Chapter 8: The Unpleasant Surprises
By the second Friday of the school year, Harry's little quartet was nearly jumping on their toes in excitement as they walked into the Great Hall for dinner. They'd spent the week planning the best prank ever on the Slytherins, and they were about to see it in action.
It turned out each of the boys could contribute something to the cause. Harry was the most familiar with spells, and he had a host of good pranks to recycle from the Senior Marauders' days; Ron, who had grown up with his pranking twin brothers, also had a few very good suggestions, especially about the castle itself, not to mention that his natural tendency to strategize came in very handy; Dean, aside from being very good at faking other people's handwriting, gave ideas that wouldn't have crossed the minds of the other three, since his were of Muggle origin, and therefore required no magic to do; and Seamus' evil streak and tendency to blow things up insured that he was the one to do the pranks.
Their first attempt was a spectacularly hilarious one, though somewhat painful for the far right table, and all it required was a letter to Sirius in order to find the kitchens (and to ask the details about that one prank the Senior Marauders had pulled in their fifth year), a letter to Dean's half-brothers asking for a large quantity of thumbtacks, a heap of practice of a useful temporary invisibility charm targeting small objects from a book they found in the library, and some after-curfew wanderings while the house-elves were off cleaning the castle.
While Dean assured them it was a very basic prank in the Muggle world, most wizards had little concept of things such as cork boards and thumbtacks, and, in Ron's words, it was better to start small and build up to something unforgettable, than showing all their cards on the first try.
Breakfast was a buffet-type meal, and students were free to come and go as they woke up. Lunch was a light affair between classes, an on-the-go style meal. At dinner, however, especially on Friday, the Great Hall tended to be packed with students catching up with one another and their activities over the week. Moreover, the Hall itself was usually one of the quieter places older students used for study before all the classes let out, which almost guaranteed that the tables wouldn't be set before the maximum number of people possible had already entered it.
Sirius' letter gave them all the information they needed about the way food and eating cutlery were transported from the kitchens to the Great Hall. Unfortunately, there were no sitting benches in the kitchen, so the original prank had to be tweaked a little, but in all, it wasn't a difficult thing to pull off.
Food, plates, goblets and eating utensils appeared on the four tables at promptly seven in the evening. The newly-named Junior Marauders pretended to be engrossed with piling food on their plates, while discretely (in their opinion; not so in the opinion of the professors) observing the Slytherin table.
The first yelp of pain came not moments afterwards, as several students whose hands and arms had been resting on the table when everything, including napkins, appeared, almost to the last one, snatched their arms away from the table. Napkins, plates, knives, forks and spoons clattered to the ground, and even some pumpkin juice seemed to have been spilled in the commotion. The other students, both Slytherin and from other houses, all turned to see what was going on, but, as there wasn't anything visible that could explain it, either sniggered, snorted, shook their heads or rolled their eyes, and turned back to eating.
The lull lasted only until the fastest eaters finished and reached for their napkins to wipe their mouths or hands. Then, sniggering to themselves, the four Gryffindors watched as, one after another, the students experienced what their housemates had at the beginning of the meal, yelping and exclaiming in pain as the invisible thumbtacks hidden in the napkins pricked their skin.
By the end, when the whole table had had the presence of mind to figure out what was going on, there was so much spilled food, utensils and liquid all around them that Harry had no doubt the house elves would be at it come morning.
The Slytherin table swore, prolifically and imaginatively, some even yelling out threats left and right, while the Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor tables roared with laughter, until finally, McGonagall had to amplify her own voice to be heard over the commotion as professors hurried to check that no one was seriously hurt. They weren't, of course – the thumbtacks weren't that long, and at most, some had simply broken the surface layer of skin and drawn a little bit of blood. Still, they were invisible, so no doubt most had ended up littered in the food, drinks, seats and the floor around the table, just waiting for more careless victims.
By the end of the whole fiasco, Harry was laughing so hard tears were dripping down his nose onto his plate, Ron's forehead jabbing him uncomfortably in the shoulder as his best friend laughed with him, while Seamus and Dean across from them remained half-bent, holding their stomachs from laughter cramps and leaning on each other to stay seated.
The rest of the Gryffindor table wasn't much better off, excluding Fred and George Weasley, who seemed shocked enough someone had pulled a stunt like this only two weeks into the school year that their mouths were hanging open, and were thus looking for their newest competition in the throng of some five hundred students crowding the hall (though Harry was sure they would have been laughing right along everyone else otherwise).
"Silence!" McGonagall's voice rose above the commotion. She didn't get a response, which prompted her to cast a strong Silencing Charm over the whole room, effectively imposing absolute silence. "Now then, who is responsible for this?!" her Scottish brogue tinting it heavily enough it was difficult to understand. Harry cursed his luck that Dumbledore wasn't here – no doubt he'd have just laughed with everyone else and dismissed it as just another childish prank. McGonagall, by comparison, had had to contend with the Weasley twins for the past two years as their Head of House, which had, no doubt, soured her to this kind of behaviour.
