CHAPTER 12 – RATS!
Harry, Ron and Hermione were trying to dissemble so then, they would not attract anybody's attention. Harry was hiding his Invisibility Cloak under his robes. They were at Gryffindor's common room trying to figure out what should they do to get out of the castle without being noticed. All the students had been absolutely prohibited to leave their Houses, what made them stuck in their common rooms, far away from the two passageways that could make it possible for them to run away. The sun was slowly setting behind the montains. Then, Hermione decided to put into practice her plan. She stood up from her armchair and futively hexed Neville's hot chocolate mug (sorry, Neville, she thought, thank God you agreed). Immediately, the liquid in the mug exploded and Neville got all wet from hot chocolate (which Hermione wisely chilled so then it would do not Neville any harm).
Professor McGonagall promptly showed up, "But what...? Longbottom, how can you possibly destroy so many things? Come with me, I'll take you to the Hospital Wing, so Madam Pomfrey will make sure you didn't get hurt."
Quickly, Harry, who had hid himself under his Invisibility Cloak, while everybody were scared at Neville, followed them, passing through the portrait hole. Moments later, he saw the teacher walk back to her office, then he waited for Neville to go back. About ten minutes later, Neville passed before Harry, who thanked him in a whisper, and opened the portrait hole again. Hermione and Ron left just in time for Harry to cast the cloak on them and prevent the Fat Lady from noticing they had gone out.
"What are we going to do now?" asked Ron, "Which passageway will we use?"
"Whopping Willow's seems the best," said Harry, "there might be a teacher or Filch around the other passageway. Thanks for casting your loveliness at Neville to make him accept helping, Hermione..."
"Let's go, Harry."
Step by step, they left the castle under James Potter's Invisibility Cloak, as they had done many times before (deja vú, thought Harry again). They passed before Hagrid, who was guarding the castle from outside and got slowly near the Whopping Willow, not without searching for a branch (which had to be long enough for activating the willow's knot and make it stop) before. Ron took one of his arms off the cloak and stretched it out, holding the branch, until he could touch the knot. The willow stopped shaking and the three of them entered quickly through the passageway. As they got rid of the cloak, they ran as fast as they could until they reached the Shrieking Shack.
**
Sirius glared doubtful at the mirrors in the circular room. The door banged behind him and turned also into a mirror. Among the other magical artifacts he knew of, there were the magical mirrors, that were capable of disturbing desire, fears and frustrations, capable of confusing and maddening. He turned around to examine the room and found out there was not mirrors just on the walls, but also on the ceiling and floor. Whoever arranged this room had the intention of making every spell done in this place go back at who conjured them. Think, Sirius, he thought... and found out he simply could not ratiocinate. He looked at one of the mirrors and got amazed at his own glare. But it was not him anymore.
He saw himself at the age of sixteen, dancing in a ball at Hogwarts with Sheeba. He turned around quickly and saw himself in another mirror, inside a cell at Azkaban, mad eyes facing him. He closed his eyes quickly (Think, Sirius). He opened them again and watched the day in which he found Wormtail in an alley. He closed his eyes again (Think! Think! THINK, DAMN!). Then, before he could break his train of thought, he turned into a dog. He opened his eyes again and noticed that all the mirrors were reflecting the same thing at once: a dog. Just then he managed to read an inscription that rounded the room: "EACH MIRROR IS A DOOR, EACH DOOR IS A MIRROR. THE RIGHT DOOR IS YOUR WORST CHOICE." He had to turn back into his human form.
Sirius looked up slowly to each mirror. Each one of them had a scene he remembered: a moment in his childhood when he got Hogwarts's letter, a moment in his teenage, with Sheeba, and other scenes. He looked to the scene in which he found Peter Pettigrew. Maybe that had been his worst choice ever, after all, that was what made him go to Azkaban... then he paid attention to another mirror, the one which showed a very beautiful afternoon, before Lily and James's deaths. He was sitting by the two of them, young Harry was on his lap, playing with his jacket's buttons... his head got enlighted and he ran at this mirror: that scene was the day when he talked Lily and James into accepting Peter Pettigrew as their Secret Keeper.
**
"All right, Hermione, what are we going to do now, since you do have a plan?" asked Ron inside the Shrieking Shack, at Hogsmeade.
Hermione took off Sheeba's home key from her bag and asked Ron and Harry to hold hands with her. She turned the key and in a moment, they were at Sheeba's home.
"Trespassers!" said the voice of Smiley, the house-elf, who was running towards them, fury playing in his big blue eyes.
"Smiley! It's me, Harry."
"Harry? Harry Potter? Oh, yes, forgive imbecile Smiley, Mr Harry Potter, sir. Smiley is a bad elf," Harry was already acquainted with this kind of imprecation; Dobby did this all the time, "Okay, what do you want, gentlemen and lady?" it added.
Harry and Ron looked at Hermione. After all, the plan was hers.
"Smiley," said Hermione, "We need you to show us where the garage is."
**
Sirius entered in a corridor with damp walls, just as Azkaban's. There were huge strings of black moss smelling like mildew. He could hardly discern anything right in front of his nose. "Lumos!"
Now he could see thousands of insects – cockroaches, earwigs and moths – walking across the enlighted walls. Sirius walked carefully ahead. The corridor headed uprights and he could not see anything that was in front of him. Suddenly, the floor sagged under his feet and he skidded for some minutes until he fell down onto a circular chamber, whose walls were made of stone. The place was really high and the walls were full of holes which were exactly equal to the one he fell by. The chamber was totally empty but for him, however, he could still feel Wormtail's nasty smell. An strangelly dark and cold fog was covering the floor.
A loud squeak echooed in the chamber. Sirius felt the floor quaking. Imediatelly, from the holes in the walls, hundreds, thousands, millions of dark and fat rats – some were the size of an adult man's forearm – started falling down. They quickly ran towards Sirius, who pointed his wand at the floor and shouted, "Aeros!"
Immediately he levitated about ten feet, and looked around to see where Wormtail's squeak, which was uselless since there were squeaks coming from everywhere, came from.
"Expelliarmus!" said a voice behind the shadows. Sirius's wand flied away from his grip and he fell from the air. He shook for a moment, since he was wearing Sheeba's magical garment, and then he fell on the floor on his back. Before he could do anything, hundreds of rats started covering him up. He could just see a man taking of an Invisibility Cloak somewhere in the room. Then, everything got dark.