Mountain Fold (Oliver Wood)

Chapter Three

Anna woke up very suddenly on Sunday morning, and it wasn't the most pleasant way to start the day. Pillows weren't exactly hard, but she still would rather not be woken by someone hitting her in the face with one. She opened her eyes and sat up quickly in a panic, when she was finally able to focus she was greeted by the sight of her two best friends grinning at her, Darian holding a pillow.

"I hate you both."

"Yes yes, we know, now hurry up and get ready, we're hungry," Darian said while pushing her out of bed. She grumbled as she got ready, her friends sitting on her bed waiting. She noticed that all the other girls in the dormitory had already left, except one, Nova Shelley. Anna decided to be merciful and let her sleep, they didn't have any classes, so they didn't have anywhere to be today.

Anna seemed less sleepy by the time they made it to the Great Hall, her stomach growling at the breakfast set out on the tables. Bacon, eggs, pancakes, croissants, toast, and much more, Hogwarts certainly knew how to keep its students well fed.

"What are we going to do today?" Zinnia asked them as she buttered her toast.

"I know the teachers want us to try to get a head start on classes," Anna told them.

Darian snorted, "that's never gonna happen."

Before he could continue speaking though mouthfuls of pancakes a loud screech interrupted him. Darian nearly fell out of his seat he jumped so hard, all around the hall people turned to look at them, this made Anna and Zinnia quite uncomfortable.

Standing on the table staring innocently at them was Merlin the bird. People stopped staring and turned back to their food, so Anna and Zinnia could relax.

"Merlin's beard! You scared me half to death," Darian stared at his bird.

"I don't think he has a beard Dare, how about Merlin's beak?" Anna asked.

"Yes, because I was referring to my bird when I said Merlin's beard," Darian replied sarcastically.

"Well you shouldn't have named him Merlin."

"Excuse you, Merlin is a wonderful name."

"Will you both be quiet, Professor Sprout is handing out the timetables," Zinnia interrupted them.

They waited to get their timetables, Zinnia's looking different to Anna's and Darian's.

"Mine doesn't look too bad," Zinnia seemed cheerful.

"Tuesday's, History of Magic and Potions, we get to go from being hypnotised to sleep to being tortured," Darian groaned.

"At least you actually find History interesting," Anna frowned.

"When I'm reading it from a book maybe but not were Professor Binns is teaching it, I didn't think it was possible for someone to make witch hunts sound so boring."

"Is that what I'll be learning about this year?" Zinnia asked.

"Yeah but its not as interesting as it sounds, what's your timetable look like?" Darian asked. Zinnia handed her timetable over for the both of them to look at.

"Charms and Astronomy on Tuesday, that sounds okay, can we trade Tuesdays? Double potions on Thursday morning doesn't sound though," Darian commented.

"Ours is on Friday afternoon, because we already aren't drained enough by the end of the week. At least we're with the Ravenclaws, I can't imagine having to deal with Professor Snape in a room full of Slytherins, he's unbearable enough as it is. Poor Gryffindors," Anna said sympathetically. She didn't really have anything against most Slytherins, but she knew the way that Snape favoured them and tended to compare people to his favourite students.

His favourite students usually turned out to be Anna's least favourite people.

Darian and Zinnia continued to compare timetables while Anna pulled out a bright blue piece of paper from her pocket. Taking only a few minutes to decide what she was going to make, she started to fold. It wasn't long before there was a tiny bright blue rhino standing in front of her, about the size of her hand. She quickly enchanted in with a few different spells and it immediately tried to charge into a loaf of bread only for Anna to pull it back with a small smile.

She turned to Darian and Zinnia only to notice that someone was watching her. She had a chill done her spine when she saw that Professor Snape had been standing behind her and watching as she made the rhino. He had an interested look on his face, it wasn't polite interest, it was cold and calculating. Without saying a word, he walked off to the staff table, cloak flaring behind him.

"Creepy git," Darian muttered when he noticed Snape staring at her. Fortunately, Snape hadn't heard him, the last thing that Darian needed was another reason for Snape to hate him. Snape already seem to have a particular dislike for Darian, bullying him more in class than any other student, always calling him arrogant. Darian was confident and outgoing, but Anna wouldn't go as far as calling him arrogant.

"I wish I could drop Potions," Darian sighed, and Anna tried to shake off the lingering feelings of bitterness that had been coming from Snape.

"You need Potions if you want to become an Auror," Zinnia reminded him, and Anna nodded in agreement.

"I know but I don't see how I'm gonna be able to get into NEWTS level potions when he's teaching it, he'll just fail me on purpose," Darian looked a little hopeless.

"He won't be the one judging you, so he can't. And we still have to get through O.W.L.s first and you don't have them until the end of next year," Zinnia reassured him, and Darian looked a little happier.

"And you never know, maybe that curse that's on the Defence Against the Dark's position will shift over to Potions and we'll get a new Potions teacher next year," Anna grinned, and Darian laughed.

"Anna!" Zinnia exclaimed, shocked that Anna would want something bad to happen to one of her teachers.

"What? I'm just saying, he's a terrible teacher. Anyway, maybe nothing terrible happens too him, maybe he just discovers he has a love for flower pressing or something."

They all laughed, imagining Snape collecting flowers for a hobby. Merlin had been silent for a while decided he wanted some attention and started squawking loudly. Darian quickly tried to shush him.

"He kept everyone in my dormitory up late last night because he wouldn't keep quick."

"He always does that on his first night back," Zinnia said.

"As long as he doesn't wake me up, he can make as much noise as he wants," Anna patted the little bird.

"Please don't encourage him Anna," Darian groaned.

Anna smiled at her friends, she had missed them despite seeing them on numerous occasions over the holidays. Other than the foreboding feeling she got from Professor Snape, she considered it to be a successful start to the year. Although she hadn't actually started any of her classes yet.