Loud meowing had everyone turning towards it, only to find a clearly juvenile grey tabby cat right in the middle of the Gryffindor table, observing the Deputy Headmistress with large blue eyes. McGonagall lifted her eyebrow questioningly.
"Whose familiar is that, and what is it doing in the Great Hall?"
After a few moments of silence, a hand rose in the air, and Harry growled silently when he figured out it was Evan Snape. McGonagall lifted the Silencing Charm off of him.
"Well, Mr Snape? I am waiting for an explanation?"
"I can't say what she's doing here," the sallow boy said, "but I think she's pointing out the culprit is sitting at that table."
"Indeed," McGonagall replied, eying the cat and the students in its vicinity. "I assume, Mr Snape, that you have proper authorisation for bringing a full-blooded Kneazle instead of a cat, as stated in the school rules?"
"Yes, Professor, my father cleared it with Headmaster Dumbledore."
"And does she know who, exactly, is responsible?"
The Slytherin gave a questioning look to the cat – no, Kneazle (no wonder the damned creature had seemed so intelligent on the train ride) – who cocked its head and gave him what amounted to an unimpressed look, as if asking 'Do you really want me to say?'. Snape furrowed his brow, thought a moment, then, with one glancing look at the Junior Marauders, shook his head.
"No, ma'am."
McGonagall swept the Gryffindor table with a hard look, eyes stopping momentarily first on the Weasley twins and then on Harry's group, and the four first-years attempted to look completely innocent. Then the woman sighed and lifted the Silencing Charm completely.
"Very well, then," she said after summoning the thumbtacks (and Harry was a little surprised she'd known what they are, actually) onto a pile in front of her. "Those of you who feel they need to are dismissed to the hospital wing. The rest of you, go back to your dinners. If anyone has any information pertaining to this event, you are to come see me after you are done."
Snape, who seemed to have avoided the worst of the Attack of the Thumbtacks, remained, his Kneazle curling in his lap, while about a third of their table left, most sporting scratched arms, legs and faces and grumbling angrily under their breath. Fuming at the fact that they were singled out on their very first attempt, and all because of a stupid cat, Harry looked at his friends and motioned them to come closer so as not to be overheard.
"We need to put that git in his place, or next time he'll tell on us and I for one don't intend to spend my free time in detention," he growled.
"Yeah," Seamus and Ron agreed instantly, while Dean hesitated only a moment or two before nodding his head. That settled, they returned to eating their dinner.
When the Great Hall finally began emptying after their prank, Harry kept an eye on Snape until the other first-year finished his meal and got up from his table. He moved to the Ravenclaw one and had a brief conversation with the insufferable know-it-all, then departed the room alone.
"Now," he muttered to his cohorts, and the four Junior Marauders moved swiftly from their seats. It didn't take them long to catch up with the greasy-haired boy and his cat – no, Kneazle – in a deserted hallway that led to one of the bathrooms on the ground floor.
Before they could do much more than draw their wands, the Kneazle raised its back half high into the air, fur standing up, and hissed like a snake at them. The next moment, Snape had his wand out, as well, eying them wearily.
"What do you want, Potter?" he asked.
"What do you think, Snape?" Harry asked with a sneer. "You outed us on our first attempt."
"I did not," he replied with a snort. "You outed yourselves; honestly, with that much skill in misdirection, it's a wonder she hadn't picked you out of the crowd on the spot."
"She wouldn't have known anything if your cat hadn't interfered," Seamus said, eyes blazing.
The Kneazle hissed at him, lifting even further into the air until it looked almost ridiculous, with its large ears tilted back and its hair standing up as if electrified.
"Stheno does what she wants; you'll have to take that up with her, if you can."
"She's a cat," Dean pointed out, unimpressed. "What can she do to us?"
"She's a Kne–" Ron began, his voice cutting off abruptly as the damned animal ran at Dean with shocking speed, climbing up the side of his robes with sharp claws, clearly intent on reaching his face. Snape didn't waste any time, either. His Furnunculus would have hit Ron square in the face if Harry hadn't managed to push his mate out of the way. The Slytherin ran past them, snapping his fingers towards his pet, which Seamus was unsuccessfully trying to pull away from Dean's face. The Kneazle wiggled out of Seamus' hands and, giving them parting scratches, ran after its master, leaving the four to pick themselves off the floor.
"Are you guys all right?" Harry asked them as soon as he'd pulled Ron back to his feet.
"That thing's a demon," Dean said, sniffling in pain. His hands and face were liberally scratched with shallow lines that weren't bleeding, but would scab over and be quite painful for some time. Seamus' hands weren't much better, either, because his wounds actually were bleeding sluggishly, no doubt from where the Kneazle had pushed itself away from them.
