The Young Padfoot *Book One*

The Midnight Duel

Right now, I am pretty sure Harry will be laying in his bed, freaking out about this duel. Ron hadn't exactly given him much confidence. What was it he said? Oh yeah, 'if he tries to curse you, you'd better dodge it because I can't remember how to block it'. Honestly, boys.

It had definitely passed through my mind that there was a high chance that we were going to get caught by either Filch, Mrs Norris or a Professor. We were all probably pushing our luck slightly, especially Harry. I mean, it was only today that he was caught riding a broom when we were specifically told not to. But then again, I knew that this was something we had to do. If we didn't, we would all have to listen to Malfoy boasting and gloating. We'd never hear the end of it.

At half past eleven, I crept out of the dorm as silently as I could, and made my way down to the common room, where Harry and Ron where already waiting.

"You ready?" Ron asked me.

"Of course," I smiled.

We began to walk towards the fat Lady's portrait but was stopped almost immediately by a voice from near the fire.

"I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry," Hermione said, crossing her arms.

"You! Go back to bed!" Ron told her angrily.

"You know, I almost told your brother. Percy--he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this," Hermione said, pointing at Ron.

"Hermione, I know you don't want us to do this, and I understand that, but it's our choice," I said to her.

"Come on," Harry whispered, grabbing my hand and Ron's arm.

We walked out of the Gryffindor common room but behind us we could still hear Hermione following us. She kept on whispering little comments to try and get us to change our minds, but clearly it wasn't working.

"Don't you care about Gryffindor at all, do you only care about yourselves? I don't want Slytherin to win the House Cup and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing about switching spells," Hermione hissed at us.

"Go away," Ron said harshly.

"Alright, but I warned you, you three just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so--" Hermione paused.

Ah, silence never sounded so good. We would probably never find out what we were as I looked back and saw that the Fat Lady wasn't in her portrait. Oh, dear.

"Now what am I going to do?" Hermione wondered.

"That is your problem. But we've got to go, we're going to be late," Ron informed her.

Just as we reached the end of the corridor, Hermione caught up to us.

"I'm coming with you," Hermione told us. Ron's eyes widened and he looked over at Harry and I.

"You are not," Ron argued.

"Do you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all four of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you and you can back me up," Hermione rambled.

"Honestly, Hermione. I don't think Filch would care. Any reason to get a student in trouble and he'd take it," I said.

"Yeah, but if you guys backed me up--" Hermione began.

"You've got some nerve--" Ron interrupted loudly.

"Shut up, all three of you!" Harry shushed us. "I heard something."

We all went quiet and listened in. Every now and then, we could hear some sort of sniffling.

"Mrs Norris?" Ron asked quietly.