So... the bonus Saturday upload did not happen... however, I did remember Monday, so yay! I'm not going to make any promises of when, but I would like to catch up with the original upload schedule sometime this week. Anyway, enjoy!
Not Potter and the Stupid Stone
Chapter 20
Noel
"What in the world were you all thinking?" Professor McGonigal shrieked, slamming her hands down on her office desk. "Up in the Astronomy Tower, at one in the morning?! Explain yourselves."
"Professor," I began, "we were just trying to look at the stars, and we found that this was the best time for it."
"Stars?" She asked, suspicious. "Are you certain it had nothing to do with a dragon?"
I noticed the letter that she was clutching tightly. Malfoy gave it to her? Who am I kidding, of course he did. That little rat. If McGonagall weren't in the room I would turn around and hex. As it was. I simply had to stand there and listen to his sniggering breaths from behind me.
No one spoke.
"It doesn't take a genius to figure it out, you wanted to get Malfoy in trouble, so you made up some cock and bull story about a dragon, and then came to watch the show."
Again, she paused, waiting for a response, but still, no one spoke. At this point, it appeared that Hermione was about to start crying.
"I will not tolerate this." She scolded, "five students out of bed, for goodness sake! I've never had such a situation before."
"We're sorry, Professor." Laura apologized, "it won't happen again."
"It most certainly won't." She glared, "now, the five of you will be having detention tomorrow night. And I will be taking forty points from Gryffindor. For each of you."
I stood, solumly, wishing more than anything that I could just disappear, and, judging that, from their saddened, heartbroken, faces, my friends felt the same. Our attempts to help had led to an awful fate. Malfoy had suddenly chimed in, seemingly bothered by something Professor McGonagall's had said.
"Excuse me, Professor." Malfoy interrupted, "did I happen to hear you wrong, or did you say, 'the five of us'?"
"You heard me absolutely right, Mr. Malfoy." She replied, the smug laughter instantly dropped from his face and he looked almost as if he were about to argue with McGonagall. "Although your intentions were noble, you too were out of bed after hours."
Malfoy turned livid; detesting being forced to endure the same punishment as the rest of us. He muttered under his breath, as McGonagall sent us all back to our common rooms, "I'm too rich for this..."
The next evening, after classes had ended and dinner had been eaten, the five of us made our way to detention. The day had been particularly tortuous, especially for Harry. Most students thought the missing 160 points from Gryffindor was a mistake at first and were simply confused. However, upon hearing it was Harry Potter and his first-year friends who had lost all the points, they turned on him. Harry suddenly found himself being scorned by the older students, even the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, who had been so looking forward to Slytherin losing the house cup, in their eyes, Harry had ruined everything. The only retribution I got was ma midnight black-enveloped letter from my parents expressing how they weren't surprised with my "trouble-maker attitude" and stating that if I continued in such a way I would not be welcomed back home with the same "warm and gracious" attitude that I received at Christmas. I could really care less. Other than that, I could really care less about what the other students thought, the Slytherins hating me was nothing new. Still, it was a relief to get away from the rest of the students at eleven o'clock, for our detention. Ron walked with us down to the entrance hall, where we were set to meet, but, upon glimpsing Filch, and Malfoy, quickly took his leave.
"Follow me." Filch said, evilly grinning.
He held a barely lit lamp, as he led us outside the castle, discussing some midevil reasons as to why students should have more tortuous punishments for breaking rules. Eventually, after stumbling across the dark grounds for many minutes, our main source of light being only the glow of the moon above, we reached Hagrid's hut.
"Is that you, Filch?" Hagrid called out, "I wanted ter get start'd ages ago!"
I turned to see Harry's face beaming, seemingly happy that Hagrid would be the one in charge of our punishment. When noticed, Filch spoke out, attempting to crush any lingering hope for the night.
"Think you'll have it easy with this oaf?" He sneered, "think again, cause it's the forest you all are heading into. Doubt you'll come out in one piece..."
Hermione nearly squeaked at the mention, as Malfoy spoke up, sounding slightly less confident than normal.
"Th-the forest?" Malfoy stammered, suddenly losing his nerve. "We can't go in there at night! There're all sorts of things in there – werewolves, I heard."
"That's your problem, isn't it?" He nearly laughed, "should've thought about that, and those werewolves, before you got in trouble, eh?"
"Hurry up! I bin waitin' fer half an hour, already." Hagrid shouted. "All right, you lot?"
"You shouldn't be so friendly to them, you know." Filch scolded, "they're here to be punished, after all."
"'Snot your place ter be tellin' me that." Hagrid said, shoving him off. You've done yer bit; they've shown up late already, cause of yer lecturin'."
