At half-past eleven, I snuck out of bed, making sure I wouldn't wake any of the three girls, put on my robe, grabbed my wand, and headed down to the common room. All three of us met at the top of the stairs and quietly tip-toed towards the fat lady's portrait.
"I can't believe you're going to do this Harry." We head from the chair closest to us. The lamp next to it flicked on and there sat Hermione Granger in her fluffy pink robe and a large frown on her face. "You? Go back to bed!" Ron tried to instruct her.
"I almost told your brother, Percy, he's a perfect and he'd put a stop to this!" She whispered, only making the boys more pissed off. "Wait, but I saw you in your bed?" I asked her, confused how she had beat me down here, but also hoping I could distract her away from thinking about Percy. "Pillows." I nodded when she told me. It was a common trick that even the twins and I would use back at home when we wanted to go outside and catch fireflies or I needed to be in their room to help with a prank.
"Come on," Harry told Ron and me, ignoring Hermione while grabbing my wrist and leading us through the portrait hole. He should've known Hermione was too stubborn to give up so easily, but even knowing that I didn't expect her to follow us out.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor? Do you really only care about yourselves?" I shot her a hurt look, but her eyes remained on Harry. "I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup, and you'll lose all the points I've gotten from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells." She continued to hiss at us.
"Go away." He told her.
"All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so-" But Hermione stopped speaking. I glanced back to see why she stopped talking and saw that she stood frozen in place, looking at an empty portrait. The Fat Lady must've gone on a nighttime walk and abandoned her painting, not thinking any students would be out this late. I wanted to laugh but coughed into my hand instead, but the bushy-haired girl still glared at me. "Now what am I going to do?" She desperately asked us. Harry and I shrugged but Ron had had enough.
"That's your problem. We've got to go, we're going to be late." We turned and left but Hermione caught up with us before we even got to the end of the corridor. "I'm coming with you." She told me. "You are not." Ron snapped back at her.
"Do you really think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds the four of us I'll tell him the truth. That I was trying to stop you and you can back me up." I shook my head at her, "Hermione that won't help you. You were still out of bed and left the common room after curfew." And within a second of me finishing my statement before Hermione could even retort back, Ron declared, "You've got some nerve-" But was cut off by Harry. "Shut up! All three of you." He snapped at us. "I heard something!"
And he was right. Once everyone stopped moving and kept as quiet as we could we heard loud sniffing. " ?" Questioned Ron. I groaned at the red-eyed devil cat's name. We were squinting to try and see anything but instead of finding , we found Neville curled in a ball and fast asleep on the floor, but as we got closer to him, he bolted awake.
"Thank goodness you found me!" He told us loudly, "I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get into bed." We all shushed him.
"Keep your voice down, Neville. The passwords 'Pig Snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere." Ron informed him. I couldn't help but wonder where the Fat Lady would be this late at night but I guess that since she had to be available all day for students she would socialize at night. But with who?
"How's your arm?" Harry asked, bringing me back to reality and away from the fake scandal I was coming up with within my head. "Fine. Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute." Neville replied, showing us his arm. I smiled at him, "I'm glad you're alright, Neville." He returned the smile.
"Good- Well look, Neville, we've got somewhere to be so we'll see you later-" Ron started, trying to speed this up since we were getting later and later. "Draco probably thinks we chickened out."
"Don't leave me!" Neville pleaded back, scrambling to his feet. "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been passed here twice already." I shared a look with Ron and Harry, Harry checked his watch while Ron just gave Hermione a harsh glare.
"If either of you gets us caught, I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and use it on the both of you." Ron threatened, making me roll my eyes at his "tough guy" act. Hermione opened her mouth to say something back at Ron but Harry just hissed at her to be quiet and follow along.
During the walk through the corridors, Neville had managed to fit in between Harry and me, while Hermione stayed on my other side and as far away from Ron as possible without being too far from the group. The only source of light was what came in from the moonlight outside. We were as quiet as we could be, jumpy and paranoid that around every corner Filch or Mrs. Norris would suddenly appear and catch us but we were lucky and got to the trophy room safely.
