𝐑𝐄𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒-ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕪 ℙ𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣❥

𝐏𝐎𝐀 𝟏𝟏

No one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night. They knew that the castle was being searched again, and the whole House stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether the Black's had been caught, everyone watching the Lupin-Black siblings closely.

Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell them that they had again escaped.

Throughout the day, everywhere they went they saw signs of tighter security; Professor Flitwick could be seen teaching the front doors to recognize a large picture of Sirius and Eric Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes.

Sir Cadogan had been fired. His portrait had been taken back to its lonely landing on the seventh floor, and the Fat Lady was back.

She had been expertly restored, but was still extremely nervous, and had agreed to return to her job only on condition that she was given extra protection.

A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs.

Emily couldn't help noticing that the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor remained unguarded and unblocked. It seemed that Ethan, Fred and George had been right in thinking that they, and now Emily, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, were the only ones who knew about the hidden passageway within it.

"D'you reckon we should tell someone?" Emily asked Ron.

"We know they're not coming in through Honeyduke's," said Ron dismissively. "We'd've heard if the shop had been broken into."

Emily was glad Ron took this view. If the one-eyed witch was boarded up too, she would never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.

Ron had become an instant celebrity. For the first time in his life, people were paying more attention to him than to Harry, and it was clear that Ron was rather enjoying the experience.

Though still severely shaken by the night's events, he was happy to tell anyone who asked 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 draft... I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down... I rolled over... and I saw them standing over me... like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair... both holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches... and they looked at me, and I looked at them, and then I yelled, and they scampered.

"Why, though?" Ron added to Emily and Harry as the group of second year girls who had been listening to his chilling tale departed. "Why did they run?"

Emily had been wondering the same thing. Why had her father and brother, having got the wrong bed, not silenced Ron and proceeded to Harry?

The two had proved twelve years ago that they didn't mind murdering innocent people, and this time they had been facing five unarmed boys, four of whom were asleep.

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

Neville was in total disgrace. Professor McGonagall was so furious with him she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given him a detention, and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the tower.

Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in, while the security trolls leered unpleasantly at him.

None of these punishments, however, came close to matching the one his grandmother had in store for him. Two days after the break-in, she sent Neville the very worst thing a Hogwarts student could receive over breakfast, a Howler.