After the Dawn: The Philosopher's Stone
Chapter Eight: A Narrow Escape or Two
"Wow," Sirius muttered quietly. He and Harry were both within the Room of Requirement, and it was now getting quite late at night.
Harry had been excused from the rest of the afternoon's lessons, having asked to take Neville's Remembrall back to the boy.
***Flash Back***
"Excuse me? Madam Pomfrey?" Harry asked softly as he knocked on the door of the Hospital Wing.
"Who is it?" an irritable female voice demanded. "Not another first year falling off a broom, I hope!"
Harry thought he heard a faint, mumbled apology, probably from Neville. "No! Just a visitor!" he called back.
The door opened and stern, short woman with a plump figure and a slightly annoyed expression poked her head around the door. "Who are you visiting?" she demanded.
"Neville Longbottom," Harry replied quietly.
"You're the new boy – Nemo, isn't it?"
she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Yeah, that's me," Harry replied nervously.
"Well, I hope I don't see you visiting here too often boy. Come in," she opened the door fully. "Longbottom's over in the corner there," she pointed him in the right direction and left.
"H-hello?" Neville stammered, looking quite surprised to see Harry. Harry didn't blame the other in the least – after all, he'd tried his hardest to avoid contact and friendship with anyone for some time now.
"Hi Neville," Harry greeted, smiling reassuringly. "I thought you might want this," he held out his hand, palm up, with the Remembrall resting in it.
"O-oh! Thank you! But … Why do you have it?"
"Malfoy took off with it, he was going to leave it up a tree for you to try and get to. I followed him up and tried to make him give it back. He threw it up and told me to catch it, if I wanted it that badly. I dove, caught it, and landed," Harry replied.
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" Neville said happily, closing his hands around the ball happily. "But … didn't you get in trouble?"
"No, I got to be Seeker for the Gryffindor Quidditch team," Harry replied with a smile.
"Seeker? But I thought Seekers never … You must be the youngest player in-"
"A century," Harry interrupted quietly. "Or at least, that's what Wood, our Captain, told me earlier."
"Wow! That's amazing!" Neville's eyes were filled with amazement.
Harry shifted uncomfortably. "Just don't tell anyone, ok? And don't let Malfoy walk over you."
"I know – say it. Everyone else does. I shouldn't have been in Gryffindor," Neville said quietly looking down.
Despite himself, Harry felt his heart go out to the boy. "Of course you do, Neville. The Sorting Hat knows what it's about. It saw something in you and knew that you deserved to be a Gryffindor. That means you've got a lot over Malfoy – where's he? In stinking Slytherin!"
Harry didn't really feel this way about the Slytherin house as a whole, but he knew what Neville needed to hear. "Just be careful, all right? You deserve to be in Gryffindor, and you'll prove it in time, I know."
"Thanks Nemo," Neville whispered.
"That's ok. Just don't let anyone know I've been friendly – they might think I'm changing," Harry smiled, encouraging Neville to do the same. "And don't tell anyone about my being Seeker either."
"I won't, thanks again!" Neville waved happily as Nemo slipped away from the hospital wing.
***End Flashback***
"So, Sirius … You think I'll do well on the team?" Harry asked questioningly.
"No doubt about it kid," Sirius replied, smiling happily. "You're the best!"
Harry blushed slightly and looked down.
"Good job with Neville too, by the way," Sirius added. "I knew his parents quite well. They were part of the Order of the Phoenix, they were great people."
"They went insane, didn't they? Tortured to madness by followers of Voldemort, who were looking for his location?"
"Yeah, that's them. Stinking Death Eaters. Neville doesn't seem to much resemble them, but … I think in time, like you said, his courage will be revealed and he'll show himself to be more than anyone expected of him," Sirius replied.
Harry nodded slightly. "Well, come on! Let's get down to dinner – can't wait to see the look on Malfoy's face when he sees I'm still here!"
Sirius laughed and nodded, changing form and bounding after Harry as they headed towards the Great Hall.
Part way there, they ran into the Weasley twins as they wandered along a hidden passage. Fred and George looked faintly surprised to see anyone using the passage, much less the reclusive Gryffindor, Nemo Protectium.
"Hello," they said nervously.
"Hi," he replied absently.
"Umm … How did you find out about this place? We know we haven't said anything … We were quite surprised to see you here," one of them, Fred, Harry thought, asked him.
"I just know it. No student told me," Harry replied, thinking – well, it's not a lie, Sirius isn't a student.
"Oh, ok … By the way, well done. Wood told us about you making the Quidditch team. We're on as well, Beaters."
"We're going to win that Quidditch cup for sure this year!" the other twin added. "We haven't since Charlie left, but this year the team is going to brilliant. You must be good Nemo – Wood was nearly skipping when he told us about it!"
