The Seeker

Harry had never expected to meet anyone he could hate more than Dudley. He had certainly never expected it to be a girl. Yet by the start of his second week at Hogwarts, Dracina Malfoy had overtaken Dudley with room to spare, and was drawing on every ounce of loathing an eleven-year-old boy had in him.

The one mercy was that he hardly had to see her. The Gryffindor first-years shared only Potions and History of Magic with the Slytherins, and in one of those lessons everybody was asleep and in the other nobody dared speak. Then, on Tuesday evening, Harry came down into the common room and found a knot of first-years round the notice board, and every one of them groaning.

Flying lessons were to begin on Thursday. That part was wonderful. Gryffindor would be learning alongside Slytherin. That part was dreadful.

'Typical,' said Harry darkly. 'Exactly what I wanted. To fall off a broomstick in front of Malfoy.'

He had been looking forward to flying more than anything else at Hogwarts. Now he could see precisely how it would go. He would wobble, or slide off the end, or fly into a wall, and that prissy, haughty girl would be there to see it, with her nose in the air and some remark ready, and Crabbe and Goyle sniggering on cue.

'You don't know you'll fall off,' said Ron sensibly. 'Anyway, Malfoy's forever going on about how brilliant she is at Quidditch, and I bet it's all talk.'

Malfoy certainly talked about flying a great deal. She complained loudly, within Harry's hearing, that first-years were never picked for the house teams, and she, in particular, was never picked, which was a disgrace. She told long, boastful stories that always ended with her narrowly outflying a Muggle in a helicopter whilst stupid and adoring muggles with their giant muggle cameras begged her for interviews. She was far from the only one. To hear Seamus Finnigan tell it, he had spent his entire childhood zooming over the Irish countryside on a broomstick being chased by leprechauns who's gold he'd stolen, and even Ron would tell anybody who stood still long enough about the time he had almost hit a hang-glider on Charlie's old Shooting Star.

Everybody who came from a wizarding family talked about Quidditch all the time. They were mad for it the same way the normal people, sorry, the Muggles were about Football. Ron had already had a serious row with Dean Thomas, who shared their dormitory, over football. Ron could not see the attraction of a game with only one ball in which nobody was allowed to fly. Harry had caught him poking at Dean's poster of the West Ham team, trying to make the players move.

'They don't even look hard, Dean,' Ron had said. 'A Chudley Cannons Beater would batter that bloke with the ball.'

Harry did not know what a Beater was, so he took Ron's word for it.

Neville had never sat on a broomstick in his life, because his gran had never let him. From the little Harry had seen of Neville, he suspected there were a great many things his gran had never let him do, and he felt rather sorry for him. Then again, Neville had already fallen down two staircases and set fire to his own sleeve in Herbology, and Harry thought his gran might have a point.

Hermione Granger was nearly as nervous about flying as Neville. This was something you could not learn off by heart from a book, though she had tried. At breakfast on Thursday she bored the whole table rigid with tips she had found in a library book called Quidditch Through the Ages. Neville hung on every word, hoping for anything at all that might keep him on his broom that afternoon, but everybody else was glad when the post came in and cut her off.

Harry had not had a single letter since Hagrid's note, which Malfoy had of course been quick to notice. Malfoy's eagle owl was forever bringing her parcels of sweets from home, and she unwrapped them at the Slytherin table with a great deal of noise, looking over at Gryffindor as she did it. Announcing every sweet like she'd just been given a gift by a handsome prince. She kept staring at Harry whilst she did it. Like she always did.

A barn owl brought Neville a small package from his grandmother. He tore it open, bouncing in his seat in a way that made Harry nervous for the milk jug, and held up a glass ball the size of a large marble. White smoke swirled inside it.

'It's a Remembrall!' said Neville. 'Gran knows I forget things. It tells you if you've forgotten something. You hold it tight, like this, and if it goes red... oh.'

