NO one in Gryffindor Tower slept that night. They knew that the castle was being searched again, and the whole House stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught. Professor McGonagall came back at dawn, to tell them that he had again escaped.
Throughout the day, everywhere they went they saw signs of tighter security; Professor Flitwick could be seen teaching the front doors to recognize a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes. Sir Cadogan had been fired. His portrait had been taken back to it's lonely landing on the seventh floor, and the Fat Lady was back. She had been expertly restored, but was still extremely nervous, and had agreed to return to her job only on condition that she was given extra protection. A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs, one even tried to flirt with Rory.
Harry couldn't help noticing that the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor remain unguarded and unblocked. It seemed that Fred and George had been right in thinking that they —— and now Harry,Ron, Rory, and Hermione —- were the only ones who knew about the hidden passageway within it.
"D'you reckon we should tell someone?" Harry asked Ron dismissively. "We'd've heard if the shop had been broken into." Harry was glad Ron took this view. If the one-eyed witch was boarded up too, he would never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.
Ron and Max had become instant celebrities. For the first time in Ron's life, people were paying more attention to Ron than to Harry and Rory. And Max was just enjoying even more popularity he already had, he was the class clown of his year unlike Ron he knew what it was like to be popular. Nonetheless they were both enjoying the experience. Though still severely shaken by the nights events, they we're happy to tell anyone who asked what had happened, with a wealth of detail.
". . . . We were sleep, and we both heard this ripping noise, and we thought it was a dream, you know? But then there was this draft . . . We woke up and one side with the hangings on my bed had been pulled down. . . we rolled over . . . and we saw him standing over us . . . like a skeleton, with the loads of filthy hair . . . holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches. . . and he looked at us, and we looked at him, and then we yelled, and he scampered.
