Melanie Granger?

Chapter 5: Fluffy

Ok so the title kinda gives away what's going to happen in this one, but I hope you find my spin on this interesting.

It was late, after dinner, I was headed back to Gryffindor Tower when it happened; the stairs changed. I know, I know, a common occurrence here, but not when I'm still standing on them! I gripped the hand rail tightly as the staircase moved, I made a definitive point not to look down as it connected with a new door. Despite my better judgement I decided to go and see where it lead rather than trying to find another way to the Tower. I wish I had listened to my conscience.

I soon developed a bad feeling as I walked through the silent eery, spiderweb-filled passage and I jumped as a torch lit up next to me (this whole magic thing was still scaring my from time to time) what made it even worse was when the caretakers cat walked in behind me. Now I may not have known where I was, but I got the feeling I shouldn't be here and it was a known fact that wherever Mrs Norris was, Filch wasn't too far behind. So I did the first thing that came to mind: Run!

I ran until I came to a door at the end of the corridor, without thinking I opened the door and slipped inside. It was dark and quiet, I was about to breathe a sigh or relief when I heard a voice next to me.

'Melanie?'

'Hermione?' I asked looking at my sister, shocked. 'What are you doing here?' Before she could answer, however, we realised there was a giant three headed black dog which had woken up. It sleepily opened its eyes, yawned and stretched up to its full height, it almost touched the ceiling (this is in a castle mind you, not an average house that's like twice the size) and was staring down at us! 'Argh!' We screamed and I realised that Harry and Ronald were there with us! It growled ferociously at us as we all scrambled out the door and forced it shut against the huge jaws and teeth that were snapping at us from the other side of the door and locked it.

'What do they think they're doing? Keeping a thing like that locked in a school.' Ronald asked shocked.

'You don't use your eyes do you? Didn't you see what it was standing on?' Hermione asked frustrated.

'I wasn't looking at it's feet! I was a bit preoccupied with it's heads!' Ron replied. 'Or maybe you didn't notice; there were three!'

'It was standing on a trap door, which means it's guarding something.' Hermione reasoned.

'Guarding something?' Harry asked.

'That's right.' Hermione nodded.

'Let's get out of here.' Ron suggested and we hurriedly returned to Gryffindor Tower and went straight through the abandoned Common Room up the stairs and stood between the boys and girls dormitories before we spoke again.

'What wee you doing there Melanie?' Hermione asked.

'I could ask you the same question!'

'We got lost.' Ronald cut in.

'I highly doubt that.' I replied.

'We were headed back to the tower when the stairs moved and we ended up there, what about you?' Hermione explained.

'You're not going to believe this, but that's exactly what happened to me. Mrs Norris came in behind me and I didn't want to get caught so I ran until I found the door and went in.' I replied.

'Well I'm going to bed before any of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed or worse expelled.' She said glaring at us and swiftly disappearing into our dorm.

'She needs to sort out her priorities.' Ron said, Harry just stared.

'Actually I think she's kinda right, getting expelled would cause eternal shame on us, but I don't plan on dying anytime soon. Goodnight.' I replied and went into the dorm.