His face fell. The Remembrall had flushed a bright scarlet.

'... you've forgotten something.'

Neville was still trying to work out what it was that he had forgotten when Dracina Malfoy, passing along the Gryffindor table, reached over his shoulder and plucked the Remembrall out of his hand.

Harry and Ron were on their feet at once. They had both been hoping for an excuse to fight, and Ron said, loudly,

'I got no objection whatsoever to punching a girl in the face.' He had got no further than that when Professor McGonagall, who could smell trouble from the far end of the Hall, was standing over them.

'What is going on here?'

'Malfoy's got my Remembrall, Professor.'

Scowling, Malfoy dropped the ball back on the table.

'Only looking,' she said. She snapped her fingers, and Crabbe and Goyle fell in behind her, and as she sloped off she stuck her tongue out at Harry over her shoulder.

What a nasty piece of work she was, Harry thought.

At half past three that afternoon, Harry, Ron and the rest of the Gryffindors hurried down the front steps and out into the grounds. It was a clear, blowy day. The grass rippled under their feet as they crossed the sloping lawns to a flat stretch on the far side of the grounds from the Forbidden Forest, whose trees swayed darkly in the distance.

The Slytherins were there before them, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat rows on the ground. Harry had heard Fred and George complaining about the school brooms, which were said to vibrate if you flew too high, or to pull steadily to the left, or in one or two cases to blow up without warning. He had a feeling that last part had been put in to frighten Ron and himself, and he was determined to ignore all of it, Malfoy included.

Their teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. She had short grey hair and the yellow eyes of a hawk.

'Well, what are you waiting for?' she barked. 'A broomstick each. Stand beside it. Quickly, now.'

Harry looked down at his. It was old, and several of the twigs stuck out at odd angles.

'Right hand out over your broom,' called Madam Hooch, 'and say, "Up!"'

'UP!' shouted everybody.

Harry's broom leapt straight into his hand, and the surprise of it was so pleasant that he nearly laughed out loud. His was one of the very few that did. Hermione's rolled over once on the grass and lay still, and Neville's did not stir at all. Perhaps brooms were like horses, Harry thought, and could tell when you were frightened; there was a wobble in Neville's voice that said plainly he would rather have stayed indoors. Harry, for his part, could hardly believe it. For the first time since he had arrived at Hogwarts, here was a lesson in magic that seemed to want him in it.

Madam Hooch showed them how to mount without sliding off the end, and went up and down the rows correcting their grips. Malfoy wore the same smug expression she had worn when Snape praised her slugs, right up until Madam Hooch told her that she had been holding her broom wrong for years. Harry and Ron enjoyed that very much. Malfoy folded her arms and pouted.

'When I blow my whistle,' said Madam Hooch, 'kick off from the ground. Hard. Keep the broom steady, rise a few feet, and come straight back down by leaning forward a little. On my whistle. Three... two...'

Neville, nervous, twitchy, and terrified of being left behind on the ground, pushed off before the whistle had reached her lips.

'Come back, boy!' she shouted, but Neville was going straight up like a cork out of a bottle. Twelve feet. Twenty. Harry saw his white, frightened face look down at the ground falling away beneath him, saw him gasp and slide sideways off the broom, and then there was a thud and a horrible crack, and Neville lay face down in a heap on the grass. His broomstick went on climbing without him, and drifted lazily away towards the Forbidden Forest and out of sight.

Madam Hooch was bending over him, her face as white as his.

'Broken wrist,' Harry heard her mutter. 'Come on, boy. It's all right. Up you get.'

Malfoy was laughing. She was making no attempt to hide it, and she said something to Pansy Parkinson about the way Neville had gone over that made Pansy shriek.A nasty laugh that belonged on a horse

Madam Hooch straightened up and turned on the class.

'Nobody is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing. You will leave those brooms exactly where they are, or you will be out of this school before you can say the word broomstick. Come on, dear. And Miss Malfoy, you will stop that this instant or I shall have you in detention.'

