September 12th, 1991 Hogwarts Castle
Harry was being led through the halls by his 'aunt'. He could tell by her face she was in full blown professor mode rather than the loving aunt he was used to. They had stopped outside what Harry recognized as Professor Flitwick's room. McGonagall knocked a bit before opening the door. "Professor Flitwick, might I borrow Wood for a moment?"
Wood? Harry thought. Is she about to use a cane on me? He was now worried. He knew some schools used corporal punishment, but he didn't expect Hogwarts to be one. His parents had never even hit him except for the few light butt pops he got when he was younger for getting into something he shouldn't have gotten into but it had been years since then.
He let out a sigh of relief when he realized 'Wood' was another student. The burly fifth year boy came out of Flitwick's class with a confused look on his face. McGonagall instructed the boys to accompany her, and so the boys did as they were told, following her to an empty classroom. McGonagall closed the door and turned to the boys. "Potter, this is Oliver Wood," she said to Harry then turned to Wood. "Wood….I have found you a seeker."
Oliver's puzzled face suddenly looked excited while Harry's eyes widened. He wasn't being reprimanded….he was being scouted for the Quidditch Team. That was a shock. McGonagall began telling Wood about the maneuver Harry had pulled, stating she doubted their former seeker could have done it. Harry watched as the two discussed last year's team. McGonagall griped a bit about losing to Slytherin. Harry smirked, thinking about seeing his aunt and uncle arguing about Quidditch. "I expect you to train hard, Potter, or I'll reconsider a punishment."
Harry nodded. "Yes, ma'am."
His aunt patted his head. "Your father will be excited to hear the news. You should write to your parents and ask them to send your broom. I'll talk to Dumbledore and get the first year rule bent a bit."
The news of Harry's appointment to the Quidditch team had spread amongst a few of the Gryffindors, thanks to the Weasley twins who were apparently Beaters on the team. The whispers of him being the youngest house player in a century was the buzz of the Gryffindor house. The only one who didn't seem happy was Ron Weasley. He was heard mumbling things like, Stupid show off Potter, Or, Bloody spoiled rich kids. The others were quietly congratulating him, keeping the secret within their house.
Malfoy had made his way into the Great Hall, accompanied by his lackeys Crabbe and Goyle. "Having your last meal, Potter?" he asked with a smirk.
Harry stood facing him. "You seem a lot braver back on the ground with your little friends behind you," Harry said, crossing his arms. He had noticed the two idiot boys were cracking their knuckles. They weren't able to do anything because of the teachers at the High Table.
"I'll take you on all on my own at any time," Malfoy barked.
Harry chuckled. "Sure you would. Okay, how bout a duel? I assume daddy has taught you to duel like a proper wizard," he said, antagonizing the boy by bringing up his father.
"You're on! Crabbe is my second," Malfoy spat back.
"And Neville will be mine," Harry said, smirking. "Midnight…Trophy room…be there," he said and Draco stomped off.
He returned to his seat and Hermione tugged his arm. "You're not really going to duel him, are you?"
Harry put his finger to his lips and nodded over to Ron, who had heard the whole encounter. Ron now had a look on his face as if he were scheming something and Harry could practically read the boy's face. He was planning to rat them out and get both Harry and Malfoy in trouble.
Later that night, Harry was in the sitting room of his Lord's Quarters with Hermione, Neville, and Daphne. "So, you intentionally antagonized Malfoy, to get him to go to the trophy room, in front of Ron…because you knew Ron would try to rat you out," Daphne said. "That was very Slytherin of you." She said.
"I only wish I could watch Malfoy get caught," Neville said, sitting back in his chair.
"Oh, me too," Daphne said with a grin. "It'd be so worth losing points to see him get busted."
"I agree," Harry said, smirking. He then remembered about something his father had given him on platform nine and three quarters. "Gimme a second, guys." He got up and went over to his room. Harry opened his trunk and began digging in the bottom. He plucked out the copy of the Marauder's Map his uncles and father had given him; he then recalled the letter his father sent him this morning about something in his trunk and he dug further, finding a parcel in the bottom. He pulled the parcel out as well and returned to the sitting room. "We may not be able to watch, but we can see if my plan actually worked," he said and held up the map while setting the package from his father aside for the moment.
