Grim | Harry Potter

✧ chapter {10} ✧

After laying in bed, unable to get any sleep, I decided I needed something to help. I quietly got up from my bed and changed into some warmer clothes before beginning my journey out of the dungeons.

The halls were silent as I quietly made my way through them to the hospital wing. I wanted to get this over with, preferably without a detention.

As I got to the main floor of the school, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. A loud, agonizing howl ripped through the silent night, echoing throughout the halls. I looked out of one of the windows to see the moon high, and full in the night sky.

A werewolf.

Could it be Papa?

I could see the forest from here, and I guessed that was where the sound originated from. I backed away from the window as a growl silenced the serenity of the night. The rest of the trip to the hospital wing was anticlimactic, but I had never been happier to see those doors.

This school could be really eerie when it wanted to.

As I reached for the handle on the door, I froze. There were voices speaking quietly from inside the room. A hushed bickering was taking place.

"Well, well. We shall see, Snape, we shall see. The boy has undoubtedly been foolish." I had never heard that voice before. Who in the world would Snape be talking to in the hospital wing at this hour?

"What amazes me the most, however, " The voice continued. "is the behavior of the dementors. Do you really have no idea what made them retreat?"

"No, Minister," Snape said, "By the time I had come around, they were heading back to their positions at the entrances."

The Minister? Shouldn't he have left after they dealt with poor Buckbeak?

"Extraordinary," Fudge said. "And yet Black, his son, and Harry-"

"Were all unconscious by the time I found them." Snape replied, "I bound and gagged Black, naturally, and conjured stretchers to bring the students back to the castle."

Stretchers? Sirius Black? What happened, and how were Zenith and Harry involved?

There seemed to be a commotion inside the wing a moment later.

I heard my brother's voice, "I need to see the headmaster! Minister, Professor, please-"

"See, Minister?" I could practically hear the sneer in Snape's voice, "They've been confunded."

"I am not confunded!" Zenith yelled, "You have the wrong man, Sirius Black is innocent!"

"Now, why-" my brother said, cutting the Minister off.

"Peter Pettigrew faked his death! He's been in hiding. Black is innocent. He-"

"Zenith, you must calm down," Madam Pomfrey said. "Minister, Professor! I must insist you leave. I will not have you distressing my patient!"

What in the world is going on? What had Zenith gotten into this time?

"I am not distressed! You must listen-"
    "It is quite late to be wandering the halls, isn't it, Miss Black?"

I jumped and quickly turned around. Professor Dumbledore was standing a few feet away from me, his eyes twinkling.

"Professor, I can explain! I was just-"

"Now now, my dear," he said. How could someone's eyes twinkle so much? "You were just complaining of a headache, and I was escorting you to Madam Pomfrey, yes?"

He winked at me as I nodded.

"Now, why don't we go and get that headache dealt with."

He pushed the door open to show Madam Pomfrey standing beside my brother,  who was actively glaring at the other two men in the room.