The news that Ginny had been petrified spread past the school borders in no time at all. Ron had barely had time to talk to his brothers on Saturday morning, before his parents arrived. The whole family huddled around the bed of the youngest member, and particularly Mrs. Weasley seemed inconsolable.
Harry and Hermione stayed around long enough to answer all the questions Ginny's parents had for them. They did not want to leave Ron alone for the questioning, especially as they were leaving out quite a lot of detail. As soon as they left, Hermione told Harry how sorry she felt for Ron, having to more or less lie to his family in such a difficult moment.
Later, when Ron found them again, he had much to tell them. Mrs. Weasley apparently had had enough and had decided to take her children home. This, however, was met with resistance from two sources. First, Madam Pomfrey insisted that Ginny was better off at Hogwarts than she would be at St. Mungo's. She calmly explained to the girl's distressed mother that there was no Restorative Draught to be had at the hospital either, at that time of year, and eventually Ginny would end up waking up disoriented in a completely different place, unable to remember how she got there, and with no guarantee that someone of her family would be allowed to be present when she was given the draught to revive her.
Next came Percy. He would not hear any suggestion of leaving school – a mere sixth year he might be, but for him preparations for NEWTs had already begun and such a thing was completely unthinkable for him. He and his mother fought, but Percy would not budge. Finally, Mr Weasley managed to make them agree on a compromise: they would at least put off the fight until the school governors had decided whether to close the whole school.
A dark, depressing mood had settled over Hogwarts, as everyone waited for news from the school governors. The students were encouraged to stay in their dorms as much as possible, and to travel in groups to the great hall when necessary.
Harry and his friends, meanwhile, spent the day finding ways to sneak away to the third floor girls' bathroom to continue brewing their Polyjuice potion. Hermione opened their owl post, revealing a few of the ingredients they had ordered.
"We won't need to add these for a few days yet," she said almost regretfully.
"We might not need to add them at all," sighed Ron. "Who knows if Malfoy is really involved?"
"He's still our best lead—" began Harry.
"Is he, though? If Ginny thinks that Tom Whatshisname did – whatever he did, maybe we should try to find him instead?"
Harry and Hermione exchanged troubled looks, neither willing to point out the difficulties with such a task.
"Well, we'll do what we can, of course," Hermione said finally, "but if we give up the potion now, we won't be able to come back to it, because it takes so long to brew it. And what if we need it after all?"
"Fine. Yeah. Let's do it. What are we doing today, then?" Ron crouched down in front of the potions book, to look at the instructions, something he had never bothered with before. His friends grimaced at his turned back.
Ron grew restless again as soon as they had dealt with the potion. Doing homework was unthinkable, and none of their usual distractions – not even the promise to win at chess against Hermione – seemed enough to take his mind off his worries.
"How about we practice casting spells together?" Harry finally suggested with a sigh. Not the best option, to let Ron deal with his frustrations with a wand, but he did not have any better ideas.
The other boy instantly jumped at the offer, before Hermione could veto it. So they grabbed Harry's Curses and Counter-curses and went back to Myrtle's bathroom. Ron would have tried the more vicious curses straight away, but Hermione talked him out of it. They began with spells they had learned at school, sometimes all three of them together and sometimes in pairs.
Ron was as focused as he had ever been when trying to learn new spells. He was the most motivated, the most energetic, but the more he tried, the worse the results got. First, the simplest spells would not work if he was one of the casters, but soon more violent reactions followed. After another explosion cracked several tiles in the bathroom, Hermione called quits despite Ron's complaints.
"Ron, don't you remember what Professor Dumbledore told us? If we're not all on the same page, casting together isn't a good idea. I actually read that you can have very bad accidents, if you're not careful."
"Really? What can we do to avoid those?" asked Harry.
Hermione shook her head, looking dissatisfied. "There isn't anything we can do. That's the whole reason wands were invented. Even people who've known each other for ever and have cast spells together – even people with strong magical affinity – can still have accidents. But Professor Dumbledore seemed to think it was a good idea…"
"Maybe he thinks it's worth the risk," said Ron impatiently.
"Maybe he thinks that we'll be safer learning it in the long run, despite the risk of accidents," Harry agreed. He did not need to point out what level of danger Dumbledore predicted for them.
