text
stringlengths 2
72
|
---|
dawn. What would happen when the rest of Gryffindor found out what |
they'd done? |
At first, Gryffindors passing the giant hourglasses that recorded the |
house points the next day thought there'd been a mistake. How could they |
suddenly have a hundred and fifty points fewer than yesterday? And then |
the story started to spread: Harry Potter, the famous Harry Potter, |
their hero of two Quidditch matches, had lo st them all those points, |
him and a couple of other stupid first years. |
From being one of the most popular and admired people at the school, |
Harry was suddenly the most hated. Even Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs |
turned on him, because everyone had been longing to see Slytherin lose |
the house cup. Everywhere Harry went, people pointed and didn't trouble |
to lower their voices as they insulted him. Slytherins, on the other |
hand, clapped as he walked past them, whistling and cheering, "Thanks |
Potter, we owe you one!" |
Only Ron stood by him. |
"They'll all forget this in a few weeks. Fred and George have lost loads |
of points in all the time they've been here, and people still like |
them." |
"They've never lost a hundred and fifty points in one go, though, have |
they?" said Harry miserably. |
"Well -- no," Ron admitted. |
It was a bit late to repair the damage, but Harry swore to himself not |
to meddle in things that weren't his business from now on. He'd had it |
with sneaking around and spying. He felt so ashamed of himself that he |
went to Wood and offered to resign from the Quidditch team. |
"Resign?" Wood thundered. "What good'll that do? How are we going to get |
any points back if we can't win at Quidditch?" |
But even Quidditch had lost its fun. The rest of the team wouldn't speak |
to Harry during practice, and if they had to speak about him, they |
called him "the Seeker." |
Hermione and Neville were suffering, too. They didn't have as bad a time |
as Harry, because they weren't as well-known, but nobody would speak to |
them, either. Hermione had stopped drawing attention to herself in |
class, keeping her head down and working in silence. |
Harry was almost glad that the exams weren't far away. All the studying |
he had to do kept his mind off his misery. He, Ron, and Hermione kept to |
themselves, working late into the night, trying to remember the |
ingredients in complicated potions, learn charms and spells by heart, |
memorize the dates of magical discoveries and goblin rebellions.... |
Then, about a week before the exams were due to start, Harry's new |
resolution not to interfere in anything that didn't concern him was put |
to an unexpected test. Walking back from the library on his own one |
afternoon, he heard somebody whimpering from a classroom up ahead. As he |
drew closer, he heard Quirrell's voice. |
"No -- no -- not again, please --" |
It sounded as though someone was threatening him. Harry moved closer. |
"All right -- all right --" he heard Quirrell sob. |
Next second, Quirrell came hurrying out of the classroom straightening |
his turban. He was pale and looked as though he was about to cry. He |
strode out of sight; Harry didn't think Quirrell had even noticed him. |
He waited until Quirrell's footsteps had disappeared, then peered into |
the classroom. It was empty, but a door stood ajar at the other end. |
Harry was halfway toward it before he remembered what he'd promised |
himself about not meddling. |
All the same, he'd have gambled twelve Sorcerer's Stones that Snape had |
just left the room, and from what Harry had just heard, Snape would be |
walking with a new spring in his step -- Quirrell seemed to have given |
in at last. |
Harry went back to the library, where Hermione was testing Ron on |
Astronomy. Harry told them what he'd heard. |
"Snape's done it, then!" said Ron. "If Quirrell's told him how to break |
his Anti-Dark Force spell --" |
"There's still Fluffy, though," said Hermione. |
"Maybe Snape's found out how to get past him without asking Hagrid," |
said Ron, looking up at the thousands of books surrounding them. "I bet |
there's a book somewhere in here telling you how to get past a giant |
three-headed dog. So what do we do, Harry?" |
The light of adventure was kindling again in Ron's eyes, but Hermione |
answered before Harry could. |
"Go to Dumbledore. That's what we should have done ages ago. If we try |
anything ourselves we'll be thrown out for sure." |
"But we've got no proof!" said Harry. "Quirrell's too scared to back us |
up. Snape's only got to say he doesn't know how the troll got in at |
Halloween and that he was nowhere near the third floor -- who do you |
think they'll believe, him or us? It's not exactly a secret we hate him, |
Dumbledore'll think we made it up to get him sacked. Filch wouldn't help |
us if his life depended on it, he's too friendly with Snape, and the |
more students get thrown out, the better, he'll think. And don't forget, |
we're not supposed to know about the Stone or Fluffy. That'll take a lot |
of explaining." |
Hermione looked convinced, but Ron didn't. |
"If we just do a bit of poking around --" |
"No," said Harry flatly, "we've done enough poking around." |
He pulled a map of Jupiter toward him and started to learn the names of |
its moons. |
The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione, and |
Neville at the breakfast table. They were all the same: |
Your detention will take place at eleven o'clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch |
in the entrance hall. |
Professor McGonagall Harry had forgotten they still had detentions to do |
in the furor over the points they'd lost. He half expected Hermione to |
complain that this was a whole night of studying lost, but she didn't |
say a word. Like Harry, she felt they deserved what they'd got. |
At eleven o'clock that night, they said good-bye to Ron in the common |
room and went down to the entrance hall with Neville. Filch was already |
there -- and so was Malfoy. Harry had also forgotten that Malfoy had |
gotten a detention, too. |
"Follow me," said Filch, lighting a lamp and leading them outside. |
I bet you'll think twice about breaking a school rule again, won't you, |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.