Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the sole property of JK Rowling

Chapter 8: Avoidance

The very next night, Harry discovered yet another chapter had appeared in the Book and he was both alarmed and intrigued by the time he had read to the end of it. There was absolutely no way he going to take up flying, which would mean that he could avoid the confrontation with Malfoy he was supposed to get into, Malfoy wouldn't challenge him and Harry would able to circumvent a midnight excursion around the school. Harry did, however, decide that he would at least stop Malfoy from taking Neville's Remembrall by acting before, not after, the flying lesson.

Neville was sitting looking miserably into his bowl of soup when Harry sat down next to him. "Hi, Harry."

"You don't look too happy."

"I'm not," Neville said with a long sigh. "I'm not exactly a big fan of flying and I'd rather not be doing it."

"Nor me," Harry said, before he used the opening to his advantage. "I'm so worried about messing up and I know I won't remember anything we're told. I wish I had something like your Remembrall."

On cue, Neville tugged it from his pocket and held it up. As usual, the inside was a misty red. "I've already forgotten something, so I don't even know why I bother carrying this stupid thing around anyway."

"Then why don't you just leave behind it in the bedroom?" Harry suggested. "Your gran would be upset up if you broke it."

"Knowing my luck that's exactly what I'd do," Neville said in a glum voice. "I'll take it upstairs now."

However by the time Neville got there, stopping along the way to talk to Seamus about how much Seamus was looking forward to the flying lesson, Neville had forgotten why he had gone there in the first place.

And so, just as the Book had predicted, poor Neville was to fall from his broomstick and drop the Remembrall.

And the scene continued to play out just as the Book had decreed it would: Draco went on about Neville being a great lump; Parvati Patil, a nice girl from Harry's house, defended Neville; and Pansy Parkinson, a really horrid girl from Slytherin, teased Parvati about liking fat little cry babies.

And all the time this was happening, Harry was scanning the ground for the Remembrall, but he didn't find it, Draco did, and holding it up, Draco said, "It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him."

However, it was from this point that things changed. Unlike his book counterpart, Harry didn't tell Malfoy to give him the Remembrall – instead he did as he would have done if it had been Dudley in Draco's place and he slipped to stand behind everyone else and did nothing.

And so it was Ron who took up the mantle of defending Neville. "Give it back, Malfoy."

Unfortunately for Draco, he wasn't able to mount his broomstick as he had done in the Book - Ron had by now moved to stand in front of the blonde, and he prodded Draco in the chest. "I said give it back!"

Draco, bolstered by his classmates' presence, demanded, "Make me, Weasel!"

The combined classes of Gryffindor and Slytherin were stunned when Ron lashed out with his fist, knocking a totally taken by surprise Draco down on to the ground, the Remembrall falling out of his hand and rolling across the grass, landing at Harry's feet.

Harry picked it up and pocketed it just as Draco got up and launched himself at Ron.

Yells of 'fight, fight, fight' sprang up from most of the children, only Hermione Granger trying to stop it.

"Stop fighting, you'll both be expelled!"

Neither boy took any notice of her as they rolled over and over in the grass, both trying to get the upper hand, and, wrapped up in the fight, nobody noticed Professor McGonagall heading their way.

Everybody did, however, freeze as Professor McGonagall's voice cut through the hubbub. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It was Malfoy's fault..."

"Be quiet, Mr. Potter."

As Harry fell silent, Professor McGonagall turned her steely gaze upon Ron and Draco, both of whom were on the ground, Ron on top of Draco with his hands still covered in the dirt that he'd begun to smear into Draco's formerly pristine blonde hair.

"You two will get up and come with me."

Giving each other looks that could kill, Draco and Ron did exactly that. And when Madam Hooch, the flying instructor, returned a short time later sans Neville, who had been delivered into the care of Madam Pomfrey, the Matron of the school's hospital wing, it was all Harry could do to concentrate on the lesson – he felt hideously guilty about letting Ron get into trouble. He now wished, just as he had should have done with the Potions lesson, that he had simply followed what the Book said.

