stars || fred weasley

✰ chapter three ✰

2195 words
Classes were tiring. Not only would I be starting my Owls, but I would need to start planning for my future. I made my way up to the common rooms alongside the rest of Gryffindor after the Halloween dinner. As usual, Dumbledore had decorated the castle and the ghosts would work extra hard to try and scare people.

When I reached the staircase all the Gryffindor house was filling up the staircases. I had assumed that Neville had forgotten the password and everyone just wanted to take the piss out of him or the Fat Lady was trying to break a glass again. I stepped through the group towards the twins and the portrait came into my view. The fat lady was nowhere to be seen and instead there were slashes ripping apart the canvas.

Percy pushed through the crowds of people, announcing that he was the Head Boy, but nobody gave two shits at this point. When Dumbledore and Filtch came, all hell broke loose. The Fat Lady shouted loudly that it was Sirius Black who had slashed her portrait. Everyone was giving me small glances, some stepping away and others giving me small smiles. Fred laced his fingers with mine while Dumbledore announced that we would be sleeping in the Great Hall.

"I've searched the Astronomy Tower and the Owlery. There's nothing there," a voice said. I was laying in a sleeping bag surrounded by students that were all fast asleep. The roof was enchanted to look like the night sky as a way of soothing the students. Despite that, there was no way I could have slept knowing that my father had been inside the castle.

"Thank you," Dumbledore said calmly.

"The third floor's clear too, Sir," Snape told him.

"Very good."

"I've done the Dungeons. No sign of Black, nor anywhere else in the castle."

"I didn't really expect him to linger," Dumbledore said calmly.

"Remarkable feat, don't you think? To enter Hogwarts castle on one's own, completely undetected?"

"Quite remarkable, yes."

"Any theories on how he managed it?"

"Many. Each as unlikely as the next."

"You may recall, before the start of term I expressed concerns, about your appointment of Professor." I tensed, I knew exactly who he was referring to. My uncle, he and my father were best friends, but he would never help him.

"Not a single Professor inside this castle would help Sirius Black enter it. I'm quite convinced the castle is safe, and I'm more than willing to send the students to their houses."

"What about Potter and Black? Should they be warned?"

"Perhaps. But for now, let them sleep. For in dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own. Let them swim in the deepest ocean or glide over the highest cloud." It wasn't unusual to hear Dumbledore talk so poetically. At the start of the year, he had visited Remus and me to talk about 'my security' but that man was quite strange, I couldn't lie.

I opened my eyes once they had stopped talking. I was furious with Snape, and I'm going to make sure he knows that. My eyes were then met with bright green ones, filled with fear, but yet still calm. After seeing my own, they closed and mine followed soon, the tension in my head easing.

----

"Snape thinks it's you, you know."

"What's me?" Remus asked.

"You let Dad into the castle."

"I'm not sure how he got in, you have to remember he came to school here too. He knows all the corners and rooms of this castle, just like I do."