Midnight Drool… or was it Duel?
Nora was sure that Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had to be two of the biggest idiots. Dinner began as a calm event until Draco provoked Harry into agreeing to duel at midnight in the trophy room. Well, more like Ron had agreed for them both.
"People only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards." Ron said, trying to reassure Harry, "The most you and Malfoy'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyways."
"And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?"
"Throw it away and punch him on the nose," Ron suggested.
Nora snorted internally at the suggestion, slightly intrigued at the pair when her sister interrupted. “Excuse me.”
“Can’t a person eat in peace in this place?” Ron complained loudly. Nora and the older three girls, who were sitting close by, shot him a dirty look. While the latter turned back to their conversations, Nora slid closer to her twin in an attempt to offer silent support. Hermione persistently ignored the youngest Weasley and faced Harry.
“I couldn’t help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying—”
“Bet you could,” Ron grumbled. Nora narrowed her eyes before facing her sister.
“— and you mustn’t go wandering around the school at night; you’ll lose points for Gryffindor if you’re caught, which you’re bound to be. It really would be selfish of you.”
“And it's really none of your business,” said Harry, looking between the girls.
“Good-bye,” said Ron as the boys stood to leave. Nora shook her head.
“They honestly have all the subtlety of a troll.” Hermione giggled, and they finished their meal as they talked about their History of Magic essay due the following Wednesday. It was no shock that Hermione had finished hers while Nora had a brief outline.
“After I finish mine, do you want to switch and review?” Nora asked with pleading eyes. She was not fond of the class, and writing a parchment full was tedious, to say the least. Hermione agreed, and the two girls set off for the library.
//
At 11 o’clock that evening, Hermione and Nora snuck downstairs to wait patiently for the boys. They hoped to discourage them, but Nora knew that was unlikely. They sat in two chairs facing the fire, hoping the burning embers and their bathrobes would keep them warm. At a quarter till 12, they heard the sounds of the boys coming down. Nora assumed they thought they were being quiet, whereas they sounded like a pack of centaurs trampling down the stairs. Right as they reached the portrait hole, Nora spoke up, “I can’t believe you are doing this, Harry.” Hermione flicked on the lamp, and Ron whipped towards them, “You two! Go back to bed!”
“We almost told your brother,” Hermione snapped, “Percy would put a stop to this!” Nora watched as Harry’s eyebrows nearly disappeared in his hair. “Come on,” he muttered to Ron, pushing open the portrait and climbing through. The twins shared a look and agreed that they wouldn’t be deterred so easily.
Following them through the portrait, Hermione hissed through her teeth, “Don’t you care about Gryffindor? Do you only care about yourselves? We will surely lose the house cup once you lose all the points that we earned from Professor McGonagall!”
The boys pushed the girls to leave, and though they tried once more to warn them, they both turned back towards the portrait and let out a groan. The Fat Lady had disappeared for a nighttime visit, and the twins were locked out of Gryffindor tower.
Panicked, Hermione looked towards the others. “Now what are we going to do?”
Ron muttered that it was their problem, and the boys turned to leave. The twins looked at each other for a brief moment before turning on their heels to catch up with the boys. As they approached, Nora spoke, “We’re coming with you.”
“You are not.”
“Do you think that we’re going to stand out here waiting for Filch to come along and catch us? If he finds us four, I’ll tell him the truth, that we were trying to stop you! ‘Mione will back me up.”
“You two’ve got some nerve,” said Ron, his voice rising.
“Shut up, all three of you!” Harry said sharply. “I heard something.” It was a soft shuffling. Ron thought it might be Mrs. Norris, Filch’s cat.
It wasn’t her, but rather it was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked awake as they crept closer. “Thank Goodness you’ve found me! I’ve forgotten the new password, and I’ve been out here for hours.”
“Keep your voice down, Neville. The password is ‘pig snout’ but it won’t help right now, the Fat Lady’s gone off somewhere,” Hermione said quietly.
“How’s your arm?” Nora asked gently. Neville had broken it when he fell earlier, and the others hadn't seen him since.
“Fine,” said Neville, showing his arm, “Madame Pomfrey mended it in about a minute.” As the four of them nodded, they slowly began to creep away.
