From Home To Hogwarts - The Angelic Witch and Draco Malfoy (Book 1)

Into The Dark Forest

Things couldn't have been worse.

Filch took them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where they sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Heroneka was trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chased each other around her brain, each more feeble than the last. She couldn't see how they were going to get out of trouble this time. They were cornered. How could they have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already.

Heroneka touched her neck to grab her locket to fiddle with, but she didn't find it.

"Harry" she breathed. "My locket... It's gone."

"This is the worst it can get, right?" He gulped starting at her neck where the chain should have been.

But he was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville.

"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw the other two. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag--"

Harry shook his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the three of them.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr Filch says you were up in the Astronomy Tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

Heroneka wished Hermione was here. She had found an excuse for them while they had dealt with the troll. Neither she nor Harry could utter a word. They hung their heads, staring at their slippers.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

Heroneka caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true because he was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville -- Heroneka knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.

"I'm disgusted," said Professor McGonagall. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Pearlstone, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions -- yes, you too, Mr Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous -- and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."

"Fifty?" Harry gasped -- they would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.

"Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

"Professor -- please--" heroneka whimpered

"You can't--" Harry started.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."

A hundred and fifty points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, they'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the house cup. Heroneka felt as though the bottom had dropped out of her stomach. How could they ever make up for this?