‘What did you do?’ said Hermione, looking anxious. ‘Did you get any work done?’
‘No,’ said Harry. ‘Lupin made me a cup of tea in his office. And then Snape came in …’
He told them all about the goblet. Ron’s mouth fell open.
‘Lupin drank it?’ he gasped. ‘Is he mad?’
Hermione checked her watch.
‘We’d better go down, you know, the feast’ll be starting in five minutes …’ They hurried through the portrait hole and into the crowd, still discussing Snape.
‘But if he – you know –’ Hermione dropped her voice, glancing nervously around, ‘if he was trying to – to poison Lupin – he wouldn’t have done it in front of Harry.’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ said Harry, as they reached the Entrance Hall and crossed into the Great Hall. It had been decorated with hundreds and hundreds of candle-filled pumpkins, a cloud of fluttering live bats and many flaming orange streamers, which were swimming lazily across the stormy ceiling like brilliant watersnakes.
The food was delicious; even Hermione and Ron, who were full to bursting with Honeydukes sweets, managed second helpings of everything. Harry kept glancing at the staff table. Professor Lupin looked cheerful and as well as he ever did; he was talking animatedly to tiny little Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher. Harry moved his eyes along the table, to the place where Snape sat. Was he imagining it, or were Snape’s eyes flickering towards Lupin more often than was natural?
The feast finished with an entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts. They popped out of the walls and tables to do a spot of formation gliding; Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, had a great success with a re-enactment of his own botched beheading.
It had been such a good evening that Harry’s good mood couldn’t even be spoiled by Malfoy, who shouted through the crowd as they all left the Hall, ‘The Dementors send their love, Potter!’
Harry, Ron and Hermione followed the rest of the Gryffindors along the usual path to Gryffindor Tower, but when they reached the corridor which ended with the portrait of the Fat Lady, they found it jammed with students.
‘Why isn’t anyone going in?’ said Ron curiously.
Harry peered over the heads in front of him. The portrait seemed to be closed.
‘Let me through, please,’ came Percy’s voice, and he came bustling importantly through the crowd. ‘What’s the hold-up here? You can’t all have forgotten the password – excuse me, I’m Head Boy –’
And then a silence fell over the crowd, from the front first, so that a chill seemed to spread down the corridor. They heard Percy say, in a suddenly sharp voice, ‘Somebody get Professor Dumbledore. Quick.’
People’s heads turned; those at the back were standing on tiptoe.
‘What’s going on?’ said Ginny, who had just arrived.
Next moment, Professor Dumbledore was there, sweeping towards the portrait; the Gryffindors squeezed together to let him through, and Harry, Ron and Hermione moved closer to see what the trouble was.
‘Oh, my –’ Hermione exclaimed and grabbed Harry’s arm.
The Fat Lady had vanished from her portrait, which had been slashed so viciously that strips of canvas littered the floor; great chunks of it had been torn away completely.
Dumbledore took one quick look at the ruined painting and turned, his eyes sombre, to see Professors McGonagall, Lupin and Snape hurrying towards him.
‘We need to find her,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr Filch at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady.’
‘You’ll be lucky!’ said a cackling voice.
It was Peeves the poltergeist, bobbing over the crowd and looking delighted, as he always did, at the sight of wreckage or worry.
‘What do you mean, Peeves?’ said Dumbledore calmly, and Peeves’s grin faded a little. He didn’t dare taunt Dumbledore. Instead he adopted an oily voice that was no better than his cackle.
‘Ashamed, Your Headship, sir. Doesn’t want to be seen. She’s a horrible mess. Saw her running through the landscape up on the fourth floor, sir, dodging between the trees. Crying something dreadful,’ he said happily. ‘Poor thing,’ he added, unconvincingly.
‘Did she say who did it?’ said Dumbledore quietly.
‘Oh, yes, Professorhead,’ said Peeves, with the air of one cradling a large bombshell in his arms. ‘He got very angry when she wouldn’t let him in, you see.’ Peeves flipped over, and grinned at Dumbledore from between his own legs. ‘Nasty temper he’s got, that Sirius Black.’
