Odessa {S.B}

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER V | A Flying Stag

A piercing scream woke the students sleeping in Ravenclaw tower on the last Saturday in September. All five girls in the fifth year girls' dormitory shot up in alarm.

"What on earth was that?" Victoria Cross hissed, harshly pulling her bed curtains back so that she could look at the others.

"That sounded like Benjy's scream." Pandora said worriedly.

"Well tell him to shut it so that we can go back to sleep," said Elena Price, who still had her satin eye mask on, as she dropped her head back on to her pillow. "It's a Saturday morning and that means a lie-in."

"We should see if he's okay." Odessa suggested.

Jennifer Parsons, whose blonde hair was sticking up in all sorts of directions, opened her mouth to give her contribution when she was interrupted by a series of high pitched shrieks.

"I'm going to see what's going on." Pandora decided, standing up and sliding her feet into her slippers. She leaned over and pulled Odessa up from the bed next to her.

Victoria and Jennifer also got up to investigate, as did Elena; curiosity getting the better of her. However, the instant Odessa opened the door, a large and shaggy black dog came bounding into the room, barrelling through the middle of the group.

"Oh Merlin!" Jennifer shrieked. "It's the grim!"

Forgetting about what they'd been doing before it had appeared, the girls surrounded the dog, who sat down in the centre of the room, tail wagging and tongue lolling out.

"That's not the grim." Said Victoria. "He's way too cute." The dog looked at Victoria and gave her a playful bark.

"There's a dog in our room." Elena deadpanned. And then, crawling back into her bed and drawing the curtains, "I'm going back to bed. Wake me up when this is over."

Odessa stared blankly at the dog who was staring up at her with a big doggy grin on its face. Odessa wasn't a morning person and she couldn't help but feel like she must still be dreaming.

The dog shuffled forwards and poked her bare legs with its wet nose. Pandora, Jennifer and Victoria all let out 'awwww's and immediately began fussing around the dog, scratching behind its ears and stroking its soft fur, but Odessa couldn't shake the funny feeling she had about the dog. She knew the animal had something to do with the commotion they could still hear coming from the boys' dorms. And those eyes. Odessa had never seen a black dog like this that didn't have brown eyes, but these ones were such a familiar stormy grey and she just couldn't quite put her finger on it...

Crash!

It sounded as though things were dramatically escalating in the boys' dorms. The volume of the shouting was increasing and people were walking around on every landing, wondering what on earth all the chaos was about. The girls were snapped out of their trance when they heard the sound of furniture breaking and quickly got to their feet, exchanging worried glances.

A loud honking sound made its way up the stairs and into the dorm, causing the dog to snap his head up in the direction of the door. Then, Odessa witnessed what had to be the most peculiar thing she had ever seen in her life. A rat scampered into the room and started to squeak at the dog, who, to everyone's utter amazement, barked back. After a short conversation between the two strange animals, the dog barked his goodbye and ran out of the room and back down the stairs, picking the rat up in his mouth on the way.

"No fucking way did that dog and that rat just speak to each other," said Victoria in disbelief.

They all hurried down stairs to the common room in time to see... Was that a stag galloping out of the door?