Dawn Rivera

The Forbidden Forest

Things can't have been worse.

Flich takes us down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where we sit and wait without saying a word to each other. Hermione and me are trembling. Excuses, alibis and wild cover-up stories chase each round my brain, each more feeble than the last. I can't see how we are going to get out of trouble this time. We are cornered. How could we have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There is no reason on earth that McGonagall will except for our being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night. let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which is out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and we might as well be packing our bags already.

Did I think that things couldn't have been worse? I was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appears, she is leading Neville.

"Harry!" Neville bursts out, the moment he sees us three. "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 shakes his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall has seen. She looks more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towers 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."

It is the first time me and Hermione have ever failed to answer a teacher's question. We are staring at our slippers, as still as statues.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," says Professor 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?"

I catch Neville's eye and, ignoring my blush, try to tell him without words that this isn't true, because Neville is looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville - I know what it must have cost him to try and find us in the dark, to warn us.

"I'm disgusted," says Professor McGonagall. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, Miss Rivera, 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 the school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous - and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

"Fifty!" Harry gasps - we will lose the lead, the lead we won last Quidditch match.

"Fifty points each," says Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

"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."

A hundred and fifty points lost. That puts Gryffindor in last place. In one night, we've ruined any chance Gryffindor had for the House Cup. I feel as though the bottom has dropped out of my stomach. How can we ever make up for this?

Before we go inside the common room, I grab Neville's arm as the others clamber through the portrait hole.

"Neville - please believe me - I can explain-"

"Explain what?" he says angrily. "You got me into trouble for a stupid prank. I came looking for you - I didn't want you getting in trouble - when all along it was one big joke!"

"Neville please-" I whisper with tears in my eyes, but he's already gone.

I enter the common room and go up to bed, dreading tomorrow.