Come Monday, they were only too happy that they had kept the potion. During breakfast, it was announced that the school governors had decided against closing Hogwarts. Neville, whose grandmother was closely acquainted with one of the governors, had interesting rumours to pass on: Apparently everyone had expected the school to be closed until the meeting, when a suspiciously confident Lucius Malfoy had made a little speech against closing the school and enough people had agreed – people who had seemed of a different opinion just a day before – that he had won.
"That slimy, rat-faced bastard," Ron was hissing all the way to their first class, despite Hermione's best attempts to control his language.
"Well, at least we now have a lead again," said Harry.
"Yeah, if only our potion were already finished."
"Well, the boomslang skin should be delivered any day now, well in time, which only leaves us with the bicorn horn," said Hermione. "I don't know why they didn't write us anything about that…" She checked the letter from the Hogsmeade apothecary once again, looking dissatisfied.
That little mystery was solved a few days later, nearing the end of November. A post owl brought another letter from the apothecary, apologising and informing them that they had run out of bicorn horn powder and would not get in another batch until the new year.
"What do we do now?" asked Harry. "Rob Snape after all?"
Ron shook his head in dismissal. "There has to be another shop," he almost demanded of Hermione.
"There's the one in Diagon Alley, of course." She frowned. "But it isn't listed in the catalogue. I guess we can still try to write to them and see if they'll deliver…"
They sent the letter right away. Things were not to be that easy, though. The answer, which came a couple days later, was apologetic, but informed them that the apothecary did not deliver potions ingredients by post. The shop did, however, store bicorn horn which they were welcome to buy if they chose to visit in person.
"We can't just give up," decided Harry, seeing Ron's disappointment. "There has to be a way—"
"What can we do? Short of going to London—"
"Well, why not?" said Ron. "I could go home over the holidays. Not the best time to be away, but at least—"
Hermione shook her head. "No, that won't do, Ron. It's December already and the potion is now half finished. We need to add the bicorn horn – let me think – not as soon as the boomslang skin – that has to be added no more than a fortnight after the half-time mark – and the bicorn horn no more than a week after that – so just before the end of term," she concluded, her shoulders drooping.
The discussion had to be shelved, unresolved. A few days passed, without any of them having come up with a solution. In the second week of December Professor McGonagall came around as usual, collecting names of those who would be staying at school for Christmas. Harry and Hermione signed her list; Ron reluctantly followed suit. He had still been considering leaving, but then they heard that Malfoy was staying, which struck them as very suspicious.
The boomslang skin had to be added by the end of that week, and as Thursday afternoon's double Potions lesson loomed nearer, the thought to steal the bicorn horn from Snape's private stores began to sound both more tempting and more terrifying.
"What we'd need," Hermione was saying on Wednesday evening in their common room, "would be a diversion. Something loud and flashy. Then one of us could sneak into Snape's office and take what we need."
Harry and Ron looked at her nervously, still unwilling to commit to the plan. Then Ron huffed, said he knew where to get something loud and flashy from, and walked over to the farthest, darkest corner, where Fred and George were discussing something suspiciously quietly with Lee Jordan. Harry heard him ask for a Filibuster firework. His brothers asked a few questions, of course, but seeing that Ron was not answering but still adamant about wanting the firework, Fred shrugged.
"All right, fine. We can get more next weekend in Hogsmeade, I guess. Remind me when we go up and I'll get it for you."
"The next Hogsmeade trip is next Saturday, just before the end of term. Would that be too late to add the bicorn horn?" Harry asked, perfectly calmly, once Ron had sat down again, and watched his friends' eyes widen as they understood what an outrageous thing he was suggesting.
Harry wrote to Sirius that evening. It was mostly a short update of the happenings of the last few days, but it also contained a rather whiny – in Harry's opinion – paragraph about the upcoming Hogsmeade trip. He bemoaned the fact that he would need his guardians' permission to go the following year – something he doubted he would get. It was such a shameless thing to do, making Sirius feel needlessly responsible for Harry's misery at the Dursleys' hands.
The letter was a success, however. Sirius sent back several feet of parchment, tightly written on both sides. There was reassurance that there were always possibilities, and tales of Sirius and Harry's dad and their friends sneaking in and out of the castle as they pleased, for various questionable reasons – Sirius' idea of 'other possibilities' for Harry to consider. This in itself would have been reason enough for Harry to think the letter a success. But more importantly, it also contained references to secret passages out of the school – and into Hogsmeade.
