The Girl Who Found Hope [2]

Year 3 - 32

Everyone had been sleeping in the Gryffindor dorm rooms, when they were awoken by a boy's scream. Harry bolted up and whipped his head around to face Ron. Ron's face was pale and he was shaking.

"What's going on?" Harry asked his friend.

"Black! Sirius Black! With a knife!" Ron replied.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Here! Just now! Slashed the curtains! Woke me up!" Ron exclaimed, gesturing to the torn curtains. Harry climbed up and rushed down into the common room, seeing if he could get a glimpse of Sirius Black. But there was no one there, and all that could be seen was the mess left around the common room from the party they had that night.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?" Harry asked his friend, who had come behind him.

"I'm telling you, I saw him!" Ron exclaimed.

"What's all the noise?" Percy asked, coming down the stairs with other Gryffindors. "McGonagall told us to go to bed."

"Excellent, are we carrying on?" Fred asked.

"Everyone, back upstairs!" Percy ordered, no one listened to the Head Boy.

"Perce- Sirius Black!" Ron told his brother. "In our dormitory with a knife! He woke me up!" Everyone in the common room went silent.

"Nonsense. You must have eaten too much, had a nightmare." Percy assured his brother.

"No, I'm telling you-" Ron started, but was interrupted by another voice.

"Now, really. Enough's enough." Professor McGonagall said coming through the portrait hole. "I am delighted that you wanted to celebrate the brilliant match from earlier, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better!"

"I certainly didn't authorise this, Professor." Percy replied. "I was just telling them all to go to bed! My brother, Ron, here had a nightmare-"

"IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!" Ron shouted in defence. He then turned to the Professor "PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!"

"Nonsense, Mr Weasley. How could he have possibly got through the portrait hole?" The Professor asked him. Ron looked through the paintings and saw the one containing Sir Cadogan- who replaced the Fat Lady- and pointed at him.

"Ask him!" Ron said. The Professor looked to Ron and sighed. She didn't believe that it had happened, but she knew she needed to put their thoughts to rest. She turned to the painting, where the knight in question was flirting with a woman.

"Sir Cadogan? Sir Cadogan?" She called to the man.

"Oh, how may I serve you, ma'am?" He asked, but then proceeded to take a bunch of flowers from the next-door painting and hand it to the woman.

"Excuse me, is it possible that you let a mysterious man into Gryffindor tower tonight?" The Professor asked.

"Certainly, ma'am." He replied. Professor McGonagall looked stunned, as were the children in the common room.

"B-But what about the password?" She asked.

"He had it, my good lady, he had the whole week's in fact, on a little piece of paper." The knight replied.

"Which abysmally foolish person wrote down the week's passwords and then proceeded to lose them?" The Professor asked the group. Neville slowly raised his hand. The Professor turned to him.

"Is it always going to be you?" She asked him. She put a hand on his shoulder, seeing the guilt written all over his face. "Well, Sirius Black is gone tonight. I think you can all safely assume that he will at some future time attempt to return. Now, I speak for the entire staff when I say, while we take every precaution to ensure your safety, it is incumbent upon yourselves to act responsibly. Understood?" She asked.