"Come on; I've got some cream for that," Ron said, helping Dean to his feet. "It works wonders. By tomorrow morning, you won't feel a thing. I use it all the time when I fall off my broom. What?" he asked Seamus defensively. "We've got old brooms, they tend to buckle."
"For future reference, Dean," Harry said sympathetically, "don't insult a Kneazle. They're much smarter than any cat, and they can definitely understand what you're telling them."
"How was I supposed to know that?!"
"We'll make sure Snape gets his for this," Seamus said forcefully.
"We have to catch him unawares, though," Ron stated. "We should have waited a few days, so that it didn't look connected to the prank."
"Then it's a good thing we let him get away so easily," Harry decided. "This way, if he reports us, we're the one who got mauled by his familiar."
"You mean the two of us did; all you two did was trip over yourselves," Seamus retorted in a sneer.
"Yes, fine, but the point is, I think we're safe as far as this goes. We'll give it a few days, let things settle down; then, we'll catch him when his fiend isn't around to defend him and teach him a lesson."
They walked in silence for the next two floors, each one musing on the best ways of getting revenge for the sustained wounds, before more important thoughts asserted themselves.
"You think Mrs Norris is a Kneazle?" Seamus asked.
"Who knows," Ron replied with a shrug. "Either way, next time we decide to ambush either Filch or Snape, make sure their cats aren't around."
"I knew Kneazles could be vicious, but I really didn't see this coming," Harry mused as they snuck past some prefects on the fifth floor. "I just thought it was a regular cat until today."
"Did you hear what he told McGonagall, that he got special dispensation from the Headmaster?" Dean said. "You were right, Harry, he really is an arse licker."
"Of course he is; all Slytherins are, one way or another," Ron replied. "Horse teeth," he told the Fat Lady, and she swung open to let them enter the Tower. They made quick work of the scratches with that cream of Ron's, and, exactly as he'd claimed, by the next morning, neither of the boys sported more than faint lines over their wounded skin.
The morning became rather boisterous when they saw the notice pinned up in the common room – mandatory first-year flying lessons were to start next Thursday, while one-semester Muggle Sports class was scheduled for Gryffindors for Friday afternoon.
"I've been looking forward to that," Seamus admitted. "Mum won't let me fly much, just when me cousin Fergus is there, and he's a git and a half."
Sports as a general topic had been covered in the past week in both Culture classes, so that the students wouldn't be completely lost during their Muggle Sports class, which was a chance for the students to decide which sports club they wanted to be part of after the winter hols. Flying classes were separate, however, and would last for one month for those students who displayed sufficient proficiency in the skill, and would remain mandatory until the end of the year for all those who didn't.
Gryffindors had Muggle Sports with Hufflepuffs, thankfully, but they'd not had such luck with Flying – they were stuck with Slytherins.
Ron moaned at the realisation, hanging his head. "And I thought it was bad enough that we had one class with them."
"We'll be fine," Harry dismissed his concern. "Aside from Dean, we all know how to fly, and I'm sure you'll pick it up easily," he assured his Muggle-born friend.
"I'll probably embarrass myself in front of them first," Dean pointed out despondently.
"Don't stress it; they're usually all talk anyway. Besides, you'll be much better at football than any of them."
"Too bad we can't see their faces then," Seamus agreed congenially. They'd all agreed to give football an honest chance, even Ron, who seemed quite uninterested in it. Still, as had been explained to them by their professor, knowing other sports would help them fit in better into the Muggle world, and many of them were challenging in very different ways to Quidditch, with which she didn't sound even a little enamoured. Harry was privately thinking that he might enjoy lacrosse, but football sounded almost as interesting.
The flying lesson turned into a fiasco quickly enough. Neville had gotten a Remembrall from his grandmother that morning, one Malfoy was quick enough to steal and mock the Gryffindor for during breakfast. The Junior Marauders had, naturally, jumped in defence of one of their housemates, and by the time McGonagall had shooed them away, the conflict was half-brewed already.
Madam Hooch was a stocky woman with boyishly short grey hair and unnatural yellow eyes that moved over the students like a hawk's. She seemed quite grouchy, but then that did appear to be her default state, if her numerous arguments over meals with other faculty members were to be taken into account, so Harry didn't give it much thought. He knew how to fly; in fact, he felt more at home in the air than on the ground. No, what his mind was on was that promise Sirius had given him a few months back, about getting him the newest model of the broom if he got on the Quidditch team.
He'd read up on that, and there was a clause, instituted some years back, that first-year students were allowed to try out for the Quidditch team, but only if both their flying supervisor and their Head of House allowed it, and the Headmaster approved it. So far, no student had yet managed to pass the try-outs, apparently because the last first-year who played (and this was about thirty-five years back) got hit so hard with a Bludger that he'd spent half a year in a coma and his parents attempted to sue the school.