Neville, his face streaked with tears and his wrist clutched to his chest, hobbled away with Madam Hooch's arm round his shoulders.

They were barely out of earshot before Malfoy was laughing again.

'Did you see his face? The great lump!'

The other Slytherins joined in.

'Shut up, Malfoy,' snapped Parvati Patil.

'Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom, are we?' said Pansy Parkinson, a hard-faced Slytherin girl. 'I never knew you went for fat little cry-babies, Parvati.'

'Look at this!' Malfoy had darted forward and snatched something out of the grass. 'It's that stupid thing Longbottom's gran sent him.'

The Remembrall caught the sun in her fingers.

'Give that here, Malfoy,' said Harry quietly. Yet again she was reminding him of Dudley. And Harry hated bullies.

Everybody stopped talking.

Malfoy smiled an unpleasant smile.

'I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find. Up a tree, perhaps?'

'Give it here!' Harry shouted, but Malfoy had thrown a leg over her broom and was gone. She had been telling the truth about one thing, at least. She could fly. She hung level with the top branches of an oak and called down, 'Come and get it, Potter!' and stuck her tongue out at him for good measure.

Harry's blood was up. He had had enough of her. He seized his broom.

'No!' cried Hermione. 'Madam Hooch said not to move! You'll get us all in trouble!'

Harry did not hear her. There was a roaring in his ears. He could not stand one more snigger, one more lift of that nose. He was going to get Neville's Remembrall back, and he was going to take Dracina Malfoy down a peg while he was about it. He mounted the broom, kicked hard at the ground, and rose.

Up and up he went. The wind tore through his hair and his robes streamed out behind him, and a fierce joy burst through him as he realised that here, at last, was something he could do without being taught. It was easy. It was glorious. He pulled the handle up a little to climb higher and heard the gasps and shrieks of the girls below, and one admiring whoop that could only have been Ron.

He wheeled the broom round hard to face Malfoy in mid-air. She looked stunned.

'Give it here,' Harry called, 'or I'll knock you off that broom!'

'Oh, will you?' said Malfoy, trying for a sneer and getting nowhere near it. There was something strange in that tone an eleven year old boy wouldn't notice.

Harry knew what to do. He didn't know how he knew it. He leaned forward, gripped the broom in both hands, and it shot at Malfoy like a javelin. She swerved out of the way only just in time.

'Watch yourself, Potter!' she shrieked. 'You can't afford to damage me or my robes!'

Harry turned sharply and brought the broom to a dead stop in the air. Far below, people had started to clap.

'My father will be sending you the bill!' she screamed.

'No Crabbe and Goyle up here to look after you, Malfoy,' Harry called.

The same thought seemed to have struck her. For a moment the vicious bully had gone, and what sat on the broomstick in front of him was a frightened little girl. Harry softened slightly. Then the sneer came back and spoiled her face again.

'Catch it, then, if you're so clever!' she shouted. She flung the glass ball high into the air and dived away towards the ground.

Harry watched it go up as though time had slowed. It hung at the top of its arc, and began to fall. He leaned forward and pointed the broom handle at the ground, and a second later he was dropping in a steep dive, racing it down, the wind screaming past his ears and the shrieks from the lawn mixed in with it. He stretched out his hand. A foot from the grass his fingers closed on the ball, and he hauled the broom level just in time, and tumbled gently on to the turf with the Remembrall safe in his fist.

Malfoy had landed a little way off, and she was beside herself. Tantruming and screaming. She called him every name she could think of, and some that Harry suspected she had only ever heard through a door.

'My father will hear of this. How dare you. How dare you make a fool of me! Stupid pottyhead! You'll regret this!'

Harry had opened his mouth to answer with a few words of his own, the kind that would have made Dudley blush, when a voice cut across the lawn.

'HARRY POTTER!'

