Just following orders

Ethel took the box from the girl without asking either who she was or what was in it. She was a lot taller than Ethel, she was wearing green, and she wanted a "favour". Ethel wasn't going to start asking questions now. If she was lucky, she might even get out of this whole thing alive.

Getting into the boys' dormitories was easy. Ethel was little and people thought she was weird, so they tended not to ask questions about what she was doing. She could have said she was collecting DNA to make a boy-germ repelling potion and they would probably have believed it.

In fact, she might still have to say that before she got out of here.

Finding Grigori's bed was the hard part. It could have been any of them. In the end, she had to do the thing she'd been really hoping not to have to do. She had to start looking through people's trunks for things with names on. Why did boys only put their name on their underwear? Why did they think they were more likely to lose their underwear? Maybe she really would make a boy-repelling potion...

Sam sighed contently as he walked upstairs to the boys dormitory, feeling rather satisfied with the studying he'd just done. He was now completely and utterly homework free.

Waving good night to the last of the boys Sam had finally left the common room when he paused midway up the stairs, hearing someone rummaging about. "Funny," he thought to himself, "I swear I was the first boy to head up."

Pushing through the slightly ajar door Sam looked around, at first missing the small figure of Ethel Atkinson, bent over at the foot of Andrew Thompson's bed, and frowning as he thought a spectre must be in the vicinity. "Peeves?" He asked, pulling his wand out and peering into the semi-dark room. "Homenum revelio," he cast, at a loss for what to say, as he didn't know the spirit revealing charm, and peeves seemed to be a little of both.

Of course at that moment he noticed that little bent over figure, and with a small shout of surprise he pointed his wand at the girl, before lowering it as he recognised a fellow Gryffindor. "Who are you, and what are you doing rummaging through Andrew's shirts?" He asked sternly. He rarely tried to act firm, but when speaking to first years Sam couldn't help but feel mildly superior.

Ethel heard footsteps and knew she was caught. What was the best thing to do when you were caught? Act innocent.

She turned around quickly and looked at the person who'd caught her. Exactly the same person she was here to trick. Uh oh.

Thinking quick, Ethel looked up at the taller boy with what she hoped was an awed expression.

"I've lost my pygmy puff," she said. "He's a little orange one and his name's Fluffy and he's not used to being alone. I don't want him to get scared."

That oughta do it.

Sam's heart melted.

"Aw," He said, his voice dripping with pity, "Those things are just so cute, here, let me help you find him," he said, joining her in searching around the dormitory for the orange ball of fluff. "Fluffy," he called, wondering why he'd not heard her calling his name as he walked up the stairs, that seemed to be the most obvious thing to do.

"Don't they have ears?" He asked as he jumped up on his bed, looking at the top of his bed, checking for any bulges that may reveal the cowering ball of orange fluff, but ultimately finding nothing.

"Well," he said, jumping down and getting on his knees to search under the bed, "He's no where near my bed, I just checked," he said, shrugging and standing back up, turning his back on his own bed and moving onto the next one in the circular room. The elves hadn't been around yet for some reason, so all the beds were still unmade, creating a perfect hiding spot for fluffy to hide in.

"Here, let me help you look," Ethel hurried over to the bed on the other side of the one Samuel had just identified as his.

"It's pretty hard to tell anything about them, actually, they're so small," she said as she watched him search through another boy's belongings.

Confident that Sam was distracted, Ethel slid open the matchbox and saw it was full of brilliant green seeds that squirmed sickeningly. Quickly, she pulled his pillow up and dropped the whole box underneath before covering them up again.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I just remembered!"

"I told Beth she could borrow Fluffy for Transfiguration. She might still have him."

Sam frowned as he straightened up, mildly disappointed that he was going to miss out on meeting fluffy. "Well," he said, shrugging as he looked at you. "I suppose that's it then, I hope that Beth does have him, it'd be a shame to lose him," he told her, wondering how on earth you could forget lending a pet to someone.

Mind you, it was the sort of thing Sam'd do.

"Anyway, I'll talk to you later, I'm right up to a good part in my novel, so you'll have to excuse me," he said, nicely implying that she was to leave. He really was up to a good part in his book though. And with that he grabbed his book from the windowsill next to his bed and lay down to read his book.