｡+.*𝗚𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗜𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗜𝗥*+｡ [𝘿. 𝙈𝘼𝙇𝙁𝙊𝙔]¹

XVIII. UNICORN BLOOD MOCKTAILS

On Sunday morning, I headed for the Great Hall hoping like hell that Norbert was safely on his way to Romania, Harry and Hermione weren't caught, and Malfoy would be sitting at Slytherin table in a pissy mood because whatever his plan was blew up in his face(as if I wasn't apprehensive enough, I didn't see him before I left the common room with Pansy, relatively on time for once). Instead, I found a significant amount of red beads missing from the hourglass depicting the Gryffindor house points and, judging by the green beads, Slytherin was in the lead.

Any possible enjoyment I could've gotten out of that quickly went up in smoke when I rushed over to Gryffindor table and found my brother and Hermione looking subdued and gloomy.

Good news first, Norbert's gone.

The exchange with Charlie's friends went as smoothly as we could've hoped for.

And, even better, they got to see Malfoy get caught sneaking around by McGonagall who, hilariously enough, gave him detention and furiously dragged him off by his ear("Detention! And twenty points from Slytherin! Wandering around in the middle of the night, how dare you--" "You don't understand, Professor. Harry Potter's coming--he's got a dragon!" "What utter rubbish! How dare you tell such lies! Come on--I shall see Professor Snape about you, Malfoy!").

Bad news, Malfoy wasn't the only one who got caught.

Harry and Hermione were on such a high after witnessing Malfoy's plan backfire so completely in his face, and watching our Norbert problem literally fly away, that when they left the Astronomy Tower the morons forgot the Invisibility Cloak and skipped off in plain sight and got caught by Filch.

--ah.

I can't express how hard it was for me to stop myself from saying something. I feel like a parent who took a night off--and came home to find the family pet missing("How does a betta fish run away?!")and the laundry flooding the hallway.

I really can't leave these lot alone, can I?

They were hauled off to McGonagall's office and, as if they didn't feel bad enough, when she arrived she had Neville with her(he overheard Malfoy saying that they had a dragon, and he was going to catch them, and snuck out to warn them...only to have McGonagall assume they fed Malfoy a "cock-and-bull story about a dragon" to try to get him out of bed and into trouble--and added that she supposed they thought it was funny that Neville "heard the whole story and believed it too").

They lost 150 house points.

Overnight, as the story spread through the castle like wildfire, Harry went from 'famous, admired, youngest Seeker in a century Harry Potter' to one of the most hated people in Hogwarts--and, because of that fame, he took most of the heat.

"I blame you for this," I was quick to inform Malfoy flatly.

"And that's supposed to affect me how?" he drawled with a smirk.