Harry Potter 03 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

within it.
    ‘D’you reckon we should tell someone?’ Harry asked Ron.
    ‘We know he’s not coming in through Honeydukes,’ said Ron dismissively. ‘We’d’ve heard if the shop had been broken into.’
    Harry was glad Ron took this view. If the one-eyed witch was boarded up too, he would never be able to go into Hogsmeade again.
    Ron had become an instant celebrity. For the first time in his life, people were paying more attention to him than to Harry, and it was clear that Ron was rather enjoying the experience. Though still severely shaken by the night’s events, he was happy to tell anyone who asked, what had happened, with a wealth of detail.
    ‘… I was asleep, and I heard this ripping noise, and I thought it was in my dream, you know? But then there was this draught … I woke up and one side of the hangings on my bed had been pulled down … I rolled over … and I saw him standing over me … like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair … holding this great long knife, must’ve been twelve inches … and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and then I yelled, and he scarpered.
    ‘Why, though?’ Ron added to Harry, as the group of second-year girls who had been listening to his chilling tale departed. ‘Why did he scarper?’
    Harry had been wondering the same thing. Why had Black, having got the wrong bed, not silenced Ron and proceeded to Harry? Black had proved twelve years ago that he didn’t mind murdering innocent people, and this time he had been facing five unarmed boys, four of whom were asleep.
    ‘He must’ve known he’d have a job getting back out of the castle once you’d yelled and woken people up,’ said Harry thoughtfully. ‘He’d’ve had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole … then he would’ve met the teachers …’
    Neville was in total disgrace. Professor McGonagall was so furious with him she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given him a detention and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the Tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in, while the security trolls leered unpleasantly at him. None of these punishments, however, came close to matching the one his grandmother had in store for him. Two days after Black’s break-in, she sent Neville the very worst thing a Hogwarts student could receive over breakfast – a Howler.
    The school owls swooped into the Great Hall, carrying the post as usual, and Neville choked as a huge barn owl landed in front of him, a scarlet envelope clutched in its beak. Harry and Ron, who were sitting opposite him, recognised the letter as a Howler at once – Ron had got one from his mother the year before.
    ‘Run for it, Neville,’ Ron advised.
    Neville didn’t need telling twice. He seized the envelope and, holding it before him like a bomb, sprinted out of the Hall, while the Slytherin table exploded with laughter at the sight of him. They heard the Howler go off in the Entrance Hall – Neville’s grandmother’s voice, magically magnified to a hundred times its usual volume, shrieking about how he had brought shame on the whole family.
    Harry was too busy feeling sorry for Neville to notice immediately that he had a letter, too. Hedwig got his attention by nipping him sharply on the wrist.
    ‘Ouch! Oh – thanks, Hedwig …’
    Harry tore open the envelope while Hedwig helped herself to some of Neville’s cornflakes. The note inside said:
     
    Dear Harry and Ron,
    How about having tea with me this evening round six? I’ll come and collect you from the castle. WAIT FOR ME IN THE ENTRANCE HALL, YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED OUT ON YOUR OWN.
    Cheers,
    Hagrid
     
    ‘He probably wants to hear all about Black!’ said Ron.
    So at six o’clock that evening, Harry and Ron left Gryffindor Tower, passed the security trolls at a run, and headed down to the Entrance Hall.
    Hagrid was already waiting for them.
    ‘All right, Hagrid!’ said Ron. ‘S’pose you want to hear about Saturday night, do you?’
    ‘I’ve already heard all abou’ it,’ said Hagrid, opening the front doors and leading them outside.
    ‘Oh,’ said Ron, looking slightly put out.
    The first thing they saw on entering Hagrid’s cabin was Buckbeak, who was stretched out on top of Hagrid’s patchwork quilt, his enormous wings folded tight to his body, enjoying a large plate of dead ferrets. Averting his eyes from this unpleasant sight, Harry saw a gigantic,