“Don’t leave me!” cried Neville, “I don’t want to stay alone; the Bloody Baron’s been by twice already.” Nora nodded, then smiled, attempting to soothe him. Ron looked at his watch and nearly snarled at them.
“If you three get us caught, I’ll never rest until I’ve learned that Curse of the Bogies were heard about in DADA, and then I’ll use it on you.”
Nora rolled her eyes as Harry hushed them and beckoned them forward. They flittered along the corridors lit by strips of moonlight. Nora was wary of running into Mrs. Norris or Filch, but they appeared to be lucky. They quietly rushed up the staircase that led to the third floor and pushed into the trophy room. Malfoy and Crabbe, who was acting as his second, were nowhere to be found. The trophy cabinet glittered when the moonlight caught the different items inside. When Nora noticed a familiar name on a quidditch cup, James Potter. She stared a moment longer before calling out to Harry, “No wonder you were named Seeker, it’s in your blood. Why didn’t you tell us?”
Harry stepped closer and gazed at the trophy before softly muttering, “I didn’t know.”
Nora nodded her head in sympathy. It was a quiet moment before they jumped as they heard a noise in the next room. Harry had barely raised his wand when they heard someone speaking— and it wasn’t Malfoy.
“Sniff around, sweet girl, they might be lurking in a corner.” It was Filch speaking to Mrs. Norris. Terrified, Harry waved madly at the other four to quickly follow him. They scurried silently towards the opposite door, away from Filch’s voice. Neville’s robes had barely disappeared when they heard Filch speak once more. Wide-eyed, Harry mouthed to the others to “follow him”, and they quietly began to creep down a long hallway filled with suits of armor. Frightened at the sound of Filch’s approaching voice, Neville let out a squeak and took off running. He tripped, grabbing onto Ron, and the pair tumbled into a suit. The clanging and crashing were loud enough to wake the whole castle. “RUN!” Harry yelled, and the five of them sprinted down the hallway. They swung around a doorpost and galloped through one corridor and then another, Harry in the lead, without an idea of where they were going. They ripped through a tapestry and found themselves in a hidden passage. They walked slowly along it and found that it had come out near the Charms classroom.
Neville was bent over spluttering, and the rest weren’t faring much better. It took only a second before Nora snorted, “Malfoy tricked you. You realize that, right?” Harry looked her way as Hermione spoke, “He was never going to meet you. Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room! Malfoy must’ve tipped him off.” Nora knew the boys wouldn’t agree but saw the realization in both of their faces.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got to get back to Gryffindor tower,” said Ron, “as quickly as possible.” Harry agreed, but it wasn’t going to be that simple. They hadn’t moved a dozen paces when something came shooting out of the floor. It was Peeves, the poltergeist, and as soon as he spotted them, he squealed in delight.
“Wondering around at midnight, ickle firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you’ll get caughty!”
“Please, Peeves! You’ll get us thrown out.”
“Should tell Filch, I should,” said Peeves in a sing-song voice, but his eyes glittered maliciously. “It’s for your own good, you know?”
“Get out of the way,” snapped Ron, taking a swing at the poltergeist — this was a big mistake.
“STUDENTS OUT OF BED!” Peeves bellowed, “STUDENTS OUT OF BED IN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!”
Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor, where they slammed into a door. Harry pulled at the handle, but it was locked. “This is it!” Ron moaned as they pushed at the door. “We’re done for! This is the end.” They could hear footsteps behind them as Filch ran as fast as he could.
“Oh, move over!” Nora yelled, pushing the others aside. She grabbed Harry’s wand, pointed it at the lock, and whispered, “Alohomora!”
They piled in one after the other, shut it, and listened quietly with their ears pressed against the door. They could hear Filch and Peeves on the other side. Peeves was tormenting Filch, refusing to give up where they had gone.
“Which way dud they go, Peeves?” Filch was eagerly saying, “Quick, tell me.”
“Say ‘please.”
“Don’t mess with me. Now, where did they go?”
“Shan’t say nothing if you don’t say please,” said Peeves in his annoying sing-song voice.
“All right- please.”
“NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn’t say nothing if you didn’t say please! Ha ha! Haa!” And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing and Filch cursing in agitation.
“He thinks the door is locked,” Harry whispered. “I think we’ll be okay — get off of me, you two!” Neville had been pressing himself into Harry’s back, and Nora had been tugging on the sleeve of his robe for the last minute. “What?”