Harry, Ron and Hermione were so excited, they forgot all about the dangers and deadlines for potions. The boys began bringing up mentions of the vague locations Sirius had hinted at around Ron's twin brothers. Fred and George were the only students the three could think of who might possibly have heard about one of the passages.
Ron was talking about 'the mirror on the fourth floor' – a quote from the letter that none of them knew anything more about – when the twins finally cracked. They crowded the younger boys, standing on either side of them.
"Now, which mirror would that be?" asked Fred suspiciously.
"Oh, you know, just… a mirror," Harry said mock-evasively. He would not look at Ron, for fear of giving themselves away.
"Right. Like the statue of Gregory the Smarmy is just a statue," drawled George.
Harry could not resist a look at Ron. So his brothers knew about at least two passages. The twins did not miss that.
"So, what business exactly would you have with this mirror that is just-a-mirror?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing. But why are you so interested in it?" asked Ron in his best innocent voice.
It was the twins' turn to exchange looks. "Well, alright—"
"We'll give first—"
"Just to show how impressed we're with you."
"Yeah, never would have thought you capable of it…"
"Why, thanks," said Ron sarcastically.
"Don't be so prickly, we said we're impressed."
"So, the mirror. Or, the passage behind the mirror…" Fred went on in a barely audible voice. "Will you tell us what you want to do there?"
"We just wanted to, er, test some fireworks and dung bombs," fibbed Harry.
The alarmed looks on the twins' faces were unexpected. "Ickle second-years," George said with a mournful shake of his head.
"Biting off more than they can chew," Fred agreed.
"What?" Ron asked impatiently.
"It's… that passage is becoming unstable. Fireworks would be—"
"Really dangerous, actually." George shook his head.
"Oh. So then, which passage would you recommend?" Harry asked boldly.
"Keep your voice down, will you?" Fred hissed. "The one behind Gregory's statue is too narrow, I get that. Hmm, should we tell them…?"
"Maybe they already know?" George regarded them speculatively.
"Know what?" asked Ron.
The twins moved closer together to discuss something. "Do you know about the passage behind the statue of the one-eyed witch?"
Sirius had mentioned that one as well, but the boys shook their heads.
"Alright," Fred said with a sigh. "But don't get caught and make me regret this. Here's what you need to do…"
It was a mere couple of days before the Hogsmeade trip, and Harry, Ron and Hermione's whole attention was taken by planning for it. They were walking across the entrance hall when they could not miss a knot of people gathered around the notice board, reading a piece of parchment that had just been pinned up. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas beckoned them over, looking excited.
"They're starting a Dueling Club!" said Seamus. "First meeting tonight! I wouldn't mind duelling lessons; they might come in handy one of these days…"
"What, you reckon Slytherin's monster can duel?" said Ron, but he, too, read the sign with interest.
"Could be useful," he said to Harry and Hermione as they went into dinner. "Shall we go?"
Harry and Hermione were too excited by the prospect to say no, despite their planning getting interrupted, so at eight o'clock that evening they hurried back to the great hall. The long dining tables had vanished and a golden stage had appeared along one wall, lit by thousands of candles floating overhead. The ceiling was velvety black once more and most of the school seemed to be packed beneath it, all carrying their wands and looking excited.
Harry groaned when he saw Lockhart in plum coloured robes, and realised he would be teaching them. Snape, dressed in his usual black was not far behind.
"Oh, of course. We heard them talk about this when…" Hermione trailed off, not wanting to mention how Ginny had ended in the hospital wing.
"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," said Lockhart, flashing a wide smile, once he had tired of talking about himself. "He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about duelling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don't want any of you youngsters to worry – you'll still have your potions master when I'm through with him, never fear!"
"Wouldn't it be good if Snape finished him off? It might even get him in enough trouble to lay off students for a while," Ron muttered in Harry's ear.
