An Accident PV Lara, Becky, Amanda Closed

Was Lara worried about being caught out in the corridors? Not overly. She might have worried about it, before Hogwarts, but now the benefit seemed to outweigh the risk. She’d lose it if she had to spend one more minute in her Common Room, or in her dorm, or anywhere, really, decorated primarily in green and silver. Every time she woke up in her bed, heart racing and sweat sticking her pajamas to her pale skin, she felt smothered under her surroundings. She could only breathe if she was out of that blasted dorm.

She was generally content to just hide in the corridors until everybody else woke up. Tucked behind a stairwell, she could try and finish her History of Magic homework, reading the same passages in her textbook over and over and over, until some semblance of information finally stuck. It wasn’t a perfect system - she was exhausted, by the time classes were over - but it was what was working for her.

Or, at least, it had been working. Lara paused, mid-word, as she caught a sliver of conversation floating down the staircase. The voice sounded too old to belong to a student. A moment later, she could hear their footsteps, too. And, to her alarm, they sounded as if they were approaching the top of the staircase. Lara’s heart doubled its pace.

She could stay where she was, and hope that whoever it was didn’t notice her. If she was lucky, that would work fine - but Lara was not, from her experience, a person with copious amounts of luck. If something could go wrong for her, it would. No, it was better to get out of here before they were on the stairs.

She left her school things where they were, only pausing to shove them further out of sight. She could just come back and get them before class later. Nobody would take them. Probably.

She took a deep breath to quell her rising nerves, and then stood and bolted from her hiding spot, trying to keep her steps as light as she could. She was barefoot, and the floor was icy on her feet, but at least it was quieter than wearing shoes.

She ducked into the first open room she could find, making sure to close the door again behind her, and then pressed her forehead against the wood and closed her eyes. Distantly, she thought she could hear a voice calling after her, but she hoped she was just being paranoid.

She took a moment to level out her breathing before turning around to see where, exactly, she’d chosen to be her hiding spot. To her surprise, it was the Trophy Room. She’d been in here only once before, and it had ended well. She hoped this would be the same.

At least she seemed to be alone, thank God. She would’ve felt ridiculous, if she’d been caught out here in her cotton pajama set, gleeful penguins dancing against her legs and thin shirt still damp with sweat. She pushed an unruly curl of hair behind her ear, wishing she’d tied it back.

Wait. The last time she’d been here, all the trophy cases had been closed. But now, one was open, the golden cups of the trophies inside glinting in the low light. Lara went over to it curiously, and picked out one of the trophies to get a closer look at, holding it loosely in her hands. If the case was already open, then she basically had permission to be touching things. That was the rule.

Amanda stood in front of the Ravenclaw common room. “What do you mean, the answer isn’t a zombie army?” The riddle was repeated again. Alive without breath, as cold as death; never thirsty, ever drinking, all in mail never clinking. “Ghost army?” Amanda guessed. When that answer was refused also, Amanda decided that she would much rather spend the night in the corridors than drop dead trying to guess the answer to that riddle.

Amanda set off at a brisk pace, satchel tucked under her arm. She didn’t want to get caught so she decided to find a room to stay in. Aha! The trophy room is the perfect place. Amanda was pretty sure that no one ever went in there. She opened the door quietly and shut it behind her. Of course there’s somebody in here the one time I am too. Amanda sighed. “I suppose you’re going to turn me in for being out of bed. In my defense, I couldn’t solve the riddle, so I’m going to camp out here if you don’t mind.” Amanda sat down and set her satchel on the ground beside her. “Actually, I’m going to camp out here even if you do mind. And don’t think for one second that I don’t see you, Miss Over-There-Behind-the-Case. I’m not blind.” Amanda took an acid pop out of her bag and stuck it in her mouth. “Was this some sort of trap for me? If so, I feel quite honored.”

Becky had just left the Ravenclaw common room, where she was supposed to be settled, when she heard someone having a one way argument concerning the Ravenclaw riddle.

-the answer isn’t a zombie army?”

Becky paused, listening around the corner and furrowing her brow, a zombie army? She wished that would be an answer one day, but apparently it wasn't because the girl still wasn't being let in. Becky had gone into the Ravenclaw common room with several other students that night and never actually heard the riddle and she didn't need one to be let out, so she didn't know the answer to aide the girl when she guessed again.

"Ghost army?"

Becky thought it was safe to assume that the answer wasn't any variety of undead army. She felt torn when she started heading away from the girl. Maybe she would have been able to help her, but Becky had an appointment to keep in the owlery.

Dressed in a fleece nighty, striped leggings, and thick socks to keep the cold out, Becky walked with padded feet down the hallway. She'd worn socks for two reasons, one was temperature related, and the other was stealth. If she heard a teacher, she wanted to be able to run fast without making noise.

Becky walked past a hallway and continued down the corridor, feeling the thrill of being out past curfew and smelling the exciting scent of trouble. She was about to round a corner when she heard voices echoing back to her down the hallway. She froze for a split second, still like a deer in headlights, before remembering her senses and turning to flee back down the corridor. Her socks muffled her scramble but they also made her slide on the floor. She meant to turn into the branch she'd passed a second ago, but overshot and skidded slightly before spinning around and rushing into the first door she saw.

As she threw the door open, her socks carried her into the room with an abundance of momentum. She tripped over a satchel placed on the floor and fell right into a girl holding a trophy.

