Chapter 12
Friday dawns bright, no dream last night, I think I was too tired after astronomy class. After a quick breakfast I head towards the Transfiguration classroom. I'm a little early and there aren't any of my classmates present. Professor Mcgonagall is setting up the classroom for the lesson. She looks up and beckons me in.
"So, Miss Granger, how's your first week going? Settling in ok?"
"The lessons are marvellous, I've learnt so much already, I'm not sure I like flying too much though" I confess.
Mcgonagall gives me a small smile, "any dreams I need to know about"
Should I tell her about the troll? I haven't figured out anything concrete yet, but she could get ahead of the situation "a few, nothing concrete though, lots of jumbled images" I keep the information vague, she can sense I'm not telling the entire truth, but before she has time to press the matter the rest of the class begins to trickle in.
We covered trying to turn a match into a needle. It sounded simple but most of the class struggled. By the end of the lesson only I had managed to make anything resembling a needle. Just as everyone is leaving Mcgonagall says "Miss Granger, I'd like to see you in my office before dinner this evening, please" I turn and nod my head to indicate I've understood. All the other students are looking at me. I turn quickly, put my eyes to the floor and quickly march to the great hall for lunch.
Defence against the Dark Arts, we cover chapter three. I hope this isn't what the lessons are going to be like all year. I've already read the book front to back and back to front twice without the stuttering of Professor Quirrel to distract me. He seems to prefer teaching the theory behind the dark arts and not anything practical.
As class lets out, I decide I need to ask Professor Flitwick when we are going to be covering the spell from my dream, that way I might have something to tell Mcgonagall later. As everyone managed to successfully cast lumos and nox last lesson, we do a quick recap and everyone manages to cast both spells again, we do a report about how the spells could come in useful in our day to day lives and then class is over. I linger over putting my things in my backpack, I wait until everybody leaves and then I approach Professor Flitwick's desk.
"Excuse me, sir, I was hoping you may be able to tell me something. You see I've read ahead a bit in the book and I'm really interested in the charm wingardium leviosa and I was hoping you'd be able to tell me when we'll be covering it in class?" I look up expectedly "hmm, wingardium leviosa eh? We usually cover that the last week of October around Halloween" Halloween, 7 weeks away. "That's great, thank you Professor, I have to go now I have a meeting with Professor Mcgonagall to get to" I turn and wave at him as I leave.
I make my way to Professor Mcgonagall's office deep in thought. Before I quite realise it I'm in front of the office door. I take a deep breath and knock.
"Come in," I hear through the wood. I push the door open, Professor Mcgonagall is sitting behind her desk, grading essays by the looks of it. I sit in the chair in front of the desk and wait patiently. I take a look around the office whilst I'm waiting. There is a lit fireplace on one wall, a window that looks out over the training grounds and quidditch pitch and then there's a bookshelf, full of books. The desk is big, there are three piles of paperwork, a quill, and ink. Professor Mcgonagall interrupts my musing
"So Miss Granger, we were interrupted earlier, could you expand on what you've seen in your dreams, please? I'm very interested to know" she looks at me imploringly over her glasses. I sigh "I've had a few dreams, Professor. The first we're just flashes of images, a large chess set, a red stone, a troll" I notice her eyebrow quirk but she quickly returns her face to a blank canvas and nods at me to continue "well, the troll, I've had a few more dreams about that. I'm in the girls bathroom on the second floor and this troll appears, I don't know where from, but I've managed to figure out it'll be around halloween." I stop, I'm not going to tell her about Harry and Ron, maybe the location will be enough that I can change the events.
"A troll? In Hogwarts? Well I never, Halloween, Second floor girls bathroom?" She asks disbelievingly. "How did you come to the conclusion that it happens during Halloween?"
How am I going to get around this one without bringing Harry and Ron into it? "I manage to knock the troll out, with its own club, using a charm we will learn that week. I checked with Professor Flitwick after class today" okay so not exactly the truth, but hopefully it will give some clout to my claim
I can see that Professor Mcgonagall is mulling over what I've said. She's writing notes too. "And the red stone and large chess set you mentioned earlier, nothing further about those?"
"No, ma'am, just the troll" I responded.
"Right, okay, thank you for telling me. If you do dream anything further about any of these things you've mentioned, please do come and find me. My door is always open."
