Emma Potter

81: Time Travel

"Hermione,Harry we're going tosave Buckbeak!"

 "But — how will that help Sirius?"

 "Dumbledore said — he just told us where the window is —the window of Flitwick's office! Where they've got Sirius lockedup! We've got to fly Buckbeak up to the window and rescueSirius! Sirius can escape on Buckbeak — they can escape together!"

 From what I could see of Hermione's face, she looked terrified."If we manage that without being seen, it'll be a miracle!" 

"Well, we've got to try, haven't we?" said Harry. He stood up andpressed his ear against the door."Doesn't sound like anyone's there. . . . Come on, let's go. . . ."

Harry pushed open the closet door. The entrance hall was deserted. As quietly and quickly as we could, we darted out of thecloset and down the stone steps. The shadows were already lengthening, the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest gilded oncemore with gold.

 "If anyone's looking out of the window —" Hermionesqueaked, looking up at the castle behind us. 

"We'll run for it," said Harry determinedly. "Straight into theforest, all right? We'll have to hide behind a tree or something andkeep a lookout —" 

"Okay, but we'll go around by the greenhouses!" said Hermionebreathlessly. "We need to keep out of sight of Hagrid's front door,or we'll see us! We must be nearly at Hagrid's by now!"

 Still working out what she meant, Harry and I set off at a sprint,Hermione behind him. We tore across the vegetable gardens tothe greenhouses, paused for a moment behind us, then set offagain, fast as we could, skirting around the Whomping Willow,tearing toward the shelter of the forest. . . . 

Safe in the shadows of the trees, I turned around; secondslater, Hermione arrived beside us, panting. 

"Right," she gasped. "We need to sneak over to Hagrid's. . . .Keep out of sight. . . ."

 We made our way silently through the trees, keeping tothe very edge of the forest. Then, as we glimpsed the front ofHagrid's house, we heard a knock upon his door. We movedquickly behind a wide oak trunk and peered out from eitherside. 

Hagrid had appeared in his doorway, shaking and white,looking around to see who had knocked. And I heard Harry's ownvoice.

"It's us. We're wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Let us in and wecan take it off."

 "Yeh shouldn've come!" Hagrid whispered. He stood back, thenshut the door quickly. 

"This is the weirdest thing we've ever done," Harry said fervently.

 "Let's move along a bit," Hermione whispered. "We need to getnearer to Buckbeak!" 

We crept through the trees until they saw the nervous hippogriff, tethered to the fence around Hagrid's pumpkin patch. 

"Now?" Harry whispered.

 "No!" I said, starting to understand how this works. "If we steal him now, those Committeepeople will think Hagrid set him free! We've got to wait untilthey've seen he's tied outside!" 

"That's going to give us about sixty seconds," said Harry.

 Thiswas starting to seem impossible.At that moment, there was a crash of breaking china from insideHagrid's cabin."That's Hagrid breaking the milk jug," Hermione whispered."I'm going to find Scabbers in a moment —" 

Sure enough, a few minutes later, we heard Hermione's shriekof surprise. 

"Hermione," I said suddenly, "what if we — we just run inthere and grab Pettigrew —"