Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Thirty-Six

On Saturday morning, I changed quickly, slipped my wand into my bag and went down to breakfast with everyone else. Harry and Ron were already there, and judging by the size of Harry's bag, he had packed the Invisibility Cloak. Hermione kept shooting suspicious looks down at the table at me and Harry, but we avoided her eye, and we were careful to let her see us walking back up the marble staircase in the Entrance Hall as everybody else proceeded to the front doors.

"Bye!" Harry called to Ron. "See you when you get back!"

I waved. "Have fun! Bring back lots of candy for us!"

Ron simply grinned and winked.

We hurried up to the third floor, Harry slipping the Marauder's Map out of his pocket as we went. We crouched behind the one-eyed witch and Harry smoothed it out. A tiny dot was moving in our direction. I squinted at it. The minuscule writing next to it read 'Neville Longbottom'.

Harry glanced at me as I quickly pulled out my wand, muttered 'Dissendium!' and shoved my bag into the statue, but before either of us could climb in, Neville came around the corner. Shoot.

"Bella! Harry! I forgot you guys weren't going to Hogsmeade either!"

"Hi, Neville," Harry greeted, moving swiftly away from the statue and pushing the map into his pocket whilst I simply waved. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing," Neville shrugged. "Want a game of Exploding Snap?"

I looked at Harry. "Er - not now - we were going to go to the library and do that vampire essay for Lupin -"

"I'll come with you!" Neville said brightly. "I haven't done it either!"

Darn it. 

"Wait - hang on - yeah I forgot, we finished it last night!" Harry said.

"Brilliant, you both can help me!" Neville said, his round face anxious. "I don't understand that thing about the garlic at all - do they have to eat it, or -"

Neville broke off with a small gasp, looking over Harry's shoulder. I turned and frowned. 

It was Snape. Neville took a quick step behind me. 

"And what are you three doing here?" Snape asked, coming to a halt and looking at us all. "An odd place to meet -"

To my immense disquiet, Snape's black eyes flickered to the doorways on either side of us, and then to the one-eyed witch.

"We're not - meeting here, " I said. "We just - erm - met here"

"Indeed?" Snape questioned. "You and Potter have a habit of turning up in the unexpected places, and you are rarely there for no reason...I suggest you all return to Gryffindor Tower, where you belong"

SCREW YOU, SNAPE!

We all set off without another word. As we turned the corner, I looked back. Snape was running one of his hands over the one-eyed witch's head, examining it closely. We managed to shake Neville off at the Fat Lady by telling him the password, then pretending we'd left our vampire essay in the library before doubling back. Once out of sight of the security trolls, Harry pulled the map out again and held it in front of us. 

The third-floor corridor seemed to be deserted. I scanned the map carefully and saw, with a leap of relief, that the tiny dot labelled 'Severus Snape' was now back in its office.

We sprinted back to the one-eyed witch, opened her hump, heaved ourselves inside and slid down to meet my bag at the bottom of the stone chute. Harry wiped the Marauder's Map blank again, then we set off at a run.