Five hours later, the school nurse, Madam Pomfrey, a plump, matronly witch, reluctantly consented to releasing Severus to the care of Rodolphus and Petula.
"I'll let you go, but you must promise you won't get upset again," the nurse warned after bandaging his abdomen tightly. "That episode shook up your ribs terribly."
"Are you quite certain you're all right?" Petula asked anxiously as they took him from the infirmary.
"Not going to start blubbing again, are you?" Rodolphus teased.
"Shut up," Severus grumbled, shaking off Petula's solicitous hand, then clutched his chest as he felt a little stab of pain from the movement. "You know perfectly well I wasn't crying, you dunderhead—Rodolphus, not you," he amended when Petula looked scandalized. "Cripes, it's only a few weeks into the year and already I'm the bloody laughingstock of the entire school. I'll never live this down!"
"There's no shame in needing a bit of a cry now and then," Petula said soothingly.
"I wasn't crying! Black conned me into peering into the bottle of Glumbumble fluid and the fumes made my eyes water. I'll get them expelled, if it's the last thing I do!" he burst out furiously. "I hate them, Black and Potter!"
"Et quand on parle du loup…" Rodolphus muttered, stopping in his tracks.
"What?" said Petula.
"He said, speak of the devil," Severus whispered, halting and staring straight ahead.
Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew were huddled by a statue of Gregory the Smarmy, a wizard depicted half-bowing with his hand outstretched and an ingratiating smirk on his face. They were so absorbed in their mysterious task that they did not notice the three Slytherins standing down the corridor.
"Come on, let's go another way," said Petula, tugging Rodolphus' sleeve.
"No, this way is faster," Severus said, eyeing the Gryffindors and fingering his wand. He was very keen to get his revenge on them for humiliating him.
"You don't know that, I've heard that there's loads of secret passageways running all over the castle. And we'll lose house points if you fight again," Petula pleaded.
"Some things are more important than house points," Rodolphus said stubbornly.
Petula sighed in exasperation.
"Fine, be idiots. Lose more points and get Severus sent straight back to the infirmary. They outnumber you two to one, in case you hadn't noticed."
"We can count," sneered Rodolphus. "Anyway it's really only three to two. Pettigrew's no threat, he'll be having enough trouble keeping from cursing off his own nose."
"See you in the common room," Petula said, and stalked away.
The sound of her footsteps finally caught the Gryffindors' attention. They looked round guiltily, while moving to hide Gregory the Smarmy from their view. Identical malicious grins leaped to Potter's and Black's faces.
"Snivellus!" said Black. "Why, you look positively dreadful. Feeling teary again? Do you need a hankie?"
"Shut your gob, Black," Severus snapped.
"Or what, Snivellus, you'll bawl all over us?" jeered Potter. "Are you going to flood the corridor with your tears?"
"Deafen us with sobs, Snivellus?" Black added viciously.
"Yeah, Snivellus!" Pettigrew piped up, eager to join in.
Possibly because he was the smallest, Severus and Rodolphus moved towards him first; but they had barely taken a step before Pettigrew's friends drew their wands and jumped in front of him.
"Give it up, you know you're all useless in Defence Against the Dark Arts," Rodolphus said. "Severus is the only one here who knows anything about hexes."
"Reading about them and actually performing them are completely different things," replied Lupin, narrowing his eyes at Severus.
"Yeah, and you've not quite mastered Defence Against the Dark Arts yet, have you Lestrange?" Black said with a smirk. "Three out of ten on your last paper, if I recall correctly?"
"Tough talk from someone who only got four out of ten," Rodolphus snarled, his face red.
The Gryffindors and Slytherins faced off, neither side daring to make the first move. Rodolphus twitched. Instantly Potter cried, "Engorgio!" and pointed at Severus' head; Severus ducked and the spell, which had been badly aimed in the first place, only grazed his earlobe, but that was enough to make the ear swell up three times the normal size.
Rodolphus tried a Curse of the Bogies but was only able to make Lupin's nose start to bleed. His blood stained the front of his robes and dripped onto the floor, but Lupin hardly seemed to notice as he threw back a Furnunculus Hex that gave Rodolphus a large pimple, while Pettigrew stood by whimpering, paralyzed with terror.
Meanwhile, Severus had managed to hit Potter with a Leg-Locker Curse and Black with a Tarantallegra, but from the floor Potter tried to shoot Severus with a Reductor Curse. His lack of skill diminished the effect of the spell, merely bruising Severus' cheek instead of knocking him off his feet. Then a Hufflepuff prefect was running down the corridor.
"OI! Oi, stop that, stop that—Expelliarmus!"
All their wands flew from their hands and the prefect caught them. "What is going on here?" he fumed, glaring at them.
"They started it, Amos," Potter said quickly.
"Yeah Diggory, we were defending ourselves," Lupin said.
"No magic in the halls!" shouted Diggory. "Finite Incantatem!"
Black's legs stopped doing the St. Vitus' Dance, Potter was able to stand, Rodolphus' pimple burst, Lupin's nose stopped bleeding, and Severus' ear shrank. Diggory glanced at Pettigrew, apparently waiting for something, then said, "Oh sorry, thought you'd been Petrified." Pettigrew coloured slightly.
Diggory threw down their wands in disgust. "This will mean five points from each of you!"
"Potter's the one who started it all!" Severus complained.