Harry opened the parchment and tapped his wand to the page. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," he said, and ink began to form on the parchment. It read:
Messrs.' Moony, Silvertongue, Padfoot, and Prongs Proudly Present:
The Marauder's Map.
"Is that the map of Hogwarts your dad gave you?" Neville asked.
"Yeah. He and my uncles made it. Uncle Padfoot said someone else used to be on here but he betrayed them so Uncle Sev took his place," Harry said as he opened up the map.
After a moment of pulling pages and moving the complicated map around, he found the area labeled 'Trophy Room'. The group of friends looked over the map and gasped at seeing two tags floating around that said 'Draco Malfoy' and 'Vincent Crabbe'.
"Merlin's beard!" Neville said. "Is that actually them?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, Dad said the map shows where everyone in the castle is." He smirked, seeing Malfoy had arrived early. It was only eleven forty-five.
"Hey, what's that other tag here?" Hermione asked, seeing another tag that was just off the page.
Harry opened that part of the map and they saw the name 'Ronald Weasley'. "Ha!" Harry said. "He's waiting for us to show up! Bet he expected to go get McGonagall once Neville and I got there. See, I told you…"
"Wow…he's really petty for a Gryffindor," Daphne said flatly.
"Look, someone is coming." Neville pointed to the page as another tag started to come into view.
The tag moved onto the page of the trophy room where they could all see it and each of them let out an 'Ooooo' as if they had just witnessed someone run into a wall. The tag that caused this reaction was none other than 'Severus Snape', whose tag joined Malfoy's and Crabbe's. They then watched as Ron's tag started to move away from the scene but suddenly stopped. Snape's began moving down the page towards Ron's, followed by Malfoy's and Crabbe's.
"Five sickles they think that's us," Neville said, nudging Daphne who chuckled.
The four tags all met together and stood in the same spot for a moment before all of them disappeared into the section of the map labeled 'Dungeons'.
"God, I wish I could have actually seen that!" Harry said, sitting back and smirking. His plan had worked better than he anticipated. "I'm pretty sure Ron tried to sneak away but being the klutz that he is he knocked something over."
"I actually don't doubt that," Daphne said, chuckling.
"Harry, what's that parcel over there?" Hermione asked, pointing to the package Harry had dropped on one of the sofas.
"Oh, just something else my dad gave me he didn't tell me about until he sent me a letter this morning." Harry got up and grabbed the parcel, beginning to open it.
Something fluid and silvery gray went slithering to the floor where it lay in glimmering folds. "What is that?" Hermione asked.
"Don't know," Harry said, picking up the shining, silvery cloth off the floor. It was strange to the touch, as if water had been woven into material. "It looks like some kind of cloak…"
"Well, try it on then," Neville said.
Harry shrugged and did as he said, whipping the cloak around his shoulders and letting it fall around the rest of his body. When he did this, his friends gasped. "What? Does it look bad?"
"Harry, look down," Hermione said, pointing to his waist.
Harry did so and saw his body, from the neck down, was gone. "WHOA!!" he exclaimed.
"That's an invisibility cloak," Daphne told him. "They are supposed to be really rare…where did your dad get it?" she asked.
"No idea," Harry said as he pulled the cloak off, causing his body to suddenly appear.
"Bloody hell, Harry. If you had pulled that out sooner, we could've watched the whole thing with Draco and Ron and not been caught!" Neville said.
Harry groaned, realizing he missed a golden opportunity. "Blasted…you're right…Dad should have just told me before I got on the train."
"Too late now," Neville said. "But…we could always do a little night time exploring with it. Though, with all of us, we'll have to stand rather close together."
Daphne smirked. "Neville Longbottom suggesting we break school rules? How daring," she teased.
Hermione gawked at the idea. "I really don't think we should. What if we get caught?" she protested.