Harry's plan was to impress Madam Hooch first, and then find a way to get McGonagall to agree as well. He knew Dumbledore would let him without a fuss. Then he'd get the Nimbus 2000 he wanted and beat his dad's record.
The brooms they were using were older models Bluebottles, purchased three years ago when the budget for safety equipment was redesigned, after the atrocious conditions of the previous school brooms were reported. They were reliable, steady and were absolutely not used for Quidditch, being far too slow for the games. Harry remembered how chuffed the Weasley twins had been that they'd managed to avoid the old, rattling ones that Percy and the older Weasley brothers had had to use in their first years.
"Stick out your right hand over your broom," Madam Hooch said, stopping when she noticed a raised hand. "Yes?"
"I'm left-handed," Evan Snape commented lightly, earning himself a glare from their instructor.
"Yes, yes, fine, your dominant hand. Then say 'up'."
Harry didn't even need to do that much; one light thought, and the broom was in his hand, stable in balance as he tested its pull. Satisfied, he looked around, noticing that while Dean was somewhat nervous, he'd still managed to call his broom to him on his third try. Ron and Seamus had no such problems, and were grinning to one another in delight. The Two Sallys were both having some trouble, but Lavender and Padma had things well in hand. On the Slytherin side, Snape still hadn't managed to call it to himself, sharing this particular pleasure with Dumb and Dumber. Nott and Zabini were having more success, and Malfoy's was in his hand, while the girls all seemed to struggle with it.
Apparently, not all parents taught their children how to fly on broomsticks from a young age.
It took some time, but finally everyone had succeeded in this first step, so Madam Hooch proceeded to show them how to mount the broom and the proper grip. Harry and his gang sniggered like a pack of hyenas when she told Malfoy, quite dismissively, that his hold was completely wrong.
Then Neville kicked off the ground too hard and, having no control over the broom, began rising almost meteorically into the air. He lost his balance, slipped off and hit the ground just as their instructor had pulled out her wand, no doubt to cast a Cushioning Charm. The broom twirled in the air and landed some distance away.
Neville had, apparently, broken his wrist.
"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch'. Come on, dear."
Neville, whimpering and clutching his wrist, staggered beside her as she helped him keep his balance with an arm around him.
Malfoy's laughter was apparently contagious for Slytherins, since all but Snape, Nott and Davis joined in. The greasy-haired boy looked rather pale himself, eyes sympathetically trailing after Neville's disappearing shape, while Tracey Davis had a sneer on his face that could have as easily been directed towards the Gryffindor as to the other Slytherins. Nott just looked bored.
"Shut up, Malfoy!" Parvati snapped, balling her fists.
"Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?" Parkinson sneered contemptuously. "Never thought you'd like fat little crybabies, Patil."
"Go screw yourself, Parkinson," Sally-Anne shot, making all the other children gasp. As a Muggle-born, she was clearly far more comfortable with hard swearing than any of the others were. "Oh, that's right, you want to save yourself for Blondie McSnot over there."
Parkinson's eyes were wider than Harry had ever seen them, and she looked genuinely shocked that someone had the guts to talk to her like that. Beside him, Dean elbowed him lightly.
"What's she mean by that?" he asked under his breath.
"Tell you later," Harry answered. "Malfoy, give that back!"
Malfoy had picked up Neville's Remembrall in the general confusion, which explained why he'd missed the nickname Sally-Anne had bestowed on him.
"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to collect. How about... up a tree?"
Harry lunged for him, but Malfoy had already leapt onto his broom and was in the air by the time Harry landed back on his feet. Without a second thought, Harry was on his own broom and eye-level with the little snot, his Marauders whooping and cheering beneath him.
"You have three seconds, Malfoy. Give. It. Here."
"Or what, Potter?"
But Harry knew that he was the more expert one of them now. Half a second faster, and he would have had the Remembrall in his hands. As it was, Malfoy had managed to dip down just enough to avoid head-on collision, forcing Harry to make a sharp about turn.
"Where're your goonies now?"
Malfoy, who Harry was quite pleased to note, looked far less self-assured than three minutes before, twisted in his seat and flung the ball at the castle wall with all his might. Harry swore under his breath and leaned forwards, pushing the broom to its maximum speed. Some fifteen inches from the wall, he shot his hand out to catch the little glass trinket, while he pulled the broom up sharply, managing to turn himself parallel to the wall just in time that he could brush his toes against the cool stone. Then he was casting off it, finishing the backflip by straightening out and slowing down abruptly into a hover, grinning like a loon at the rush the manoeuvre had given him.
"That was a Crazy Ivan!" he heard Dean's voice rise up in awe just as the whistles and cheers followed it.
"It's called Vertical Vronski Feint!" Ron's voice rang out. "Man, he's good!"
"Harry James Potter!"
McGonagall's voice easily overpowered the chorus, and in the dead silence that followed, Harry saw her appear nearly speechless with shock.
"What did you think you were doing?!"
"Oh, someone's in trouble," Malfoy called out, having dismounted from his broom.
