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2348 Words
Halloween was coming up fast and so was the first Hogsmeade weekend. Saiph sat in the Slytherin common room with Pansy and Daphne planning their day in Hogsmeade. Honeydukes was a definite, so was the three broomsticks. Saiph also wanted to look in Zonko's joke shop to see what fun pranking material they had to offer.
Perhaps she would even find the Weasley twins there so she could finally find out what they were up to. They were due to give the Marauders Map to Harry soon. Then it would ultimately be lost to Lupin's desk drawer and Saiph wanted at least a look before that happened. Her uncle was a Marauder after all. It only made sense that she'd inherit at least some traits.
As excited as Saiph was for the visit to the tiny wizarding village there was a small bit of nervousness present as well. Amongst the fun and excited planning there was a feeling of dread that had settled itself within Saiph and refused to come out. It was more than likely that Sirius would be somewhere nearby. He had already been sighted once in the area and as much as Saiph knew of his innocence, she also knew the actions of a desperate man were dangerous.
Then came the fact that he was her uncle and didn't know. Hades, Sirius didn't even think that his brother Regulus was still alive let alone that he had a daughter. Saiph would have to find a way to tell him, he deserved to know.
It was now the friday before Halloween weekend and the whole school was buzzing with excitement. The Halloween feast was always the best but it was also the time when things went crazy. In first year the troll, in second year Mrs. Norris was petrified, and this year Sirius Black would attempt to break into Gryffindor tower.
Even if Sirius wasn't guilty, he sure acted like it. Destroying paintings, holding knives over sleeping children. Saiph knew the real reason behind these actions of course, but surely there was a better way to go about these things.
Last period of friday was double Herbology with the Hufflepuffs. Todays' strange magical plant to tackle was Asphodel. They had to root the plants for draught of living death ingredients. Saiph recognised the plant as one you would find flowering in Persephone's garden in the Underworld. What? How did she know that? It's not like she'd ever been to the Underworld. Had she?
As soon as the class was dismissed students excitedly swarmed out of the Greenhouse and back to their common rooms to get ready for dinner. Saiph suspected many were going to bed early that night to prepare for Hogsmeade bright and early the next day.
There was a bit of free time between the end of class and dinner that students liked to call 'Happy hour,' though it wasn't very happy. If you were lucky enough not to have homework then you could spend it taking a nap or chatting to friends. Unfortunately, most students (Saiph included) weren't that lucky. They spent these hours in the library completing overdue assignments.
That week the Professors had been particularly harsh with handing out homework. It probably had to do with the Christmas break that was coming soon. The only class where she didn't have it was Care of Magical Creatures. Ever since the action-packed first lesson, Hagrid had seemed to have lost his confidence. Now the class spent lesson after lesson working mostly on theory accompanied by the occasional harmless giant worm.
The rest of Friday was uneventful apart from an awkward run in which Saiph had with Draco in the library. No words were shared, neither of them could think of anything to say. Even if they could, there would be no guarantee that they'd say them. One thing the two had in common was their pride. That was to be expected though, they were second cousins after all.
After dinner was her detention with Snape. He had her reorganising the entire Potions storeroom and labelling the ingredients. By the time she was finished it was nearly midnight and the girl tiredly trudged to bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow she was out like a light.
*
Saiph awoke on Saturday morning to her roommates bustling around and trying on outfits and makeup. She lazily got out of bed and headed to her suitcase. The ladder down was cold on her feet and half asleep she nearly slipped a few times. Over the month that she had been in this world she had found many new things, one of them being that her fondly nicknamed 'Tardis suitcase' was in fact heated. Oh how Saiph was grateful to her past-self for installing such a feature.
Christmas was great and all but it also meant cold and Saiph hated the cold. The outfit she picked for the day was thick skin toned tights with patterned stockings underneath. Over the stockings were a green plaid skirt and a Christmas themed sweater. As an extra precaution she also charmed the outfit with a heating charm.
As she had recently shifted back, she had edited her script, making only minor changes to the world around her. One of those changes was doing her hair and nails with a wave of her wand. Which her half asleep mind was very grateful for at the moment.
Being lazy, she had also added various other things to make life more "comfortable". Of course none of these things changed already established life, such as Regulus being her dad, but she did change her skill set. She could now learn spells at a much faster rate and write essays without having to think about it much. Even when she didn't go to a magic school, Saiph hated theory lessons.
Saiph quickly finished getting ready, her friends were impatient and it didn't help that she wouldn't let them in her suitcase. Who could blame her though, it was her safe space and if she let others in, it wouldn't be safe anymore.
When it was time to head out, Saiph grabbed a light snack from the mini fridge. She wasn't often hungry in the mornings and found that a heavy breakfast would make her slow and sleepy all day.
Back in the dorm rooms her roommates had finished getting ready and were waiting for her.
"You've got to tell me how you managed to make your suitcase into a room," said Pansy, checking out her now closed suitcase.
Saiph just smiled and made a rainbow as she waved her hands, "Magic," she whispered mysteriously. Pansy pulled a mock annoyed face and started to run towards her. Saiph let out a Yelp as she turned on her heel and ran out the door.
Saiph and Pansy played this spontaneous game of tag all throughout the castle giggling and screaming until they finally reached the Great Hall. Panting and out of breath they swiftly made their way to the Slytherin table and sat down.
