Nico Di Angelo at Hogwarts (book 1)

The Midnight Duel (Part 2)

Disclaimer - I do not own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.

Nico's POV

Neville, who had been fast asleep, suddenly jerked awake as I crept nearer to him. He shrunk away from me, backing into the corner, before his eyes slid past me and focused on Harry, Ron and Hermione. Relief flooded his face and I rolled my eyes.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been here for hours. I couldn't remember the new password to get into bed."

"Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."

"How's your arm?" asked Harry.

"Fine," said Neville, showing us. "Madame Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"That's great and all Neville, but we've got somewhere to be, see you aroun-'' I started, before he suddenly leapt forward.

"Don't leave me! I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already."

"You're scared of a ghost?" I smirked. Neville went red and looked away from me, embarrassed. Ron looked at his watch, then glared at Hermione and Neville in turn.

"If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learnt that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about and used it on you." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hermione open her mouth to tell Ron exactly how to cast the Curse of the Bogies, followed by Harry quickly motioning for her to be quiet.

"Are we actually going to go, or are we going to stay here all night?" I asked, getting a bit impatient.

We passed through corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. We sped up a staircase to the third floor, and crept into the trophy room. Malfoy and his minions 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. We kept close to the walls, watching the doors at each end of the room. Harry took out his wand in preparation for the duel, but after several minutes of just standing there, Malfoy still hadn't shown up.

"He's late, maybe he's chickened out." suggested Ron. Then a noise at the end of the room made us all fall back into silence. Harry raised his wand, but then someone's voice rang out - and it wasn't Malfoy's.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner." I spun around and, horror-struck, Harry caught my eyes. He waved madly at the others and I to follow him as quickly as possible. We scurried silently towards the door away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped around the corner when we heard Filch enter the room.

"They're in here somewhere," he muttered, "probably hiding."

"This way!" Harry mouthed to us, and we hurriedly followed him down a long gallery full of suits of armour. Filch was getting nearer, I could hear his footsteps gaining on us. Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak beside me and broke into a run, but he lost his footing, grabbed Ron around the waist and both of them toppled right into a suit of armour. The clanging and crashing was harsh and loud after the silence; it was enough to wake up the whole castle. I was beginning to regret joining these idiots.

"RUN!" Harry yelled and the five of us sprinted down the gallery, not looking back to see whether or not Filch was following. We swung around the doorpost and ran down one corridor then another, with Harry in the lead. I had no idea where we were or where we were going, and I was sure that Harry didn't know either. We ripped through a tapestry and found ourselves in a hidden passageway, which we hurtled through, and came out near the Charms classroom. We were miles from the trophy room now.