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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,