"I'll be back at dawn." He jabbed, "for whatever is left of them."
He snarled, as he turned back towards the castle, and walked off.
"I'm not going in there." Draco complained, pointing towards the forest.
"If you wanna stay at Hogwarts," Hagrid replied, "yer sure are, Malfoy."
"But, isn't this servant stuff?! This is what we have house elves for!" Draco said, clearly not understanding the basis of detention.
"Right then," he carried on, "now come over here." He said leading us to the edge of the forest.
"See this?" He asked. He stuck two fingers in a silvery liquid and held it up to the moon light, so we could see it clearly.
"Unicorns blood this is. There's a unicorn in there bin hurt bad by summat. Nasty thing to hurt a unicorn. Now I don' know who or what did dis but we're gonna try an' find the poor thing."
"What if whatever hurt it finds us first?" Hermione said, fearfully.
"Nothin' in der'll hurt you as long as your wit' me or fang. Oh. An' keep ter da path." He trailed off, "right, now I'm gonna split yer inter two parties an' follow the trail in diff'rent directions. There's blood all over da place, so just look fer it."
"I want fang." Draco said, quickly, eyeing the dog's big teeth.
"Fine," Hagrid agreed, "but he's a coward. So, Harry an' Laura you go wit Malfoy an' Fang, an' Noel an' Hermione'll be wit me. So youse four go dat way, an' we'll go the opposite."
I moved closer to Hermione and Hagrid as we entered the forest. The ground was crawling with spiders and the path was overgrown so that roots stuck up in every which direction, causing either Hermione or I to lose our balance every few minutes, whilst Hagrid strolled on ahead. It had been quite some thime, and we were following a shimmering trail of the Unicorn blood, when Hagrid seemed to hear something.
"Get behind that tree." Hagrid declared, loading his crossbow.
"Whatever summat's out there, I'ma warn you. I'm armed."
Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound.
"Dis way." He motioned for us to follow him into a small clearing. A man? A horse? No, both, a centaur. Hermione's jaw dropped. To the waist he was a man, but from there down he had the gleaming chestnut body of a horse.
"Oh, Ronan." Hagrid sighed, "it's you."
The centaur, Ronan, took a step forward. "Were you going to shoot me, Hagrid?" He asked.
"You can' never be too careful. Summats in these here forests, an' I gotta keep these two here safe."
Ronan turned to face Hermione and I.
"Students?" He questioned. "Do you learn much at that school?"
"Um," I started, confused on how to reply.
"A bit." Hermione finished.
"Well, a bit is something." He shrugged.
Just then he flung his head back to look at the sky, "Mars is bright tonight."
"Yeah." Hagrid agreed, glancing up towards the sky. "Listen, I'm glad ter have run inter you, but have you seen anythin' unusual? You see a unicorn's been hurt bad by summat, it has."
The centaur took a moment in responding.
"The innocent are always the first to go." He replied, "so it is, so it has always been."
"Yes, yes," Hagrid continued, desperate to get an answer. "Seen anythin'?"
"Mars is bright tonight." He responded, once more. "Unusually bright."
"Anything closer to home?"
"The forest hides many secrets."
Just then, something moved in the trees. From ahead, another centaur appeared. This one had a wild block coat, instead of Ronan's gleaming chestnut.
"Hullo, Bane." Hagrid began. "Was just askin' Ronan if he'd seen anythin' unusual. You know, in the forest. Have you?"
The centaur, Bane, took a moment to step forward next to Ronan and look up. He replied, simply, "Mars is bright tonight."
"We'll be going then." Hagrid nodded, slightly fed up, "thanks for all your help. Tell me if you see something weird in the forest."
After taking us a bit away from the clearing, Hagrid complained.
"Never try an' get a straight answer from a centaur," He gruffed, shaking his head.
Just then, there came a high-pitched scream.
"Laura?" I asked, noting the pitch of the voice.
"Was that Malfoy?" Hermione pondered, making me question my guess.
"I'm sure it was just a screech owl." Hagrid replied, trying to shove it off. "If someone's in danger they'll send up sparks, just like I told 'em to."
"You never told us to do that." I said, staring him dead in the eye.
"I'm sure I did..." He mumbled, questioning himself.
"They teach us to send up sparks in class if we get lost, so I'm sure someone'll think of it." Hermione said, trying to lighten the mood.
After that the three of us trouped silently through the forest, each worrying, not truly believing it could have been a screech owl. Just then, we saw a blond head emerge, not too far away from us, and red sparks go up in the air, yards away.
"Let's go." Hagrid decided, grabbing Malfoy and dragging him along with us as we rushed towards the sparks.
