Never underestimate the power of love

It was an unusual site to see Alice up and about so early in the morning. But since she didn't have lunch or most of dinner the day before, her stomach simply didn't allow her to miss breakfast as well. She quickly got dressed and headed down to the great hall. It was, as expected, half empty and most of the students were still soundly sleeping in her beds. She liked eating during the weekends as it was much less formal. Students were scattered around the tables, loudly discussing recent Hogwarts gossip. It was one of the few days were boundaries between the houses seem to disappear, even if it was just for a little while. That brought a whole new refreshed atmosphere in the hall. This was one of the reasons she enjoyed weekends, and the no classes thing only added cherries to the top.

Alice grabbed a Daily Prophet as she buttered her toast. With all the course work she had to do during the week, she barely had any time left to herself. That meant she was much behind in reading Susan's columns. Having already decided to take it easy today, she relaxed in her chair and took a sip of her juice. Her friend joined her for breakfast and soon another Hufflepuff came as well. These three girls chattered about the usual news that flooded the halls through whispers and gossip. Alice was again quite behind so they had a lot to talk about. She patiently listened to her friends enthusiastically talk about random subjects out loud.

as usual Ezra Dimitrov could be found lurking in the corner of the busiest rooms being oddly quiet and creepily stalker-ish. Today he sat as far away from other people as possible at the end of the slytherin table facing the rest of the room with a grim smirk on his face and sorrowful eyes. His face looking depressed as he scanned the happy ones of his fellow students. Then his eyes came to the face of a sweet and tired looking hufflepuff who held the daily prophet in front of her face. Picking up an apple he studied her face as he bit into it.

Alice was taking another sip of her tea when she noticed a guy looking at her. Having a shy and demure nature she did, Alice just glanced away and kept looking at her table. After a few exchanged words with her friends, she looked at the guy again. He was sitting at the Slytherin table, which obviously made him a member of that house, and he was still looking at her. Even strangely so. Alice bit her lip and quickly looked away. "Do I have something on my face?" she asked the friend next to her. Because that would be the only obvious reason this guy she didn't even know would stare at her like that.

After confirming several times that she didn't have anything on her face, she continued with her eating. After a few minutes though, curiosity got the best of her and she glanced across at the Slytherin table once more. There he was, still looking at her direction. "That Slytherin guy, the older one. Do you know him?" she whispered asking her friends but no one seemed to know who he was. He looked much older than her year so that was probably why.