Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Twenty Nine

Crookshanks claws ripped Ron's pyjamas and Scabbers attempted a wild escape over his shoulder. I sat up and saw Ron seize Scabbers by the tail and aimed a misjudged kick at Crookshanks which hit a nearby table, making it fall over and caused Ron to hop on the spot, howling in pain. I rolled my eyes. Ron never learns. 

And because he never learns, he's always the one who ends up hurt.

Crookshanks's fur suddenly stood on end. A shrill, tinny whistling was filling the room. The Pocket Sneakoscope had become dislodged from Harry's Uncle Vernon's old socks and was whirling and gleaming on the floor. What. The. Hell?

"I forgot about that!" Harry said, quickly bending down and picking up the Sneakoscope. "I never wear these socks if I can help it..."

The Sneakoscope whirled and whistled in his palm. Crookshanks was hissing and spitting at it. He looked like an angry, ugly, ginger biscuit. 

Mmm...ginger biscuits...

What? I'm hungry!

"You'd better take that cat out of here, Hermione," Ron said, furiously; he was sitting on the edge of Harry's sleeping bag nursing his toe. "Can't you shut that thing up?" he added to Harry, as Hermione strode out of the room, Crookshanks's yellow eyes still fixed on Ron.

I smiled at Harry before rushing after Hermione and up into the girl's dormitory. She was placing Crookshanks on her bed muttering things under her breath.

"I swear if Ron had a brain cell, we'd all be in trouble!" she hissed. "Crookshanks is only doing what is in his nature, why can't Ron understand that?"

I sat on my bed. "Because he's Ron, and he doesn't understand anything unless it had the words 'Quidditch' or 'food' in them."

Hermione nodded before facing me. 

"Don't you think there's something strange about Scabbers?" she asked. 

I frowned. "What d'you mean?"

"I can't explain it...but there's something defiantly strange about that rat"

I nodded and thought back to the woman at the Magical Menagerie shop. She had said that rats only lived three years, and I couldn't help but feel that unless Scabbers had powers he had never revealed, he was reaching the end of his life. But then again, no matter how sick Scabbers looked, he didn't look like he was about to die. There is something really strange about him...

Hermione and I dressed quickly and I made sure to wear the necklace that I got before rushing back down to the Common Room with linked arms where the boys were waiting. 

Christmas spirit was definitely thin on the ground in the Gryffindor Common Room that morning. Hermione had locked Crookshanks in our dormitory, but was furious with Ron for trying to kick him; Ron was still fuming about Crookshanks's fresh attempt to eat Scabbers. Harry gave up trying to make them talk to each other, and devoted himself to examining the Firebolt (which seemed to annoy Hermione as well; she didn't say anything, but she kept looking darkly at the broom as though it, too, had been criticising her cat) and I just lounged in front of the fire, fiddling with my necklace.

So, all in all, it was just your average morning in the Gryffindor Common Room.

At lunchtime, we went down to the Great Hall, to find that the House Tables had been moved against the walls again and that a single table, set for twelve, stood in the middle of the room. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout and Flitwick were there, along with Filch, the caretaker, who had taken off his usual brown coat and was wearing a very old and rather mouldy-looking tailcoat. There were only two other students; both first- years and looking very nervous.