"This is so stupid," Harry remarks bitterly to Ron as they sit playing chess and waiting for the time for their duel to come. "Nothing is going to happen, I suck at magic."
"Well, maybe," Ron replies, shrugging, which does not make Harry feel any better, "but so does Malfoy, so you'll be fine."
"So what, we just stand there trying to cast spells at each other while nothing happens?" Harry snorts. "Some fight."
"One of you'll probably get mad," Ron answers, a cheery grin spreading across his freckly face, "and they you'll probably deck the other. That's when the real fight starts."
"Oh yeah, and you'll punch Crabbe in the face then, will you?" Harry challenges, though in truth he feels a little better.
"Bloody hell, mate, I haven't got a death wish," Ron laughs, incredulous. "That's when I scarper and fetch Madam Pomfrey for you."
"Who's Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asks, the name sounding vaguely familiar.
"Resident healer," Ron explains. "Fred and George have been sent to the hospital wing loads of times because of Quidditch and because, well, they're Fred and George."
Harry laughs lightly and Ron checks his watch, the Common Room having emptied out ages ago.
"Half past eleven, we'd better go," Ron announces, and the two of them stand, turning toward the portrait hole.
"I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry," comes Hermione Granger's bossy voice from a chair they had mistakenly thought was unoccupied.
"You! Go back to bed!" Ron fumes, pointing toward the stairs to the girls' dormitories, but it only makes Hermione turn on him, her hands planted firmly on her hips.
"I almost told your brother, Percy –" she declares matter-of-factly, "he's a Prefect, he'd put a stop to this."
"Come on," Harry says, grabbing Ron's arm and pulling him toward the portrait hole before he starts a fight in the Common Room.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves?" Hermione lectures, following them. "I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."
"Go away," Harry and Ron chorus together, speeding up as they walk out the portrait hole and into the corridor, but she keeps pace.
"Alright," she replies, her nose high in the hair, "but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so –" but she never says what they are, because she turns back to the portrait of the Fat Lady only to find it conspicuously missing one very important component – the Fat Lady herself. "Now what am I going to do?" Hermione wails, the thought of being out in the corridor after hours positively horrifying.
"That's your problem," Ron smirks. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."
"I'm coming with you," Hermione says, puffing her chest out bravely after a moment's deliberation.
"You are not," Ron argues, and Harry just shakes his head, so far beyond caring at this point.
"Do you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me?" Hermione counters. "If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up."
Harry scoffs quietly, personally thinking that Filch was about as likely to care whether or not Hermione was trying to stop them as he was about whether the Tutshill Tornadoes were going to sign that new Seeker…
"You've got some nerve –" Ron answers, his ears turning scarlet with anger and frustration.
"Shut up, both of you!" Harry cuts across the sound of their bickering. "I heard something."
"Mrs Norris?" Ron asked in a whisper, but it was not Filch's dreaded cat. It was Neville, sniffling pathetically in a quiet corner.
"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours," he whines, and Harry can't help but feel bad for the clumsy, forgetful boy. "I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."
"Keep your voice down, Neville," Ron hisses, casting a glance around them as though expecting Mrs. Norris to turn up around the corner still. "The password's 'pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."
"How's your arm?" Harry asks kindly, and Neville gives another sniff.
"Fine. Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."
"Good –" Harry replies, distracted, "well, look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you later –"
"Don't leave me!" Neville wails again, and Harry desperately tries to shush him. "I don't want to stay here alone, the Blood Baron's been past twice already."
"If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you," Ron asserts, pointing viciously at Hermione and Neville.
The four first years tiptoe through the halls as quietly and quickly as possible, and Harry swears his heart is beating loud enough to be heard across the castle. They make it to the trophy room only two minutes past midnight, according to Harry's watch, and find it completely empty, no Malfoy or Crabbe. They wait in silence, the only sound their breathing and pounding hearts.
"He's late," Ron says finally at quarter past, "maybe he's chickened out."
Somehow, Harry's stomach seems to fill with lead, as he thinks it rather unlikely that Malfoy was too scared to come duel him. Just then, they hear a door open on the other side of the hall, and Harry's fingers tense around his wand.
"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner," floats Filch's gravelly voice from the far end of the dark chamber as he talks to his beloved cat. "They're in here somewhere, probably hiding."
"This way!" Harry mouths, gesturing to the door behind them. "RUN!"