Riley held her breath as she heard someone open the door and enter the room. They seemed to be walking towards her direction, but when their footsteps stopped, Riley dared a peek around the case. She saw another student pulling a trophy out of the case she had opened. At the sight, Riley breathed a sigh of relief; thankfully it was just another student breaking the rules and not a professor.

Before she could exit from her hiding spot though, another girl came into the room, declaring that she was camping out for the night in the trophy. Riley was thinking that that didn't seem like a very sound idea, when the girl suddenly called out,

"And don’t think for one second that I don’t see you, Miss Over-There-Behind-the-Case. I’m not blind."

Riley flinched and slowly exited from her rather weak hiding spot. In her defense, she hadn't had a lot of time to react to hide when the first girl came barging in, but she still berated herself for not having thought of a better plan than hiding behind a small trophy case. The girl continued,

"Was this some sort of trap for me? If so, I feel quite honored."

"And why would I bother setting a trap for you?" Riley said, a little bit salty that the girl had spotted her so easily. "I was simply hiding because I thought she," Riley flashed a look over to the other girl, "might've been a professor or a prefect, here to catch me breaking curfew."

"Though I am curious as to what you're doing out here," Riley said, narrowing her eyes as she looked over the girl holding the trophy. "You're already dressed in your pajamas, which implies that you were getting ready for bed. Why would you be out here?"

Riley was about to make another comment on how she probably shouldn't be holding the trophy, which may have been a little hypocritical since Riley had been thinking of doing the same thing, when the door to the trophy suddenly swung open. It all happened so quickly that Riley wasn't sure what to make of the whole situation. Her brain was still processing the new arrival to the trophy room when the new girl collided with the one holding the trophy.

Really, you couldn't blame her if a couple of swears fell out of her mouth.

“I suppose you’re going to turn me in for being out of bed. In my defense, I couldn’t solve the riddle, so I’m going to camp out here if you don’t mind. Actually, I’m going to camp out here even if you do mind.”

Lara startled. Somehow, although she’d faintly heard the sound of the door opening and closing behind her, her brain hadn’t quite made the connection to what it meant. She turned around to see who else was here with her, pausing only to glance behind the trophy case to her right and realize that there was indeed, upon close inspection, somebody hiding behind it. She suddenly felt very disoriented.

“Why would I turn you in?” Lara asked the girl in front of her, who had sat herself down on the floor and was now eating candy, seemingly without a care in the world. “I’m out here, too. Not only would we both be in trouble, but then I’d be stupid, as well.”

She had been considering saying something about the trap thing, too, but didn’t have a chance to choose one of her many questions - Why would this be a trap? What kind of trap could she possibly be setting? Had somebody else tried to trick this girl before? - before the girl from behind the trophy case spoke. Lara hadn’t heard her come out. This didn’t surprise her. She definitely needed to sleep.

“You're already dressed in your pajamas, which implies that you were getting ready for bed. Why would you be out here?"

Lara felt a spike of indignation. She felt like she was being accused of something, but she was so tired, and she couldn’t figure out why anybody might be suspicious of her. It wasn’t like she even understood what was happening, at all. Why would she be the one being accused?

“I was in bed,” she replied, frowning a bit at the girl who’d been hiding. “But I couldn’t sleep, and I hate my common room, so I went to study in the halls. But then I heard somebody else coming and I thought they were probably a professor or something, so I hid in the closest room I could find. It’s not my fault somebody else was already in here.”

She was still holding one of the trophies in one hand, her fingers curled gingerly around the gold stem of the prize. She lifted it up to take a closer look - but before she could focus her eyes on the engravings at the base, something came crashing into her side, sending her tumbling to the ground. She let out a muffled yelp, more out of surprise than pain, as she hit the floor, landing squarely on her left hip; the trophy went flying out of her hand, and though she didn’t see it, she heard the horrible result.

When she looked up, the first thing she saw was the trophy: the crystal cup shattered, tiny shards of it sparkling in the dim light, the golden handles of the cup unbroken amidst the mess. The dark wood base of the trophy and the golden stem remained intact, although the stem had a fracture down the middle that made it look close to snapping.

Lara, eyes wide and fixed on the disaster, whispered the worse curse word she knew.

“Fair enough,” Amanda replied to the first girl, who was holding the trophy. Then the second girl came out from behind the trophy case and shot a salty comment back at Amanda. She rolled her eyes at the second girl’s bitter reply. Amanda was in no mood to be kind, especially not now that she was locked out of her common room. She watched the exchange between the two other girls in the room with her. Am I going to be stuck her all night?

Just then, another girl came tumbling through the door straight into the girl holding the trophy. “Oh sh—,” Amanda muttered. That can’t be good. she leaped up and examined the broken trophy. “We’re so dead.” She just hoped that Professor Lear wouldn’t be the one to find them. Amanda was deathly afraid of the Care of Magical Creatures professor, and rightly so. She had heard that for the Hufflepuff lock-ins, he locked them in caves with basilisks and the like. Amanda shuddered at the thought.

Returning back to her sitting place, Amanda removed her robes and sweater and set them beside her. She wadded up her sweater into a makeshift pillow and draped her robes over her like a blanket. Then she laid her head on the sweater. I might as well be comfortable if I’m going to be in here.