Snape's upper lip was curling. Harry wondered why Lockhart was still smiling; if Snape had been looking at him like that he would have been running as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
The demonstration went as expected, with Lockhart explaining and demonstrating all the theatrics of duelling, while Snape looked on irritably. The actual duel was over before it had begun: with Lockhart sprawled on the floor and Snape holding his opponent's wand after his formidable Expelliarmus. He quickly handed it over to Lavender Brown, who was standing nearby, looking concerned like many other students. In fact, only Malfoy and some of the other Slytherins were cheering.
While scrambling to his feet and recovering his wand, Lockhart tried to suggest that he had let Snape win, rather than being defeated, but quickly stopped at the Slytherin professor's murderous look.
"Enough demonstrating!" he said, "I'm going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you'd like to help me—"
They moved through the crowd, matching up partners. Snape made a beeline for the farthest corner away from Harry and his friends, as if he could not get away from them far enough. Lockhart, about to pair Neville with Justin Finch-Fletchley, spotted them and reconsidered. "Actually, I think you could use Mr Potter's help, Mr, er…"
"Longbottom," said Neville, flushing from embarrassment.
"And you, Mr Weasley, can partner Mr Finnigan," he decided, clearly happy with his choices.
This, it turned out, left Justin to pair with Malfoy and Hermione with Bulstrode, a large and square Slytherin girl.
"Face your partners!" called Lockhart, back on the stage. "And bow!"
Harry saw Neville fumble through a bow as he himself distractedly bowed back, his attention on Hermione. He saw her smile nervously at her opponent, who did not smile back.
"Wands at the ready!" shouted Lockhart. "When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent – only to disarm them – we don't want any accidents. One… two… three…"
"You can go ahead and try first, Harry," said Neville, drawing Harry's attention.
"Alright," he said, trying to ignore the erupting chaos around them as all other pairs of students disregarded the instructions and broke out in full-fledged duels. "Let me see… Expelliarmus!"
Not unexpectedly, this did not have the intended result. Neither did Neville manage to do much of anything on his try. Harry tried to recall the wand movement, but he kept getting distracted by the other duels. Ron was holding his own against Seamus and seemed to be enjoying himself, but the same could not be said about Hermione or many other students around them. Lockhart's cries of 'disarm only' were being completely ignored.
"Maybe try together?" asked Neville quietly, following his line of vision.
Harry gave him a surprised look, then nodded slowly. They had involved Neville in their experiments a couple of times – often enough, apparently, for him to get an inkling of what they were up to.
"On three," Harry said quietly, but before they could try, Bulstrode tackled Hermione and wrestled her wand out of her hand.
Fed up, Harry ran over to them to pull the Slytherin girl off his friend, just as Lockhart began to shout for them to stop. It was difficult. She was a lot bigger than he was.
Snape finally took charge and ended all the duels with a Finite Incantatem. A haze of greenish smoke was hovering over the hall. Several students were lying on the floor, panting. Others were whimpering in pain.
"Dear, dear," said Lockhart, skittering through the crowd, looking at the aftermath of the duels. "Up you get, Macmillan… careful there, Miss Fawcett… pinch it hard, it'll stop bleeding in a second, Boot…
"I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," said Lockhart, standing flustered in the midst of the hall. He glanced at Snape, whose black eyes glinted, and looked quickly away. "Let's have a volunteer pair – Potter and Longbottom, how about you?"
"A bad idea, Professor Lockhart," said Snape, gliding over like a large and malevolent bat. "Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We wouldn't want to send what's left of Potter up to the hospital wing in a matchbox, would we?"
Harry, though glad to have avoided the public display grew angry as he watched Neville's round pink face go pinker.
"How about Malfoy and Finch-Fletchley?" said Snape, moving over to that pair – and far away from Harry.
Justin did not look good, Harry noted. He was still panting and seemed to be favouring his left leg, as he was directed by Lockhart towards the middle of the hall. Everyone else backed away to give them room.
Lockhart tried to demonstrate the spell to Justin, but ended up dropping his wand instead. Snape smirked, then moved closer to Malfoy and whispered something to him that made the boy smirk as well. A nervous-looking Justin tried to ask for help, but was ignored.
"Three, two, one, go!" shouted Lockhart.
Malfoy raised his wand quickly and bellowed, "Serpensortia!"
The end of his wand exploded. Harry watched, aghast, as a long black snake shot out of it, fell heavily onto the floor in front of Justin and raised itself, ready to strike. There were screams as the crowd backed swiftly away, clearing the floor.
