Not many people knew about the small girl that lived in the cupboard under the stairs. Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon liked it that way.
Harriet Euphemia Potter had incredibly messy hair and bright green eyes. The only thing she liked about her appe...
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It was Hermione Granger, wearing a pink dressing-gown and a frown.
"You!" said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"
"I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped. "Percy—he's a Prefect, he'd put a stop to this."
Harriet couldn't believe anyone could be so interfering.
"Come on," she said to Ron. He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.
Hermione wasn't going to give up that easily. She followed Ron through the portrait hole, hissing at them like an angry goose.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor, 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."
"Go away."
"All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so—"
But what they were, they didn't find out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to get back inside and found herself facing an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone on a night-time visit and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.
"Now what am I going to do?" she asked shrilly.
"That's your problem," said Ron. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."
They hadn't even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them.
"I'm coming with you," she said.
"You are not."
"D'you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you and you can back me up."
"You've got some nerve—" said Ron loudly.
"Shut up, both of you!" said Harriet sharply. "I heard something."
It was a sort of snuffling.
"Mrs Norris?" breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.
It wasn't Mrs Norris. It was Neville. He was curled up on the floor, fast asleep, but he jerked suddenly awake as they crept nearer.
"Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours. I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."
"Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."
"How's your arm?" said Harriet.
"Fine," said Neville, showing them. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in about a minute."
