Percy Jackson and the Mirror of Erised [Book 1]

41) In Trouble

Filch brought us to Professor McGonagall. We sat in her study, waiting for the Professor to come. Hermione was trembling. I was too. She'd probably end up telling Snape. He wasn't afraid to punish me in whatever way possible. It wouldn't be fun.

I had thought it couldn't get worse. Then it did.

McGonagall came into her office with a trembling Neville behind her.

"Harry!" Neville burst out, looking at us with wide-eyes, "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag—"

Harry shook his head violently at Neville, but it was too late. McGonagall looked ready to murder someone.

"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the Astronomy Tower. It's one o' clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."

None of us said anything.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," McGonagall said. "It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"

No. That's not it at all. I stared at the Professor, unable to hide the glare. She was wrong. She was assuming wrong. She wasn't even looking at all of the facts.

McGonagall caught my glaring and stared with surprise for a moment. She quickly composed herself.

"I'm disgusted," McGonagall said. "Five students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. Mr. Jackson, you're in the loyalty house, yet you betray one of your closest friends. All four of you will receive detentions — yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous. And fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor and Hufflepuff."

"Fifth?" Harry gasped. Hufflepuff would lose the lead we had gotten from the last quidditch match. We didn't answer very many questions in class. We didn't ever earn very many points.

"Fifty points each," McGonagall said, breathing heavily.

"Professor — please —"

"You can't—"

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."

Gryffindor was in last place now. They'd just lost 150 points. There was practically no chance for them to win House Cup anymore.

I had a feeling it was a difficult night for my friends. Still, I straightaway told Hufflepuff what happened. Exactly what happened.

We were a family. Only reason we would say something is if it were hurting someone else. The whole house knew I was a demigod, and I had even eventually told them of my specific heritage.

So I didn't hesitate to tell them about the dragon. They weren't mad. They weren't disappointed. They were happy. Said I did the right thing. I even ended up camping out in Cedric's room.

I could see the confusion on Gryffindor's faces as they passed the giant hourglass showing each houses points. But as they heard the story, they started to get mad.

Ravenclaw got mad at Harry, too. They hadn't wanted Slytherin to win. None of us Hufflepuffs were mad. We knew that it was okay.

It was annoying, though. People were mad at me, too. Losing the fifty points had dropped Hufflepuff to third place. Which brought Slytherin to the lead. So Gryffindor and Ravenclaw didn't hesitate to call me names and point. Weird to think they'd been mad at people who said bad stuff about me not too long ago.

It had been pretty rough for all of us. Hermione and Neville didn't get any taunts, but had been completely ignored by everyone else. Hermione even kept her head down in class.

Exams coming up helped us all. We were able to focus on something other than our own misery. We stayed up late into the night, studying complicated potions and charm movements.

We were studying in the library one day, in a corner away from everyone else, when Harry rushed in. He told us about overhearing Quirrell.

"Snape's done it, then!" Ron said. "If Quirrell's told him how to break his Anti-Dark Force spell—"

"There's still Fluffy, though," Hermione said.

"It's not very difficult to get past Fluffy. Snape could probably figure it out. He doesn't need to ask Hagrid. I did it while panicking with a gash in my arm. So, what do we do?" I spoke up, looking down.

Hermione answered quickly, "Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago. If we try anything ourselves we'll be thrown out for sure."

"But we've got no proof!" Harry said. "Quirrell's too scared to back us up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor — who do you think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape, and the more student get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot of explaining."

Hermione nodded, convinced, but Ron started, "If we just do a bit of poking around—"

"No," Harry said flatly, "we've done enough poking around."

Then Harry went back to studying.

Another one of my socks have been lost to the curse. May we mourn in peace. Last night I couldn't sleep, and stayed up till five AM. I was writing chapters for the third book the entire time. My goal is to finish it before I finish publishing this book. I think I'm gonna get it done.

Till Monday, friends.