They're almost clear of the trophy room when Neville trips, toppling into a suit of armour and sending it crashing down on Harry. He can hear Filch's wheezing delight as he closes in on them while he furiously tries to push the heavy armour off him. At the last, he succeeds, scrambling to his feet and taking off down the hallway, the other three close on his heels and Filch not far behind them. They reach a staircase and Harry sprints down one floor, losing all sense of direction. As he skids around a corner, he falls into a tapestry that isn't a tapestry, and it gives way to reveal a secret passage that Harry collapses into. As Ron, who had been running right beside Harry, passes, Harry sticks his hand out and pulls him through, and the other two, having seen Harry and Ron disappear, redirect their steps to run right through the hidden entrance. They run down the sloping pathway before exiting onto another corridor of classrooms, and Harry pulls them into an unlocked one.
"I think we've lost him," he whispers, his hands on his hip as he tries to catch his breath.
"I – told – you," Hermione wheezes, hand over her heart as she clutches at a stitch in her chest. "I – told – you."
"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower, quickly as possible," Harry says by way of an answer, looking around the classroom for some hint of their location.
"Malfoy tricked you. You realize that, don't you?" Hermione continues her speech. "He was never going to meet you – Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."
"Let's go," Harry answers, ignoring her completely, though he realizes she's probably right.
He peers out the classroom door, checking that the coast is clear, before leading his three classmates out and down the corridor. They only make it around two corners before they find themselves, much to their horror, facing a delighted Peeves, who looks like Christmas has come early, and he cackles with glee.
"Shut up, Peeves – please – you'll get us thrown out," Harry begs, his heart beating wildly out of control.
"Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty," Peeves sings, doing backflips in the air.
"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please," Harry pleads.
"Should tell Filch, I should. It's for your own good, you know," Peeves pretends to consider, tapping his finger on his chin.
"Get out of the way," Ron says gruffly, attempting to shove Peeves aside, which is very much the wrong move.
"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves shrieks as loud as possible. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"
Without hesitation, the four first years set off at a run, sprinting down the corridor and around corner after corner, until they find themselves at a dead end facing a locked door.
"This is it! We're done for!" Ron exclaims dramatically. "This is the end!"
"Oh move over!" Hermione says, frustrated, and she elbows Ron sharply out of the way, whipping out her wand. "Alohamora!"
With a click, the door in front of them opens, and they hurry through, slamming it shut behind them. A moment later, they hear Filch come wheezing around the corner, and Harry peers through the keyhole to watch. Peeves floats impishly behind the old man, pelting him with a piece of chalk every now and then.
"Which way did they go, Peeves? Quick, tell me." Filch commands, but Peeves blows a loud raspberry.
"Say 'please'," he mocks, and Harry sees Filch scowl.
"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?"
"Shan't say nothing if you don't say 'please'," Peeves replies in a sing-song voice, and Harry watches as Filch deliberates.
"Alright, please," Filch says at last, huffing loudly.
"NOTHING!" Peeves bellows. "Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please!" He zooms away and they can hear his cackling all down the hall. "Ha ha! Haaaaaa!"
Filch swears loudly.
"He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispers to the others, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in. "I think we'll be okay – get off, Neville!" Harry looks round as Neville continues to tug on Harry's robes and Hermione gazes in horror at something behind him. "What?"
He turns slowly, and his heart falls into his stomach at the sight of a gigantic three headed dog snarling down at them.
"Right," Harry swallows, trying to remain brave, "er, just don't panic."
"Don't panic?" Ron repeats, his voice oddly shrill as Harry looks through the keyhole again.
He can't see Filch anymore, but he's also not sure the caretaker is gone, and he doesn't want to run out and into Filch's grasp. The large brown dog, growls, deep and low and threatening, and suddenly Harry no longer cares whether Filch is waiting to expel them on the other side, he flings the door open and runs, far faster than he had before, only turning back once to check that his classmates were following him and Hermione had shut the door once more. They skid to a halt outside the portrait of the Fat Lady, huffing heavily.
"Where on earth have you all been?" she asks in surprise.
"Never mind that –" Harry pants, "pig snout, pig snout."
She swings open to admit them and they tumble into the Common Room in a giant heap. One by one, they extract themselves from the pile, finally feeling better now that they were safely in Gryffindor Tower.
"What do they think they're doing, keeping a think like that locked up in a school?" Ron blusters, somewhere between shock, fear, and anger. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."
"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" Hermione answers after a moment. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"The floor?" Ron replies, sounding both confused and incredulous. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."
"No, not the floor," Hermione states in the tone of someone who is exasperated by having to talk to someone much dumber than themselves. "It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something." She pauses for a moment to let the information sink in, and Harry and Ron exchange a look with each other while Neville whimpers softly. "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could have been killed – or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."
With that, Hermione stomps off up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, and the three boys are left standing in the Common Room, looking very shocked.
"No, we don't mind." Ron answers, a bit late. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"
Harry shakes his head in bewilderment, and the three of them trudge up to their own dormitory, where all three collapse on their beds, dreaming of horrific three-headed monsters and the treasure they guard.
Some content borrowed from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, pp 115-120
