Duels and Dogs
Lyra
Lyra got her reply fairly soon, on Wednesday.
Dear Lyra,
You devious daughter of mine! There's no rule for first years not being on the team, to answer your question. And I'll tell you what, if you get on, I'll get you a Nimbus 2000. I'm sure Albus would be understanding once he learns of the special circumstances.
But this creates a problem... Love, why?! Will I have to support Slytherin if you get on?! What blasphemy! What miracles!
Still, Good Luck!
Dad.
Lyra grinned broadly.
Charles
Their flying lesson on Thursday was nothing special. Lyra, Charles, and Draco were the only ones with any real talent yet, and Neville broke his wrist. Draco tried to start trouble by taking his Rememberall, but Lyra muttered something in his ear making him turn pale and give the thing back.
It was dinnertime that something interesting happened. Draco turned up, flanked by Parkinson, Crabbe, and Goyle. "Changed houses, Black? Couldn't handle it in big bad Slytherin?"
Lyra, who was sitting at the Gryffindor table with Hermione, looked up at him coolly. "Come to feel brave by taunting me? You're a sniveller without your bodyguards with you, Draco."
Crabbe and Goyle cracked their knuckles and Parkinson scowled. "I'd take you on anytime on my own," Draco said. "Tonight, if you want. Wizard's duel. Wands only -- no contact."
"I'm not a fool, Draco." Lyra rolled her eyes, wheeling around.
Draco snickered. "Scared, are you?"
Lyra just scoffed, turning back to Hermione once again, dismissing him. Clearly still agitated, he turned to Charles. "What 'bout you, Potter? Wanna test it out? Unlike Lyra, I've never pegged you for a coward, being the Gryffindor that you are."
Charles knew Draco was just riling him up. He knew it, but he was itching for something to do. The day had been boring in itself. "Fine, midnight in the trophy room. Ron's my second."
Draco's lips curled upward in a smile. "Crabbe's mine," he said. "See you there, Potter."
When Malfoy had gone, Lyra face-palmed herself. "What bigger an idiot could you be?" she hissed before storming away.
Hermione frowned and spoke to Charles. "You mustn't go wandering around the school at night. Think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you."
"And it's really none of your business," Charles snapped. "Good-bye," said Ron.
That night, Charles lay awake listening to Dean and Seamus falling asleep. Neville and Ron were going to go with him. There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Charles felt a bit nervous, but he didn't dare try to steal Harry's cloak for something like this.
"Half-past eleven," Ron muttered at last, "we'd better go."
They pulled on their bathrobes, picked up their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows. They had almost reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest them, "I can't believe you're going to do this."
A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.
"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"
"I almost told your brother, Ronald." Hermione snapped, "Percy... he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this, or even Harry."
Charles couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering. "Come on," he said to Ron and Neville. He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole. Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily, though. She followed them through the portrait hole, hissing at them like an angry goose.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves? You'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."
"Go away."
"All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so-"
But what they were, they didn't find out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a nighttime visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.
"Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly.
"That's your problem," said Ron. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."
They hadn't even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them. "I'm coming with you," she said.
"You are not," Ron argued.
"D'you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up."
"You've got some nerve --" said Ron loudly.
"Shut up, both of you!" said Neville sharply. "We'll be caught if you don't stop with your bickering."
They flitted along corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn, Charles expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but they were lucky. They sped up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed toward the trophy room.
Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates, and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. They edged along the walls, keeping their eyes on the doors at either end of the room. Charles took out his wand in case Malfoy leaped in and started at once. The minutes crept by.
"He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Ron whispered.
Then a noise in the next room made them jump. Charles had only just raised his wand when they heard someone speak - and it wasn't Malfoy.
"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."
It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Horrorstruck, Charles waved madly at the other three to follow him as quickly as possible; they scurried silently toward the door, away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped around the corner when they heard Filch enter the trophy room.
"They're in here somewhere," they heard him mutter, "probably hiding."
"This way!" Charles mouthed to the others and, petrified, they began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armor. They could hear Filch getting nearer. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run. He tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist, and the pair of them toppled right into a suit of armor.
The clanging and crashing were enough to wake the whole castle.
"RUN!" Charles yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether Filch was following -- they swung around the doorpost and galloped down one corridor then another, Charles in the lead, without any idea where they were or where they were going -- they ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passageway, hurtled along it and came out near their Charms classroom, which they knew was miles from the trophy room.
"I think we've lost him," Charles panted, leaning against the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing and spluttering.
"I - told - you," Hermione gasped, clutching at the stitch in her chest, "I - told - you."
"We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower," said Ron, "quickly as possible."
"Malfoy tricked you," Hermione said to Charles. "You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you - Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room tonight. Malfoy must have tipped him off, and Lyra obviously suspected this as she denied him the challenge of a duel."
Charles knew she was right, but he wasn't going to tell her that. "Let's go."
It wasn't going to be that simple. They hadn't gone more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.
It was Peeves. He caught sight of them and gave a squeal of delight.
"Shut up, Peeves - please - you'll get us thrown out."
Peeves cackled. "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle Firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."
"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please," Neville begged.
"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."
"Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves. This was a big mistake.
"STUDENTS OUT OF BED!" Peeves bellowed, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR"
Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed into a door - and it was locked.
"This is it!" Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door, "We're done for! This is the end!" They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves's shouts.
"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Charles' wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, "Alohomora!"
The lock clicked and the door swung open -- they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.
"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."
"Say 'please."'
"Don't mess with me, Peeves, now where did they go?"
"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying singsong voice.
"All right - please."
"NOTHING! Ha ha! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.
"He thinks this door is locked," Charles whispered. "I think we'll be okay - get off, Neville!" Neville had been tugging on the sleeve of his bathrobe for the last minute. "What?"
Charles turned around - and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was sure he'd walked into a nightmare - this was too much, on top of everything that had happened so far. They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.
They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.
It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Charles knew that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.
Charles groped for the doorknob -- between Filch and death, he'd take Filch any time.
They fell backward -- Charles slammed the door shut, and they ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared -- all they wanted to do was put as much space as possible between them and that monster. They didn't stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.
"Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.
"Never mind that -- pig snout, pig snout," panted Charles, and the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs. It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again.
"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."
Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again. "You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
"The floor?" Charles suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."
"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something." She stood up, glaring at them. "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed -- or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."
Ron stared after her, his mouth open. "No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"
But Hermione had given Charles something else to think about as he climbed back into bed. The dog was guarding something... What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide - except perhaps Hogwarts.
It looked as though Charles had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.