"I was stopping Malfoy from destroying Neville's property," Harry answered calmly, directing his broom downwards. He wasn't quite sure what to expect from her, but Sirius had said that McGonagall was pretty obsessed with Quidditch, so he assumed that he'd at least suitably impressed her, in which case the punishment for disobeying Madam Hooch's order was a price he was quite willing to pay.
"Never, in all my time at Hogwarts... how dare you – might have broken your neck–"
"I was in control the whole time," Harry answered testily, feeling contemptuous that his flying abilities were being brought into question. "I knew what I was doing."
"What on this Earth possessed you to do such a thing?" she questioned him, the shock waning in favour of obvious anger. "And where is Madam Hooch?"
"I told you," he replied. "Malfoy was going to destroy Neville's property, after laughing at him for falling off his broom and breaking his wrist. She took Neville to the hospital wing."
"She also said not to fly the broomsticks on pain of expulsion," Parvati added, "which Malfoy did first."
"Potter, you are to come with me this instant," she ordered, and behind him, Harry heard Malfoy sniggering. "And you, Mr Malfoy, will report to me on Saturday morning for detention, and be sure that your Head of House will be notified of such conceited and rude behaviour. Ten points from both of your houses for not obeying your instructors, and another ten from Slytherin for stealing another student's property." Well, that shut the little snot up nicely.
He followed his Head of House in silence, nearly running to keep up with her brisk trot as she guided them back into the castle, past the large doors and up the staircase to the fourth floor. She poked her head into a classroom and asked for 'Wood', and when Oliver, the Gryffindor Quidditch captain, came out, Harry's spirits rose.
"Follow me, gentlemen."
She took them to the fifth floor, all the way to the other side of the castle, where she finally stopped at a statue of a gargoyle.
"Treacle tarts," she told it (Harry was thrilled to note that the password seemed to be his favourite treat) and the gargoyle moved out of the way to reveal a spiral staircase. They climbed to the top in tense silence, finally reaching a relatively large wooden door, through which McGonagall entered without even knocking.
Dumbledore was on the other side of them, so Harry took this to be his office. He would have been quite interested in studying it, if only he wasn't nearly ready to jump out of his skin from the nervous excitement he was feeling at the transpiring event.
The old Headmaster looked up from his paperwork, giving the witch a slight questioning frown.
"Harry Potter nearly killed himself flying into a wall in an attempt to catch a glass trinket belonging to Mr Longbottom," she informed the Headmaster tersely and without hesitation. "He then managed to catch it, make a back turn and stop, all within inches of the castle wall. He did not hurt a hair on his head."
"He what?" Oliver asked, sounding bewildered.
Dumbledore's eyes were solemn when he looked at Harry, and the eleven-year-old felt his cheeks warm.
"Why would you do such a thing, Harry?"
"Malfoy was making fun of Neville after he'd broken his wrist, sir," Harry answered, remembering to add the proper address at the end. "And Neville got that Remembrall just this morning from his gran. I couldn't let him get away with it."
"It is not your job to police your peers."
"Well, there were no grown-ups around," Harry replied obstinately. "We Lions stand up for one another, and Neville is one of us. And I wasn't going to kill myself; I knew when to pull up."
"Have you attempted this before, Potter?" McGonagall asked him.
"Well, not with a wall, I didn't," he admitted. "But I've done it loads of times very low to the ground, and it's sort of the same."
"You are either the most self-assured first-year, or the most foolish one, then, and I will be letting your guardian know about this." Oh, well, if that was all, then it was fine. "Additionally, you will have detention with me for the whole of Sunday." Harry's shoulders drooped. Of course that wasn't all. "Albus, I want him trying out for the Seeker position. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done the manoeuvre better."
"He does have a build for a Seeker," Oliver confirmed, still sounding a little dazed. "You'll need a decent broom."
"I believe you are putting the cart before the horse, Mr Wood," Dumbledore said, still looking quite serious. "Firstly, Harry, you will not be pulling these kinds of stunts again, are we in agreement?"
"Only if I need to do it to win the match. That is, if I get onto the team," Harry said.
"Good. Now, secondly, you are all aware of the fact that no first-year student has played for the Quidditch team in thirty-seven years."
"Only because no first-year was good enough," McGonagall countered. "You've given your permission for try-outs before, Albus."
"I have, yes. Very well; bring me signed documentation, and I will validate it."
"That means I can try out, right?" Harry asked, just to confirm. Dumbledore, in response, gave him a smile, his twinkle returned.
"Yes, Harry, that means you can try out."
The Boy Who Lived gave him a blinding smile, nearly pumping his fists in the air in his excitement.
"Yeah! I'm on the team!"
"Not just yet, Harry. Do not get carried away."
"Oh, he's as good as," Oliver confirmed easily. "We've not had decent candidates for Seeker position since Charlie Weasley first filled it out three years ago. I was quite worried we'd be flattened this year, to be honest."
