“Mr Filch, please round up the ghosts, and tell them to look for her,” Dumbledore said.
“No need, sir,” Percy said. “She’s up there.”
Indeed she was, high above them in another portrait. There was a scramble to reach her.
“Dear lady, who did this?” Dumbledore asked.
“It was horrible, headmaster…! He was there, with a knife…! It was Sirius Black! He’s here in the castle!”
There were gasps.
“Mr Filch, secure the castle. Mr Weasley, please lead everyone to the Great Hall.”
And soon, they were all ushered into the Great Hall. Dumbledore conjured a heap of thick sleeping bags.
“You’ll remain here tonight, and we’ll arrange the portrait situation tomorrow. Have a good night.”
There was a buzz of excited chatter.
“Silence, please, in your sleeping bags and no more talking!” Percy called.
The four grabbed bags and went into a corner.
“D’you reckon he’s still in the castle?” Hermione asked in a low voice.
“Dumbledore seems to think so,” Harry said.
“Lucky he picked tonight, though… the one night we weren’t in the tower…” Ron said. “S’pose he lost track of time after those years in Azkaban…”
Everyone was asking themselves the same thing: how had he done it? People were conjecturing: disguises, apparition…
“Has no one in this school but me and Megan read Hogwarts a History?” Hermione asked in exasperation.
“Sounds like it,” Ron said. “Why?”
“You can’t Apparate inside the grounds,” Megan explained. “And the Dementors would see though any disguise… Dumbledore said so, at the start of term feast. But then… how on earth did he get in?”
The candles went out. Ghosts shimmered above them, and the only sounds were the pacing of the teachers.
“Any news of Black, sir?” Snape’s voice asked.
“None. All well, here?” replied Dumbledore’s.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
“Quite the feat, though, don’t you think, Headmaster?”
“Oh, quite, yes…”
“You may recall, at the start of term, I expressed concerns at the appointment of-”
“No teacher of Hogwarts would help Sirius Black enter it,” Dumbledore said. “I am certain of it. I’m convinced the castle is safe.”
“And what of Potter, should she be warned?”
“Not now. Let her sleep.”
But Megan, who was wide awake, wondered: Warned about what?
The next morning, Cedric caught up to them.
“I heard about the Fat Lady, is everyone all right?”
“Yes, we were all still at the Feast when it happened,” Megan said. “Scared the life out of the poor Fat Lady, though.”
“How in the world did he get in?” Cedric asked. “That’s what I’d like to know.”
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Megan Potter - A saga of the Heart - Book 3 - Past and Present
Fanfiction- Things are seldom what they appear - Megan was ready for yet another long, boring summer at the Dursleys. Little did she know that this summer would soon turn out even worse than the last. The reason? Her cousin's aunt Marge. And as if that wasn'...
