In Between Two Worlds (HP/PJO Crossover)

Chapter 38: The Forbidden Forest.

Things couldn't have been worse.

Filch took us down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where we sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Hermione was trembling. Excuses, alibis, and wild cover- up stories chased each other around in my brain, each more feeble than the last. I couldn't see how we were going to get out of trouble this time. We were cornered. How could we have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for their being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and we might as well be packing their bags already.

I thought that things couldn't have been worse? I was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville.

"Karlee!" Neville burst Out, the moment he saw the four of us. "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 to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the five of us.

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

It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She was staring at her slippers, as still as a statue. I was shocked, but after the time when she lied about the troll, i was learning to expect the unexpected from her.

"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work 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?"

I caught Neville's eye and tried to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville-- I knew what it must have cost him to try and find them in the dark, to warn them.

"I'm disgusted," said Professor McGonagall. "Six students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger and Miss Lupin, I thought you had more sense. As for you, Mr. Potter and Miss Gray, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All five 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."

"Fifty?" Harry and I gasped -- we would lose the lead, the lead we'd won in the last Quidditch match.

"Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.

"Professor -- please!" Bailey begged.

"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."

Two hundred and fifty points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, we'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the house cup. I felt as though the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. How could we ever make up for this?

<<>>|<<>>|<<>>

At first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the house points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could they suddenly have two hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday? And then the story started to spread: Harry Potter and Karlee Gray, the famous Harry Potter and Karlee Gray, their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lo st them all those points, them and a couple of other stupid first years.