The Tenth Weasley

Chapter 12

*Chapter 12*

"Well, a seconds there to take over if you die," Ron stated calmly, succeeding in making Harry's jaw drop in horror. When he noticed the look on Harry's face he tactfully added, "but people only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy'll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you knows enough magic to do any real damage. I bet he expected you to refuse, anyway."

"And what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?" Harry's face still hadnt returned to normal, you could see that he was absolutely terrified.

"Throw it away and punch him in the nose," Ron suggested, earning a slap across the back of the head from me. I honestly don't know how we are twins, he has about as much common sense as Goyle on a bad day.

"Excuse me."

We all turned around. It was my dorm-mate, Hermione Granger.

"Can't a person eat in peace in this place?" said Ron, earning another slap across the back of the head from myself.

"I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying -"

"Bet you could," Ron muttered, this time receiving a swift dig to the knee.

"- and you must go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose for Gryffindor if you're caught, and your bound to be. It's really very selfish."

"And it's really none of your business," said Harry.

"Goodbye," added Ron.

At the end of that night I lay awake in my dorm room, waiting for it to be half eleven so we could get this duel over and done with. To be honest what Hermione was saying was partially true, if we do get caught we will loose a lot of points for our house and Mum will be extremely angry with me and Ron, although Fred and George would be proud. Not only was it risky, it could be dangerous, I've heard stories of Malfoys father, what if he had taught his son some of the dark magic that he seemed to use often? That would be bad, dangerous even, Ron might be needed if things took a turn for the worse. Harry seemed rather nervous as well, even more so considering the fact that he was the one 'duelling' Malfoy. Ron had spent the majority of the evening trying to, poorly, reassure Harry that we would be okay and giving hime advice such as, "If he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it because I can't remember how to block them." He finally stopped saying pointless things when I pointed out that he in fact had no duelling experience so he was in no position to give Harry advice. It was almost half past eleven so I went downstairs to the common room, clad in my pjamas and dressing gown, wielding my wand infron of me, careful not to wake up Hermione who had been starring daggers at me all night. A few embers were still glowing in the fireplace, dimly lighting the room and turning all the armchairs into hunched black shadows.

After waiting for a few minutes the boys came down the spiral staircase leading to the boys common room. "Finally, I've been standing here, waiting." I said when they emerged from the staircase. Both boys nodded at me in acknowledgement and raised a finger to their lips, signalling that I had to keep my voice down so I didn't wake up the others. We had almost reached the portrait hole she a voice spoke from beside us: "I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry."

A lamp flickered on, revealing the person behind the voice. It was Hermione Grangem wearing a pink dressing gown and a frown. I was confused at how I had missed both her lack of presence in the dorm room and her presence in the corner of the common room.

"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"

"I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped back. "Percy - he's a Prefect, he'd put a stop to this."

I couldn't believe that anyone could be so interfering .

"Come on," Harry said to Ron and I. He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole, Ron following straight after, then me.

It was clear that Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. She immediately followed me through the portrait hole, hissing at us like an infuriated snake.

"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup and you'll lose all the points I got from Proffessor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."

"Go away."

"All right, but I warned you, you just remember this when you're on the train back home tomorrow, you're so -"

We never did find out what we were. When Hermione turned around to storm back into the common room defiantly we discovered that the Fat Lady had left her portrait, and all hopes of Hermione getting into the Gryffindor Tower any time soon had left with her.

"Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly.

"That's your problem," I said. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."

We hadn't even managed to reach the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with us.

"I'm coming with you," she said.

"You are not."

"Do you thing I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all four of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you and you can back me up."

"You've got some nerve-" said Ron loudly.

"Shut up, both of you!" said Harry and I sharply. "I heard something." Harry added. I was telling them to shut up so Filch couldn't hear us but once the arguing was replaced by silence in the corridor I could distinctively hear some sort of snuffling.

"Mrs Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark, looking for the evil cat that enjoyed stalking students like prey.

It wasn't Mrs Norris. It was Neville.