Then they were gone, hurrying on.
Harry smiled in slight amusement and headed onwards, making his way into the Great Hall only a few moments later. He sat down at his usual end of the table, tucking himself away from the main crowd.
"Having a last meal, Protectium?" a voice
sneered from behind him, not long after he'd settled down.
It was Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and
Goyle. "When are you moving back to your stupid, cowardly family? Hiding away
from the wizarding world in shame?"
"Leave my family out of this Malfoy," Harry snarled dangerously. "You seem a lot braver now, back with your feet on the ground and your little friends behind you … You forget, I landed you in the Hospital wing with them right nearby before."
"I'd take you on any time on my own," Malfoy sneered. "Tonight, if you like. Wizards duel. Wands only – no contact … You have heard of Wizards duels before, haven't you?"
"What kind of idiot do you take me for? One that grew up with your family?" Harry sneered. "I'll be there – no seconds, ok?"
"Fine," Malfoy shrugged. "Midnight, ok? Meet in the trophy room, it's always unlocked." With that, he walked away.
"Excuse me," a voice interrupted Harry as he thought about the night.
He looked up – the girl Hermione was standing in front of him, watching him almost thoughtfully. "What?" he demanded, irritable after his encounter with Malfoy, and starting to wish that people would leave him alone again.
"I couldn't help overhearing what you saying to that Malfoy boy," she told him. "and you really mustn't go wandering around the school at night! Think of the points you'll lose for Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really selfish of you!"
"I'll do as I like," Harry said coldly. "And it's none of your business. Goodbye." Hermione stalked away in a huff, but Harry didn't care. Hopefully she'd leave him alone now.
That night, Harry and Sirius both stayed awake, lying on Harry's bed in the boy's dorm. Harry was glad that he was used to being awake late at night, otherwise he'd be really tired by the time he got to Malfoy.
He was listening to the snores and deep breathing of Ron, Seamus and Dean – Neville hadn't left the hospital wing yet.
There was a very good chance that they'd get caught by Filch, or Mrs. Norris – they weren't going to take the Invisibility cloak, in case Malfoy saw it. It was going to remain a secret weapon.
"Half past eleven," Harry murmured to Sirius at last. "We'd best get moving. Just lead me through the quickest route of secret passageways, ok?"
Sirius nodded and gave a quiet woof of agreement, heading into the common room. It seemed empty. They made their way quietly across the room until they were standing in front of the portrait hole.
Harry pushed it open, and Sirius bounded outside. "I can't believe you're doing this, Nemo!"
A lamp flickered on, outside, Sirius gave a low, angry sounding whine. It was Hermione Granger – she was wearing a pink dressing gown and a frown.
"You," Harry hissed angrily. "Go back to bed!"
"I nearly told the Prefect – Percy," Hermione informed him coldly. "He'd have put a stop to this."
Harry couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering. Ignoring the girl, he was out of the portrait hole before she could blink.
Hermione didn't give up that easily, and she followed him out into the corridor outside, hissing like an angry goose.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor? Do you only care about yourself? I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all those points that I got from McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells!"
"I knew about them too," Harry snarled angrily. "And I got points for it as well! Just go away!"
"All right, but I warned you. You just remember what I said when you're on the train tomorrow! You're so-"
But then she stopped. Harry turned around to wearily demanded "what now?" but saw 'what now' before he got the chance to ask.
The Fat Lady's portrait was empty. The picture had left and gone somewhere else. No one could get into the common room until she returned.
"Now what am I going to do?" Hermione asked shrilly.
"That's your problem," Harry replied coldly. "I didn't ask for you to follow me out here, it's your own fault."
"I'm coming with you," she informed him suddenly, marching over to him.
"You are not," Harry replied coldly.
"Do you think I'm going to wait here 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 you can back me up."
"You've got some nerve," Harry stated coldly. "I'll do no such thing."
Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but Harry held up a hand. "Quiet," he told her. She looked about to protest, when she heard what he had. A noise, down the passage.
"Mrs Norris?" Hermione asked nervously.
It wasn't Filch's cat – it was Neville. "Thank goodness you found me," he whispered to Harry, not paying much attention to Hermione. "I've been out here for hours. I couldn't remember what the password was!"
"It's pig snout," Harry replied. "But that won't help you. The Fat Lady's gone wandering off. How's your arm?"
"Fine now," Neville replied. "Look, Madam Pomfrey healed it easy as winking," he showed Harry his now mended wrist.
"Look, I have to go, and she seems intent on following me," Harry said. "I suppose you want to come too?"
"Yes please!" Neville said, sounding relieved. "The Bloody Baron's been past twice already!"
