Chapter 11
Weeks went by and it seemed like I had not seen my friends. Final exams came around and all talk about hooded figures, three-headed dogs, and evil professors were replaced with switching spells, imps, and devil's snare. After all our practical and written exams were done, I brought Daphne and Tracey to sit by the Black Lake. We sat and talked, trying to relax after the stressful exams. The bittersweet feeling of our first year at Hogwarts was finally dawning on us. Soon Harry, Ron, and Hermione came and we all cooled off for a while, trying to be normal and not talk about the three-headed dog in the room. Fred, George, and their friend Lee Jordan came with snacks courtesy of Meepy. Ron was eating while Harry was trying to splash me and Hermione with water. The girls were making flower crowns while the twins and Lee were trying to tickle the tentacles of the giant squid. Everything seemed almost perfect, until out of the corner of my eye, I saw Harry wince and hold his head.
"What's wrong Harry?" I asked.
"My scar hurts. I wish I knew what it means'" He said while he rubbed his forehead.
"You should see Madame Pomfrey" Hermione offered
"I don't think it's an injury, I think it's a warning. Something dangerous is coming,"
Ron started to talk, crumbs from the treacle tart he was eating falling into the grass. He started to tell Harry all the reasons why the stone was probably safe and how Dumbledore probably had everything under control. But Harry didn't seem to be paying attention. All of a sudden he sprung up, telling us that we needed to go see Hagrid. We said goodbye to the girls, the twins, and Lee and started towards Hagrid's hut.
When we made it to the hut, Hagrid was resting on an armchair outside, right next to Fang. He tried to talk to us about our finals and have a drink but Harry cut him off in a hurry.
"Hagrid, I've got to ask you something. We are in a hurry. Do you remember anything about the guy who gave you Norbert?"
"Dunno. 'E wouldn't take 'is cloak off,"
"Did he ask about your job? About Hogwarts?"
"E' wanted to know if I could handle 'i'm, I said after keepin' animals like Fluffy, I'm sure I could. He's a piece o' cake really, all you gotta do is play some music to get 'im to sleep,"
Hagrid went on one of his normal tangents of "I should not have said that" but it seemed enough information for Harry. He thanked Hagrid and we made our way to the castle, only stopping for a quick break to breathe in the entrance hall.
"What's going on, Harry?"
"Hagrid told the stranger, who was probably either Snape or Voldemort how to get past Fluffy. We have to tell Dumbledore, right now,"
The four of us went on a lookout for where Dumbledore could be. We couldn't find him and instead wound up bumping into McGonagall. She told us that Dumbledore left for important ministry work. We devised a new plan. Hermione and I would go to the teacher's workroom after Snape and ask to see what we got on our final for Flitwick while Harry and Ron tried to get in. This plan also failed miserably, with all of us getting caught by McGonagall again. There was no other choice but to use the invisibility cloak.
"Do you think the cloak will cover all four of us?" Ron asked.
"What do you mean all four?"
"Well Harry," I slung my arm over his shoulder, "You don't think we'd let you do this alone did you?"
"Of course not," said Hermione briskly. "How do you think you'd get to the Stone without us? I'd better go and look through my books, there might be something useful. . . ."
"But if we get caught, you three will be expelled, too."
"Not if I can help it," said Hermione grimly. "Flitwick told me in secret that I got a hundred and twelve percent on his exam. They're not throwing me out after that."
We all stared at her in awe.
"Bloody hell Mione, I thought my hundred and eleven was impressive," I said in disbelief.
"Come on overachievers, let's get to dinner first," Ron said. And we all laughed as we made our way to dinner.
We ate dinner then went to the Gryffindor common room. I wore the cloak and followed behind, trying not to draw attention to us. We sat in the room and looked through books we thought were useful, at least Hermione and I did, waiting for the room to empty so we could sneak out. We were getting ready to leave when we heard a voice behind us.
"What are you doing?" Neville was standing tall, holding Trevor closely to his chest.
"Nothing, Neville, nothing," said Harry.
Neville stared at us determinately, "You're going out again,".
"We aren't Neville, why don't you just go to bed," Hermione was almost pleading with him.
"If you go out again Gryffindor will lose even more points"
"Neville it's important, you wouldn't understand," Ron tried to reason.
"I won't let you do it," he said, hurrying to stand in front of the portrait hole. "I'll — I'll fight you!" He brought his arms into a fighting stance, and looked as if he was swallowing his fear, "I don't think you should be breaking any more rules! And you were the one who told me to stand up to people!"
"Yes, but not to us," said Ron in exasperation.
As this interaction got more and more heated, I couldn't help but think that Snape or Voldemort could already have gotten to the stone. I sighed in frustration and pulled out my wand, stepping out of the cloak. Before Neville could even react to me being in the common room, I recited the first spell that came to my mind, "Petrificus Totalus".
Neville's whole body went rigid, and he fell flat on the floor. Hermione raced to his aid, trying to move him to a more comfortable position. Neville looked at me, his eyes filled with horror.
"I'm really sorry Neville," I said.
"What've you done to him?" Harry whispered.
"It's the full Body-Bind," said Hermione miserably. "Oh, Neville, I'm so sorry."
"We don't have time for this guys, come on let's go," I said as I stepped over Neville and reached for the cloak.
The three of them muttered their apologies to Neville as they stepped over him as well. We all regrouped under the invisibility cloak and stepped out of the portrait hole, ready to sneak around the dark castle and save the stone.
We walked through the castle, passing by Mrs. Norris, who Ron was tempted to kick, and even Peeves, Harry pretended to be the Bloody Baron to scare him away. We were on a mission and were trying our absolute hardest not to get caught. Before we knew it, we were outside the already opened third-floor corridor.
"Well, there you are," Harry said quietly, "Snape's already got past Fluffy."
All of a sudden, this became real. We were going to fight Snape or Voldemort to save the stone. Harry must have seen my nervousness because he offered to go by himself, but he should've known that we would never let him go through this alone. When we walked into the corridor, we were greeted by Fluffy, who seemed angry and was growling.
There appeared to be a harp at the creature's feet, but it seemed like the minute it stopped playing music, the dogs would wake up angry. Harry got a brilliant idea to use a flute that Hagrid gave him.
"Well, here goes . . ."
He put the flute up to his mouth and blew. Truthfully, it was awful, but from the first note, the creature started to drift off to sleep, so I couldn't really complain about his flute playing skills. We took the cloak off and started to walk to the trapdoor as Harry continued to play some mangled version of Hot Cross Buns. After a tiny debate, Harry handed the flute off to Hermione and was the first to go and climb through the hole.
"If anything happens to me, don't follow. Go straight to the owlery and send Hedwig to Dumbledore, right?"
"Right," said Ron. "See you in a minute, I hope. . . ."
Harry jumped into the dark. I held my breath, waiting for some signal that he was alright.
"It's okay!" Harry called out, "it's a soft landing, you can jump!"
Ron jumped in as soon as he heard. I looked at Hermione who was still playing the flute, she nodded and I jumped in, landing right next to Ron, on something soft. Relief took over me, grateful that there were no traps yet. Hermione soon followed, jumping in and landing next to me.
"We must be miles under the school," she said.
"Lucky this plant thing is here to break our fall, really," Ron said.
"Lucky!" shrieked Hermione. "Look at you!"
I squinted through the darkness to see vines wrapping around Harry and Ron, holding onto them tightly. Hermione was trying to climb back up the cold, damp wall to escape the plant. I tried to do the same, but a vine latched onto my ankle, pulling me down hard. It was too late.
A/N: 1577 Words!