His heart dropped faster than he had just dived. Professor McGonagall was running towards them. He stood up, and found that he was shaking.

'Never, in all my years at this school...' Professor McGonagall was nearly beyond speech. Her glasses flashed. 'How dare you... you might have broken your neck...'

'It wasn't his fault, Professor...'

'That will do, Miss Patil.'

'But Malfoy...'

'Enough, Mr Weasley. Potter, with me. Now.'

As he went, Harry caught sight of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe and Goyle looked triumphant. Malfoy was cackling. She had got him into trouble at last, and the pleasure of it was all over her face.

He walked numbly in Professor McGonagall's wake as she swept towards the castle. He was going to be expelled. He knew it. This was what always happened to him. Whenever Dudley had bullied him, the teachers had taken Dudley's side, and whenever Harry had stood up for somebody else Dudley was bullying, it was Harry who ended up in trouble. Here it was again, exactly the same, in a castle instead of a playground. He wanted to say something in his own defence, but his voice had gone away and would not come back. Professor McGonagall did not so much as look at him. He had to jog to keep up.

He had done it now. He'd not lasted a fortnight. In ten minutes he would be packing his trunk. He imagined the look on Aunt Petunia's face when he turned up on the doorstep, and Uncle Vernon's voice saying that they had always known he would make a mess of it, since he made a mess of everything.

Up the front steps, up the marble staircase, and still she said nothing. She wrenched open doors and strode down corridors, Harry trotting wretchedly behind. Perhaps she was taking him to Dumbledore. He thought of Hagrid, expelled, kept on as gamekeeper. Perhaps he could be Hagrid's assistant. His stomach turned over at the picture of it: Ron and the others learning to be wizards, while Harry stumped round the grounds behind Hagrid, carrying the bag.

Professor McGonagall stopped at a classroom door, opened it, and put her head in.

'Forgive me, Professor Flitwick. Might I borrow Wood for a moment?'

Wood? thought Harry, bewildered. Was Wood something she meant to beat him with?

Wood turned out to be a person: a burly fifth-year who came out of the Charms classroom looking puzzled.

'Follow me, both of you,' said Professor McGonagall, and off they went again, Wood eyeing Harry with great curiosity.

'In here.'

The classroom she showed them into was empty apart from Peeves, who was writing rude words across the blackboard.

'Out, Peeves!'

Peeves flung his chalk into the bin with a clang and swooped out, swearing. Professor McGonagall shut the door on him and turned to face the two boys.

'Potter, this is Oliver Wood. Wood, I have found you a Seeker.'

Wood's face went from puzzlement to delight.

'You're serious, Professor?'

'Perfectly,' said Professor McGonagall crisply. 'The boy is a natural. I have never seen anything like it. Was that the first time you had ever been on a broomstick, Potter?'

Harry felt himself swell. He was being praised. Properly praised, by a teacher, in front of somebody. Nobody ever praised him. He nodded, and said nothing, for fear that a word from him might somehow spoil it. He had no idea what was happening, but he did not appear to be being expelled, and some feeling was beginning to creep back into his legs.

'He caught that thing in his hand after a fifty-foot dive,' Professor McGonagall told Wood. 'Didn't scratch himself. Charlie Weasley couldn't have done it.'

Wood looked like a boy whose every dream had come true in a single afternoon.

'Ever seen a Quidditch match, Potter?' he asked eagerly.

'Wood is captain of the Gryffindor team,' Professor McGonagall explained.

'He's the right build for a Seeker, too,' said Wood, walking round Harry and looking him up and down. 'Light. Quick. We'll need to get him a proper broom, Professor. A Nimbus Two Thousand, or a Cleansweep Seven, I'd say.'

'I shall speak to Professor Dumbledore about bending the first-year rule. Merlin knows we need a better side than last year's. Flattened by Slytherin in that final match, I couldn't look Severus Snape in the eye for weeks...'