McGonagall gave him a warm smile. "Aside from nearly killing yourself, Potter, that was a superb flying move. Your father would have been proud."
Malfoy's duel invitation was gladly accepted when it came that evening. The four Marauders faced off against Malfoy and his two cronies, giving them wolfish smiles and already planning their next big prank, which they'd agreed would be against Malfoy. Neville was still not back from the hospital wing, and in their opinion, twenty points and one detention weren't nearly enough punishment for the bleached snot.
Their plan to visit Neville in the hospital wing fell through when McGonagall brought the last Gryffindor first-year some half-hour before their bedtime. He looked pale and shaky, but when they congregated around him to ask him how he was, he told them that he was fine and that Madam Pomfrey had fixed his wrist right up.
They spent the next half-hour telling him all about the flying lesson, and Harry returned the Remembrall to him, which made Neville's eyes water so that he had to wipe his nose with his sleeve.
"Thanks, Harry. My gran would've killed me if I'd gotten it broken on the first day."
"It wasn't your fault," Dean pointed out, "I'm sure she wouldn't have if you'd explained it to her."
"She would have. She would have said that I should have kept my things safe."
"Well, we'll get revenge tonight, so don't worry."
"What? How?" Neville asked at the same time Harry, Ron and Seamus all yelled: "Dean!"
"Harry's having a duel with Malfoy," Seamus explained finally. "At midnight, tonight."
"For me? Oh, please don't go," Neville said, voice rising in panic. "What if you get caught? Or if you get hurt?!"
"I'm sure I know much more magic than he does," Harry told him, dismissing the point with ease. "Malfoy only knows how to talk tough, that's all. Sirius taught me plenty of spells already."
"But what if it's a trap?" Neville insisted. "What if he has some older students with him who can help him out, because they're angry with that prank you did?"
"Malfoy? He's too dumb to do something like that," Seamus said derisively.
"I don't know," Ron voiced, sounding dubious enough that Harry gave him his full attention. "Malfoy is really full of himself, but I don't think he's stupid."
"What we need is that map," Harry decided. "Y'know, the Marauder's Map. I say we go get that first, then we can see if he's only with Crabbe and Goyle, or if it's an ambush."
"I thought you said that Filch took the Map," Seamus pointed out.
"So? We can break into his office; I'm sure it'll be there somewhere."
"Yeah, but what if he's there, mate?" Ron asked. "We'd just get caught."
"We need a strategy," Dean decided.
"Erm... Harry, I don't think this is such a good idea," Neville piped up nervously.
"Don't worry, Neville, everything'll be fine."
They moved to Seamus' bed, which was furthest from Neville's, where they planned out the night's events. In light of this new development, they'd all agreed that one of them would have to be the lookout, and Dean was probably the fastest runner of the lot, being well-trained for football games. Ron quickly took over the planning with some encouragement from Harry's side – Ron was the best strategist of them, same as he was the best chess player – and he came up with a very reasonable plan: Seamus would stand guard in front of the door to Filch's office, while Dean would keep watch at the hallway entrance. Harry and Ron would search the office as quickly and neatly as possible, and with any luck, they'd be in and out in minutes.
They left around eleven, after extracting a promise from Neville that he wouldn't be calling anyone on them, and snuck their way to the ground floor, careful to avoid making much noise. Mrs Norris had excellent ears, and they could all think of at least one other familiar that would be quite happy to alert someone to their whereabouts.
Filch wasn't in his office; in fact, the whole corridor off the Entrance Hall leading to it was dark. Dean took his sentry post there, while Seamus, Harry and Ron hurried onwards.
"I'll find us a quick way out of here," Seamus whispered once they'd reached the correct door, and with a nod Harry approved of his idea. The office itself was locked, but all it took was an Alohomora and they were in.
"I can't see a damn thing," Ron muttered; there were no windows in the office, and as a consequence, it was pitch black.
"Lumos," Harry whispered, rolling his eyes at his best mate. Ron was a brilliant strategist, but sometimes he really didn't have a lick of common sense.
"Oh, right. Lumos."
Ron chose to inspect the shelves lining the wall of the office, while Harry focused on the desk. It was a full-wood, heavy sort of writing desk, tall enough that its drawers could be quite deep. There wasn't anything of use on it – some quills, some parchment (Merlin forbid the ridiculous Squib use any Muggle utensils everyone else preferred). Harry focused on the drawers instead, and found them to be labelled. The bottom, deepest one had the inscription 'Confiscated and Highly Dangerous' on it.
"Bingo," he whispered, pulling it open. It took him some effort, because not only was it heavy, but it also moved with great difficulty in its tracks. By then Ron had joined him, and they started digging through it together.
There were plenty of interesting things, from a restrained Fanged Frisbee to some Dungbombs and quills, to potion bottles and even some candy. There was no map, though. In fact, there was no parchment of any kind.
