meant to be (1)

15

Ron and I spent the evening in the common room giving Harry advice for the wizards duel.
But that wasn't the only thing we were worrying about. There was a very good chance we were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs Norris. We also would be breaking another school rule.

"Half past eleven" Ron muttered at last "We'd better go"

We almost reached the potrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair nearest us.

"I can't believe you're going to do this." A lamp flickered on. It was Hermione, wearing a pink dressing-gown and a frown.

"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"

"I almost told your brother" Hermione snapped "Percy, he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this."

I couldn't believe her. First she called us selfish and then betrayed my trust.

"Come on" Harry said as he pushed open the potrait of the Fat Lady and climbed trough the hole, but Hermione didn't give up. She followed us trough the potrait hole.

"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells."

"Go away." I said. I was too angry to deal with her right now.

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

But Hermione didn't get to finish.  When she turned around to the potrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside, the potrait was empty. The Fat Lady had gone on a night time visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.

"Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly.

"That's your problem" said Ron "We've got to go, we're going to be late."

We haven't even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with us.

"I'm coming with you" she said.

"You are not." I answered coldly.

"Do you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all four of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you and you can back me up."

"You've got some nerve-" said Ron loudly.

"Shut up, all of you!" said Harry sharply. "I heard something."  It was a sort of snuffing.

"Mrs Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark. It wasn't Mrs Norris. It was Neville.  He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but jerked suddenly awake as we crept nearer.

"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours. I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."

"Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's "Pig Snout" but it won't help you now, the Fat Ladd's gone of somewhere" Ron said.

"How's your arm?" I asked.

"Fine" said Neville, showing us. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."

"Good - well, look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you later-"

"Don't leave me!" Neville cried, scrambling to his feet. "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already"

Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Hermione and Neville. I couldn't help but roll my eyes, he really was dramatic.

"If either of you get us caught, I'll never rest until I've learnt that Curse of the Bogies Quirrel told us about and used it on you."

And after that, we flitted along the corridors striped with bars of moonlight from the high windows. At every turn I expected to run into Filch or Mrs. Norris, but we were lucky. We sped up the staircase to the third floor and tiptoed towards the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe weren't there yet. The crystal trophy cases glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups shields, plates and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. We edged along the walls and kept our eyes on the doors at either end of the room. After Harry took out his wand, I decided to do the same in case Malfoy lept in. The minutes crept by.

"He's late, maybe he's chickened out" Ron whispered. Then a noise in the next room made us jump. I had only just raised my wand when we heard someone speak - and it wasn't Malfoy.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner" It was Filch speaking to Mrs Norris. Harry waved madly at us and indicated to follow him as quickly as possible. We scurried silently towards the door away from Filch's voice. Neville's robes had barely whipped around the corner when we heard Filch enter the room.

"They're in here somewhere" we heard him mutter. "probably hiding"

"This way!" Harry mouthed to us and we began to creep down a long gallery full of suits of armour. We could hear Filch getting closer.

Neville suddenly let out a frightened squeak and broke into a run - he tripped, grabbed Ron around the waist and the pair of them tippled right into suit of armour. The clanging and crashing were loud enough to wake the whole castle.

"RUN!"