"Come on, Hermione. Live a little. It's an invisibility cloak... no one will see us," Daphne said. Hermione rolled her eyes but complied.
"Okay, let's do it," Neville said, standing up.
Harry smirked as his friends all gathered together for their midnight jaunt. The group walked out of the Potter Quarters and slipped the cloak on right in front of Hardwin's portrait. "Stay close and be quiet," he whispered to his friends as they began their night exploring.
After a good thirty minutes of their exploring, they had decided it'd be best to go back since they had class the next day. So they were making their way back up the stairs when Harry felt something snag the cloak and it was suddenly pulled off the group. They all whipped around to see Mrs. Norris, Filch's cat, looking up at them with her yellow eyes and her paw on the hem of the cloak.
"Run!" Harry said as the cat suddenly bolted off to go get Filch. Harry snatched up the cloak and, not bothering to put it back on, ran down the first corridor they reached. The four bolted down the corridor, trying to find a place to hide before Mrs. Norris could lead Filch to them. They ran right to the end of the hall where they slammed into a door. They tried to open it but it was locked.
"Oh, bloody hell, we're so screwed," Neville said.
"Hermione, do something!" Daphne whispered as they heard footsteps heading their way.
Hermione snatched Harry's wand from him and tapped the door handle. " Alohomora."
The lock clicked and the group quickly made their way inside and closed the door, then Harry and Neville pressed their ears to it, listening.
"Where are they, my sweet?" The boys heard Filch say, followed by Mrs. Norris' meow. They could see Filch's lantern light from under the door. "Blast…they must've gotten away." They heard Filch say, followed by a bit of cursing. Shortly, the light faded from under the door, as did Filch's swears.
Harry let out a sigh of relief. "He thinks this door is locked," Harry said. "I think we're safe…..Hermione, stop that," he said. She had been tugging on his robe for the last minute. "What?"
He turned to face her and saw clearly what. His eyes widened in horror as he realized they were not in a room as he had originally thought…. They were in a corridor….the forbidden corridor on the third floor. They now knew why it was forbidden.
Staring straight at them was a monstrous dog. Its body was as large as the floor was to the ceiling and it had three heads. Three pairs of eyes were watching them, three quivering noses were sniffing them, and three mouths were drooling as it stared them down. Harry could tell the reason they were not already dead was because their sudden appearance had surprised the beast, but it was quickly getting over that fact as one could tell from it's thunderous growling.
Harry began reaching for the handle to the door behind him. If the only choices he had were being caught by Filch or death at this beast's jaws, he'd pick Filch every time. He opened the door quickly and the group who had been pressed against it fell backward out of it. Harry slammed the door shut as quickly as he could and the group bolted from the corridor. Filch was nowhere to be found. Harry assumed he was hunting for them elsewhere but he was not worried about that at the moment. The four of them ran back to the seventh floor, gave the password to the Nobleman painting, and ran inside to the safety of the Lord's corridor.
The four friends stopped panting, each leaning against a wall. After catching their breath, Harry motioned them to follow him and went to Hardwin's painting, giving the Potter ancestor the password before slipping inside. The four of them collapsed in the sitting room: Harry and Hermione on the love seat and Daphne and Neville in the two arm chairs.
No one spoke for what felt like twenty minutes until Neville piped up, "What on earth are they thinking?" he said. "Keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?"
"Do none of you use your eyes?" Hermione retorted. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"I'm sorry, 'Mione, but I wasn't looking at its feet," Daphne rebutted. "I was a little preoccupied with its head. In case you didn't notice….there were THREE."
"Not its feet…the floor," Hermione said. "It was standing on a trap door. That means it's guarding something."
"Guarding something?" Harry asked.
"That's right." Hermione stood. "Now, if you three don't mind, I'm going to bed before any of you come up with another clever idea to get us killed…or worse, expelled." She turned in a huff then went to her room and slammed the door behind her.
"I, uh…I think she's got her priorities a little backwards," Neville said, causing the other two to chuckle a bit.
A/N: Thanks for the support guys I really appreciate it.
Up Next: Harry and Neville take on the troll to protect their friends.