"Don't move, Finch-Fletchley—" Snape began to say, but the Hufflepuff boy panicked and fell backwards into Lockhart, who had drawn his own wand – supposedly to try to help and show off himself.
The heavy banging further enraged the snake and hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Justin Finch-Fletchley, fangs exposed, poised to strike.
Harry was not sure what made him do it. He was not even aware of deciding to do it. All he knew was that his legs were carrying him forward as though he was on castors and that he had shouted stupidly at the snake, "Leave him!" And miraculously – inexplicably – the snake slumped to the floor, docile as a thick black garden hose, its eyes now on Harry, who suddenly felt entirely calm. He knew the snake would not attack anyone now, though how he knew it, he could not have explained.
He looked up at Justin, grinning, expecting to see the other boy looking relieved, or puzzled, or even grateful – but certainly not angry and scared.
"What do you think you're playing at?" he shouted, and before Harry could say anything, Justin had scrambled to his feet and stormed out of the Hall.
Snape stepped forward, waved his wand and the snake vanished in a small puff of black smoke. Snape, too, was looking at Harry in an unexpected way: it was a shrewd and calculating look, and Harry did not like it. He was also dimly aware of an ominous muttering all around the walls. Then he felt a tugging on the back of his robes.
"Come on," said Ron's voice in his ear. "Move – come on…"
His friends dragged Harry all the way up to the empty Gryfindor common room and explained to him why being a parselmouth was bad news – especially at that time, as it suggested he might be a descendant of Slytherin, and therefore the only known candidate for Slyterin's heir.
Harry lay awake for hours that night, worrying about whether he truly might be descended from Slytherin and what that might mean, coupled with the fact that the Sorting Hat had almost sent him to Slytherin House. Finally, he decided to talk to Justin in herbology the next day and try to explain.
By the next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last herbology lesson of term was cancelled: Professor Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs Norris, Colin Creevey and Ginny Weasley.
Harry fretted about this next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their lesson off to catch up on their preparations for their secret trip the following day.
"For heaven's sake, Harry," said Hermione, exasperated, as she had to repeat the same question to him for the third time, "Go and find Justin if it's so important to you."
So Harry got up and left through the portrait hole, wondering where Justin might be. Thinking that the other boy might be using his free lesson to catch up on some work, he decided to check the library first.
A group of the Hufflepuffs who should have been in herbology were indeed sitting at the back of the library, but they did not seem to be working. Between the long lines of high bookshelves, Harry could see that their heads were close together and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation. He could not see whether Justin was among them. He was walking towards them when something of what they were saying met his ears, and he paused to listen, hidden in the Invisibility section.
He listened to their paranoid accusations, led by Ernie Mcmillan, who was entirely convinced at that point that Harry was the heir of Slytherin. His insane arguments seemed to be working, too. Everyone else was willing to believe what he was saying. Harry had had enough when he heard Ernie suggest that he must have defeated Voldemort with unknown dark magic. Clearing his throat loudly, he stepped out from behind the bookshelves. If he had not been feeling so angry, he would have found the sight that greeted him funny: every one of the Hufflepuffs looked as though they had been petrified by the sight of him, and the colour was draining out of Ernie's face.
"Hello," said Harry. "I'm looking for Justin Finch-Fletchley."
The Hufflepuffs' worst fears had clearly been confirmed. They all looked fearfully at Ernie.
"What do you want with him?" said Ernie, in a quavering voice.
"I wanted to tell him what really happened with that snake at the Duelling Club," said Harry.
Ernie bit his white lips and then, taking a deep breath, said, "We were all there. We saw what happened."
"Then you noticed that, after I spoke to it, the snake backed off?" said Harry.
"All I saw," said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "was you speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake towards Justin."
"I didn't chase it at him!" Harry said, his voice shaking with anger. "It didn't even touch him!"
"It was a very near miss—" Ernie began to say, unshaken in his belief.
"It very nearly bit me!" they heard another voice across the library that the Hufflepuffs recognised immediately and gasped.
"Which would have been Malfoy's fault!" Harry recognised the ghostly voice responding as that of Nearly Headless Nick. "Not Harry's! Why would he have bothered to attack you with Malfoy's snake, which was already attacking you? Or do you think Malfoy conjured it in jest?"