She peered sternly at Harry over her spectacles.

'I want to hear that you are training hard, Potter, or I may yet change my mind about punishing you.'

Then, quite suddenly, she smiled.

'Your father would have been proud,' she said. 'He was a fine Quidditch player himself.'

'M-my father?' said Harry.

'Oh, yeah,' said Wood. 'His dad was brilliant. Er. So I've heard.'

Until Hagrid, all Harry had ever been told about his parents was that they were drunken layabouts who had got themselves killed in a car crash. He wanted very badly to ask more, but Professor McGonagall was already waving him towards the door.

'I can find you the old school paper reports of James Potter's matches, if you would like them, but Wood has a lesson to return to and so have you.'

She said it sternly, though there was something almost kind underneath. Then she dismissed him.

Harry walked back out to the flying lesson wearing a grin so smug that it would have made Malfoy's look cheap by comparison. He could hardly wait for that nasty little girl to find out.

'You're joking.'

It was dinner time. Harry had just finished telling Ron what had happened after Professor McGonagall marched him off the lawn. Ron had a forkful of steak-and-kidney pie halfway to his mouth, and had forgotten it entirely.

'Seeker?' he said. 'But first-years never... you must be the youngest house player in about...'

'A century,' said Harry, shovelling pie into himself at a speed only Ron could have matched. The afternoon had left him ravenous. 'Wood told me.'

Ron was too amazed and too impressed to do anything but gape at him.

'I start training next week,' said Harry. 'Only don't tell anybody. Wood wants to keep it quiet.'

Fred and George came into the Hall, saw Harry, and hurried over.

'Well done,' said George, keeping his voice down. 'Wood told us. We're on the team as well. Beaters.'

Fred and George were both tall and had broad shoulders. But certainly weren't as hard as Ron hyped Beaters up to be. Whatever they were.

'I'm telling you, we're winning that Cup this year,' said Fred. 'We haven't had it since Charlie left, but this side's going to be brilliant. You must be good, Harry. Wood was practically skipping.'

'Anyway, got to go. Lee Jordan reckons he's found a new secret passage out of the school.'

'Bet it's the one behind Gregory the Smarmy we found in our first week. See you.'

The twins had scarcely gone when somebody a good deal less welcome arrived in their place: Malfoy, with Crabbe and Goyle at either shoulder. She sauntered up to the table. Her eyes sparkling with smug spite.

'Enjoying your last meal, Potter? When's your train back to the Muggles?'

'You're a lot braver now you're on the ground with your little friends,' said Harry coolly.

There was nothing little about Crabbe and Goyle. They were built as though somebody had bred them for a war. Harry had read Lord of The Rings once or twice and thought that if he didn't know any better those two would've made for great and terrible Urak'ai. Harry wouldn't put it past this strange wizarding world to have some real Urak'ai in some dismal hole or hollow. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fairies. But the High Table was lined with teachers, and the two of them could do nothing but crack their knuckles and scowl, and Harry privately doubted they were equipped for very much more.

'I'm a far better witch than you are a wizard, Potter,' said Malfoy. 'I'd take you on any time, alone. Tonight, if you like. A wizard's duel. Wands only, no touching. What's the matter? Never heard of a wizard's duel, I suppose?'

Ron stuck out an arm across Harry's chest.

'I'll handle this, mate,' he said, and wheeled round. 'Course he has. I'm his second. Who's yours?'

Malfoy looked Crabbe and Goyle over as though choosing a pudding.

'Crabbe,' she said.

'Midnight, then,' said Ron. 'The trophy room. It's never locked.'

'At last I'll show you who's the better of us, Potter, and you'll beg me for mercy.' said Malfoy, and she strolled out of the Hall with her nose in the air.

When she had gone, Ron and Harry looked at one another.

'Ron, mate...' said Harry, 'I haven't the faintest idea what a wizard's duel is. And what did you mean, you're my second?'

