Charmolypi

Chapter 76

The scene changed showing Harry and Ron attempting to escape from their classmates but failing when McGonagall saw them.

"Potter! Weasley! What are you doing?" she called.

"We were — we were —" Ron stammered. "We were going to — to go and see —"

"Hermione," said Harry. Ron and Professor McGonagall both looked at him. "We haven't seen her for ages, Professor," Harry went on hurriedly, treading on Ron's foot, "and we thought we'd sneak into the hospital wing, you know, and tell her the Mandrakes are nearly ready and, er, not to worry —"Professor McGonagall was still staring at him, and for a moment, Harry thought she was going to explode, but when she spoke, it was in a strangely croaky voice.

"Of course," she said, and Harry, amazed, saw a tear glistening in her beady eye. "Of course, I realize this has all been hardest on the friends of those who have been . . . I quite understand. Yes, Potter, of course you may visit Miss Granger. I will inform Professor Binns where you've gone. Tell Madam Pomphrey I have given my permission."

Harry and Ron walked away, hardly daring to believe that they'd avoided detention. As they turned the corner, they distinctly heard Professor McGonagall blow her nose.

"That," said Ron fervently, "was the best story you've ever come up with."

"That still would have been better than what he would have come up with!" Sirius chuckled.

They had no choice now but to go to the hospital wing and tell Madam Pomphrey that they had Professor McGonagall's permission to visit Hermione. Madam Pomphrey let them in, but reluctantly.

"There's no point talking to a petrified person," Pomphrey said. "The only thing that differs between them and stone statues is that they have a heart beat and blood circulation."

Some people looked at the woman horrified, but she shrugged indifferently. The woman that had been in the field for many years, nothing seems to bother her anymore.

"There's just no point talking to a Petrified person," she said, and they had to admit she had a point when they'd taken their seats next to Hermione. It was plain that Hermione didn't have the faintest inkling that she had visitors, and that they might just as well tell her bedside cabinet not to worry for all the good it would do.

"Wonder if she did see the attacker, though?" said Ron, looking sadly at Hermione's rigid face. "Because if he sneaked up on them all, no one'll ever know..."

"I think Hermione knew," Marlene confessed.

"So did Thea," Lily added.

The Marauders were all thinking the same thing 'if someone figured it out and is planning on doing something about it, it's Thea.'

But Harry wasn't looking at Hermione's face. He was more interested in her right hand. It lay clenched on top of her blankets, and bending closer, he saw that a piece of paper was scrunched inside her fist. Making sure that Madam Pomphrey was nowhere near, he pointed this out to Ron.

"She figured it out!" Marlene said excitedly.

Regulus was deep in thought, no longer paying attention to the movie, trying to figure out which creature could have been behind all these attacks. What creature would be up to the standard of Salazar Slytherin, being fully under his control, petrifies in some cases, and kills in others. In that moment, his eyes widened in realization.

He figured it out.

"Try and get it out," Ron whispered, shifting his chair so that he blocked Harry from Madam Pomphrey's view. It was no easy task. Hermione's hand was clamped so tightly around the paper that Harry was sure he was going to tear it. While Ron kept watch he tugged and twisted, and at last, after several tense minutes, the paper came free. It was a page torn from a very old library book. Harry smoothed it out eagerly and Ron leaned close to read it, too.