The Cowardly Lion (Book 1)

7: Of Midnight Duels and Argus Filch

At half-past eleven, Hermione shook Draco awake. "They'll probably come down any minute now, the midnight duel's in the trophy room, they'll want to be there on time..."

"Mmph? Oh, yeah, right."

And sure enough, only seconds later Harry and Ron were attempting to sneak out of the Gryffindor common room. Hermione turned a lamp on, and Ron rolled his eyes.

"I can't believe you're going to do this," Hermione stated.

"You!" Ron growled, clearly unhappy with Hermione for some reason or other. "Go back to bed, why don't you, and stop meddling in other people's business!"

"I almost told your brother," snapped Hermione, clearly ignoring everything Ron had just said. "Percy - he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this. And Draco said he'd help, too."

Harry's eyes flickered to Draco. "Oh, yes, Draco wants to help his new best friend," he snarled at Hermione, glaring daggers at Draco, who suddenly flinched away, unused to Harry's anger being directed at him. "Come on, Ron, let's just go."

Hermione dragged Draco out of the portrait hole after them. "Don't you care about Gryffindor!" Oh, a rant. Draco decided he'd rather tune out, as Hermione continued shouting at the boys.

"Go away," Ron said bluntly, cutting Hermione off. She huffed.

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

"Hermione," Draco said quietly, having turned around and seen the Fat Lady's portrait.

"What?" snapped Hermione, clearly unhappy at being interrupted mid-rant.

"The Fat Lady's gone away."

"What?" Hermione turned to face the portrait, which was indeed empty, and whirled back to Harry and Ron, as Draco sighed in resignation. Of course this would have to be the way his worst day ever went...no friends, yet again, and a target for Argus Filch, the caretaker and most hated person at Hogwarts.

"Come on, Draco!" Oh. Hermione was tugging on his arm, and sighing, he followed her. It wasn't like he had anything better to do, after all.

"Don't tell me you're coming with us!" groaned Ron, turning to face Hermione.

"Well, what do you expect us to do, just wait around for Filch to find us? No, we're coming with you, and if he finds us I'll tell him the truth, that I tried to stop you - "

Harry glared at Hermione. "Would you shut up? I heard something."

Draco listened, and soon he heard a sort of snuffling. He rolled his eyes as Ron muttered something that sounded like Mrs. Norris?

"Neville?" questioned Draco, recognizing the snuffling to be human.

Neville looked incredibly relieved. "Hey, Draco, Harry, Ron, Hermione! I'm so glad you found me, I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the password to get in..."

"Shush, Neville!" Hermione hushed him. "The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."

"How's your arm?" Draco asked.

Neville beamed. "Oh, it's fine. Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"Good, well, we've got to be somewhere," Harry said, "so see you later, Neville, Hermione, Malfoy." Draco flinched at the way Harry had said his name, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

In a hushed shout, she stomped her foot and said, "Enough, the both of you! Harry, don't you see you're hurting Draco's feelings? And Draco, for Merlin's sake, nobody thinks you're a coward, especially now, you're out here around midnight, risking Filch! Not, of course, that that's a good idea, I would've rather you worked it out in the Gryffindor common room..."