'Oh, a second's the one who takes over if you die,' said Ron, as casually as if he had been passing on the football results, or Quidditch results at least, and he started at last on his cold pie.

'Thanks for signing me up, you're too kind.' said Harry. He said it drily, to hide the panic in his voice.

Ron caught the look on his face and added quickly, ' the only people who die in proper duels are real wizards.'

'That's very reassuring,' said Harry.

'The most you and Malfoy can manage is a few sparks at each other,' Ron went on soothingly. 'Neither of you knows enough magic to do real damage. I bet she thought you'd say no. We'll show that prissy little pixie.'

'And what if I wave my wand and nothing comes out?' said Harry irritably.

'Chuck it away and punch her on the nose,' said Ron.

'Ron. She's a girl.'

'Yeah, well, my mum always says if a girl hits you, you hit her back harder,' said Ron proudly.

'I really doubt she did, mate.'

'Excuse me.'

They both looked up. It was Hermione Granger.

'Can't a person eat in peace in this place?' said Ron.

Hermione ignored him and spoke to Harry.

'I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying...'

'Bet you could,' Ron muttered.

'... and you mustn't go wandering about the school at night. Think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you will be caught. It's thoroughly selfish of you. And whatever anybody says, boys shouldn't be going round hitting girls. You'll be expelled, the pair of you, you barbaric fools.'

'It's none of your business,' said Harry.

'Goodbye,' said Ron.

All the same, Harry thought, as he lay awake much later listening to Dean and Seamus drop off one after the other (Neville was still in the hospital wing), it had not been the ideal end to the day. Ron had spent the whole evening giving him advice of the kind that went, 'If she tries to curse you, you'd better dodge, because I can't remember how you block them.' There was every chance they would run into Filch or Mrs Norris, and Harry had a strong feeling that he was pushing his luck, breaking a second school rule in a single day.

Against that there was Malfoy's sneering face, which kept rising up out of the dark at him, and her silver eyes. Stupid Malfoy and her stupid pretty eyes. This was his chance to beat her, face to face, with nobody holding him back. Perhaps after that she would leave off the sneering and the smirking and the nose. He'd not miss it.

'Half eleven,' Ron muttered at last. 'Better go.'

They pulled on their dressing-gowns, took their wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral stairs and into the common room. A few embers still glowed in the grate, turning the armchairs into hunched black shapes. They had nearly reached the portrait hole when a voice spoke from the chair beside it.

'I can't believe you're really doing this, Harry.'

A lamp flickered into life. It was Hermione Granger, in a pink dressing-gown and a frown.

'You!' said Ron furiously. 'Go back to bed!'

'I nearly told your brother,' Hermione snapped. 'Percy. He's a Prefect. He'd put a stop to this.'

'My family don't think much of a grass,' said Ron, folding his arms and putting his nose in the air in a very fair imitation of Malfoy.

Harry could not believe anybody could be so interfering.

'Come on,' he said to Ron, and he pushed the Fat Lady's portrait open and climbed through.

Hermione did not give up as easily as that. She came through the hole after Ron, hissing at them like an angry goose.

'Don't you care about Gryffindor at all? Do you only ever think of yourselves? I don't want Slytherin winning the House Cup, and you'll lose every point I earned off Professor McGonagall for knowing about Switching Spells.'

'Go away, grass!' hissed Ron.

'Fine. But I warned you. You just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so...'

What they were, they never found out. Hermione had turned to the portrait of the Fat Lady to let herself back in, and found herself looking at an empty painting. The Fat Lady had gone visiting, and Hermione was locked out of Gryffindor Tower.

'Now what am I supposed to do?' she said shrilly.

'That's your problem,' said Ron. 'We've got to go. We'll be late.'

They'd not reached the end of the corridor before she caught them up.

'I'm coming with you.'

'You are not.'

