"WELL?!" Sirius demanded, eyes flashing furiously. "Explain yourselves!"
Harry couldn't think of a word to say. Hermione had been right. He should've listened to his common sense and left the unicorn blood alone. Ron looked pale, and Hermione looked as if she might cry.
"I never would have believed it of any of you," Professor McGonagall added, fuming. "You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions."
"Not to mention sixty points from Gryffindor!" Sirius shouted.
"Sixty points?!" Ron gasped.
"Each," Professor McGonagall snapped angrily. To Harry's surprise, Sirius didn't even flinch. Nonetheless…
"Sirius, you—you want Gryffindor to win, don't you?" Harry asked, looking at his godfather with pleading eyes. But Sirius wasn't in a sympathetic mood.
"BIG PICTURE, HARRY!" he hollered, now pacing back and forth, arms in the air. "What if I hadn't been there? What if that—that thing had gotten you? Do you think I'd be okay with you getting killed, as long as we won the House Cup?!"
"Don't…don't take points from Hermione, at least," Harry said in a quiet voice. "She tried to stop us going in there."
Harry swore he saw Sirius's angry expression falter for a moment, but then he just scowled again.
"Fine," he said. "Only thirty points will be taken from Hermione. She might have been trying to stop you, but she still went into the forest."
"Now, off to bed, the three of you," Professor McGonagall said. "I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."
Hermione and Ron left abashedly. Harry was about to follow them when Sirius held him back. Before he could say anything, Harry spoke first.
"How can you get angry with me about this?" he cried. "You were in that forest every month at least!"
"D'you think I care?!" Sirius yelled. "What I care about is your safety, and none of what your father and I did in our school days is going to change any of that!"
"How did you even find me, anyway?" Harry asked nervously.
"With this," Sirius said back, withdrawing the Marauder's Map out from within his robes. "I saw all three of your names on there, going deep into the forest."
"How did you see us?" Harry demanded. "We were under the Invisibility Cloak!"
"I know about the Cloak, and I also know that the Map reveals you, whether you're wearing a Cloak or not," Sirius said shortly. "After I put the Map away and went into the forest, I was able to find you as a dog by tracking your scent. Remember how I used to do it with teachers? Same exact thing."
"But you were taking Barbara to London…"
"It's barely two hours round-trip." Sirius put his hands on his hips. "I got back in time, and it's a lucky thing I did. If I hadn't found you, you'd probably be dead now."
"Sirius…" said Harry desperately. "150 points…you can't…"
"Yes, I can," said Sirius, "and not only that, but as your godfather, I'm going to have to wizard-ground you for a month."
"What?!"
"You heard me! During the day you are not allowed to leave the castle except for classes and you are not to leave Gryffindor Tower after eight p.m."
Sirius snapped his fingers, turned around, and stomped off. As soon as Sirius had snapped his fingers, Harry felt some sort of irresistible urge to run all the way up to Gryffindor Tower, almost as if his legs had a mind of their own. When he tried to get out again, he just felt like he was hitting an invisible wall, sort of like the one Sirius had used on the mirror room. Harry figured this must be the wizard-grounding.
Harry had the feeling Ron didn't want to talk, because he started fake-snoring soon after they had gotten into bed. Harry didn't think there was anything he could have said to Ron, anyway. They had gotten Hermione in trouble, they had lost 150 points for Gryffindor in one night, and, perhaps worst of all, Harry had never seen Sirius so angry with him.
…
The next couple of weeks were shrouded in misery. First, there was the wizard-grounding. Harry truly couldn't leave the castle during the day unless it was for class, and he had to go directly up to Gryffindor Tower every night after dinner. If he didn't make it to the tower in time, the wizard-grounding spell forced him to run there. The secret passageways out of Hogwarts were blocked, too, because that's what happens when a Marauder is the one to wizard-ground you. And even if Harry had found a way to get outside, the spell would've just pushed him right back in again. He found his dorm room was blocked so that Hermione couldn't get in, either.
And then there was the sudden nosedive his popularity had taken. It seemed Ron and Hermione were the only friends he had left…except maybe the Slytherins, who were congratulating him for basically securing them the House Cup again. Nobody on the Quidditch Team would talk to him, and instead of calling him by name, they called him "The Seeker".
Harry, Ron and Hermione were all assigned separate detentions, which was copying lines. They were forced to write I will not risk my neck by entering the Forbidden Forest ever again. Harry also had to write, I will not give my godfather a heart attack before he's thirty-five.
During his detention, copying the words over and over, Harry was given some time to think. It was a good idea, he decided, to stop poking his nose in other people's business. He also knew, to some extent, that Sirius was only being so harsh on him because Harry hadn't just broken a rule, he had nearly been killed, but that seemed to make it even worse, somehow. Sirius had rescued Harry from a miserable life at the Dursleys', and this was how Harry repaid him.