Serena Black || 𝑳𝒖𝒎𝒐𝒔

An unusual friendship

• Serena Black •

„There is often less danger
in the things we fear
than the things we desire."

By the end of October, the weather was becoming freezing cold. The mountains around the castle turned ice grey and the lake cold as steel. The summer was finally over and autumn had crept into the country in its place. The last colourful leaves were torn from the trees by strong wind gusts and blown over the lands, while the treetops were left bare and dreary.

In the blink of an eye, Arithmancy and Defense against the Dark Arts had become Serena's favorite subjects. Professor Lupin seemed to be very well received by the students, even if Serena did not yet know directly what she should think of him. But she too, had to admit that his further lessons were no less exciting than his first.

Even if she could have done without the experience with the Boggart. It was obscure to her how the situation with her father could take on such a scale, as it seemed that it did not leave her quite as cold as she had thought.

That morning, Serena ran down the steps into the dungeons with untoasted bread in one hand and her magic pot in the other. There was an unpleasant cold, which turned her breath into small clouds. She had slept in, so the time had only been enough for a cold dry slice of bread with a bit of cheese half-heartedly thrown upon it.

Breathing heavily, she stuffed the loveless breakfast into her mouth and almost choked on it as she had to gasp for air. But Snape would kill her anyway if she brought the toast into his sacred four walls.

Coughing, she dropped herself on the seat between Hermione and Malfoy, while the best of the class shot her a sinister gaze, "Where have you been for so long?" she hissed at her, with shadows the size of carriage wheels hanging loosely below her eyes.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Serena asked the counter-question, and with a final look into the room, she noted with relief that Snape had not yet arrived to notice her late arrival.

"You always sleep longer than us, but..." The Gryffindor should never know why exactly her roommates had not awakened her, because at that moment the teacher finally entered the underground classroom.

Snape was supposed to be another cause for worrying thoughts, as he seemed to have been in a decidedly vindictive mood these days, and no one was in any doubt why. The story of the Boggart assuming Snape's shape, and the way that Neville had dressed it in his grandmother's clothes, had traveled through the school like a wildfire.

The only one who didn't find it funny, however, was the potion teacher. His eyes flashed threateningly by every mention of Professor Lupin, and he harassed Neville worse than ever, which he expressed with every glimpse of the boy.

But Serena shouldn't be spared, "Can anyone tell me the most important ingredients of a recovery potion?" he asked, letting his black eyes wander over the clueless students. Only Hermione had excitedly raised her hand, when Snape had not even spoken the last word of the question.