'D'you expect me to stand out here and wait for Filch? If he catches the 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...' Ron began loudly.

'Shut up, both of you!' said Harry sharply. 'I heard something.'

It was a snuffling sort of noise.

'Mrs Norris?' breathed Ron, peering into the dark.

It was Neville. He was curled on the floor fast asleep, and jerked awake as they crept up on him.

'Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours. I couldn't remember the new password.'

'Keep your voice down, Neville. It's "Pig snout", but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere.'

'How's your arm?' said Harry.

'Fine,' said Neville, showing them. 'Madam Pomfrey did it in about a minute.'

'Good. Look, Neville, we've got to be somewhere, we'll see you later...'

'Don't leave me!' said Neville, scrambling up. 'I don't want to be out here on my own. The Bloody Baron's been past twice already.'

Ron looked at his watch, and then glared at Hermione and Neville.

'If either of you gets us caught, I'll never rest till I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and I'll use it on you.'

Hermione opened her mouth, very possibly to explain to Ron exactly how the Curse of the Bogies was done, but Harry hissed at her to be quiet and beckoned them all on.

They flitted down corridors striped with moonlight from the high windows. At every corner Harry expected Filch or Mrs Norris, but their luck held. They hurried up a staircase to the third floor and tiptoed into the trophy room.

Malfoy and Crabbe had not come. The crystal cases glimmered where the moon caught them, and cups and shields and plates and statues winked silver and gold in the dark. They edged along the walls, watching both doors. Harry drew his wand in case Malfoy came bursting in with a cackle and started at once. The minutes crawled past.

'She's late,' Ron whispered. 'Maybe she's chickened out. She is a girl, after all.'

A sound from the next room made them all jump. Harry had only just lifted his wand when somebody spoke, and it was not Malfoy.

'Have a sniff round, my sweet. They may be hiding in a corner.'

It was Filch, talking to Mrs Norris.

Horror-struck, Harry waved frantically at the others to follow, and they scurried for the far door. Neville's dressing-gown had barely whipped round the corner when they heard Filch come into the trophy room.

'They're in here somewhere,' he muttered. 'Hiding, most like.'

'This way!' Harry mouthed, and they began to creep, stiff with fright, down a long gallery lined with suits of armour. Filch's footsteps were getting closer. Neville gave a sudden terrified squeak and broke into a run, tripped, grabbed Ron round the middle, and the two of them went headlong into a suit of armour.

The crash was enough to wake the whole castle.

'RUN!' Harry yelled, and the four of them sprinted down the gallery without a backward glance, round the doorpost, along one corridor and then another, Harry leading with no idea at all where they were or where they were going. They tore through a tapestry into a hidden passage, pelted along it, and came out by the Charms classroom, which they knew to be miles from the trophy room.

'I think we've lost him,' Harry panted, leaning on the cold wall and wiping his forehead. Neville was bent double, wheezing.

'I... told... you,' Hermione gasped, clutching a stitch. 'I... told... you.'

'We've got to get back to the Tower,' said Ron. 'Quick as we can.'

'Malfoy tricked you,' Hermione said to Harry. 'You do realise that? She was never going to turn up. She's a girl, after all, and not some stupid knuckle-dragging boy, one of whom threatened to hit her several times, I might add. Filch knew somebody would be in the trophy room. Malfoy must have tipped him off.'

Harry thought she was very probably right, and he had no intention of saying so.

'Calm down, Hermione. I was only joking about hitting her,' said Ron. Then he mumbled, 'I don't actually hit girls.'

'Let's go,' said Harry.

It was not to be that simple. They had gone barely a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something shot out of a classroom ahead of them.

It was Peeves. He saw them and squealed with delight.

'Shut up, Peeves. Please. You'll get us thrown out.'

Peeves cackled.

'Wandering about at midnight, ickle firsties? Dear, dear. Out of bed, out of bed, Filchy'll have your heads!'

