Finding The Light

Caught (edited)

On Saturday evening i was really lucky to escape the common room. Malfoy spent two hours looking for me, and had set Crabbe and Goyle on the door in case i passed. Luckily they were the worst guards ever and fell asleep right around eleven.

It was a very dark, cloudy night, and we were a bit late arriving at Hagrid's hut because we'd had to wait for Peeves to get out of the way in the entrance hall, where he'd been playing tennis against the wall. Harry didn't want me scaring him off in case he screamed, causing people to come running. Hagrid had Norbert packed and ready in a large crate.

"He's got lots o' rats an' some brandy fer the journey," said Hagrid in a muffled voice. "An' I've packed his teddy bear in case he gets lonely."

From inside the crate I could hear ripping noises that sounded as though teddy just lost his head.

"Bye-bye, Norbert!" Hagrid sobbed, as Harry and Hermione covered the crate with the invisibility cloak and stepped underneath it themselves. "Mommy will never forget you!"

I smacked myself on the head with my wand, in a half face palm, half to cast the disillusionment charm which turned me into a human chameleon. We were almost at the top of the tower when there was a sudden movement ahead.

McGonagall, in a tartan bathrobe and a hair net, had Malfoy by the ear.

"Detention!" she exclaimed. "And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you -"

"You don't understand, Professor. Harry Potter's coming - he's got a dragon!"

"What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on - I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!"

"Malfoy's got detention! I could sing!" Hermione laughed as we reached the top and they took the cloak off, I rapped myself hard on the head again, becoming visible.

"Don't," Harry advised her.

"Can you teach me that?" Hermione asked as we waited.

"Yeah, soon," I agreed, though had no idea how I was going to do it.

About ten minutes later, four broomsticks came swooping down out of the darkness. Charlie's friends were a cheery lot. They showed us the harness they'd rigged up, so they could suspend Norbert between them. They all helped buckle Norbert safely into it and then we shook hands with the others and thanked them very much. At last, Norbert was going. . . going. . . gone.

We slipped back down the spiral staircase, grinning now that Norbert was off them. No more dragons - Malfoy in detention - what could spoil our good mood?

Filch was at the bottom of the stairs, I wasn't under my charm, and the others had forgotten the cloak.

"Well, well, well," he whispered, "We are in trouble."

I summoned the cloak to my hand as we followed him to McGonagall's office, and gave it to Harry who stuffed it in his pocket. McGonagall came a few minutes later, with Neville in toe who just had to make it worse.

"Harry! I 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 McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the four of us.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

"Well, see what it was-"

"Not you Sparrow, I'll get some ridiculous tale," she snapped. 

Well she didn't have to be so honest about it. 

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," she said, "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? I'm disgusted, five students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All four 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 and Slytherin."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped.

"Fifty points each."

"Professor – please, you can't -"

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students. Slytherin students i wouldn't be surprised at, if it were anyone other than you, Miss Sparrow."

Everybody hated us, everyone but the Slytherins who were happy Harry and the others had lost the lead for their house. They didn't seem to care about the fifty points i'd lost them or the twenty Malfoy had lost.

Pansy took it too far one afternoon in potions though and I couldn't help myself. I don't even know what spell I used but she was sent flying across the classroom into the wall.

"You, Parkinson, better shut your mouth or I'll do it for you," I growled.

Snape who was late to class came in then, told her to get off the floor and ignored her as she whined. Not even the other Slytherins backed her up, they sat quietly, looking pale any time I glanced at them. 

That evening Harry left us in the library, then came back ten minutes later telling us what he'd overheard Quirrell saying.

"Snape's done it, then?" asked Ron. "If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell - "

"There's still Fluffy, though," said Hermione.

"Maybe Snape's found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid," said Ron, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding them. "I bet there's a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a giant three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?"

"Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we'll be thrown out for sure," Hermione said quickly.

"But we've got no proof!" Harry exclaimed.

"He's right, Quirrell's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor - who do you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape, and the more students get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot of explaining," I said, throwing my quill down, "We're f*cked, completely."

"If we just do a bit of poking around -"

"No," said Harry flatly, cutting Ron off, "We've done enough poking around."

The next morning at breakfast, we each got a note telling us our detention would take place in the blasted Forbidden Forest, at Eleven that evening. And me being me, I forgot my cloak when we said ta-ta to Ron. So while everyone else was nice and warm, I only had a shirt and jeans on.

I muttered several curses and asked Filch twice to let me grab my cloak but he was too gleeful at the idea of me freezing my ass off and refused. Malfoy snickered at that, and i wanted to punch him but we were already in enough trouble.

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