Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Thirty-Five

I think it's safe to say that no one in the Gryffindor Tower slept at all that night. We all knew that the castle was being searched again, and the whole house stayed awake in the common room, waiting to hear whether Black had been caught. Professor McGonagall came back only at dawn, to tell us that he had once again escaped.

Darn it.

Everywhere we went the next day we saw signs of tighter security; Professor Flitwick could be seen teaching the front doors to recognise a large picture of Sirius Black; Filch was suddenly bustling up and down the corridors, boarding up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes. Sir Cadogan had been sacked. His portrait had been taken back to its lonely landing on the seventh floor, and the Fat Lady was back. Thank God. She had been expertly restored, but was still really nervous, and had only agreed to come back to her job on condition that she was given extra protection. A bunch of surly security trolls had been hired to guard her. They paced the corridor in a menacing group, talking in grunts and comparing the size of their clubs.

I couldn't help noticing that the statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor remained unguarded and unblocked. It seemed Fred and George had been right in thinking that they - and now me, Harry, Ron and Hermione - were the only ones who knew about the hidden passageway in it.

"D'you reckon we should tell someone?" Harry asked Ron one day.

"We know he's not coming in through Honeydukes," Ron answered dismissively. "We'd've heard if the shop had been broken into"

I was glad Ron took this view. If the one-eyed witch was boarded up too, me and Harry would never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.

Ron had become an instant celebrity. For the first time in his life, people were paying more attention to him than to me or Harry, and it was clear that Ron was rather enjoying the experience. Though still really shaken by the night's events, he was happy to tell anyone who asked, what had happened, with a wealth of detail...

"...I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know? But then there was this draught...I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down...I rolled over...and I saw him standing over me...like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair...holding this great long knife, must've been twelve inches...and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scarpered." Ron looked at us as a group of second-years who had been listening departed. "Why though? Why did he scarper?"

I had been wondering the same thing. Why had Black, having got the wrong bed, not silenced Ron and proceeded to Harry? Black had proved twelve years ago that he didn't mid murdering innocent people, and this time he had been facing five unharmed boys, four of whom were asleep.

"He must've known he'd have a job getting back out of the castle getting back out of the castle once you yelled and woken people up," I told him, thoughtfully. "He'd've had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole...then he would've met the teachers..."

Neville was in total disgrace. Professor McGonagall was so furious with him she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given him a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password to the Tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in, while the security troll leered unpleasantly at him. None of these punishments, however, came close to matching the one his grandmother had in store for him. Two days after Black's break-in, she sent Neville the very worst thing a Hogwarts student could receive over breakfast - a howler. 

The school owls swooped into the Great Hall, carrying the post as usual, and Neville choked as a huge barn owl landed in front of him, a scarlet envelope clutched in its beak. Myself and Harry, who was sitting opposite him, recognised the letter as a Howler at once - Ron had got one from his mother the year before.