Finding Avery Potter

Chapter Eleven: Hogsmade

Chapter Eleven: Hogsmade

Honeydukes was so crowded with Hogwarts students. We edged among them, looking around, and suppressed a laugh as I imagined the look that would spread over Krisitie's piggy face if she could see where I was now.

There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-colored toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, and another of Fizzing Whizbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned; along yet another wall were 'Special Effects' -- sweets: Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-colored bubbles that refused to pop for days), the strange, splintery Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny black Pepper Imps ('breathe fire for your friends!'), Ice Mice ('hear your teeth chatter and squeak!'), peppermint creams shaped like toads ('hop realistically in the stomach!'), fragile sugar-spun quills, and exploding bonbons.

Harry and I squeezed ourselves through a crowd of sixth years and saw a sign hanging in the farthest corner of the shop (UNUSUAL TASTES). Ron and Hermione were standing underneath it, examining a tray of blood-flavored lollipops. Harry and I, still under the invisibility cloak, sneaked up behind them.

"Ugh, no, Harry won't want one of those, they're for vampires, I expect," Hermione was saying.

"How about these?" said Ron, shoving a jar of Cockroach Clusters under Hermione's nose.

"Definitely not," said Harry, scaring them.

Ron nearly dropped the jar.

"Harry! Avery!" squealed Hermione. "What are you doing here? How -- how did you --?"

"Wow!" said Ron, looking very impressed, "you've learned to Apparate!"

"'Course I haven't," said Harry. He dropped his voice so that none of the sixth years could hear him and we told them all about the Marauder's Map.

"How come Fred and George never gave it to me!" said Ron, outraged. "I'm their brother!"

"But Harry and Avery aren't going to keep it!" said Hermione, as though the idea were ludicrous. "He's going to hand it in to Professor McGonagall, aren't you, Harry?"

"No, I'm not!" said Harry.

"Are you mad?" said Ron, goggling at Hermione. "Hand in something that good?"

"If I hand it in, I'll have to say where I got it! Filch would know Fred and George had nicked it!"

"But what about Sirius Black?" Hermione hissed. "He could be using one of the passages on that map to get into the castle! The teachers have got to know!"

"He can't be getting in through a passage," I said. quickly. "There are seven secret tunnels on the map, right? Fred and George reckon Filch already knows about four of them. And of the other three -- one of them's caved in, so no one can get through it. One of them's got the Whomping Willow planted over the entrance, so you can't get out of it. And the one I just came through -- well -- it's really hard to see the entrance to it down in the cellar -- so unless he knew it was there --" 

I hesitated. What if Black did know the passage was there? Ron, however, ignored the argument.

"Who wants some butter-beer?"

"Sure." I grinned, I shivered at the cold. Christmas was nearing by day by day.

We walked up to the Three Broomsticks, shuffling our ways through the Hogwarts students there.