Chapter 50
Hermione and Harry were escorted by Filch up to Professor McGonagall's study on the second floor. Malfoy was brought in as well; his face looked every bit as miserable as Harry's, as though he too had been caught breaking curfew.
Hermione's expression remained grim throughout. Harry kept turning over in his mind what excuse they could possibly give Professor McGonagall.
They could hardly admit that Hagrid and Gray had been keeping a dragon.
But what other believable story could they invent? Wandering the corridors at night was forbidden to begin with—and they had climbed all the way up to the Astronomy Tower, a place strictly off-limits after dark.
At least the matter of Norbert hadn't been discovered by Filch. Malfoy wouldn't dare mention it either; he was far too frightened of Gray to risk provoking him. Things were bad, but they could have been worse.
Professor McGonagall arrived shortly afterwards.
"Merlin's beard," she exclaimed, "I can scarcely believe what Filch has told me. The pair of you! At one o'clock in the morning! On the Astronomy Tower!"
Her eyes blazed behind her square spectacles.
"I have never heard of such a thing in all my years at Hogwarts. Have you nothing to say for yourselves?"
Harry and Hermione remained silent. What could they say? What excuse would hold up under scrutiny?
Seeing their muteness, Professor McGonagall glared at them once more before turning her attention to Malfoy.
"And you, Mr Malfoy? What exactly were you doing out of bed at this hour?"
"Oh, Professor McGonagall," Filch interjected eagerly, "it was Malfoy here who caught these two rule-breakers. He'd overheard them planning to sneak out and came straight to me to report it."
Professor McGonagall's face seemed to freeze over. She regarded Malfoy for a long moment, drew two slow, deep breaths, then spoke.
"Well done, Mr Malfoy. I shall inform Professor Snape of your commendable behaviour; I have no doubt he will award points to Slytherin accordingly."
"Now kindly return to your dormitory and go to bed."
Her tone was perfectly level, yet it was obvious she was far from pleased.
Malfoy left without a word, his face ashen. There was no trace of triumph at having landed Harry in trouble. As the night air swept past him in the corridor, he gave an involuntary shiver—clearly remembering the terrifying sensation of being dangled high above the castle grounds by Gray. His pallor deepened until he looked almost as pale as a ghost.
"Now," said Professor McGonagall, turning back to Harry and Hermione, her voice sharp with anger, "as for the two of you. Roaming the castle in the small hours is utterly unacceptable. I will not make exceptions. Gryffindor will lose points."
She surveyed them both as they stared at her in mounting dread.
"Fifty points," she announced, "from each of you. Fifty each. And detention—again. I trust this will teach you both a lesson you will not soon forget."
"Oh no, Professor, please—" Harry begged.
A hundred points deducted would wipe out Gryffindor's lead. All the effort of the last two Quidditch victories would be for nothing.
"That will do," McGonagall said firmly. "Now return to your dormitory at once—and I expect to find you both in your beds every night from now on."
She ushered them out.
Harry barely remembered the walk back to Gryffindor Tower or how he ended up in bed. Sleep refused to come. All he could think about was tomorrow—how the rest of Gryffindor would look at him once they learned that he and Hermione had cost the house a hundred points.
He lay awake worrying until exhaustion finally dragged him under.
The reality, when morning came, was both worse and somehow less terrible than he had feared.
Gryffindors did indeed treat Harry and Hermione differently. Wherever they went, faces turned cold; conversations hushed or stopped altogether when they approached.
But that was the extent of it. No one burst into tears. No one challenged Harry to a duel or tried to hex him in the corridors.
At breakfast, in the almost deserted stretch of the Gryffindor table where only Gray, Hermione, Ron and Harry sat, Gray spoke first.
"This is on me," he said quietly. "I never imagined Malfoy would go running to Filch. After that little airborne lesson I gave him, I thought he'd steer well clear of anything involving Norbert."
Gray had only learned what happened when he woke that morning. After helping bury the unicorn carcass the previous night, he had gone straight to bed and hadn't noticed Harry's absence.
In his view, the plan had been solid. Malfoy should have wanted nothing more to do with the dragon business after being dangled off the Astronomy Tower.
Who could have predicted he would be foolish enough to try sidestepping both Gray and Hermione by targeting Harry instead? It was like reaching into a dragon's mouth for a single gold coin.
"No, Gray," Harry said miserably, "it's my fault. I left the Invisibility Cloak up on the Astronomy Tower. If I hadn't forgotten it, Filch and Malfoy would never have caught us."
He didn't regret helping send Norbert away—he would do it again in a heartbeat—but the thought of losing the cloak still stung.
"Don't beat yourself up too much," Ron said through a mouthful of pork chop. "Give it a few weeks and everyone will have forgotten all about it. Look at Fred and George—they pull pranks that make people furious, but a couple of days later everyone's laughing again and walking straight into the next one."
"They've never got the house a hundred points docked at once, though, have they?" Harry asked.
"Well… no," Ron admitted, scratching his head and leaving a smear of grease in his hair.
Hermione, meanwhile, had spent the entire morning lost in her own thoughts. She held a neatly cut piece of lamb chop suspended halfway to her mouth, muttering under her breath.
Gray snapped his fingers in front of her face.
She startled. "Oh—sorry." She popped the chop into her mouth at last.
After swallowing, she spoke.
"This term I've answered questions correctly in class thirty-two times. Six of those earned five points each. Twice I received three points for particularly good homework. And I gained another ten for helping Professor McGonagall organise revision materials. That comes to forty-six points altogether."
She looked around at them, suddenly brisk and determined.
"I'm not saying I earned those points just so they could be taken away. I'm saying it isn't hopeless. We simply need to earn them back."
Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. Harry ran a hand through his hair, and for the first time that morning the knot in his chest loosened a fraction.
After all, he had helped win quite a few points himself on the Quidditch pitch—not single-handedly, of course, but he had played his part.
Maybe, just maybe, Gryffindor could claw its way back to the top.
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