When I woke up, the sun hadn’t warmed up the stone around me yet and had only just begun to tinge the sky with morning yellow. The yellow color of the dress I had to find for the Yule ball. I had to crack my spine back in place as I got up, since I had slept on the cold steps in frigid air.

    As I walked down the astronomy tower stairs, I thought about what had happened that had caused me to run away. I didn’t remember anyone saying I was on a quidditch team, so I didn’t know why Olivia had thought that I was on one. I knew that Jackson would never have stooped so low to beg for me to be on a team, let alone convince Professor Malfoy that I was good enough. I decidedly figured that Olivia had been lying.

    I brushed my hair nervously and looked through the corridors before stepping out. I knew I definitely didn’t look too great, and I didn’t want anyone catching me looking like this. I speed-walked through the halls stiffly and urgently towards the Slytherin dungeons. Luckily, I saw no one, so I hoped that no one saw me.

    The dungeons were dark as they weren’t lit with their usual green lanterns, and the sun hadn’t fully come out yet to light the depths of the lake.

    I stumbled trying to get through the darkness to our dorms. I knew that if I was fast to grab my clothes and hit the showers, no one would notice me.

    Once I reached the doorway, I muttered a quiet “Lumos” before continuing. I had been right; they were all asleep. Olivia Leavitt was no longer down here. I figured she had gone back to her own dorms. I crept past girl after girl, tiptoeing my way to the far end of the room where my bed was. I was secretly glad that the floors were stone instead of creaking wood.

    After passing the last girl, I hurriedly unlocked my black trunk and yanked out some textbooks, a bag, robes, a toothbrush, shampoo, and underwear before softly closing the trunk lid and running back out of the dorms. Racing out of the common rooms, I didn’t notice that I was being followed.

    I felt a little more at ease once I was out of the dorms and started walking down the halls rather than running. I confidently strutted into the girl’s bathroom and happily whistled a BlackPink tune as I opened a shower curtain, not hearing the opening and shutting of the bathroom door behind me.

    The silver and ivory knob in the shower looked cold and uninviting, but I sighed in contentment when hot water came out and warmed my wind-chilled skin. I wondered wistfully how many poor elephants had been killed to decorate the Slytherin girl’s bathrooms. Ivory covered every furnishing, and silver filigree covered the ivory, a past trend from ancient china that had been popularized in rich English culture. I wondered what the other half of my descendancy was, because it certainly was not Chinese.
 

    As I mused and entertained my thoughts, I heard another shower turn on in the stall next to mine. I flinched at the sound, startled, and stopped whistling. A few minutes passed with only the hissing of the showers. I heard a soft sound, like someone was crying, coming from out of the stall beside me. In the dark, dimly lit bathroom where I thought I was alone, I was scared out of my mind. I grabbed my shampoo and washed it in and out of my hair as fast as possible. I didn’t want to be around when whoever else in there came out. Frantically squeezing out my hair and walking in circles in the shower, I nearly slipped and fell twice from the coconut-honey scented suds on the ivory tiles.

    Swiftly drying myself off with my cream colored towel, I donned my black robes with the slytherin insignia and ran out of the bathroom. Heavily breathing, I stopped outside the door with my back against the wall, feeling like I had run a marathon. When no one came out of the bathroom and the sounds of and of water hitting tiles didn’t stop, I sighed in relief and began walking towards the main hall for breakfast.