However, a little voice in Harry's head kept on telling him that he didn't want to be a puppet, blindly following what the Book told him to do. It never occurred to Harry not to read the Book and to let nature take its course. Instead he vowed next time to do as the Book told him he should, and that way his friends might not end up getting expelled as he was frightened might have happened to Ron.

Harry was therefore thoroughly relieved when Ron appeared at dinner. "Are you okay?"

Ron nodded his head, although his demeanor was somewhat subdued. "I lost ten points and have a detention with Snape tomorrow night."

"Thank God!"

Ron stared at Harry as if he was nuts. "Didn't you hear me?"

"Yeah, but I thought you might have gotten expelled," Harry said, trying to explain about his relief.

"He's lucky not to have been," Hermione Granger broke in.

"Nobody asked you," Ron said in annoyance. "So butt out."

Harry noticed that Hermione looked hurt before she buried her bushy head back behind the large book she had propped up against the fruit bowl that was in front of her. He lowered his voice. "I'm sorry, Ron."

"It's not your fault, Harry," Ron said, not wanting Harry to feel bad. "I'm the one who hit him."

Harry glanced over at Draco, who was sporting a black eye. "Did it feel good?"

Ron's miserable demeanor changed and his face split into a grin. "It felt brilliant."

The two of them then spent the rest of dinner reliving Ron's glory of beating Draco into the dirt.

Harry's delight was to fade when, as they were leaving the Great Hall, they were stopped by Crabbe and Goyle, Draco's 'friends', stepping in front of him and Ron.

Draco faced off against Ron. He obviously felt as though he had something to prove as he said to him, "You ruined my jumper, Weasel. I demand…"

"Get lost," Ron said, feeling buoyed up by his earlier victory. "You ruined mine as well."

"Not that anybody would notice, it looked so old and raggedy," Draco said nastily. "Unlike mine, and you're going to pay..."

"Make me!" Ron taunted, throwing Draco's words of earlier that day into his face.

Draco colored and snapped, "Wizard's duel – no contact."

Harry wanted to groan and bang his head against the wall as Ron said, "You're on. Harry's my second, who's yours?"

Malfoy thought for a moment before saying, "Crabbe – midnight tonight in the trophy room."

As the Slytherin trio loped off, Harry turned on Ron. "You can't go. He won't turn up."

"Of course he will," Ron said confidently.

"No, he won't," Harry said, just as sure he was right.

"If you don't want to be my second I'll ask Seamus," Ron said, thinking this was Harry's problem.

Harry gave a resigned sigh, not wanting Ron and Seamus to fall into trouble. "I'll be your second, Ron."

Ron cheered up. "Great. There are a few things you should know…"


As he lay on his bed later that evening, Harry debated telling Ron about the Book and why he hadn't wanted to be Ron's second. Then he decided not to - he didn't know why, but he didn't want to share it, not yet. So instead, at eleven thirty, he got up when Ron nudged him.

"Harry, are you awake?"

"Yes," whispered Harry back, before trying one last time to talk Ron out of going. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I have to," Ron said, standing back so that Harry could get up from his bed. "Malfoy would call me a coward if I didn't go."

"Then let's go."

Both boys headed out of the bedroom and downstairs, jumping out of their skins when Hermione rose up from a high backed chair that was placed in front of the fire. "I can't believe you're going to do this."

"Mind your own business, Granger," Ron barked out.

Hermione did nothing of the sort and instead she tried to stop the two boys by stepping in front of them. "I almost told your brother…"

Harry halted the conversation before Hermione could mention Percy, as he suspected she might. "Hermione, we're going and, if you don't want to get caught out of bed, I think you should stay here. You don't want to lose all those points Professor McGonagall awarded you for knowing about Switching Spells."

This took the wind out of Hermione's sails – she had been intending to lecture the two boys on losing points for Hufflepuff and by using the very example Harry himself had. "Fine, but just remember that I told you so when you're on the train…"

As she was speaking Harry had grabbed Ron and dragged him outside, the door shutting to and cutting off the remainder of Hermione's speech.

Ron let out a sigh of relief as he followed Harry down the corridor. "Thank goodness. We'd better hurry."

Both boys suddenly drew to a halt as a sort of snuffling reached their ears. After a moment's panic, Harry guessed what, or rather who, it was, ignoring Ron's half asked question of 'Mrs. Norris?'. "It sounds like Neville."

