In Your Shadow ✓

Chapter 13

5th year

The Hogwarts castle seemed dark and empty, the only things you could hear were the sound of footsteps and the occasional snoring from some of the paintings.

Mia was roaming the empty corridors alone, lighting the way with her wand. She had a frown on her face as she glanced down at the shiny badge on her robe, regret filling her eyes every time she did so.

The fifth-year Ravenclaw felt extremely honoured when she was chosen to be a prefect, although she wasn't surprised by getting the title after how hard she worked in her fourth year. She felt like she finally had something to make her father feel proud of her – other than her outstanding grades, of course –, however, her twin brother was chosen to be the Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, which made her title of being a prefect seem meaningless and easily forgettable.

She already despised being a prefect. All the extra work, the responsibility, the meetings and all of that made being a prefect seem like a burden. Sure, there was the Prefect's Bathroom that she could use and she could take house points away from others or give them detention, but it didn't seem like a fair deal to her. She already knew that she would reject the title in her next year, but she promised herself that she wouldn't try to get out of it after the year has already begun.

It was also the year when they would have to take their O.W.L.s, which was already a time-consuming task considering how much she would have to study, but she kept telling herself that she could do it. She had a plan anyway. She decided that she would leave the dirty work to the other prefects and only do what was absolutely necessary, like patrolling the corridors at night, for example.

The other fifth year Ravenclaw prefect tried asking Mia to patrol with him, but she told him to go alone so they could finish faster. She could tell that the boy felt a bit uneasy, but she didn't really care. She wanted to go to sleep as soon as possible and patrolling together would have only slowed them down.

The girl was in an exceptionally bad mood that night, so she prayed that she wouldn't meet any rule-breakers, or they would have to meet her wrath in return.

They were patrolling the Seventh Floor. Mia passed the Arithmancy classroom, which made the corners of her mouth turn upwards slightly as she thought of the class itself, but her smile vanished quickly as she forced herself to move along.

When she reached the Fat Lady's Corridor, a slight smirk appeared on her lips. Gryffindors had a tendency to break the rules, and the Ravenclaw was feeling very generous that night. Usually she only took house points away, but she was quite eager to give some detentions out as well due to her bad mood.

As she started walking down the corridor with her wand raised, she had a feeling that someone was watching her. She took a look around, but there was not a single soul in sight, only her. Feeling annoyed, she stopped and started listening, concentrating on her surroundings. After hearing the tiniest noise, she raised an eyebrow and quickly reached her hand out, looking like she was trying to grasp the air, but just like she suspected, her hand did collide with something.

She pulled the material down and held it tightly in one of her hands while the other pointed her wand at the rule-breaker.

"Well, well, well..." She tilted her head to the side. "Look what we have here."

Standing right in front of her was none other than James Potter himself.

"You've got to be kidding me," the boy groaned.

"I could say the same, Potter. You know, I was looking forward to a good night's sleep, but you just had to give me more work, didn't you?"

"Why don't you save yourself the trouble and pretend that you never saw me, then?" He suggested.