Diggory cast him a cold look. "Slytherin, eh? Wouldn't expect anything less from you—but you boys," he said, frowning at the Gryffindors, "I'm disappointed. I'll be speaking to your Heads of House about this. This'll set McGonagall and Astaroth at each others' throats again—I hope you're all happy, you dolts. Gryffindors, let's get out of here. March!" he commanded as they started to grumble
They grabbed their wands and left. Potter scowled at Severus as Diggory pushed them all up a staircase.
When they had gone, Rodolphus leaned against the statue of Gregory and heaved a sigh. "We had them! Diggory came to their rescue just in time. The other houses just can't let Slytherin ever win. But you really made me proud just now, Sev, taking on both Potter and Black! Bella will be-"
"Shh!" Severus hissed. He had perceived the strains of a familiar voice coming towards them from down the corridor. With a sinking feeling he recognized Lucius Malfoy's smooth, lazy tones.
"It's Malfoy!" he whispered. "He's coming this way, and Lupin's blood is all over the floor! We've got to get out of here!"
"No time! Quick, hide!" Rodolphus yanked him behind the statue of Gregory.
"As for the eleventh use of dragon's blood," Lucius Malfoy was saying at an almost stagy volume. He rounded the corner and glanced furtively in both directions, then pulled his companion with him into the shadows across from Gregory the Smarmy. Severus glimpsed Silas Jugson. Jugson, a Slytherin Beater, was another Slytherin seventh year. He was very big and beefy, so no one ever said to his face that his surname fitted unfortunately well with his appearance: he had large ears that stuck out on either side of his head like jug handles.
"Jugson, I've finally done it!" Lucius whispered.
"You got us a meeting with real Death Eaters?" Jugson cried excitedly. Rodolphus gripped Severus' arm.
"Yes, incredible, isn't it? I was lucky to get that tip from—well, you know, my contact in London. We're meeting them the day after Hallowe'en at two o'clock, in the Hog's Head pub. That's in two weeks, it's a Hogsmeade weekend."
"But you're Head Boy, Lucius, what if someone sees us talking with—you know…"
"What, you want to meet them for Butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks? The Hog's Head is the safest place I could find on short notice. But no students ever go in a pub like the Hog's Head, Jugson, and I'm sure the adult clientele are hardly going to be interested in the activities of a couple of kids like us. Let's go to the library, I still have three more feet of parchment to write on Bubble-Head Charms for tomorrow." Their footsteps gradually faded away.
Severus extricated himself from their secret latibule. "Whew! Lucky Gregory the Smarmy was also Gregory, the fattest man in Bavaria."
"You know what we have to do, Severus?" Rodolphus said with a grin.
"No," Severus said bleakly, seeing a familiar sparkle in Rodolphus' eye—the one that signalled the imminent spewing of a harebrained scheme. "No Rodolphus, I know what you're thinking and we can't do it."
"I want to follow them to their secret meeting," Rodolphus declared, as if Severus hadn't spoken at all. "We've been spending an absolutely unholy amount of time studying and we need a break."
"We can't," said Severus, but he was beginning to feel uncertain. Rodolphus' proposition did sound rather enticing…
Rodolphus sensed his hesitation, and capitalized on it. "Come on, you're not telling me you aren't a tiny bit curious about what Malfoy's up to?"
"I should think that's pretty clear!" Severus retorted.
Rodolphus cocked his head. "Clear that you're not curious, or clear what he's up to?"
"What he's up to!"
"Aha! So you are curious!" Rodolphus said triumphantly. "Let's start planning then!"
"We can't," Severus repeated fiercely.
"Name one reason why not!"
"I can think of twenty! One, first years aren't allowed to visit Hogsmeade, remember? Two, how would we even get out of the school? Filch blocks all the exits and makes everyone sign out. Three, supposing we did somehow escape the castle, we couldn't exactly stroll down the street with Malfoy and Jugson. They recognize us and hex us into bits for blowing their cover. Plus they'd get us into a lot of trouble with Astaroth. Even he couldn't overlook the fact that we were caught sneaking out of the school. Four-"
"One," interrupted Rodolphus loudly, "if we're going to sneak out, the ban on younger students in Hogsmeade is the least of our problems, Filch of course being the greatest one."
He grinned. "As for two…"
He moved behind Gregory the Smarmy and wedged his fingertips into a crack in the stone wall that Severus had failed to see, and pulled it back to reveal a low, dark doorway that was mostly hidden from view by Gregory's vast backside. Simultaneously, Severus noticed, Gregory's stone hand twisted round about the wrist like a doorknob.
"It was partly open already," Rodolphus explained. "Potter and his friends must have been prying it open before we got here."
"The hand turns like a knob," Severus said, touching Gregory's hand, which looked very odd twisted upside down.
"Even if it doesn't lead to Hogsmeade," Rodolphus said excitedly, "there's still-" he counted rapidly in his head- "fifteen days till Malfoy's little meeting. That's plenty of time to explore the castle and look for a way out. You heard Petula, there must be loads of secret rooms and hidden passages snaking all over Hogwarts. Come on, let's follow-"
"Wait!" Severus held up his hand, and in the silence they heard the voices and footsteps of Flitwick and McGonagall. Both struck with the same thought at once, they leaped for Gregory and wrenched his hand back the right way, and the wall slid back into place.
"We'll come back here tonight," Rodolphus said decisively as they started to sprint towards the dungeons. "After everyone's asleep."
"Rodolphus…" Severus said hesitantly, "Did you really get three out of ten?"
Rodolphus reddened again. "Let's go back to the common room," he said in a tone that forestalled further questions, "we've got piles of homework to do."