'Not if you don't give us away, Peeves. Please.'

'Ought to tell Filch, I ought,' said Peeves, in a saintly voice, though his eyes glittered. 'For your own good, you know.'

'Get out of the way,' snapped Ron, and swiped at him. This was a very bad mistake.

'STUDENTS OUT OF BED!' Peeves bellowed. 'STUDENTS OUT OF BED IN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!'

They ducked under him and ran for their lives to the end of the corridor, where they slammed into a door. It was locked.

'That's it!' Ron moaned, as they shoved uselessly at it. 'We're finished! This is the end!'

They could hear footsteps. Filch, running flat out towards Peeves's shouting.

'Oh, get out of the way,' Hermione snarled. She snatched Harry's wand, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!'

The lock clicked. The door swung open, and they tumbled through, shut it, and pressed their ears to the wood.

'Which way did they go, Peeves?' Filch was saying. 'Quick, tell me.'

'Say "please".'

'Don't play games with me, Peeves. Where did they go?'

'Shan't tell you a thing without a "please",' said Peeves in his maddening sing-song.

'All right. Please.'

'NOTHING! Ha haaa! I said I'd tell you nothing without a "please", and nothing's what you get! Haaaa!'

They heard Peeves whoosh away, and Filch swearing in fury.

'He thinks this door's locked,' Harry whispered. 'I think we're all right. Get off, Neville!'

Neville had been tugging at the sleeve of his dressing-gown for the last minute.

'What?'

Harry turned round, and saw exactly what.

For a moment he was sure he had walked into a nightmare. After everything else that had happened that day, this was too much. They were in no room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking into the eyes of a monstrous dog. It filled the corridor from floor to ceiling, and it had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes. Three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction. Three slavering mouths, with ropes of drool swinging from yellow fangs.

It was standing quite still, every one of its six eyes fixed on them, and Harry understood that the only reason they were still alive was that it had been as surprised as they were. It was getting over its surprise fast. There was no mistaking the growl that was building in all three throats.

Harry fumbled behind him for the doorknob. Between Filch and death, he would take Filch.

They fell back through the door. Harry wrenched it shut, and they ran, almost flew, down the corridor. Filch must have gone to search for them elsewhere, for they saw no sign of him, and they hardly cared. All any of them wanted was to put as much castle as possible between themselves and that thing. They did not stop until they reached the Fat Lady's portrait on the seventh floor.

'Where on earth have you all been?' she said, taking in their dressing-gowns hanging off their shoulders and their red, sweating faces.

'Never mind. Pig snout, pig snout,' panted Harry, and the portrait swung open. They scrambled through and collapsed into armchairs, shaking.

It was some time before anybody spoke. Neville looked as though he might never speak again.

'What do they think they're playing at, keeping a thing like that in a school?' said Ron at last. 'If there's a dog that needs walking, it's that one.'

Hermione had got her breath back, and her temper with it.

'Don't any of you use your eyes?' she snapped. 'Didn't you see what it was standing on?'

'The floor?' Harry offered. 'I wasn't looking at its feet. I was rather taken up with its heads.'

'Not the floor. A trapdoor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's guarding something, obviously.' She stood up and glared at them. 'I hope you're all proud of yourselves. We might have been killed. Or worse, expelled. Now, if nobody minds, I am going to bed.'

Ron stared after her with his mouth open.

'No, we don't mind,' he said. 'You'd think we'd dragged her along.'

But Hermione had given Harry something to think about as he climbed back into his four-poster. The dog was guarding something. What was it Hagrid had said, over tea, when Harry had asked him about that cutting from the Daily Prophet and the break-in at Gringotts? That there was nowhere safer in the world for something you wanted to hide. Except, perhaps, Hogwarts.

It looked as though Harry had just found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen had gone.

He slept. And he tried very hard, as he went, not to think about a pair of cowardly silver eyes that had very nearly got him expelled.