The other three turned around. For a moment, all five stood quietly because they were certain they had walked into a nightmare on top of everything that had happened so far. They were not in a room as they had suspected, but rather a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor that the headmaster had told them about at the welcome feast. Nora tugged Neville behind her and Hermione to her side. Ron and Harry were standing shoulder to shoulder on her other.
They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between the ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of dark, mad eyes, three noses that were twitching in their direction, three monstrous drooling mouths, saliva dripping in slippery ropes from huge yellow fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes zeroed on the group. Nora was certain that the only reason they weren’t dead was because they caught it by surprise, but it was very quickly getting over that; there was no mistaking the thunderous growls.
Harry reached for the doorknob, and they all fell backwards. He slammed the door shut, and they ran, nearly flying, back down the corridor. Filch was nowhere to be seen, and they were thankful, though they would’ve rather dealt with him than the monster behind the door. They did not stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.
“Where on earth have you all been?” She gasped, looking at their bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.
“Never mind that!” panted Harry, as three others chanted, “Pig snout, pig snout!” The portrait swung forward. They all scrambled into the common room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs. It was a while before any of them said anything.
“What do you think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in the school?” said Ron finally. “If any dog needs exercise, it’s that one.”
The twins had gotten both their breaths and anger back. “You don’t use your eyes, either of you, do you?” Hermione snapped. Harry and Ron shared a look of disbelief. “Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”
“The floor?” Harry suggested. “I wasn’t looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “It was standing on the floor, but that is not what she was talking about. It was standing on a trapdoor. It was guarding something.” The twins stood up, glaring at them. Nora motioned for Neville to follow.
“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could have been killed,” Nora said, giving them a pointed look.
“Or worse, expelled! Now, if you two don’t mind, we are going to bed!” Hermione finished, huffing in annoyance. Nora waited until Neville and Hermione climbed the stairs ahead of her before beginning to make the climb herself. She heard Ron mutter, “They need to sort out their priorities.” She rolled her eyes, following her sister.
Once they were in their dorm, Nora crawled into bed next to Hermione. They lowered the thick, velvet maroon curtains, and Nora cast a silencing charm that she had learned from their textbook around the bed so they would not wake Lavender, Pavart,i and Sara.
They snuggled under the maroon duvet, laying on their backs, and Hermione made room on her pillow for her sister. Once settled, the girls didn’t speak for a moment.
“What do you think the dog was guarding?” Nora said finally, turning to lay on her side facing Hermione.
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Do you remember when Harry mentioned the Gringotts break-in?” Hermione nodded but said nothing. “I think it’s hiding whatever it was that Hagrid brought back.”
Hermione thought for a second, “I don’t know, Nora, but I don’t think I want to know, and I hope the boys don’t try to find out either. You shouldn’t worry about it either.” Nora acknowledged her sister but did not agree. She turned to leave when Hermione spoke timidly, something she hardly ever did, “Would you sleep here tonight?” Nora nodded and curled back into the same position. Hermione seemed to relax as she whispered, “I love you to the moon.”
Nora hummed and whispered back as their breathing evened out, “And I love you more than the stars.”
//
Nora woke up being strangled by her sister’s hair. She shook her head in mirth as she slowly detangled herself from her sister’s wild limbs and moved quietly out of the bed, pulling the curtain shut behind her so that the light wouldn’t wake Hermione. She moved across the wooden floor to her bed and grabbed her shower items. She decided to take a quick shower, while the others were still sleeping, to think about the night before.
As she stood in the bathroom, the warm water spraying around her. She theorized about what could be hidden under the door and exactly why it needed a monster protecting it. The other thing that plagued her was the fact that if it was as powerful as it was being alluded to, and others had already tried to steal it, then why was it being kept in the castle? She scrubbed every inch of her body and washed her hair; however, she came no closer to the answer than when she had started.
When she returned to the room, the other girls were up and moving about. Lavender Brown was primping and preening in front of their enchanted mirrors as it complimented her hair. Pavarti and Sara were packing their bags for the day, and Hermione passed her to go wash up. Deciding to wait for her sister, Nora plopped back down on to her large bed and let her mind wonder over the possibilities