– CHAPTER NINE –
Grim Defeat
Professor Dumbledore sent all the Gryffindors back to the Great Hall, where they were joined ten minutes later by the students from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin, who all looked extremely confused.
‘The teachers and I need to conduct a thorough search of the castle,’ Professor Dumbledore told them as Professors McGonagall and Flitwick closed all doors into the Hall. ‘I’m afraid that, for your own safety, you will have to spend the night here. I want the Prefects to stand guard over the entrances to the Hall and I am leaving the Head Boy and Girl in charge. Any disturbance should be reported to me immediately,’ he added to Percy, who was looking immensely proud and important. ‘Send word with one of the ghosts.’
Professor Dumbledore paused, about to the leave the Hall, and said, ‘Oh, yes, you’ll be needing …’
One casual wave of his wand and the long tables flew to the edges of the Hall and stood themselves against the walls; another wave, and the floor was covered with hundreds of squashy purple sleeping bags.
‘Sleep well,’ said Professor Dumbledore, closing the door behind him.
The Hall immediately began to buzz excitedly; the Gryffindors were telling the rest of the school what had just happened.
‘Everyone into their sleeping bags!’ shouted Percy. ‘Come on now, no more talking! Lights out in ten minutes!’
‘C’mon,’ Ron said to Harry and Hermione; they seized three sleeping bags and dragged them into a corner.
‘Do you think Black’s still in the castle?’ Hermione whispered anxiously.
‘Dumbledore obviously thinks he might be,’ said Ron.
‘It’s very lucky he picked tonight, you know,’ said Hermione, as they climbed fully dressed into their sleeping bags and propped themselves on their elbows to talk. ‘The one night we weren’t in the Tower …’
‘I reckon he’s lost track of time, being on the run,’ said Ron. ‘Didn’t realise it was Hallowe’en. Otherwise he’d have come bursting in here.’
Hermione shuddered.
All around them, people were asking each other the same question: ‘How did he get in?’
‘Maybe he knows how to Apparate,’ said a Ravenclaw a few feet away. ‘Just appear out of thin air, you know.’
‘Disguised himself, probably,’ said a Hufflepuff fifth-year.
‘He could’ve flown in,’ suggested Dean Thomas.
‘Honestly, am I the only person who’s ever bothered to read Hogwarts, A History?’ said Hermione crossly to Harry and Ron.
‘Probably,’ said Ron. ‘Why?’
‘Because the castle’s protected by more than walls, you know,’ said Hermione. ‘There are all sorts of enchantments on it, to stop people entering by stealth. You can’t just Apparate in here. And I’d like to see the disguise that could fool those Dementors. They’re guarding every single entrance to the grounds. They’d have seen him fly in, too. And Filch knows all the secret passages, they’ll have them covered …’
‘The lights are going out now!’ Percy shouted. ‘I want everyone in their sleeping bags and no more talking!’
The candles all went out at once. The only light now came from the silvery ghosts, who were drifting about talking seriously to the Prefects, and the enchanted ceiling, which, like the sky outside, was scattered with stars. What with that, and the whispering that still filled the Hall, Harry felt as
though he was sleeping out of doors in a light wind.
Once every hour, a teacher would reappear in the Hall to check that everything was quiet. Around three in the morning, when many students had finally fallen asleep, Professor Dumbledore came in. Harry watched him looking around for Percy, who had been prowling between the sleeping bags, telling people off for talking. Percy was only a short way away from Harry, Ron and Hermione, who quickly pretended to be asleep as Dumbledore’s footsteps drew nearer.
‘Any sign of him, Professor?’ asked Percy in a whisper.
‘No. All well here?’
‘Everything under control, sir.’
‘Good. There’s no point moving them all now. I’ve found a temporary guardian for the Gryffindor portrait hole. You’ll be able to move them back in tomorrow.’
‘And the Fat Lady, sir?’
‘Hiding in a map of Argyllshire on the second floor. Apparently she refused to let Black in without the password, so he attacked. She’s still very distressed, but once she’s calmed down, I’ll have Mr Filch restore her.’