Harry could not believe his ears, but as the voices came nearer, he saw Justin arguing with Nearly Headless Nick, who was defending his innocence valiantly. Harry felt stupidly grateful, and guilty all of a sudden for having been angry at the ghost for involving him in his deathday party.
"Justin, didn't I tell you to stay in our dorm?" Ernie said as they all came face to face.
Justin froze in his tracks, gaping open-mouthed at Harry, while Ernie led the other Hufflepuffs to surround him – supposedly to protect him from Harry.
Nearly Headless Nick sighed. "I tried to make him see sense, Harry, but…"
"Thank you. If they want to hate me for helping, it's their choice, I guess." Harry shook his head, turned his back at the stupidly glaring Hufflepuffs and left the library together with the ghost.
The older students could not leave the castle soon enough the next morning. Nearly everyone who could had signed up for the Hogsmeade trip, despite the vicious blizzard.
"We'll need to be super careful not to get seen," Hermione repeated nervously, mostly to herself, as the boys had heard this and similar more than once already.
It was both easier and harder to sneak away than it would have been normally. Everyone was trying to stay away from Harry, but they also liked to keep an eye on him. Silently, the three friends made their way to the statue of the one-eyed witch. They moved to the back of the statue and Hermione tapped it with her wand, whispering, "Dissendium." At once, the statue's hump opened wide enough to admit a fairly thin person. Harry glanced quickly up and down the corridor, hoisted himself into the hole head-first, and pushed himself forward. His friends followed.
Sliding down the stone slide and walking through the narrow, low, earthy passage was its own adventure. The musty smell, darkness and cold only added to the secretive feeling of the trip, but what might have been an uncomfortable walk turned quite fun with the company and Hermione's warming charms.
After what felt like an hour, the passage began to rise. Ten minutes later, they came to the foot of some worn stone steps, which rose out of sight above them. Careful not to make any noise, they began to climb. It was a long way up, easily a few hundred steps, by the end of which they were all panting. Harry, who was leading them, kept looking back at his friends as they chatted, until, without warning, his head hit something hard.
"Quiet!" admonished Hermione.
Harry resisted the urge to snipe at her. Instead, he pushed the trapdoor open and peered over the edge. He was in a cellar, which was full of wooden crates and boxes. Harry climbed out of the trapdoor and held it open as his friends followed. Closed, the trapdoor blended so perfectly with the dusty floor that it was impossible to tell it was there. They crept slowly toward the wooden staircase that led upstairs. They could hear voices, and the tinkle of a bell followed by the opening and shutting of a door.
They slid underneath Harry's invisibility cloak until they heard a door open much closer at hand; somebody was about to come downstairs.
A little while later, they slid past the man shifting boxes against the opposite wall and climbed the stairs; looking back, Harry saw an enormous backside and shiny bald head, buried in a box. They reached the door at the top of the stairs, slipped through it, and found themselves behind the counter of Honeydukes.
With some regret, they sneaked out of the shop, with Ron leading his friends hidden under the cloak. Honeydukes was so crowded with Hogwarts students that no one looked twice at another Weasley kid. He edged among them, looking around, making sure to leave space for Harry and Hermione to follow.
Harry glanced back at the shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable, before leaving Honeydukes for the blizzard outside, wishing they could afford to risk staying a while.
Hogsmeade looked like a Christmas card; the little thatched cottages and shops were all covered in a layer of crisp snow; there were holly wreaths on the doors and strings of enchanted candles hanging in the trees. They headed up the street, heads bowed against the wind, Ron shouting directions through his scarf.
Harry and Hermione finally took off the invisibility cloak once they had reached the Shrieking Shack. It had been Ron's idea to go there, as it was unlikely they would run into any other students around there.
"So, we're all set, then?" Hermione began to say. "We just hold out our wands and the bus will turn up, right, Ron?"
"Yes, yes, come on," urged Ron. "We know where we're going, and the fake names we're going to give, and—"
"Alright, here goes—" Harry began to say, as he extended his wand hand, when he was suddenly tackled into the snow by a huge black shape.
A moment later, the shape of the dog morphed into that of a wizard. "What the bleeding hell are you three doing here?" Sirius shouted at them, looking nothing short of shell-shocked.