~Written for The 2017 House Competition~

Format: Drabble

Prompt: The Dog

Word Count: 849

Summary: Such a simple thing as a glimpsed quidditch match could mean so much to the right person.

~Could A Dog Smile~

The raucous bellowing of students, of stomping feet and cackling laughter and boos as often as cheers, echoed throughout the stand above him. Strange, that less than three hundred of those very students could produce such a riot of noise.

But the dog wasn't thinking of that.

The toot of a whistle sounded, followed by the ripple of a groan. Accusations were flung, the words lost to the wind and the game and the excitement, cries of "Unfair!" and "What a call!" and "Come on, Hooch! What was that?"

But the dog didn't hear that either.

Slinking through the darkness of the stands, padding up the steps, he kept his ears pricked, nose to the ground, knees crouched. He was a shadow slipping between shadows, a wraith of only a whisper of sound. Not that anyone would have heard him should he utter any sound; Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had always been quidditch-centric. Always. Even back in the days when…

The dog paused as another whistle sounded, this time followed by such an outburst of excitement that he almost thought the game had been won. That it had finished, was over, was missed. But then another toot, another outburst of student jubilation, and the echoes of competition initiated anew. A goal, perhaps. Or a remarkable defence. That Gryffindor Keeper was something special; the dog considered that even were he an ordinary dog he would be capable of discerning that much.

Climbing the last few steps, he paused at the entrance to the grandstands. The doorway breathed grim light into the darkness within, the gloomy Scottish weather not quite bright but illuminating nonetheless. The sounds were louder, here – shouts, more tooting whistles, words and babble and chatter more discernible – and the smells of sweat and excitement wafted thickly into the dog's nostrils. But he couldn't see. Not over the protective barrier of wooden balustrade, not upon the pitch or the game battled before him. A player in red and gold zipped past, but disappeared in a moment. That was all the evidence of game he was afforded.

It frustrated the dog. He grumbled beneath his breath at the annoyance, but a wasted trip it was not. What kind of Dog would he be to turn tail and slink away at such a trivial barrier?

Dropping into a crouch once more, he instead crept – silently, always silently – towards the back of the stands. Around the stairwell and beyond. The shadows were darker there, the smell of encroaching winter deeper and tinged with the dampness of wood just slightly mouldy, but the dog didn't care. He'd smelt far worse in his time, and often upon himself.

And he climbed. Clambering up the ladder of stilts, of beams and through timber walls that were less walls and more of a patchwork of holes and wooden slats, he ascended the back of the stands. The passage would have been far easier had he hands rather than paws but…

The dog had never begrudged his canine status. Many times it had been a blessing.

The air was clearer, sweeter, crisper when he alighted upon the top of the stands. The very top, at that, upon the stretch of seating absented of students. The wind nipped at his ears like the fractious prancing of playful puppies, and just as he would those puppies he ignored them. He ignored the spread of warmly-wrapped Gryffindors below him, too, their waving, flailing hands and bellows of triumph for nothing in particular as far as the dog could discern. They were turned away from him, unaware, and so beneath his notice, too.

For he was discerning. From his perch, as much hidden by the shadows that surrounded him as the height of his placement, he watched the game. The dog watched as the ruddy quaffle soared between players, was scooped from the air, was battered from beneath an arm that held it too loosely. He watched as a bludger soared cringingly close to a Chaser's head, only to be redirected a moment later by a redheaded boy with a wicked swing. Brooms swooped, players dove, and goals were scored. Like a presiding vulture, the grey-clad referee drifted overhead, whistle tooting every other second in ear-splitting shrieks.

But the dog didn't watch the vulture. He saw but didn't watch the beaters and bludgers, the Chasers and Keepers and their quaffle. His gaze was affixed upon a single, small figure that swooped and dove like a darting hummingbird, weaving about the pitch as though it were his playground.

The boy was breathtaking to watch. A real natural on a broom. Images, memories, and feelings so strong that the dog could almost taste them welled within him, and he stared. He stared and didn't blink, didn't look away for even a second from the spectacle being performed with the fluidity of a dancer before him.

He was so like James. Harry, little Harry, with his hummingbird-dives and dexterity, that naturalness, so like James. Different, and yet so, so similar.

Had he the lips to do so, Sirius Black would have smiled.