"Where else could it be?"
"I don't know," Harry answered. "Let's keep digging."
They'd each taken one side of the desk and were browsing through the drawers when loud, running footsteps made them snap their heads up. Then Seamus' head poked into the office, panic clearly written on his face.
"Filch is coming; hurry."
With a simultaneous Nox, they plunged the office back into darkness, almost tripping over their own feet in their hurry to get out. Dean nearly barrelled into them as they emerged, and, muffling their squeaks of surprise and pain, the four boys started sprinting down the corridor while Filch and his ugly cat ran after them, yelling: "Come back here, you little miscreants! Stealing from me, will you?!"
"Over here," Seamus breathed out, turning suddenly behind a statue where, to their surprise, was a very narrow staircase. He slipped on the first step, and crashed forward with a very pained yelp, Ron and Dean tripping over him and falling into a tumble. Harry, who was last, managed to jump over them in the last second, but he did bang his knee on one of the steps.
"Quick, get up, get up!" he whisper-yelled, pulling Dean to his feet. "Come on!"
"You won't get away from me," Filch's voice floated towards them, closer than Harry would have liked. Together, the Junior Marauders stumbled to their feet and ran up the stairs, which were very narrow and very, very steep. By the time they emerged on the other end, all four were breathing heavily and with legs burning at the knees, though not in the clear yet – Filch's footsteps were discernible behind them, amplified by the tube-like shape of the stairwell.
They ran onwards through the unfamiliar part of the castle, Filch hot on their heels, though the boys were gaining some distance now that it had turned into a marathon, rather than a sprint. They would have given him the slip, too, had Peeves not found it interesting to place a suit of armour right on their path.
Seamus managed to pull Dean's arm just in time for the two boys in front to avoid it, and Harry had to slide almost to the floor and push himself off with his arms to make the sharp turn left, but Ron didn't have Harry's dexterity or Seamus' foresight, and ended up falling on his bum in his efforts not to crash head-first into it.
Peeves, who was watching this from his position somewhere near the ceiling, cackled gleefully at them: "Ickle firsties out of bed, running too fast so you'll smack your head!"
"Come on, Ron!" Harry exclaimed, tugging on Ron to help him get up, while the red-haired boy groaned and struggled to keep steady on his feet. Dean and Seamus were well ahead of them, so the two Gryffindors put in the last of their strength into a burst of speed and fought to catch up to their friends.
What they found was a dead-end in the form of a locked door.
"We're done for!" Seamus said, hysteria creeping into his voice.
"Don't be daft," Harry told him harshly. "Alohomora."
As one, they piled into the room and shut the door behind them, breathing heavily. Through the door, they could hear Filch asking Peeves where they'd go, and Peeves promising that he 'shan't say nothing if you don't say please', and then saying 'nothing' when Filch finally did grudgingly say 'please'.
"He thinks the door is locked," Harry concluded when the sound of a lot of metal clanking together came through the door.
"Great; now we have to wait until he moves that stupid thing," Ron grumbled. "That'll take forever, and my bum hurts."
"Erm, Harry..." Dean voiced, voice pitched into a height Harry didn't think he could manage. Really, it sounded more like a squeak than anything else.
"Yeah?"
"Harry..."
Annoyed, Harry turned to look at his friend, only to stop short at his wide eyes and pale face. With trepidation, he turned further into the room, only to discover that it wasn't a room at all, but a corridor. The forbidden corridor, that was, and now he finally understood why it was forbidden – there was an enormous three-headed dog that looked like it had rabies, with saliva dripping from its mouths and eyes that rolled in their sockets.
"Oh, Merlin..." he breathed out, effectively making Ron and Seamus figure out where they'd ended up.
Without further thought, Harry twisted the doorknob he was still holding and let them all tumble out, just as the freaking thing made its move towards them. Seamus managed to shut the door with his foot just as one of the heads lunged at it, and a painful squeal reverberated through the wood.
Breathing heavily, Harry scrambled to his feet and stepped away from the door, his friends right there with him. His heart was ringing so loudly in his ears that he couldn't hear whether Filch was still there or not. Not that it mattered much; the door rattled on its hinges forcefully as the head banged against it, and one or two more shoves would have the wooden barrier flying off them completely.
Harry decided not to stick around to find out how many attempts it would take for that monster to break through. By the time another head had moved to bang on the door again, he was running with his friends down the corridor, heart beating wildly in his chest, whooshing sound in his ears, and with a feeling that he was going so fast he might trip and fall any second.
That was, unfortunately, exactly what happened when they turned the corner – the four Gryffindor eleven-year-olds bowled straight into Filch, who was just about done setting the stupid suit of armour back in its position.
With an unholy racket, five humans and one suit crashed to the ground in a heap, metal pieces flying every which way, and Peeves cackling insanely above them.