It was, and just as the Book had said, he was curled upon the floor fast asleep, waking up as they got nearer.

Harry got in before Neville could break into a speech. "You couldn't remember the password?"

Neville shook his head. It was then he realized that Harry and Ron shouldn't have been there. "What are you two doing out here?"

"I'm going to be Ron's second in a duel. Why don't you go back to Gryffindor and try to get in? The password is Pig's snout." Harry said all of this as quickly as he could, Ron tugging at his sleeve.

"I'm not going back there on my own," Neville said in a nervous voice. "The Bloody Baron's been past twice already."

Letting go of Harry's sleeve, Ron looked at his watch before deciding to let Neville go with them, but not without a warning. "If you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learnt that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about and used it on you."

Neville promised faithfully he'd keep quiet and stick close to them. However, Harry knew they'd get safely to the trophy room and so he wasn't nearly as worried as Ron about running into Filch, the caretaker, or Mrs. Norris, his cat, at least not on the way there.

As Harry expected, when they arrived, there was no sign of Draco or Crabbe in the trophy room. After a few minutes of waiting, Harry made a suggestion. "I think we should go. It looks as though he's chickened out."

"Just another five minutes," Ron said, not wanting to go and have Draco turn up afterwards.

Harry just knew what would happen even as he agreed to Ron's request and sure enough, after less than two minutes, an oily voice reached their ears.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

And so Harry did as he had promised himself he would, he followed the Book's instructions and, waving madly to indicate that the others should follow him, he headed towards the door that lay in the opposite direction to Filch's voice.

With Filch muttering behind them, Harry stuck to the script. "This way!"

The script didn't let him down – as if on cue, moments later, Neville crashed into Ron and brought down a suit of armor.

Harry yelled, "RUN!"

The boys eventually made good their escape, only to run into another obstacle: Peeves, who made as much noise as the suit of armor crashing to the ground had.

And consequently, as if being herded in a direction that Harry had most definitely not wanted to go in, the three boys found themselves in front of a door, which Ron tried opening but to no avail.

"This is it! We're done for! This is the end!"

Hearing Filch getting closer, Harry shoved Ron aside and aimed his wand at the door, knowing even as he did it, what was waiting behind the door. "Alohomora."

The door swung open and Harry had no choice about going through the doorway, Ron pushing him inside the room in his panic and dragging Neville along with them, before slamming shut the door and leaning against it, Ron closing his eyes.

Harry did his best to ignore what was behind Ron, but it was hard to miss the three headed dog. Harry just hoped it wouldn't make a move until Filch had gone, anything the Book had said going out of his head in his fear.

Next to him, Neville was shaking and also staring at the dog before he looked at Harry and managed to croak out, "Dog!"

Ron now finally opened his eyes, before they almost doubled in size as they widened and he squeaked, "Out!"

The three boys vied to get out first and the dog lunged forward just as Harry, who was the furthest from the entrance, slammed the door shut behind him. He then set off after Ron and Neville, who had taken off as fast as their frightened legs would carry them back towards Gryffindor.

When he arrived back, having overtaken both Neville and Ron, Harry didn't think he'd ever been as glad to see the Fat Lady, the guardian of Gryffindor tower, as he was at that moment. "Pig snout," he shouted as he got closer, cutting off anything the Fat Lady might have been about to say.

The portrait swung open and they all piled inside to discover Hermione Granger was still up. She immediately began to lecture them.

"I hope you didn't lose us any points."

"No, we didn't," Ron said in a voice that sounded a little squeaky.

Harry backed Ron up. "So you can go back to bed and stop worrying."

Hermione threw back her hair and stalked off, having nothing else to say to the three boys.

Ron then began a tirade about keeping a dog in the school, Neville whole-heartedly agreeing with him. During the conversation, Harry noticed that neither Ron nor Neville had mentioned the trap door the dog had been standing on and so he kept quiet about it. However, just as the Book had mentioned, he wondered what the thing the dog was guarding could be and where it had come from.

It would be some time before Harry remembered about the Gringotts' break-in as his mind would be occupied by thoughts of Halloween, the next chapter in the Book.