Together (A Harry Potter love story) 3

54

Mione and I looked as each other, then followed at a run, hurtling after the boys; I could hear their footsteps thundering along ahead, and Ron's shouts at Crookshanks.

"Get away from him - get away - Scabbers, come here-"

There was a loud thud.

"Gotcha! Get off, you stinking cat-!"

Mione and I almost crashed right into Harry; we skidded to a stop right behind him. He was stood in front of Ron, who was sprawled on the ground. Scabbers was back in Ron's pocket; he had both hands held tight over the quivering lump.

"Ron - come on - back under the Cloak-" Mione panted, breathing heavily. "Dumbledore - the Minister - they'll be coming back out in a minute-"

But before we could cover ourselves with the Invisibility Cloak, before I could catch my breath, I heard the soft pounding of gigantic paws. Something was bounding towards us out of the dark - an enormous, pale-eyed, jet-black dog-

-Snuffles.

I watched, frozen, as Harry reached for his wand, but too late - Snuffles had made an enormous leap and its front paws hit him on the chest. Harry fell backwards with a pained grunt; the dog was bearing its inch-long teeth...

As though my brain had just kicked into gear, I dropped onto my knees and grabbed the back of Snuffle's fur, pulling him off of Harry.

"Snuffles...?" I muttered, releasing my grip and shakily reaching out and stroking the howling dog; the force of it's leap seemed to have carried it too far, and it keeled over onto its side, growling lowly.

"Ugh..."

A pained grunt made me swivel around on my knees, where Harry was still on the ground, clutching his ribs. I quickly stumbled over, pushing his hair back to feel his hot forehead.

"H?" I said croakily, helping him sit up. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." he whispered hoarsely, sounding and looking the complete opposite of 'okay' as he scrunched his face up in pain. My eyes scanned him anxiously as Mione hurried over to help pull him up. We were all on our feet again now, including Ron and, unfortunately, Snuffles. As he sprang forward again, Ron stepped in front of us; the dog's jaws fastened instead around Ron's outstretched arm. Harry lunged at it and seized a handful of Snuffle's hair, but it was dragging Ron away as easily as if he were a rag-doll-

Then, out of nowhere, I lost sight of all four of them as something hit me so hard across the face I was knocked off my feet. I heard Mione shriek with pain and fall, too. I groped for my wand, blinking blood out of my eyes-

"Lumos!" I hissed, gritting my teeth in pain.

The wand-light showed me the trunk of a thick tree; we had chased Scabbers into the shadow of the Whomping Willow and its branches were creaking as though in a high wind, whipping backwards and forwards to stop us going nearer.

And there, at the base of the trunk, was Snuffles, dragging Ron backwards into a large gap in the roots - Ron was sighting furiously, but his head and torso were slipping out of sight-

"Ron!" I heard Harry shout. I spun around to see Harry trying to get past a heavy branch whipping lethally through the air. His cheek had a deep cut gauged into the skin, blood dripping down onto his school shirt, staining the white with red. "Ron..."

Panic surging through me, I turned back to look at the tree; all I could see now was one of Ron's legs, which he had hooked around a root in an effort to stop Snuffles pulling him further underground. Then a horrible crack cut the air like a gunshot; Ron's leg had broken, and next second, his foot had vanished from sight.