Harry and Ron held their wands at the ready, while Hermione and I looked at a few of the polished trophies, and Neville held onto my arm, scared. I wanted to ask why he always chose me of all people to hide behind but I was never able to think of a polite way to ask so I just let it be. It didn't really bother me since Neville was a very kind boy and a good friend so far.
"He's late, maybe he chickened out," Ron whispered to Harry, but I was getting a bad feeling about this. I went to warn them knowing Ron would understand and back me up when we heard someone speaking.
"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking around the corner." Filch. My heart dropped and I looked at Harry, who also looked terrified. He started waving his arms around wildly to catch everyone's attention and lead us quickly to the door. Neville's robes had just barely whipped around the corner when we heard Filch enter the trophy room. "They're in here somewhere..." He muttered, "probably hiding." A shiver went down my back at the tone of his voice.
"This way!" Harry mouthed to us. I dragged Neville along with me, making sure he was able to keep up as we walked down a hallway full of suits of armor. Everything was going smoothly until Neville had had enough and began to run, but tripped over his robes and toppled right into one of the suits of armor, bringing me down with him.
Harry helped me up while Hermione gave Neville a hand and as soon as I was on my feet, Harry yelled, "RUN!" So that's what we did. We sprinted down the gallery, going from one corridor to another, with Harry in the lead. I had a thought run through my head asking if Harry even knew where he was going, but I kept my mouth shut and focused on my breathing. Man, I need to get in better shape, I chastised myself. We ran through a tapestry and into a hidden passageway that led near the Charms classroom.
"I think- I think we've lost him." Harry heaved his hands on his knees. We were all breathing hard and exhausted. Neville was wheezing and whipped the sweat off of his forehead. "I - told - you!" Hermione gasped, still trying to catch her breath as well. "I - told - you!"
"We've got to get back to Gryffindor Tower." I interrupted, knowing that if I didn't, it would end up in a huge fight between Hermione and Ron. "As quick as possible!" I added.
"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione voiced my thoughts out loud. I nodded. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you. Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must've tipped him off."
"Let's go," Harry said after a minute of silence. The bad feeling I had still hadn't gone away, and again, just as I was about to voice my concerns, I was interrupted. The doorknob to one of the rooms started to rattle and out flew Peeves. Once he saw us, he gave a loud sequel.
"Shut up, Peeves! Please! You'll get us thrown out." Ron tried to plead, but I knew we were fucked when Peeves just cackled. "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty." He rhymed.
"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please!" Harry tried this time. "Should tell Filch I should." Peeves taunted back, an evil twinkle in his eyes that had me getting ahold of Neville again and getting ready to run. "It's for your own good, you know."
"Get out of the way!" Ron snapped, taking a swipe at the poltergeist. I groaned, Ron completely ruined any chance we had of keeping Peeves quiet.
"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" He shouted, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!" We all ducked under Peeves and ran as fast as we could until we slammed into a door at the end of the corridor. It was locked.
"This is it!" Ron moaned, "We're done for! This is the end!" I shook my head, reaching for my wand when Hermione shoved her way to the front. "Oh, move over!" She snarled, not accepting the fact that we were about to get caught and possibly expelled. She grabbed Harry's wand and tapped the lock on the door while whispering, "Alohomora!" The lock clicked and the door swung open. We all ran into the room and shut the door behind us, Harry and Ron keeping their ears against the door to hear what was going on outside the door.
"Which way did they go, Peeves?" FIlch asked, my breath caught in my throat. "Say 'please'."
"Don't mess with me, Peeves! Now, where did they go?" Filch had yelled. "Shan't say nothing if you don't say please." Peeves sang back. "All right- please!"
"NOTHING! Haha! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Haha! Haaaa!" Peeves taunted as his voice started to fade, indicating that he was leaving. I finally felt like I was able to breathe. We were also able to hear Filch stomping away cursing loudly.
