Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

McGonagall.
    ‘An unworthy trick!’ she was shouting. ‘A low and cowardly attempt to sabotage the Gryffindor Seeker! Detention for all of you, and fifty points from Slytherin! I shall be speaking to Professor Dumbledore about this, make no mistake! Ah, here he comes now!’
    If anything could have set the seal on Gryffindor’s victory, it was this. Ron, who had fought his way through to Harry’s side, doubled up with laughter as they watched Malfoy fighting to extricate himself from the robe, Goyle’s head still stuck inside it.
    ‘Come on, Harry!’ said George, fighting his way over. ‘Party! Gryffindor common room, now!’
    ‘Right,’ said Harry, and feeling happier than he had done in ages, he and the rest of the team led the way, still in their scarlet robes, out of the stadium and back up to the castle.
    *
    It felt as though they had already won the Quidditch Cup; the party went on all day and well into the night. Fred and George Weasley disappeared for a couple of hours and returned with armfuls of bottles of Butterbeer, pumpkin fizz and several bags full of Honeydukes sweets.
    ‘How did you do that?’ squealed Angelina Johnson, as George started throwing Peppermint Toads into the crowd.
    ‘With a little help from Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs,’ Fred muttered in Harry’s ear.
    Only one person wasn’t joining in the festivities. Hermione, incredibly, was sitting in a corner, attempting to read an enormous book entitled Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles . Harry broke away from the table where Fred and George had started juggling Butterbeer bottles, and went over to her.
    ‘Did you even come to the match?’ he asked her.
    ‘Of course I did,’ said Hermione, in a strangely high-pitched voice, not looking up. ‘And I’m very glad we won, and I think you did really well, but I need to read this by Monday.’
    ‘Come on, Hermione, come and have some food,’ Harry said, looking over at Ron and wondering whether he was in a good enough mood to bury the hatchet.
    ‘I can’t, Harry, I’ve still got four hundred and twenty-two pages to read!’ said Hermione, now sounding slightly hysterical. ‘Anyway …’ she glanced over at Ron, too, ‘ he doesn’t want me to join in.’
    There was no arguing with this, as Ron chose that moment to say loudly, ‘If Scabbers hadn’t just been eaten, he could have had some of these Fudge Flies, he used to really like them –’
    Hermione burst into tears. Before Harry could say or do anything, she had tucked the enormous book under her arm, and, still sobbing, run towards the staircase to the girls’ dormitories and out of sight.
    ‘Can’t you give her a break?’ Harry asked Ron quietly.
    ‘No,’ said Ron flatly. ‘If she just acted like she was sorry – but she’ll never admit she’s wrong, Hermione. She’s still acting like Scabbers has gone on holiday or something.’
    The Gryffindor party only ended when Professor McGonagall turned up in her tartan dressing-gown and hair-net at one in the morning, to insist that they all went to bed. Harry and Ron climbed the stairs to their dormitory, still discussing the match. At last, exhausted, Harry climbed into bed, twitched the hangings of his four-poster shut to block out a ray of moonlight, lay back and felt himself almost instantly drifting off to sleep …
    He had a very strange dream. He was walking through a forest, his Firebolt over his shoulder, following something silvery white. It was winding its way through the trees ahead, and he could only catch glimpses of it between the leaves. Anxious to catch up with it, he sped up, but as he moved faster, so did his quarry. Harry broke into a run and ahead, he heard hooves gathering speed. Now he was running flat out, and ahead he could hear galloping. Then he turned a corner into a clearing and –
    ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’
    Harry woke as suddenly as though he’d been hit in the face. Disorientated in the total darkness, he fumbled with his hangings – he could hear movements around him, and Seamus Finnigan’s voice from the other side of the room.
    ‘What’s going on?’
    Harry thought he heard the dormitory door slam. At last finding the divide in his curtains, he ripped them back, and at the same moment, Dean Thomas lit his lamp.
    Ron was sitting up in bed, the hangings torn from one side, a look of the utmost terror on his face.
    ‘Black! Sirius Black! With a