Harry heard the door of the Hall creak open again, and more footsteps.
‘Headmaster?’ It was Snape. Harry kept quite still, listening hard. ‘The whole of the third floor has been searched. He’s not there. And Filch has done the dungeons; nothing there, either.’
‘What about the Astronomy Tower? Professor Trelawney’s room? The Owlery?’
‘All searched …’
‘Very well, Severus. I didn’t really expect Black to linger.’
‘Have you any theory as to how he got in, Professor?’ asked Snape.
Harry raised his head very slightly off his arms to free his other ear.
‘Many, Severus, each of them as unlikely as the next.’
Harry opened his eyes a fraction and squinted up to where they stood; Dumbledore’s back was to him, but he could see Percy’s face, rapt with attention, and Snape’s profile, which looked angry.
‘You remember the conversation we had, Headmaster, just before – ah – the start of term?’ said Snape, who was barely opening his lips, as though trying to block Percy out of the conversation.
‘I do, Severus,’ said Dumbledore, and there was something like warning in his voice.
‘It seems – almost impossible – that Black could have entered the school without inside help. I did express my concerns when you appointed –’
‘I do not believe a single person inside this castle would have helped Black enter it,’ said Dumbledore, and his tone made it so clear that the subject was closed that Snape didn’t reply. ‘I must go down to the Dementors,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I said I would inform them when our search was complete.’
‘Didn’t they want to help, sir?’ said Percy.
‘Oh yes,’ said Dumbledore coldly. ‘But I’m afraid no Dementor will cross the threshold of this castle while I am Headmaster.’
Percy looked slightly abashed. Dumbledore left the Hall, walking quickly and quietly. Snape stood for a moment, watching the Headmaster with an expression of deep resentment on his face, then he, too, left.
Harry glanced sideways at Ron and Hermione. Both of them had their eyes open, too, reflecting the starry ceiling.
‘What was all that about?’ Ron mouthed.
*
The school talked of nothing but Sirius Black for the next few days. The theories about how he had entered the castle became wilder and wilder; Hannah Abbott, from Hufflepuff, spent much of their next Herbology class telling anyone who’d listen that Black could turn into a flowering shrub.
The Fat Lady’s ripped canvas had been taken off the wall and replaced with the portrait of Sir Cadogan and his fat grey pony. Nobody was very happy about this. Sir Cadogan spent half his time challenging people to duels, and the rest thinking up ridiculously complicated passwords, which he changed at least twice a day.
‘He’s barking mad,’ said Seamus Finnigan angrily to Percy. ‘Can’t we get anyone else?’
‘None of the other pictures wanted the job,’ said Percy. ‘Frightened of what happened to the Fat Lady. Sir Cadogan was the only one brave enough to volunteer.’
Sir Cadogan, however, was the least of Harry’s worries. He was now being closely watched. Teachers found excuses to walk along corridors with him and Percy Weasley (acting, Harry suspected, on his mother’s orders) was tailing him everywhere like an extremely pompous guard dog. To cap it all, Professor McGonagall summoned Harry into her office, with such a sombre expression on her face Harry thought someone must have died.
‘There’s no point hiding it from you any longer, Potter,’ she said, in a very serious voice. ‘I know this will come as a shock to you, but Sirius Black –’
‘I know he’s after me,’ said Harry wearily. ‘I heard Ron’s dad telling his mum. Mr Weasley works for the Ministry of Magic.’
Professor McGonagall seemed very taken aback. She stared at Harry for a moment or two, then said, ‘I see! Well, in that case, Potter, you’ll understand why I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be practising Quidditch in the evenings. Out on the pitch with only your team members, it’s very exposed, Potter –’
‘We’ve got our first match on Saturday!’ said Harry, outraged. ‘I’ve got to train, Professor!’
Professor McGonagall considered him intently. Harry knew she was deeply interested in the Gryffindor team’s prospects; it had been she, after all, who’d suggested him as Seeker in the first place. He waited, holding his breath.