"Professor, there is one thing, I overheard Malfoy and Harry yesterday.." I trail off, should I tell her?
"Yes, Miss Granger?"
"Well Malfoy proposed a duel, tonight at midnight. I'm sure Harry won't go, but it may mean Malfoys out of bed after hours"
"Any idea where this duel is to take place?"
"I'm afraid not, Professor, sorry" I knew I shouldn't have said anything.
"I'll make sure there are extra patrols out tonight, Miss Granger, thank you. Off you go get to dinner"
"Thank you Professor, have a good evening" I walk out. I feel guilty for telling Mcgonagall about the duel tonight, but if I can't persuade Harry and Ron not to go then I hope the teachers can put an end to it before either of them gets into too much trouble.
It's 11 o'clock, I'm expecting Harry and Ron to come down the stairs from the boys dorm any minute. I'm going to try and talk them out of going to meet Malfoy.
"I can't believe you're going to do this Harry" I flick on the lamp that's on the table next to the chair I've been waiting in, when I hear them approaching.
"What are you doing here" Ron grumbles
"I'm trying to stop you both making the stupidest mistake of your lives" I reply scornfully. They aren't listening, they're still making their way toward the portrait to exit the common room. I follow them out "I almost told your brother, Percy, he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this. Don't you care about Gryffindor?"
"Go away" Ron snarled.
"All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow" I turn back to the portrait to get back into the common room. I tried, I sigh, except the portraits empty, the fat lady wasn't in it. I can't get back in.
"What am I going to do now?" I ask exasperated
Ron grunts, "that's your problem, we've got to go, we're going to be late"
Both Harry and Ron start to walk away, what am I going to do? I can't just sit here waiting for the fat lady to come back. I run to catch up with the boys "I'm coming with you"
"You are not" Ron objects immediately
"Do you think I'm going to wait here until Filch catches me?" I try to persuade them with logic "if he finds all three of us, I'll tell him the truth that I was trying to stop you"
Ron just turns around and stalks off, Harry looks at me and shrugs his shoulders.
We follow Ron along dark corridors, it's only a matter of time before we come across a teacher, thanks to me and the extra patrols Professor Mcgonagalls set up. We headed up to the third floor, our destination, the trophy room.
There was no sign of Malfoy and his second yet, "Hes late" piped up Ron "maybe he's chickened out"
I personally think this was a whole set up to get them both in trouble but I keep my thoughts to myself.
We hear a noise in the next room, followed by the raspy voice of the caretaker Mr Filch "Sniff around my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner"
We all look on, eyes wide, I motion for the boys to back out of the room. We run full pelt down the corridor, trying to put as much distance between us and Filch as possible. Why oh why couldn't it have been Professor Mcgonagall?
We get to the end of the corridor and there's a door blocking our way, the boys try the door but it won't move "oh move over" I say impatiently. I brush them aside and pull my wand from my sleeve. I cast alohomora on the lock, the door springs open and we all dart inside.
We're all breathing heavily, leaning against the door, listening for Filch on the other side.
"Alohomora?" Ron asks
"Standard book of spells chapter seven" I reply
We hear Filch on the other side of the door, "where are they my sweet?" A few minutes later we hear "Come on" and Filch's footsteps as he walks away from the door.
"He probably thinks this door is locked" Ron pipes up
"It was locked" I remind him
"And for good reason" Harry pipes up. Ron and I turn around to look at Harry.
What I see makes my jaw drop to the floor. There, about 4 feet away, is a three headed dog. It's huge, all of its heads brush the high ceiling. It bares its massive teeth at us, I can't look, I look to the floor and notice that the part of the floor the dog is on looks different to the rest. Odd.
We all scream, and run back towards the door I'd just opened, straight through and back to the common room. I can't believe there is something like that being holed up in our school. Ron is voicing his thoughts, they are very similar to mine, to distract him I say snidely "You don't use your eyes do you? Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"I wasn't looking at its feet, I was a bit preoccupied with its heads, or maybe you didn't notice, there were three" Ron whined
"It was standing on a trap door, which means it wasn't there by accident. It's guarding something" I explained.
"Guarding something?" Harry asked
"That's right, now if you two don't mind, I'm going to bed before either of you come up with another clever idea, to get us killed or worse expelled" and with that statement I turn on my heel and head up to the girls dormitory. Maybe making friends with those two isn't such a good idea