This chapter might be a bit shorter than usually, but it does have quite the bit of action. I've fallen behind on editing, however, I only have one more day till Thanksgiving break and I'm hoping to finish my editing of the first book then.
Not Potter and the Stupid Stone
Noel
Ron, Harry, and I moved to the back of the common room and waited midnight. The boys played chess and started writing my transfiguration essay, working off of Laura's notes. We had decided that we would split the workload; she would write notes for transfiguration, history of magic, astronomy, and herbology and I would write notes for potions, defense, and charms. Astronomy and herbology had far less note taking than the rest of our classes, so we decided it was a fair split of work. Hermione tried to tell us that it counted as cheating, but I'm not even friends with her, so it didn't bother me.
I looked up from my homework as a thought occurred to me, "We never went to see Hagrid.
Ron stared at me a bit blankly, "What?"
Harry groaned, "This morning at breakfast he sent us a letter, remember Ron. So much happened, I totally blanked about it."
"I'm sure he'll understand," I attempted to reassure Harry, who was looking a bit upset about the whole thing, "You can always just write a letter explaining, he'll forget all about tea when he finds out that you're the youngest Gryffindor seeker in a century."
"Not just seeker," Ron chimed in, "Player too. Yeah, he'll be thrilled, he won't mind us missing tea at all."
"And you can always reschedule," I added.
Harry nodded and turned back to the chess board just in time to see Ron's knight jump two of his pawns.
After that, the night rolled on steadily. At eleven thirty I nudged Ron and Harry, who had fallen asleep in their respective chairs, after checking the common room. We were completely alone.
"Ron. Harry." I hissed, "We should leave now if we want to make it to the trophy room on time."
Ron rubbed his eyes, groggily, before nodding gently and Harry stretched his arms above his head and pulled his cloak straight, it had fallen off of one of his shoulders as he slept. Once the boys had fully stretched and arranged themselves, we began crossing the common room to get to the portrait hole. Just as I was about to push the portrait hole open, a voice spoke from a chair facing the front of the common room, one with a tall back, so that if someone were sitting in it, you would not be able to tell from the back of the common room. I turned around and there in the high-backed chair sat Hermione
"you're not really doing this? It's so selfish. You are going to lose Gryffindor so many points." She said all this in her most snippety teacher's pet voice.
"We're not stupid," I sneered.
"Yeah," Ron agreed. "We won't get caught."
We began to walk through the portrait hole and Hermione followed us out, rebuking us all the way.
"You can't guarantee that." Hermione protested.
"We can't let Draco win. If we don't show, he gets the satisfaction of winning by default." Harry added.
"Fine." she scoffed, "go lose points and let Gryffindor become the laughing stock of the school." She huffed sharply, turning back to enter the common room. However, the portrait hole had already closed and the Fat Lady was no where in sight.
"You've got to be kidding me." she sighed before panicking, "what do I do now?!"
"Well," Ron said, quite rudely, "you're not coming with us."
"What else can she do?" I asked, "We're not leaving her out here to be caught by Filch or go snitch on us."
"Let's just go, we don't want Draco thinking we chickened out." Harry said, moving us forward.
The four of us made our way through the halls to the trophy room, dodging professors and prefects along the way. We wandered through the halls, nearly getting caught by a few professors and prefects along the way. It was somewhat thrilling, honestly, and I actually began to enjoy being out with them.
"Brilliant!" Ron cheered. "He's not here yet."
"Must have chickened out." Harry laughed.
"Or worse." Hermione said, voice shaking.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"Look!" She said, quietly, pointing to a pair of glowing eyes in the doorway across from them. They were close to the ground, which was odd.
"Mrs. Norris!" Ron whispered.
"Who?" I asked.
"The caretaker's cat. You know Filch? She reports back to him" He explained, "I heard he keeps chains in his office to hang kids with. Dumbledore won't let him, but I bet if he found us, he would." As Ron explained, I could remember my brother roaring with laughter talking about all the times immature blood traitors had been caught by Filtch's cat and how the Slytherins had a special way of getting information to Filch in an effort to undermine other houses. This must have been what Draco had done, had could I have been so stupid as to overlook this possibility. It is always a Slytherins goal to reach the ends you desire without getting your hands dirty, I guess the fact that I had forgotten that showed why I wasn't one.
"Run!" Harry screamed in a hushed voice.
The four of us bolted down hallways, making random turns every few feet to try and throw Filch, who Mrs. Norris had alerted, off. We ran around the halls for a solid five minutes, almost like we were on a heist mission
"This way!" He said, leading us down a darkly lit and somewhat neglected corridor which ended in a single door.
"What are you doing?" I questioned, irritated at their stupidity. "Open it!"
Harry pulled on the doorknob, "it's locked!"
"Step aside." Hermione said, shoving Harry out of the way and pointing her wand at the doorknob. "Alohamora."
The door swung open as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and I ran inside, slamming the door behind us. We listened to Filch's footsteps come near the door, my heart pounding, then turn away.
"Where could they have gone..." Filch muttered from the hall
"Glad we escaped that." Ron sighed.
"Open the door." My eyes widened, and I began to panic, as I turned around to examine the artifacts of this room.
"Why..." Harry asked, before looking up and spotting a giant, slobbering, three-headed dog.
"Just go!" Hermione screeched, pushing me, Ron, and Harry out the door. At this point the four of us were so tired that we had no energy to run and so had to practically drag ourselves back to the common room, where the Fat Lady was, thankfully, in her portrait, and back to bed. Before parting from Ron and Harry, Hermione managed to set them straight.
"I'm going to bed before one of you come up with another brilliant pan to get us killed, or worse, expelled." She huffed, before turning her head.
"Hermione..." Harry tried saying.
Hermione cut him off, ignoring whatever he had planned to say. "Noel?" She questioned, calling for me to follow her.
I followed Hermione out of the common room and back to our dorm. Over my shoulder, I heard Ron respond to Hermione's comment, "she needs to get her priorities straight." Ron mustered, under his breath.
I sighed and trudged back to the dormitories to be met with a, surprisingly, still awake Laura.
"What happened?" Laura asked, concerned and confused.
"You do not even want to know." I sighed, as Hermione hummed confirmation.
As I lay in bed, I couldn't help but reflect on tonight's events. Over everything else, one thing stuck out in my mind. If Hermione weren't a muggle born, she would really be a useful ally. She demonstrated great determination, all be it if for stopping us, and sharp intellect, demonstrated by her usage of alohamora. In fact, I was starting to think that her blood status might not even matter too much. I shook myself at the thought, what would mother do if she heard you saying such things? I really needed to take a look at those books I had gotten at the library.