‘Hmm …’ Professor McGonagall stood up and stared out of the window at the Quidditch pitch, just visible through the rain. ‘Well … goodness knows, I’d like to see us win the Cup at last … but all the same, Potter … I’d be happier if a teacher were present. I’ll ask Madam Hooch to oversee your training sessions.’
*
The weather worsened steadily as the first Quidditch match drew nearer. Undaunted, the Gryffindor team were training harder than ever under the eye of Madam Hooch. Then, at their final training session before Saturday’s match, Oliver Wood gave his team some unwelcome news.
‘We’re not playing Slytherin!’ he told them, looking very angry. ‘Flint’s just been to see me. We’re playing Hufflepuff instead.’
‘Why?’ chorused the rest of the team.
‘Flint’s excuse is that their Seeker’s arm’s still injured,’ said Wood, grinding his teeth furiously. ‘But it’s obvious why they’re doing it. Don’t want to play in this weather. Think it’ll damage their chances …’
There had been strong winds and heavy rain all day, and as Wood spoke, they heard a distant rumble of thunder.
‘There’s nothing wrong with Malfoy’s arm!’ said Harry furiously. ‘He’s faking it!’
‘I know that, but we can’t prove it,’ said Wood bitterly. ‘And we’ve been practising all those moves assuming we’re playing Slytherin, and instead it’s Hufflepuff, and their style’s quite different. They’ve got a new captain and Seeker, Cedric Diggory –’
Angelina, Alicia and Katie suddenly giggled.
‘What?’ said Wood, frowning at this light-hearted behaviour.
‘He’s that tall, good-looking one, isn’t he?’ said Angelina.
‘Strong and silent,’ said Katie, and they started to giggle again.
‘He’s only silent because he’s too thick to string two words together,’ said Fred impatiently. ‘I don’t know why you’re worried, Oliver, Hufflepuff are a pushover. Last time we played them, Harry caught the Snitch in about five minutes, remember?’
‘We were playing in completely different conditions!’ Wood shouted, his eyes bulging slightly. ‘Diggory’s put a very strong side together! He’s an excellent Seeker! I was afraid you’d take it like this! We mustn’t relax! We must keep our focus! Slytherin are trying to wrong-foot us! We must win!’
‘Oliver, calm down!’ said Fred, looking slightly alarmed. ‘We’re taking Hufflepuff very seriously. Seriously.’
*
The d
ay before the match, the winds reached howling point and the rain fell harder than ever. It was so dark inside the corridors and classrooms that extra torches and lanterns were lit. The Slytherin team were looking very smug indeed, and none more so than Malfoy.
‘Ah, if only my arm was feeling a bit better!’ he sighed, as the gale outside pounded the windows.
Harry had no room in his head to worry about anything except the match next day. Oliver Wood kept hurrying up to him between classes and giving him tips. The third time this happened, Wood talked for so long that Harry suddenly realised he was ten minutes late for Defence Against the Dark Arts, and set off at a run with Wood shouting after him, ‘Diggory’s got a very fast swerve, Harry, so you might want to try looping him –’
Harry skidded to a halt outside the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, pulled the door open and dashed inside.
‘Sorry I’m late, Professor Lupin, I –’
But it wasn’t Professor Lupin who looked up at him from the teacher’s desk; it was Snape.
‘This lesson began ten minutes ago, Potter, so I think we’ll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Sit down.’
But Harry didn’t move.
‘Where’s Professor Lupin?’ he said.
‘He says he is feeling too ill to teach today,’ said Snape with a twisted smile. ‘I believe I told you to sit down?’
But Harry stayed where he was.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
Snape’s black eyes glittered.
‘Nothing life-threatening,’ he said, looking as though he wished it was. ‘Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask you to sit down again, it will be fifty.’
Harry walked slowly to his seat and sat down. Snape looked around at the class.
‘As I was saying before Potter interrupted, Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far –’
‘Please, sir, we’ve done Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas and Grindylows,’ said Hermione quickly, ‘and we’re just about to start –’
‘Be quiet,’ said Snape coldly. ‘I did not ask for information. I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin’s lack of organisation.’
The Prisoner of Azkaban Page 14
