Bella and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Chapter Fifty Seven

Harry pushed the cupboard door open. The Entrance Hall was deserted. As quietly and quickly as we could, we darted out of the cupboard and down the stone steps. The shadows were already lengthening, the tops of the trees in the Forbidden Forest gilded once more with gold.

"If anyone's looking out of the window -" Hermione squeaked, looking up at the castle behind us.

"We'll run for it," I said determinedly. "Straight into the Forest, all right? We'll have to hide behind a tree or something and keep a lookout -"

"Ok, but we'll go round by the greenhouses!" Hermione said breathlessly. "We need to keep out of sight of Hagrid's front door, or we'll see us! We must be nearly at Hagrid's by now!"

Still working out what she meant, I set off at a sprint, Harry and Hermione behind me. We tore across the vegetable gardens to the greenhouses, paused for a moment behind them, then set off again, fast as we could, skirting around the Whomping Willow, tearing towards the shelter of the Forest...

Safe in the shadows of the trees, I turned around; seconds later, Harry and Hermione arrived beside me, panting.

"Right," Harry gasped, "we need to sneak over to Hagrid's"

Hermione nodded. "And remember, we need to stay hidden"

"Let's do this," I smirk

We made our way silently through the trees keeping to the very edge of the Forest. Then, as we glimpsed the front of Hagrid's house, we heard a knock upon his door. We moved quickly behind a wide oak trunk and peered out from behind it. Hagrid had appeared in his doorway, shaking and white, looking around to see who had knocked. And then I heard my own voice.

"It's us. We're wearing the Invisibility Cloak. Let us in and we can take it off"

Is that really what I sound like? Ew.

"Yeh shouldn've come!" Hagrid whispered. He stood back, then shut the door quickly.

"This is the weirdest thing we've ever done," Harey said fervently

I shrugged. "I dunno. We've done some pretty weird stuff. We can never have a normal year at Hogwarts"

"Lets move along a bit," Hermione whispered. "We need to get nearer to Buckbeak!"

We crept through the trees until we saw the nervous Hippogriff, tethered to the fence around Hagrid's pumpkin patch.

"Now?" Harry whispered.

"No!" Hermione said.

"Hermione's right. If we steal him now, the Committee people will think Hagrid set him free! We've got to wait until they've seen he's tied outside!" I said, pushing my hair out if my face.

Boom I'm on a roll today!

"That's going to give us about sixty seconds," Harry said. Hmmm, this was starting to seem impossible now.

At that moment, there was a crash of breaking China from inside Hagrid's cabin.

"That's Hagrid breaking the milk jug," Hermione whispered. "I'm going to find Scabbers in a moment -"

Sure enough, a few minutes later, we heard Hermione's shriek of surprise.

"Guys," Harry said suddenly, "what if we - we just run in there, and grab Pettigrew-"

I shake my head and Hermione looks at him horrified.

"No!" She said in a terrified whisper. "Don't you understand? We're breaking one of the most important wizarding laws! Nobody's supposed to change time, nobody! You heard Dumbledore, if we're seen -"