"Oh, so you don't mind him coming?" Hermione sounded a little insulted.
"He didn't try to stop me," Harry replied coolly. "He isn't an interfering busy-body."
Hermione huffed, and Harry explained quietly to Neville what was going on. He was a little afraid when he found out, but was overall determined to come with Harry, with whom he felt safe.
They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn, Harry was scared of running into Mrs Norris, but Sirius seemed to be keeping an ear, nose and two eyes out for her. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed towards the trophy room.
Malfoy wasn't there when they arrived. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight touched them. Cups, shields, plates and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness.
The four of them stayed quiet, crouching near the doorway, waiting for Malfoy to show. "Maybe he's chickened out," Harry mused.
"Maybe he was caught by Filch?" Neville sounded hopeful.
"I don't think so, somehow," Harry replied tiredly.
Then there was a noise in the next room. Harry raised his wand, and motioned the others to remain silent. A voice spoke, a male one, but it was not Malfoy. "Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."
It was Filch, talking to Mrs Norris. Filled with dread, Harry waved madly at the others to follow him and Sirius, quietly.
Neville was barely got out of the room before they heard Filch enter it. "They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter. "Hiding from me, are we?"
"This way," Harry mouthed at the others, and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery filled with suits of armour. They could hear Filch coming nearer – apparently he'd determined that they weren't in the trophy room.
Neville gave a soft whimper and leapt forwards, stumbling into a run. He forgot about Sirius, and tripped over the large black dog: head first into a suit of armour.
"Run!" Harry called quietly, and they took off, spring down the gallery, not looking back to see where Filch was.
The swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor, then another, Harry and Sirius in the lead, not even thinking about where they were going. They ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passage, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew to be miles from the trophy room.
"I think we've lost him," Harry panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville and Hermione were both kneeling, too exhausted to do anything else.
"I told you," Hermione gasped, clutching at a stitch.
"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower," Harry said. "As fast as possible. Malfoy tricked me, obviously. He must have tipped Filch off."
"Let's go then," Hermione said, sounding very bad tempered.
Before they could get very far, however, they had one more bit of bad fortune: a doorknob just ahead rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom just ahead of them.
It was Peeves. The moment he saw them, he gave a soft laugh of delight.
"Shut up, Peeves, please. You'll get us thrown out," Harry hissed.
Peeves cackled. "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty!"
"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves. Please don't," Harry said.
"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."
"But Peeves – that would be helping Filch," Harry pointed out.
Peeves thought about this. "Quite right," he mused. "Can't have that … Tell you what, run to the end of this corridor, go through the door there. It's locked, but I'm sure little witches and wizards can handle that. I'll send Filch off somewhere else."
"Thanks Peeves," Harry panted.
"When I start shouting, go," the poltergeist said, looking positively delighted. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" he bellowed suddenly, and the group took off. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"
Harry and his friends thudded against the door. "Let me," Hermione snarled, grabbing Harry's wand and tapping it against the lock. "Alohomora!"
The lock clicked, and the group piled into the room, shutting the door behind them, and leaning against it, panting heavily.
"Which way did they go, Peeves?" they heard Filch saying, not too far away.
"Say 'please'," the poltergeist ordered.
"Don't mess me about, Peeves, now where did they go?"
"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," Peeves said, his voice a taunting sing-song.
"All right! – Please!"
"NOTHING! Haa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha haaaa!" and they heard Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.
"He thinks this door is locked. Ardeo, hush!" for the last minute or so, Sirius had been whining fearfully.
Harry turned around, along with Neville and Hermione, and saw exactly what Sirius had been whining about. They weren't in a room, which they had previously suspected. Rather, they were in a corridor.
To be more specific, they were in the left hand corridor on the third floor. The one that was forbidden to all who didn't want to die a painful death.
And now they knew why this was.
They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. But it didn't only have two eyes, as most dogs might. It had six.
This was because it had three heads. And it had three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction. Three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.
It was standing quite still, staring at them with all six eyes, all three noses pointed straight at them, all three mouths agape, ready for the kill.
Harry knew that there were only two reasons that they weren't dead: one was that they had taken it by surprise. The other was that they had another dog (if an 'ordinary' one) in their company.
But it was getting over both. There was no doubt what those thunderous growls meant.
Harry reached for the doorknob – between death and Filch, he'd take death, but he thought that Filch might be gone already by now. They fell backwards. Just as Harry was about to close the door, he noticed something on the far end of the chamber, below the huge dogs back legs.
He marked it in the seconds that he had to see it, then he was throwing the door closed, and hearing the dog bark angrily as one of it's noses thudded painfully into the wood. "Can you lock it again?" Harry gasped to Hermione, who wordlessly did so.
