A Second Life

29. Late Night Runs and Reconciliation

Harry

Slightly past eleven, we had just about managed to leave the dorm room. There were a few close run-ins with some younger Gryffindors who thought it'd be good to revise for their OWLs at this unholy time of the night, but we managed to waddle by them.

Hermione, Ron and I (after a lot of pushing and shoving) had somehow managed to fit under the cloak. It was a lot easier when we were younger. The nostalgia of it was enough to make me giddy though.

We marched on, quietly bickering. As we passed the dungeons, a group of voices, matching our tones could be heard, somewhere in front of us.

"Shut up, Nico! The whole castle is going to wake up with the amount of noise you're making."

"Stop stopping every two steps then. You keep on tripping me up and it's getting on my nerves."

Hermione gasped, whispering a quiet 'stop!' to me and Ron. Unfortunately, she wasn't quiet enough.

"Did you hear that? Nico, Percy, as much as I love you both you need to be quiet. We aren't alone." Was that Lester?

Ron ducked out of the cloak. He turned past the wall, dragging me and Hermione with him. Past the wall, we were met with the shadowed faces of Percy, Nico, Lester and Ryle.

"Don't worry, I called them here." Ron assured us.

"Ron! You didn't even tell us? What if— Never mind." She stopped herself, folding her arms and moving her gaze elsewhere along the wall. Although she hadn't said it, I had known what she meant.

What if they were the ones inside those tunnels?

What if telling them wasn't safe?

What if they were behind all this?

Despite it all, Ron trusted them. I had only just got my friend back. I wasn't prepared to lose him again, so I broke the silence.

"So, Ron told you about the portraits then?"

Percy nodded. "Yeah. He told us to meet him here." He didn't seem even slightly surprised by the invisibility cloak.

I couldn't stop myself from asking him, "Have you seen an invisibility cloak before?"

He shrugged, shifting so his back was against the wall, "One of my- sorry, one of the people I used to know had something similar. Except it was a Yankees cap instead."

I nodded my head to show I understood. Lester and Ryle seemed to be having a conversation with their eyes, speaking through nothing but their own telepathic connection.

Nico held his hand out. "Should we go search for it then?"

I turned on my heel. We passed through the Viaduct Courtyard and Great Hall, ending up in the North Wing of the castle. We searched around our Potions room and the Astronomy Tower, but none of the portraits had seen anything. Most of them had been rather maddened that we woke them up. It reminded of the time I'd been walking around the castle and got caught by Snape. Was it 3rd Year? When Fred and George gave me the Marauders Map.

I stopped dead in my tracks. "That's it!"

Everyone swivelled around to meet my gaze. I turned towards Ron and Hermione. "The Marauders Map! The one Remus took away from me. If we can just find it, we don't need to search the whole castle."