that it was just a dream, but as he remembered the scream, the face formed with it once more. Lola’s features were contorted with agony as a green light flashed by her face.
“James!”
“Huh?” James was awoken by a trance as he saw Lola looking at him with concern, her eyebrows furrowing together.
Sighing, she stated, “You were just standing there, like you were in some sort of trance just then.”
“I’m fine.”
“Too much drama, that’s what I think.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” breathed out James.
"You know that Angela Hallington is crying already?"
Raising his eyebrows, James replied, "Probably Demetra's doing."
James didn't even notice that for a moment Lola's whole body went rigid as she said, "Too much drama."