"Get up, get up, get up!" Harry yelled, scrambling out of the pile and to his feet as fast as he could. Filch was down, but if he figured out who they were, they'd be in detention until Christmas. He had no intention of living through that whatsoever. So, with a mighty pull, he managed to drag Seamus out, while Dean, who'd been first in line and thus the one at the very bottom of the pile, had to be extricated from Filch's leathery hands by Ron.
They were almost successful, but Filch managed to recover before Ron had fully pulled Dean out, and with shocking speed managed to grab the Muggle-born's ankle.
"You won't get away now," Filch growled as Dean squeaked in fright. Harry, without really thinking, jumped into the fray, aiming the heel of his foot towards Filch's elbow. He missed by only a little, his foot landing on the man's forearm, but that was quite enough to make him let go of Dean's leg.
Finally free, the four Gryffindors sprinted down the corridor and towards their tower, barely breathing and fighting through burning extremities and fatigue, fuelled more by adrenalin than anything else. They managed to slip into the Gryffindor common room without further incident, waiting only long enough for the Fat Lady to close her portrait before practically sprawling on the ground against it, the midnight duel completely forgotten.
"Oh, god..." Dean croaked weakly. "Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god."
"Merlin," Seamus corrected him distractedly trough heaving breaths. "You say... 'oh, Merlin'... here."
The eventfulness of the evening, coupled with his observation, made Harry burst into a fit of giggles that caused stomach cramps, so that he had to curl into himself until tears ran out of his eyes. The other boys – except for Dean, who still seemed shell-shocked – joined in quickly, until they were a guffawing mass on the floor by the entrance to the common room.
How they didn't wake anyone up, Harry would never really be able to figure out.
"What... the hell... was... that thing... doing there?" Seamus asked – or, more accurately, gasped between snorts and giggles.
"If any dog needs exercise... that one does," Ron concluded.
"There was a door on the floor, by its paw," Dean informed them, the only one who'd not thought his comments that funny. "Like a trapdoor, for a basement or something."
His words were relatively effective at diverting the attention of the other three, as they were now looking at him with curiosity, rather than dying of laughter on the ground.
"On the third floor?" Harry asked, incredulous, though other thoughts were already competing for his attention. "I wonder what's in there."
"I don't; I'll be happy never to step foot in that room again," Dean categorically answered, shaking his head. "Did you get the Map at least?"
"It wasn't there," Ron said despondently. "We searched everywhere."
"Someone must have already nicked it," Harry decided. "We just have to figure out who it is and hope that they're still at Hogwarts, so that we can take it back from them."
"Well, so long as we do nothing else tonight, you can plan it all you like," Seamus grumbled, trudging towards their dorm room. Dean was quick to follow him, the two boys muttering something under their breaths and leaving Harry and Ron alone in the room.
"It was guarding something," Harry told his best friend quietly. "The dog; it must have been."
"That package from Gringotts," Ron answered instantly. "It has to be it."
"You're right; guess we figured out where that went, haven't we?"
Dear Sirius,
I am awesome. And you owe me the Nimbus 2000.
Malfoy, the git nicely dubbed Blondie McSnot by the awesome Sally-Anne (she's one of the four Gryffindor girls of my year), stole Neville's (Remembal) Remembrall during flying lessons yesterday. That thing is just stupid, by the way. What's the use of knowing you've forgotten something, if you don't know what you've forgotten? But, it was a present from his gran, and you know how crazy scary Madam Longbottom is, so I couldn't very well let that bleached snake just take it. Neville was in the hospital wing at the time, and Hoochey had to go with him, so she told us not to fly. Obviously, Malfoy didn't listen, so I followed him. I can fly circles around the guy, just so you know.
Malfoy threw the (Remembal) Remembrall (I hate the stupid name of that stupid thing) at the castle wall, and I pulled a Vertical Vronski Feint (Dean called it a 'Crazy Ivan', do you have any idea what that is?) to catch it. McGonagall saw me, so now I've gotten permission to try out for the team, as a Seeker. Oliver, he's our captain, says that I'm guaranteed to get in.
See, I'm awesome. And I remember that you said that if I got onto the Quidditch team, you'd buy me a new broom. My first match would be in November.
You have to come watch, also.
We tried to find the Map, but it's not in Filch's office. Are you sure he wouldn't just throw it out? What if someone else found it? Would they be able to figure out the password? We had to run away from Filch, though, he chased us all over the castle, but we gave him the slip. Nothing's happened yet today, so I think we're safe, though I do have detention on Sunday because of 'nearly braining myself against the wall'. That's not true, though, I knew exactly what I was doing and I was in control the whole time.
Oh, by the way, did you know that there's a three-headed dog in the school? It's guarding something for Dumbledore, we're sure. Have you any clue what it might be?
I'll write to you again later, Dean and Seamus are finally ready to go to dinner, and Ron's been moaning about the pudding for the whole day.
Junior Marader Extraordinair
Harry James Potter
