Secrets Only Trouble Knows - George Weasley

08 - Surprise, Surprise

The next morning, Malfoy was astonished to see us all sitting at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, detention-less. But we paid him and his nasty glares from across the room no mind, for we had bigger things to discuss.

As agreed, we went over everything that happened the night before and filled in our other friends about it in the process. We talked about being stood up, our run-in with Filch, Neville's fall, the stand-off with Peeves, and being split up. When I mentioned George and me having to hide together in the broom closet, I felt Adrian stiffen next to me. I could tell he didn't much like that piece of information, being so protective and worried about me. But he seemed to relax and forget about it when the three-headed dog was eventually brought up.

Unsurprisingly, the other boys wanted to get a glimpse at the beast. But we refused to tell them where the door to it was located so that they wouldn't go snooping and get themselves torn to shreds.

That segued us into a conversation about what Hermione had noticed underneath the dog and what the implications of that were, to which Harry told us he knew something that might be useful to us in figuring out what was going on in the shadows here at Hogwarts.

When Hagrid had picked him up from his aunt and uncle's house at the end of the summer to take him to Diagon Alley, they had to stop at Gringotts Wizarding Bank on the way to retrieve something important from a special vault. Harry, of course being curious, asked what it was. But Hagrid only told him it was "Hogwarts business" and that whatever was in the vault was specifically for Dumbledore. Harry later learned that apparently, on that very same day, someone tried to break into that exact vault after them, but had been unsuccessful in stealing whatever it contained since the item had already been withdrawn by Hagrid.

"Well, then that's got to be what the dog is hiding," I determined upon hearing this. "It only makes the most sense."

"She's right," Isla agreed, taking a bite of her toast. "Whatever it is is clearly very valuable if someone unknown was trying to break in and steal it."

"Right, valuable. Or it could be dangerous," offered Flora.

"Powerful," agreed Adrian.

"Don't forget it also has to be small," Fred reminded us.

"Harry said it was only about two inches long," George added.

"What could be that small, but really important?" Callie asked.

The rest of us shrugged our shoulders, at a loss. We had no idea what it was, but we'd be damned if we didn't figure it out.

"We need further clues," said Harry. "I think we should all split up and do some digging over the coming weeks— see if we find anything about what it could be."

"I'm in," I nodded.

"If Hogwarts is doing something shady, I want to know what it is," Kol concurred.

Everyone else was in assent too. Except for Neville and Hermione, it seemed. They sat nearby us, listening in, but couldn't care less about getting to the bottom of all of this. Neville kept saying repeatedly throughout our conversation that he never wanted to go near the dog or whatever it was protecting ever again. Hermione was simply just ignoring us all and refusing to offer any suggestions, still silently fuming from our "carelessness" the night before, as she put it. We didn't mind, though— the less who involved themselves in this mess, probably the better.

The discussion ended there when the owls suddenly flooded into the Great Hall with the daily mail. Though there had to be at least a hundred of them in total flying around, everyone's attention seemed to be focused on six large owls that were carrying a very long and thin parcel. It was rare to see such a big package be delivered, and thus everyone gasped with even more astonishment when it was dropped with a heavy clunk right in front of Harry.