A yell of terror woke Bella with a start several hours later.

"Did you hear that?" Bella asked as Freya sat up in bed.

"Yeah." she replied rubbing her eyes.

Bella climbed out from under the covers and pulled open their door, sticking her head out into the hallway. Bodies from every dorm filled the stair way and Bella joined them, urging Freya to follow her. Down in the common room, Harry and Ron stood together, Ron shaking slightly.

"Are you alright?" Bella asked, putting her hand on Ron's shoulder.

Ron shook his head slowly.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?" Harry asked.

"I'm telling you, I saw him!" Ron cried.

"Excellent, are we carrying on?" Fred asked brightly.

"We certainly are not!" Percy snapped, pinning his Head Boy badge to his pajamas as he hurried into the common room.

"Perce - Sirius Black." Ron said faintly. "In our dorm! With a knife! Woke me up!"

The silence in the common room was deafening. Bella wrapped her arm around Ron's trembling shoulders.

"Nonsense!" Percy said, looking alarmed. "You've just had too much to eat, Ron - had a nightmare -"

"I'm telling you -"

"Now, enough is enough!"

Professor McGonagall stood in the archway, wrapping her long tartan gown around her, glaring furiously at them.

"I, too, an overjoyed at Gryffindor's victory but this is ridiculous! I expected more from you, Percy."

"I certainly did not authorise this, Professor!" said Percy, indignantly. "I was just telling them all to get back to bed. My brother Ron here has had a nightmare -"

"I DIDN'T HAVE A NIGHTMARE!" Ron bellowed. "PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME WITH A KNIFE!"

Professor McGonagall stared at him.

"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he have possibly gotten into Gryffindor Tower."

"Ask him." Ron said, pointing a trembling finger at the back of Sir Cadogan's portrait. "Ask him if he saw -"

With a suspicious look at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed open the portrait and stepped outside. The whole common room was silent, listening with bated breath.

"Sir Cadogan, did you just permit a man entrance to Gryffindor Tower?"

"Certainly, my dear lady!" Sir Cadogan replied.

Both Professor McGonagall and the entire common room were stunned into silence.

"You - you did?" Professor McGonagall said. "But - but the password?!"

"He had it!" Sir Cadogan said brightly. "Had the whole week's passwords on a little slip of paper!"

Professor McGonagall stepped back through the portrait hole to face the stunned Gryffindors, her face white as chalk.

"Which person," she said, her voice shaking. "which abysmally foolish person wrote down this week's passwords and left them lying around?"

There was utter silence in the common room, broken only by a few terried squeaks and Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to toe, raised his hand.

No one in Gryffindor Tower slept a wink that night. They knew that the castle was being searched again and the entire house sat awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught. Professor McGonagall returned at dawn to tell them that he had escaped again.

The next day it was fairly obvious that the security measures around the castle were tightening; Professor Flitwick was teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Black's face; Filch was hurring up and down the corridors boarding up everythign from small cracks in the walls to mouse holes. Sir Cadogan's portrait had been relocated to the seventh floor and the Fat Lady was back, albeit nervous and demanding extra protection. A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the cooridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs.

For the first time in Ron's life, he seemed to be the centre of everyone's attention. Although he was still clearly shaken from his ordeal, he was happy to tell anyone and everyone who asked just what had happened in the boys dorm that night. "- I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know?" Ron was recounting again at breakfast to some Ravenclaw girls. "But then there was this draught ... I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been torn - I rolled over and I saw him standing over me ... like a skeleton with loads of filthy hair - holding this great dirty knife, was longer than my wand! and he looked at me, and I looked at him - then I yelled and he scarpered."

Bella had heard just about enough and she left Ron and the others in the Great Hall, hoping to find some peace somewhere. She decided on the Astronomy Tower, knowing there would be no one up there for the rest of the day. As she thought, the Astronomy Tower was empty and she sat at the edge, again, dangling her legs over the side. With a sigh, she lay back against the cold floor and closed her eyes.

"Bella." a voice said softly from the stairwell and she knew immediately he had followed her here.

"Go away, Malfoy." she replied, not opening her eyes.

"Are you really still giving me the cold shoulder?" he said, stepping further into the tower.

Bella scoffed, sat up and turned to look at him; "You're one to talk about the cold shoulder."

"I've been trying to talk to you for days." he huffed. "I just want to apologise."

"As if." she replied, getting to her feet. "Malfoy's don't apologise."

"I do apologise!" he scoffed.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night." she said, brushing past him.

He grabbed her arm and she tore it roughly from his grasp; "Don't." she snarled.

"It was just meant to be a joke." Draco said quietly, taking a step back from her.

"You really have no idea, do you?" Bella laughed. "You think everything is just a big joke."

"No!" he cried, throwing his hands into the air.

"You knew!" she said, stomping back into the Tower. "YOU KNEW HOW THEY AFFECTED ME AND YOU STILL THOUGHT THAT WAS AN OKAY THING TO DO!" she yelled.

"I DIDN'T THINK!" Draco yelled back.

"No, you didn't think!" Bella scoffed. "You only thought about annoying Harry and you didn't think how it would make me feel."

"I was terrified, because of you." she continued. "I broke my hand because of you!"

"You - you broke your hand?" Draco asked, voice shaking.

"Yes." she sighed, running her hands through her hair.

"What did you do?" he asked, stepping closer to her.

"I punched the wall." she replied.

Draco chuckled causing Bella to glare at him.

"Punching me wasn't enough for you?" he asked with a small laugh.

"It isn't funny." she huffed, stomping away from him.

"I know -" he replied, hurrying after her. "I know, I'm sorry."

"It's going to take a lot more than an I'm sorry to fix this." she replied, descending the stairs to the corridor, leaving Draco alone in the Astronomy Tower for the second time.