Harry Potter and the Do Over: Book One

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Chapter fifteen: The forbidden Forest

Harry, Hermione and Neville shuddered at the mention of the name. Malfoy gave a nearly inaudible whimper that he then tried to cover up with a cough.

Things couldn't have been worse.

"Don't say that." Peter said.

"You'll jinx yourselves," said Shuri.

Filch took them down to Ms. McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sat, and without saying a word to each other. Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chased each other around Harry's brain, each more feeble than the last. He couldn't see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Ms. McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest Astronomy Tower, which was out-of-bound except for classes. Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already.

Had Harry thought that things couldn't have been worse? He was wrong. When Ms. McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville.

"I told you." Peter and Shuri said.

"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw the other two. " was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag-"

Harry shook his head violently to shut Neville up, but Ms. McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them.

"Oh, we once made her that mad before." James said cheerfully.

"It didn't end well." James, Sirius and Remus said with haunted looks on their faces.

...

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Ms. McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

Harry caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville - Harry knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.

"I'm disgusted," said Ms. McGonagall. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before!

"Sure you have Minnie." James said.

"The boys and I used to sneak out of bed all the time when we were here."

"Surely you remember?" Remus asked.

McGonagall pursed her lips as she glared at the three of them.

"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 - yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous - and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped - they would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.

"Fifty points each," said Ms. McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long pointed nose.