"Alohomora?" Ron asked Hermione. "Standard Book of Spells, Chapter 7," I answered for her, ignoring Ron's look he gave me, eyes too focused on something else.
"He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispered to us. "I think we'll be okay. Get off, Neville!" Harry had shrugged the whimpering boy off his robes. "And for good reason..." I whispered to him, slowly walking backward until I was right beside him. "What?" He asked, turning around. "Slowly..." I whispered back, grabbing his arm to make sure he didn't make too fast of a movement. But that didn't help much when Ron was the one to spin suddenly.
We weren't in a room like we expected. No, we were in a corridor, and not just any corridor. The forbidden corridor, and what we saw explained exactly why it was forbidden. In the corridor stood a black dog that's height reached the ceiling but that wasn't what was so scary about the dog. It was the fact that this extremely large dog had three heads. Three. And all three were giving us a dirty look with drool leaking out of each mouth in ropes off of its ginormous yellow teeth.
The dogs were standing still, most likely surprised by the sudden intrusion, and I suspect that is why we weren't dead yet. But it was quickly getting over the surprise, faster than we were of it at least, and all three heads gave loud growls. We all screamed and I felt Harry grab my hand and tugged me back as soon as he swung the door open, with me dragging Neville. Ron and Hermione quickly slammed the door shut behind them, struggling a little until Harry and I joined. And what did we do? We ran. Not caring much about the risk of Filch catching us and much more concerned about us getting eaten by such an angry beast. We didn't stop running until we finally to the portrait of the Fat Lady and thanked Merlin she was there.
"Where on earth have you all been?" She questioned once she saw us, our robes hanging off of our shoulders, our faces flushed and barely breathing. I bet it was quite the sight at this time of the night. "Never mind that! Pig snout! Pig snout!" Panted Harry, and the portrait quickly swung forward, letting us all stumble in. We all sat there, completely quiet while we each caught our breath. Neville honestly looked as if he would never speak again.
"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in the school?" Ron broke the silence. I nodded, "At least it was kind of cute..." But I stopped speaking when everyone gave me a look varying from "Are you insane?" to "You're an idiot". "If any dog needs exercise, that one does." He added, attempting to ignore my comment completely. Hermione, on the other hand, had finally caught her breath and very quickly got angry.
"You don't use your eyes, do you?" She snarled, "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"The floor?" Harry said, making me roll my eyes. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads, in case you didn't notice, it had three!" Ron snapped at her.
"No, not the floor. Hermione's right, it was standing on a trapdoor. That means it wasn't there by accident. It's guarding something." I informed the boys, Hermione nodded with me, standing up and glaring at us.
"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. Now, we're going to bed before you come up with another idea to get us killed. Or worse- expelled." She told the boys with her nose slightly tilted in the air as she grabbed my arm and dragged me away to the girl's dorms. I told them goodnight and gave them a small wave. As we were leaving, I could hear Ron mumble, "She needs to sort out her priorities." But I never heard a response, whether that was because we were too far away or if it was because one never came.
As we hung our robes up and got into bed, Hermione wouldn't look at me. She did tell me goodnight and fell asleep quickly, but all I could think about was what that dog must've been guarding. A school wouldn't just have an animal like that guarding something like test answers. It had to be guarding something important.
That's it for this chapter! I hope everyone enjoyed it and if you did, please give me a like! It would mean a lot to me. And if you'd like, leave a comment or even share the story (although I know that some people are more private about reading fanfics than others so I get not sharing). I wanted to remind you guys that this story will be a mix of the book and the movie so if things seem out of order from one that means that it was probably from the other. I think I've mainly been following the book lately. Which do you guys like more? Also, do you guys like having longer chapters or would you rather have more chapters but them being shorter? It's a question that's been bugging me a little because I know I prefer longer chapters but I'd like to hear from my readers. (:
I hope you guys are having a great day/evening!
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