A Hogwarts Legend: Changing Paths [3]

Chapter Twenty Two

Unedited

Chapter Twenty Two - "He loves his hair, a bit too much if you ask me."

No one in Gryffindor Tower sleeps that night. We know that the castle is being searched again, and the whole house stays awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black has been caught. Professor McGonagall comes back at dawn, to tell us that he's again escaped.

Everywhere we go next day we see signs of tighter security, Professor Flitwick can be seen teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch is suddenly hustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes. Sir Cadogan has been sacked. His portrait had been taken back to its lonely landing on the seventh floor, and the Fat Lady is back. She's been expertly restored, but is still extremely nervous, and has only agreed to return to her job on condition that she's given extra protection. A bunch of surly security trolls have been hired to guard her. They pace the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs.

I can't help noticing that the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor remains unguarded and unblocked. It seems that Fred and George have been right in thinking that they - and now, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Elinor, Maya and I - are the only ones who know about the hidden passageway within it.

"D'you reckon we should tell someone?" Harry asks Ron and I.

"We know he's not coming in through Honeydukes," says Ron dismissively. "We'd've heard if the shop had been broken into."

I'm glad Ron has taken this view. If the one-eyed witch is boarded up too, I will never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.

Ron has become an instant celebrity. For the first time in his life, people are paying more attention to his than to Harry, and it's clear that Ron's rather enjoying the experience. Though still severely shaken by the night's events, he's happy to tell anyone who asks, what had happened, with a wealth of detail.

"... I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know? But then there was this draught ... I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down ... I rolled over ... and I saw him standing over me ... like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair ... holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches ... and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scarpered.

"Why, though?" Ron adds to Harry and I, as the group of second-year girls who have been listening to his chilling tale depart. "Why did he scarper?"

I've been wondering the same thing. Why had Black, having got the wrong bed, not silenced Ron and proceeded to Harry? Or when he came down the stairs, killed me?

"He must've known he'd have a job getting back out of the castle once you'd yelled and woken up," I say thoughtfully. "He'd've had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole ... then he would've met the teachers ..."

Neville is in total disgrace. Professor McGonagall is so furious with him she's banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given his a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the Tower. Poor Neville is forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in, while the security trolls leer at him. None of these punishments, however, come close to matching the one his grandmother has in store for him. Two days after Black's break-in, she sends Neville the very worst thing a Hogwarts student can receive over breakfast - a Howler.