Courage

-21-

Book: Courage
Chapter 21
Word Count: 4987

Ron, Layla, and Hermione passed the students' potions cupboard, and after checking quickly to see if they were being watched, they opened the door and walked in.

It was very dark inside the huge cupboard when they shut the door and there wasn't any visible source of light.

"Lumos," whispered Layla, and a ball of light glowed on the end of her wand. She raised her wand over the many cups and vials. "What are we looking for again, 'Mione?"

"Um, let's see if I can remember," said Hermione quietly. "Uh, lacewing flies, leeches, and fluxweed. Oh, yeah, and knotgrass."

The three of them searched for the ingredients, and when it was all found, Hermione took them all and stuffed them in her pockets.

"We need a cauldron," said Ron. Layla scanned the floor before noticing a small rusty cauldron in the corner. She pointed her wand at it.

"Reducio."

The cauldron shrank until it was small enough to fit in a pocket. Layla picked it up and handed it to Hermione, who shoved it into her pocket, too.

Soon, the three of them were sat in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom, locked inside one of the cubicles. Layla was sat awkwardly and kept looking around as if she was frightened. In the last few months, the only memories of the bathroom were when she was waking up on the ground, not knowing what had happened. She tried to brush it off.

Hermione got all of the ingredients out of her pickers and put the cauldron back to its original size. She then conjured up some blue fire on top of the closed toilet and placed the cauldron on top of it.

The three friends were just about to get started with the Polyjuice Potion when they heard the bathroom door open.

"It's me," came Harry's voice. Hermione jumped and dropped one of the boxes into the cauldron. Layla chuckled and reached into the cauldron to grab the box as Hermione looked out of the keyhole to see that it was, indeed, Harry.

"Harry!" said Hermione.  You gave us such a fright — come in."

"How's your arm?" asked Layla.

"Fine," said Harry, squeezing into the stall.

"We'd've come to meet you, but we decided to get started on the Polyjuice Potion," Ron explained as Harry locked the stall again. "We've decided this is the safest place to hide it."

"Did you hear about Colin? He was atta—"

"We already know," Hermione interrupted. "Ron and I heard Professor McGonagall telling Professor Flitwick this morning. That's why we decided we'd better get going. We then told Layla straight away."

Layla just hummed and nodded her head, acting like she wasn't one of the first people to even know about the attack on young Colin Creevey.

"The sooner we get a confession out of Malfoy, the better," snarled Ron. "D'you know what I think? He was in such a foul temper after the Quidditch match, he took it out on Colin."

"There's something else," said Harry as Hermione tore bundles of knotgrass and throwing them into the potion. "Dobby came to visit me in the middle of the night."

Dobby was a house-elf who first showed up to Harry's uncle and aunt's house and warned him not to go back to school, but of course, Harry didn't listen.

"Again?" frowned Layla. "It's unusual for a house-elf to be so smothering. What does he want with you?"

Harry told them everything Dobby had told him — or hadn't told him. Hermione, Layla, and Ron listened with their mouths open.