"Let's go," Harry said, and they took off again, this time moving more easily through the castle. At least now they weren't running for their lives.
"What are you all doing out so late?" The Fat Lady asked, staring at them, exhausted and panting.
"Never mind that," Harry replied coolly. "Pig snout." They scrambled into the common-room and collapsed, trembling, into arm chairs.
It was awhile before anyone spoke. Harry was thinking about what he'd seen at the last moment, before he slammed the door shut. The other two were too out of breath to do anything but sit and pant.
"What do you think their doing, keeping a monster like that in the school?" Neville wondered aloud, looking rather panicked still.
"At least we know why the corridor is forbidden now," Harry remarked, his voice touched with a morbid humour. "But I shouldn't have trusted Peeves, I suppose – he doesn't like students much, and he absolutely hates Filch. I thought that getting one over Filch might be enough to make him help us … But of course, he wanted to get over us as well …"
Hermione had finally gotten her breath back, and with it was her bad temper.
"You don't use your eyes, do you?" she hissed at them.
"What, are you talking about that trapdoor?" Harry asked absently, not really paying attention to what the other two were talking of.
"So you did notice," Hermione sounded disappointed. "Well, anyway, it's obvious that it's guarding something … I wonder what?" She stood up suddenly and glared tat them. "I hope you're pleased with yourself, Nemo. We could have all been killed … Or worse – expelled. Now, if you don't mind I'm going to bed."
"I don't mind at all," Harry assured her, completely unfazed. "In fact, I'd rather that you did. You aren't all that pleasant company."
She sniffed and stalked off. "Get some sleep Neville," Harry advised the other boy.
"Nemo?" Neville asked, as Harry stood up to walk up to his dormitory. Harry glanced back, raising a questioning eyebrow.
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Why don't you let anyone get close?"
"Because my best friend died because of me. I don't want anyone else to," Harry replied, surprised that he answered honestly. "I don't want anyone else to be hurt because of me, and I don't want to be hurt because of anyone else."
He turned and hurried upstairs before Neville could say anything else.
Besides, he wasn't thinking of anything that had happened this night, but rather what had occurred back before school started, and his meeting with Hagrid in Gringotts.
"Gringotts ain't quite the safest place on Earth," Hagrid had told him. "Tha'd be Hogwarts."
So, had the 'philo' something been moved to Hogwarts now, Harry wondered… It was time to do some snooping, he thought.
***
Well, that's it for this chapter! 3500 words, or thereabouts! Enough for you lot, I should hope!
Many apologies for the lateness of the chapter, but what with school going back and fanfiction going down over the weekend, I haven't had much time … It shouldn't take this long to update again, I hope.
Thanks:
Angelmorph, Athenakitty, Kathy Stgqvk, Shadow159, Wynjara, SnakeDynasty, Wolfia, jbfritz, Dumbledore's Heir, ReflectionsOfReality, Chicken Stars, MikiBaby, torifire126, Xyverz, Eowyen Lady of Horses1361, Romm, Kemenran, Drajjen, Lady Prongs, JeanieBeanie33, Taka Ichijouji, Kraeg001, Musicstarlover, Nicoletta, Gaia, Alice Finch, Pen, Phoenix Flight, Gaul1, Destined Enchantress, Keebler-elmo, ananova, munch, Songbreeze Swifteye, Jaded Angel, Howling Wolf1, Stix-the-Rebel, OhioGrl-HPFan, Chiquita-3, Lil Ole Me 97, Persephone, Nasser Himura, AnImE-aNd-Hp-FrEaK, azntgr01, LonelySpirit, Alexa, Prongs4, Wanderingwolf, Maxx77, Empress Sarah-sama, Samara-Morgan-101, Dweem-Angel, Muggle, wizardmon92, JerseyPike, I'm Just Too Lazy To Sign In, Wren Truesong, Anna L. Black, Btownbeast1303, Raven Potter Weasley, Tea-Turtles, PhoenixTearsp322, Magewhisperer-su, 411811 fgb, Shea Loner, Artemis the Hunter, Sirius's Gurl, uNoeWho, Calen, Prongs4.
411811 fgb: I think I know what my own zodiac sign is, thank you. If you knew as much as you think you do, you would know that the Chinese year starts in February, and I clearly stated that my birthday was in January. Making me a Dragon.
Destined Enchantress: I was going to do it that way, but I'm not sure if he'd have been Seeker if that had happened, so I decided to leave it as it was in the book …
Persephone: you will notice that I used your idea in this chapter!
Munch: It is coming, but not in first year … Dumbledore might know in third … Haven't decided yet.
Wizardmon92: Send me an email, it's easier to communicate that way. I'd send you an email myself, but I don't know your address.