The Tenth Weasley

Chapter 14

*Chapter 14*

Ducking under Peeves we ran for our lives, right to the end of the corridor, where we slammed into a door - of course it was locked.

"This is it!" Ron moaned, as we continued to relentlessly push the door with no luck. "We're done for! This is the end!"

We could hear footsteps approaching; Filch was obviously running as fast as he could with the hope that he'd catch us in the act.

"Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wand, tapped the lock and whispered, "Alohomora!"

The lock clicked and the door thankfully swung open - we piled through it, shut it quickly behind us and pressed our ears against it, listening for the approaching footsteps of the caretaker.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please'"

"Don't mess me about, Peeves, now where did they go?"

"Shan't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves in his annoying sing-song voice, expertly aggravating Filch further.

"All right - please."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!" We could hear the sound of Peeves whooshing away, bellowing with laughter as he went with Filch's curses following him.

"He thinks this door is locked," I whispered. "I think we'll be alright - get off- Neville!" For Neville had been tugging endlessly on the sleeve of my dressing gown for the last minute. "What?"

I turned around - and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment I was convinced I was in a rather horrific nightmare - the stuff of dreams stood in front of me.

We weren't in a random room as I'd assumed. We were in a corridor. The forbidden corner on the third floor. And now we knew exactly why it was forbidden.

Before us stood a monstrous beast in the form of a dog, a dog which filled the whole space between the ceiling and floor. It also had three heads. Three pairs of mad, raging eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in our direction; three drooling mouths, saliva hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs. Four hug paws scratched at the floor, underneath one of them was a trap door of some sorts, it was guarding something but what was precious enough that it required a three headed dog as a guard in a school already filled with powerful, wand-wielding witches and wizards?

It was standing unnaturally still, all six eyes trained on us, I knew that the only reason we were still standing was that our arrival has surprised them, him, it, whatever it was and it was quickly recovering from the shock. The thunderous growls that were being emitted from the creature were the only proof I needed of this.

Harry reached for the doorknob - choosing Filch's wrath over imminent death by deadly beast any-day.

We fell backwards - Harry slammed the door shut, and we ran, almost flew, back down the corridor , away from the monster. Filch must of hurried of somewhere else to look for us, I noted when we didn't see him as we sprinted away from the room, but we hardly cared - all we wanted to do was put as much space as possible between us and the dreaded beast. We didn't stop until we reached the portrait of the Fat Lady on the seventh floor.

"Where on earth have you all been?" she asked, taking in our disgruntled appearances, dressing gowns hanging unceremoniously off of our shoulders and our flushed, sweaty faces.

"Never mind that - pig snout, pig snout," frantically panted Harry, and the portrait thankfully swung forward, the warmth and safety of the common room greeting us welcomingly. We scrambled into the familiarity of the red and gold common room and collapsed, trembling into the armchairs.

It was a while before any of us said anything, waiting for our hysterical breathing to calm down and return to normal. Neville looked as if he may never speak again.

"What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."

Hermione had got both her breath and bad temper back again, unfortunately for us all.

"You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

I thought back to the wooden, trap door beneath the dog. I had noticed what it was standing on.

"The floor?" Harry suggested innocently. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with it's head, there were three of them in case you didn't notice."

"No, not the floor." I added before Hermione could snap back at him. "It was standing on a trap floor. It's in Hogwarts to guard something."

Hermione stood up, glaring at the boys and me; I had knocked her off of herself appointed pedestal and I doubted she was very pleased about that.

"I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

Ron stared after her form travelling up the staircase to the girl's dorms, mouth agape.

"No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"

Shortly after Hermione's dramatic exit I followed her to bed, tired after my night of adventure and adrenaline. Silently entering the dormitory, trying not to wake up the already sleeping girls, I noticed Hermione was still brooding in her bed, muttering something about 'pigheaded boys'. I collapsed into my bed, pulling the covers over me and being engulfed in the welcomed warmth they brought with them. I fell asleep with the thoughts of my nights activities playing on a loop in my head like a broken record, the mystery of the trap door would have to be solved the next day.