Things can't be worse.
Filch takes them down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor with Polaris inside, where they sit and wait without saying a word to each other. Hermione is trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover-up stories chase each other around Harry's brain, each more feeble than the last. He can't see how they are going to get out of trouble this time. They are cornered. How could they be so stupid as to forget the cloak? There is 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 is out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and they might as well be packing their bags already.
Harry is wrong. Things can get worse. When Professor McGonagall appears, she is leading Neville.
"Harry!" Neville bursts out, the moment he sees the other two. "I was trying to find you and warn you that I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag -"
Harry shakes his head violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looks more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towers 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."
It's the first time Hermione has ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She is staring at her slippers, as still as a statue.
"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," says 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?"
Harry catches Neville's eyes and tries to tell him without words that this isn't true, because Neville is looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville - Harry knows what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.
"I'm disgusted," says Professor McGonagall. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, 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 gasps - they will lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match.
"Fifty points each," says Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.
"Professor - please -"
"You can't -"
"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. Mr. Lestrange, I am putting you in charge of making sure these four are put to bed."
Polaris walks up to the four first years "alright, let's go." He says, ushering them out the door.
A hundred and fifty points lost. That puts Gryffindor in last place. In one night, they've ruined any chance Gryffindor has had for the house cup. Harry felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. How can they ever make up for this?
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The Mysterious Heir
Fanfiction2 Years before Harry Potter is born, Voldemort conceives a son to take his place if he died before he reached immortality. After he is born, Voldemort enchants him to be more powerful than himself. This is the story of Polaris Cygnus Lestrange, The...
