A Midnight Duel

Harry was sitting in the Slytherin Common room trying to concentrate on studying for the next potions class when Malfoy entered, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle snickering to themselves.

"Can you believe that idiot believed me? I already told Filch where to find them."

"And that lump Longbottom too!" Goyle's voice was curiously high pitched for such a thick person.

"Told Filch where to find who?" Harry interjected.

Malfoy looked a little sulky at having to tell him as if he suspected Harry would ruin his fun. "That hand me down Weasley thinks I'm going to meet him for a wizard's duel tonight in the trophy room." He started laughing. "And that lump Longbottom volunteered to be his second!"

The three of them broke out in hysterics again.

"I wonder how much trouble they'll get in." Malfoy gave a mean smirk.

Harry closed his books, putting them away, before getting up and walking towards the door.

"Where are you going, Potter?" Malfoy called out. "It's almost curfew."

Harry turned and gave him a half smile that said it was none of his business. "Out, Malfoy."

Once free of their watchful gaze he jogged lightly toward the direction of the trophy room. While Weasley was not important to his uncle's plan, Neville was- and Harry couldn't risk him getting into big trouble and maybe getting kicked out of school.

As he got closer to the trophy room he heard two voices raised in anger, Ron and Hermione were yelling at each other. Why was Hermione with them?

"Don't you care about your house? Do you only care about yourself? You're going to help Slytherin win the House Cup! They're going to send you back home on the train tomorrow!"

Hermione was whispering furiously.

"Go away! It's not your problem!" Ron hissed at her.

"It's a wizard's duel, Hermione, he has to go meet him." Neville tried to play intermediary between the two.

"Well I give up, you are hopeless Ronald Weasley. If you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and Neville can back me up."

"You've got some nerve —" said Ron loudly.

"Shut up, both of you!" said Harry sharply as he approached the trio rapidly. "I heard something."

Three sets of shocked eyes glanced at him, but immediately shut their mouths, straining to listen.

It was a sort of snuffling.

"Mrs. Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.

"Shh!" Harry shushed him again.

Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Harry had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horror-struck, Harry waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice.

Neville's robes had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.

"They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Harry mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run — he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor. The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.

"RUN!" Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following — they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Harry in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going — they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.

"I think we've lost him," Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.

"I — told — you," Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I — told — you."

"We've got to get back to Gryffindor Tower," said Ron, speaking to Neville, "quickly as possible."

"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione said to Ron. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you — Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off. The only thing I can't figure out is why he came to warn us." Hermione pointed at Harry without looking at him.

Harry was a bit annoyed she didn't even thank him, without him they definitely would have been caught, but he wasn't going to tell her that. "Let's go."

They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and they could hear footsteps. They started running again for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into the door- and it was locked.

"This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, "We're done for! This is the end!"

"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled.

Harry was startled when she reached for his wand, her hand brushing his, the warmth of her hand sending little tingles through his skin. She gave him a quick glance before turning back to the door, using his wand to cast a spell. She tapped the lock, and whispered, "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and the door swung open — they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening. Harry tried to concentrate on listening to Filch, but all he could remember was his uncle teaching him about using other people's wands, and how they did not work for other people besides the witch or wizard they belonged to.

Wands are governed by subtle laws Harry, after a wand chooses its wizard, its loyalty may be switched in very few instances- change of allegiance or inheritance. Using someone else's wand is a last resort because it will be difficult to cast.

Why had his wand worked so easily for her? Why had his uncle been so insistent he stay away from her? Not that he was following that rule, Harry grimaced as she looked over to where Hermione stood right next to him.

Finally he realized that Neville had been tugging on his sleeve quite desperately. " What ?"

Harry turned around — and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare — this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.

They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.

It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

Harry groped for the doorknob — between Filch and death, he'd take Filch. They fell backward — Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared — all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster.

They didn't stop running until they hit the crossroads in the corridor where they would have to split towards their separate common rooms.

They paused, the fear making them take gasping breaths. Neville looked like he'd never be able to speak again.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally.

"If any dog needs exercise, that one does." Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again.

"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

Harry tried to remember if he had seen a trapdoor, but he honestly couldn't remember anything much besides the gleaming teeth in the dog's multiple heads. If Hermione was right, and he would bet she was, then there was something probably very important under that trap door.

He wondered how he could manage to tell his uncle about the secret trapdoor without admitting he had broken the stay away rule, or mentioning the big three headed dog. Harry knew with the slightest reason his uncle would pull him out of school.

While he had been thinking Hermione had backed up slowly towards the corridor that would take her to Ravenclaw, glaring at them as she left. "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

Ron stared after her, his mouth open and glanced at Neville. "No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"

Ron grabbed Neville's arm before dragging him off towards the Gryffindor rooms. Harry stood there for a moment, looking down the corridor Hermione had disappeared down.

He could stay far back where she couldn't see him, and just make sure she got into her rooms okay. That still counted as staying away right?

He walked quietly in the direction she had taken.

Remember the Rules

During breakfast the next morning Malfoy kept glancing suspiciously between Harry's innocent face and Ron and Neville still sitting at the Gryffindor table the next day looking tired but perfectly fine.

Harry glanced to the Ravenclaw table and saw Michael Corner trying to talk to Hermione, she however had her head turned towards where Harry sat at the Slytherin table. Hermione's lips were tight and when she met his eyes she deliberately turned up her nose at Harry, ignoring him.

Owls flooded into the Great Hall as usual, Harry was gratified to see that Sirius had sent him a package of sweets. He looked at the attached note.

Remember the Rules

S.

Harry's hands tightened on the package, feeling incredibly lonely as the Slytherins cracked sharply worded jokes around him. He just wanted a real friend.

Involuntarily his eyes went to the Ravenclaw table, now Hermione was laughing at something Michael Corner had said, her different colored eyes sparkling.

Harry stood up to leave the hall wanting to be alone but Malfoy stood up with him. Crabbe and Goyle, ever the followers, stood up to follow like guard dogs. They walked silently out of the Great Hall, Harry in the front, Draco to his side slightly behind him and then Crabbe and Goyle bringing up the rear.

Harry didn't notice the multiple sets of eyes that watched them leave, these observers noting how Harry appeared to be the leader of the group.

They had just entered the corridor when Malfoy spoke quietly. "You okay, Potter?"

Harry glanced at Malfoy but he had his usual, 'I'm better than everyone else face' on. "Yeah, fine."

Malfoy gave him a sideways glance. "You don't look like it."

Harry rubbed a hand over his face, knowing this was Malfoy's version of helping, but really just wanting to go feel lonely without people bothering him.

He and Malfoy continued to walk slowly going up the stairs eating their sweets as Malfoy's mother had sent him yet another package, both of them ignoring and not sharing with Crabbe and Goyle lumbering behind them.

"You broke the rules and now you're eating sweets. I suppose you think that's your reward?" came an angry voice from just behind them. Hermione was stomping up the stairs, looking disapprovingly at the sweets package in Harry's hand.

"You could try telling me thank you." Harry said.

"What's your problem Mud-" Draco's reply was cut off at a sharp glance from Harry, swallowing the rest of his words.

Hermione marched away with her nose in the air.