Invisible

THE FORBIDDEN FOREST

HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
CHAPTER 15

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"Something's been killing the goddamn unicorns!"

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{ CHAPTER 14 }

A HOODED FIGURE COMES CRAWLING ACROSS THE GROUND

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THINGS COULDN'T GET WORSE.

Filch takes them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sit and wait without saying a word to each other. Lily is trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chase each other around her brain, each more feeble than the last. She can't see how they're going to get out of trouble this time. They're cornered.

How could they have been so stupid as to forget the Cloak? There's no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall or Professor Snape will accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which is out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the Invisibility Cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already.

Did Lily think that things couldn't get worse? She was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appears, she's leading Neville.

"Harry!" Neville bursts out, the moment he sees the other three.

"I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag--"

Harry shakes his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall sees it. She looks more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towers over the four of them.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr Filch says you were up the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

It's the first time Hermione has ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She's staring at her slippers, as still as a statue.

Lily's holding her head down, still thinking of lies and excuses. Would this be a proper time to use her visions as an escape from punishment?

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," Professor McGonagall says.

"It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

Harry catches Neville's eye and tries to tell him without words that this isn't true, because Neville is looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville - Lily knows what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.

"I'm disgusted," Professor McGonagall says.

"Five students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions - yes, you too, Mr Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous - and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."