It felt as though we had already won the Quidditch Cup; the party went on all day and well into the night. Fred and George disappeared for a couple of hours and returned with armfuls of bottles of Butterbeer, pumpkin fizz and several bags full of Honeydukes sweets.
"I'm assuming that amazing map helped with this" said Amy.
She, Andrew, Demelza and I were all sat together in one corner of the common room, each of us with our own portion of the stuff the twins had bought back.
"Yes, of course it would have, it's the only way they know all these secret passages out of the school" Demelza said.
"I don't know about that" I countered "they do claim that they found one in their first week, the one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy"
"Wow, look at that" said Andrew suddenly, as Fred and George had started juggling Butterbeer bottles.
"That's so dangerous, but so impressive all the same. You've got to love them" I said
Only one person wasn't joining in the festivities. Hermione, incredibly, was sitting in a corner, attempting to read an enormous book entitled Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles. How she was planning to do this in such a loud room I had no idea. We saw Harry walk over to her, them talk briefly, then Ron said loudly 'If Scabbers hadn't just been eaten, he could have had some of these Fudge Flies, he used to really like them –'
Hermione burst into tears. She tucked the enormous book under her arm, and, still sobbing, run towards the staircase to the girls' dormitories and out of sight.
"He needs to give it a rest, honestly!" said Demelza "I know it must be frustrating that Hermione won't concede what happened to Scabbers, but this is ridiculous"
"This is Ron we're talking about mate" I said "It takes a lot to get him to come around, and a long time. He will eventually but not for a while yet"
The Gryffindor party only ended when Professor McGonagall turned up in her tartan dressing gown and hair-net at one in the morning, to insist that we all went to bed. I had barely laid my head on my pillow however, when we were awoken by a loud commotion coming from downstairs.
'What's all the noise?' said Katie
'Professor McGonagall told us to go to bed!' added Angelina
'Excellent, are we carrying on?' said Fred brightly.
'Everyone back upstairs!' said Percy, hurrying into the common room and pinning his Head Boy badge to his pyjamas as he spoke.
'Perce – Sirius Black!' said Ron faintly.
'In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!'
The common room went very still.
I bit my lip, wide eyed as I glanced at Demelza and Amy.
'Nonsense!' said Percy, looking startled. 'You had too much to eat, Ron – had a nightmare –'
'I'm telling you –'
'Now, really, enough's enough!' Professor McGonagall was back. She slammed the portrait behind her as she entered the common room and stared furiously around. 'I am delighted that Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better of you!'
'I certainly didn't authorise this, Professor!' said Percy, puffing himself up indignantly. 'I was just telling them all to get back to bed! My brother Ron here had a nightmare –'
'IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!' Ron yelled. 'PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!'
Professor McGonagall stared at him. 'Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he possibly have got through the portrait hole?'
'Ask him!' said Ron, pointing a shaking finger at the back of Sir Cadogan's picture. 'Ask him if he saw –'
Glaring suspiciously at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside. The whole common room listened with baited breath.
'Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?'
'Certainly good lady!' cried Sir Cadogan. There was a stunned silence, both inside and outside the common room.
'You – you did?' said Professor McGonagall. 'But – but the password!'
'He had 'em!' said Sir Cadogan proudly. 'Had the whole week's, my lady! Read 'em off a little piece of paper!'
Professor McGonagall pulled herself back through the portrait hole to face the stunned crowd. She was 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, broken by the smallest of terrified squeaks. Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to fluffy-slippered toes, raised his hand slowly into the air.
For a while Professor McGonagall just stared at Neville. Then she said, in a horribly quiet voice:
"Detention, Longbottom. That will not be all though. You are now banned from any future Hogsmeade visits, and no one will be permitted to give you the password into this common room. You must wait outside for someone to allow you in with them. I will also be writing to your grandmother about this, make no mistake!"
Then she turned to the room at large.
"You are all to remain here while us teachers search the castle for Sirius Black. I will be placing some temporary protective enchantments on the portrait hole, as a precaution should he return. If anyone is caught leaving or attempting to leave, the consequences will be severe to say the least!"
"Bloody hell" said Andrew. "How on earth has Black managed to get in again? I have so much respect for Dumbledore but I must say he hasn't exactly done well security wise this year has he?"
No one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night. We knew that the castle was being searched again, and the whole house stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught. Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell us that he had again escaped.
"That's twice now that he's managed to enter and leave undetected, and the second of those times, he got within inches of my brother! Someone needs to do something about this!" I said
And they did. Everywhere we went the next day we saw signs of tighter security; Professor Flitwick could be seen teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes. Sir Cadogan had been sacked. His portrait had been taken back to its lonely landing on the seventh floor, and the Fat Lady was back. She had been expertly restored, but was still extremely nervous, and had only agreed to return to her job on condition that she was given extra protection. A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs.
The passageway behind the one eyed witch remained unblocked however. I began to suspect that was how Black had been entering, but there had been no reports of a break in at HoneyJukes, so how could he have used it? The whole thing was very confusing.
Ron had become an instant celebrity. For the first time in his life, people were paying more attention to him than to Harry, and it was clear that Ron was rather enjoying the experience. Though still severely shaken by the night's events, he was happy to tell anyone who asked, what had happened, with a wealth of detail.
' was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know? But then there was this draught … I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down …I rolled over … and I saw him standing over me … like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair … holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches … and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scarpered, he said to Demelza, Amy, Magda and I when we asked.
Later on though, I couldn't help but voice my thoughts.
"If Black's supposed to be after Harry, why did he run away when he got the wrong bed? He was in a room full of 13 year olds, nobody there was anywhere near his level of power. He could easily have subdued them while he killed Harry. Obviously I'm glad he didn't, but still, it's strange"
"He would have had a huge task getting back out of the castle though. He'd have met the entire house in the common room, then there would have been the teachers afterwards" said Demelza.
It made sense. But as we got into bed that night, I couldn't help thinking there might be more to this story than we currently knew.