Wish Upon A Star

Troubled

Sirius luckily followed Ashlyn's instructions and stayed out of Hogwarts. The next Hogsmeade trip was slightly more pleasant if she ignored Ron and Hermione's obvious silence. They would talk to Harry and Ashlyn, just not to each other.

"Even the Hogwarts ghosts avoid it," said Ron as they leaned on the fence, looking up at the Shrieking Shack. "I asked Nearly Headless Nick . . . he says he's heard a very rough crowd lives here. No one can get in. Fred and George tried, obviously, but all the entrances are sealed shut. . . ."

Suddenly, they heard noises. Someone was climbing toward the house from the other side of the hill; moments later, Malfoy had appeared, followed closely by Crabbe and Goyle. Malfoy was speaking.

". . . should have an owl from Father any time now. He had to go to the hearing to tell them about my arm . . . about how I couldn't use it for three months. . . ."

Crabbe and Goyle sniggered.

"I really wish I could hear that great hairy moron trying to defend himself . . . 'There's no 'arm in 'im, 'onest —' . . . that hippogriff's as good as dead —"

Malfoy suddenly caught sight of Ashlyn, Ron, and Hermione. His pale face split in a malevolent grin.

"What are you doing, Weasley?"

Malfoy looked up at the crumbling house behind Ron.

"Suppose you'd love to live here, wouldn't you, Weasley? Dreaming about having your own bedroom? I heard your family all sleep in one room — is that true?"

Harry seized the back of Ron's robes to stop him from leaping on Malfoy.

"Leave him to me," he hissed in Ron's ear.

The opportunity was too perfect to miss. Harry crept silently around behind Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, bent down, and scooped a large handful of mud out of the path.

Ashlyn couldn't hide her grin.

"What are you smiling at?" Malfoy spat at her, then his sneer turned into a smirk.

"We were just discussing your friend Hagrid," Malfoy said. "Just trying to imagine what he's saying to the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures. D'you think he'll cry when they cut off his hippogriff's —"

SPLAT.

Malfoy's head jerked forward as the mud hit him; his silver-blonde hair was suddenly dripping in muck.

"What the — ?"

Ron had to hold onto the fence to keep himself standing, he was laughing so hard.  Ashlyn was clutching her sides from laughing and Hermione was gripping her shoulder as she doubled over. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle spun stupidly on the spot, staring wildly around, Malfoy trying to wipe his hair clean.

"What was that? Who did that?"

"Very haunted up here, isn't it?" said Ron, with the air of one commenting on the weather.

"Mhm. Very" Ashlyn said, nodding her head in a mock thoughtful way.

Crabbe and Goyle were looking scared. Their bulging muscles were no use against ghosts. Malfoy was staring madly around at the deserted landscape. Harry sneaked along the path, where a particularly sloppy puddle yielded some foul-smelling, green sludge.

SPLATTER.

Crabbe and Goyle caught some this time. Goyle hopped furiously on the spot, trying to rub it out of his small, dull eyes. To the others, it looked like Crabbe and Goyle swinging at air. But Ashlyn, Ron, and Hermione knew it was all Harry's doing.