Soon after Daphne arrived, she hadn't bothered to run after her roommates.
*
Saiph shivered as the glacial winds hit her snow jacket wrapped body. They had been going in and out of the stores all day and were now heading towards the three broomsticks to end their day. She could practically taste the butter-beer already.
Hogsmead had been fun but after a long cold day, Saiph was ready to go home. She wasn't yet used to the sub-zero temperatures of a scotland winter and in America she had always had her dad with her to cast a heating charm. It was a common misperception that students could perform magic in and around Hogmead as well as Hogwarts, this was not however true. Hogwarts' learning bubble did not extend to Hogsmead and therefore the trace still applied.
Out of the corner of her eyes Saiph saw something black rush past, standing out even more due to the pristine fresh snow.
"Hold on," she called to her friends, "I thought, I saw something. Just wait here, Okay?" They nodded and Saiph stalked off to find the black blur. She had seen it run behind a decrepit grey house before she lost sight of it.
As she drew closer to the house (well it was more of a shack now that she got a closer look at it) she noticed large claw marks all down the side of it. The shrieking shack she recognised, the place where Remus Lupin became a werewolf while he was at Hogwarts. From reading the books she knew that the place wasn't haunted but it still gave her (and many of the locals) the creeps.
Pushing past her fear she once again approached the shack, walking by it and to the other side where hopefully she would find the black blur. Saiph didn't particularly know why she was so intrigued by this, just that it piqued her interest. Maybe she was bored and Gods know what she could get up to when that happens.
Behind the shack was what looked to be a small clumsily made shelter and under it was a large black dog. So that had been what she had seen. The dog looked greatly malnourished, its fur matting into clumps and greying in some areas. As soon as the dog spotted her it began to growl. Saiph wasn't really surprised by this, most dogs were either scared of her or hated her, sometimes both.
Instead of recklessly walking forward, Saiph crouched low to the ground to make herself smaller. She didn't have much on her in terms of food, but she had managed to grab some beef jerky at a street vendor, selling meat that was enchanted to never go off earlier that day. Carefully she dug the jerky out of her bag and threw it about two metres in front of her, Making a halfway point between her and the growling dog.
Slowly the dog quietened down and began to come closer, it stopped to sniff the beef jerky before letting out a happy bark and gobbling it down, tail wagging all along.
Saiph smiled at the dog and got some more, the poor thing definitely needed the food more then she did right now. 10 more slabs of jerky later and she was out. Having made considerable improvement in the dogs and her own mood she softly pat her thigh to get its attention. Its sterling silver eyes locked on to her own and it seemed to examine her closely before moving towards her. She held out a hand for it to sniff (that's what her dad had taught her to do when meeting new animals) but it ignored the hand and instead went straight to licking her face in appreciation.
The Raven haired girl let out a soft giggle and petted the dog on the head, trying to calm it from its excited frenzy.
"Woah girl, you're gonna have to calm down before you accidentally bite my face off, I can't imagine that would be very pleasant," she laughed and the dog made an offended bark as if to say 'hey i'm a boy!' and started licking her face again. At least that what she thought he said, Saiph couldn't speak dog.
"Okay! Okay, you're a boy then, can you stop licking me now?" she asked and got a satisfied bark in return this time.
"Now that that's established, I think you need a name," she observed his matted black fur once more, it made the nice dog look quite scruffy.
"Ah, I've got one. You shall be named Scruffy the dog," she announced resulting in the now named scruffy putting his ears down and whining. Saiph had never really been as good at naming things as she thought she was, this became evident when she named her childhood stuffed bear 'Mr taki' after her favourite chips at the time. In her defence she had been five, but obviously she hadn't gotten much better since then.
Saiph began to pout at Scruffy's displeasure of the name, "Well if you're so smart what do you suggest," he stayed quiet. "Yeah that's what I thought."
She continued to play with him some more, giving belly rubs and playfully throwing snowballs for him to catch. In her 14 years on this earth a dog had never been as open to her as this one was and she was glad for it.
Checking the time on her silver wrist watch that her dad got her for her birthday, she saw that 20 minutes had already gone by. Her friends were probably getting worried by now but she didn't know if they were going to brave the shrieking shack as she had done previously.
The emerald eyed girl sighed, still looking at her watch. Scruffy tilted his head at this and whined in confusion. Amused by his human-like expression a smile creeped onto her lips again as she said. "I'm sorry Scruffy. I have to go now. My friends are waiting for me, but I promise to come back." Scruffy whined once more and looked disappointed.
"Hey!" Saiph said encouragingly, scratching behind his ears, "I'll come again, don't worry, and next time I'll bring even more food." His mood seemed to lift at this and Saiph took it as her que to start heading off.
Back on the main road she found Daphne and Pansy worriedly muttering to each other and as soon as they heard her footsteps in the crunchy snow they pounced on her.
"What took so long?" Daphne adamantly questioned,
"I found a stray dog that was starving so I gave it some beef jerky," Saiph answered briefly, by now the social and physical exhaustion was coming back in full swing and she just wanted to go to bed.
The three girls hastily made their way back to the castle, deciding to skip The Three Broomsticks as it was already starting to get dark. Back in the dorms once more, Saiph crashed onto her bed not even bothering to change and was out like a light.