In Ink and Inheritance (Book 1)

Chapter 24 - The Hollow in the Tree

LHarriet Potter's POV

It started in the boys' dormitory.

Ron had burst into the common room, clutching a squirming, frantic Scabbers in both hands, his face pale and wild-eyed.

"He's back," he shouted. "Scabbers-he's alive!"

Hermione jumped to her feet. "What? But-Crookshanks-"

"I found him hiding in the sheets at the bottom of my trunk. He's skinny, twitchy, looks like he hasn't eaten in days-"

He stopped, holding Scabbers up for us to see.

The rat looked... wrong.

His fur was patchy. His eyes darted madly. And he kept clawing at Ron's arm, trying to get away like he was afraid of something just behind us.

"Where are you going?" I asked, as Ron turned toward the portrait hole.

"He keeps trying to run. I'm not letting him vanish again - I'm going to take him straight to Hagrid. He'll know what to do."

"I'm coming," I said.

Hermione hesitated for a beat, then nodded. "Fine. But we go together."

We didn't take the Invisibility Cloak.

We should have.

The castle was quiet as we slipped out under the Cloak of Night - past the greenhouses, over the frozen slope, through the scraggly stretch of bare trees that bordered the Forest.

Scabbers wriggled harder the closer we got to Hagrid's hut.

Then, he screamed.

A horrible, high-pitched squeal that made Ron yelp and drop him.

"Scabbers!" he shouted.

The rat hit the ground running.

Ron bolted after him, boots sliding in the snow.

Hermione and I sprinted after them both - heart pounding, wand clutched in my hand. The wind howled through the trees. We lost sight of Scabbers in the brambles.

Then something crashed through the underbrush.

Massive. Black.

A dog.

No - not a dog.

Grim.

The same hulking, shadow-eyed thing I'd seen in the alley in London. In the clouds. In my dreams.

It barreled toward Ron with terrifying speed. He barely had time to scream before it was on him - not biting, not mauling - dragging. Its teeth clamped on the hem of his robes and it hauled him across the frozen earth like he was weightless.

"Ron!" Hermione cried.

"Stupefy!" I shouted, firing at the creature. The spell missed - hit a tree with a crack.

Ron and the Grim vanished beneath the thrashing branches of the Whomping Willow.

For a second, we stood frozen.

Then we saw it.

Crookshanks - Hermione's cat - darted into view, nimble and low. He pressed a paw to one of the Willow's gnarled roots.

The tree froze.

Its limbs stopped moving, held in eerie stillness.

And at the base of the trunk... a gap.

A tunnel.

"Did he-did Crookshanks open it?" Hermione whispered.

"Come on," I said. "We don't have time to argue."

She didn't even hesitate.

We crawled in after them - into the roots, into the dark, into whatever truth waited below.