Old Blood at Hogwarts

The party lasted all afternoon and continued into the evening.It was as if everyone had won the Quidditch Cup.Fred and George Weasley disappeared for two hours, returning with bottles of Butterbeer, Fizzing Pumpkin Juice, and large bags of Honeydukes candy.

Only one person didn't attend the party.Hermione was sitting alone in the corner, reading a big book called "The Life and Social Habits of Muggle Households in Britain".

At this point, George started tossing Toad Mints into the crowd.Aaron avoided the crowd of people scrambling for candy and came to Hermione's side.

"Have you been reading?" Aaron asked Hermione.

"I still have 420 pages to read!" Hermione's voice sounded a little hysterical.

"I think you should take a break." Looking at Hermione who was about to collapse, Aaron suggested to her.

"No, I can not!"

Harry also walked over at this time, and he asked Hermione: "Have you never gone to the game?"

"Of course I have been." Hermione's voice was strangely high. "I'm happy that we won. I think you did a really good job, but I have to finish reading this book before Monday."

"Come on, Hermione, have a bite to eat," said Harry.

"I can't, Harry. Besides..." Hermione looked over at Ron, "He doesn't want me to participate."

This was obvious, because Ron deliberately picked this moment and said loudly: "If Scabbers is not eaten, he can eat a few of these Fudge flies, which he always likes to eat-"

Hermione cried.Before Aaron and Harry could say anything, she put the big book under her arm, sobbed and ran to the stairs leading to the girls' dormitory and disappeared.

"Can't you forgive her?" Harry said calmly to Ron.

"No," Ron said flatly, "if she shows she's sorry - but she never admits she's wrong, which is what Hermione is like. She still looks like Scabbers is on holiday or something."

It wasn't until one o'clock in the morning that Professor McGonagall, wearing a plaid dressing gown and hairnet, arrived and insisted that everyone go to bed, and the Gryffindor House party came to an end.Even as everyone climbed the stairs back to the dormitory, they were still discussing the game.

After a night of partying, Aaron was very sleepy.Not long after returning to the dormitory, he climbed into bed, pulled up the curtain to block the moonlight, and then fell asleep.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Suddenly, a scream woke Aaron up from his sleep.He fumbled with the curtains around the bed and asked, "What's the matter?"

"I don't know." Green Albert said from the bed next to him. "The sound came from outside."

Aaron then found the opening of the curtain and pulled it open.Meanwhile Tom Lawrence lit the lamp.

"Maybe we should go outside and have a look," suggested Colin Creevey.

They all crawled out of bed, and Aaron was the first to come to the dormitory door and open it.They ran down the stairs to the common room.The doors behind them opened one after another, and many sleepy voices asked them questions.

"Who was yelling just now?"

"What are you doing?"

Embers from the fireplace lit up the common room, which was strewn with trash from the party.Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan, and Dean Thomas had already arrived here before Aaron and others.When Aaron and others came down the stairs, they were talking:

"Are you sure you're not dreaming, Ron?"

"I'm telling you, I saw him!"

Several girls came down the stairs, wearing dressing gowns, yawning and saying:

"What are all the noises for?"

"Professor McGonagall told us all to get in bed!"

The boys also appeared one after another.

"Great, can the party continue?" Fred Weasley said cheerfully.

"Everyone, get back upstairs!" Percy rushed to the common room, pinning his boy's badge to his pajamas as he spoke.

"Percy - Sirius Black!" said Ron feebly. "In our dormitories! With a knife! Woke me up!"

There was silence in the common room.

"Nonsense!" Percy also looked frightened. "You ate too much, Ron, and you had nightmares——"

"I tell you……"

"Okay, that's enough, stop talking!"

Professor McGonagall is back.She entered the common room and slammed the hole in the portrait behind her, looking around furiously.

"I'm happy that Gryffindor won the game, but you guys are so ridiculous! Percy, I expected you to perform better!"

"I certainly didn't let them do this, Professor!" Percy puffed up with indignation, "I'm telling them all to go back to bed! My brother Ron had a nightmare..."

"It's not a nightmare!" Ron yelled, "Professor, I woke up and Sirius Black was standing in front of me, holding a knife!"

Professor McGonagall glared at him: "Don't be a joke, Weasley. How could he get through the hole in the portrait?"

"Ask him!" Ron pointed at Sir Cadogan's portrait with a trembling finger, "Ask him if he has seen——"

Professor McGonagall glanced at Ron suspiciously, pushed the painting away again, and walked out.The entire common room held its breath.

"Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor Tower?"

"Of course, ma'am!" cried Sir Cadogan.

Everyone was speechless, both inside and outside the common room.

"You...you did this?" Professor McGonagall asked, "But...but what about the password?"

"He has the password!" said Lord Cadogan proudly. "He has the password for the whole week, ma'am! Read it from a little piece of paper!"

Professor McGonagall walked back from the portrait hole. Facing these students who were so surprised that they said nothing, her face was as white as chalk.

"Which one?" her voice trembled. "Which ignorant fool wrote down the passwords for the entire week and left them everywhere?"

There was silence in the common room, then a small sound broke the silence.Neville Longbottom trembled and slowly raised his hands.

That night no one in Gryffindor House slept.They knew the castle had been raided again, and the entire Gryffindor house was in the common room, waiting to hear if Black had been caught.At dawn, Professor McGonagall returns and tells everyone that Black has escaped again.

The next day, wherever they went, they could see increased security measures.

Professor Flitwick held up a large picture of Black and taught everyone who was guarding the front door identification.Filch was suddenly running up and down the corridor, boarding up everything from small cracks in the walls to rat holes.Lord Cadogan was sacked.His portrait was returned to its original position, and the Fat Lady returned.

Although the Fat Lady was professionally repaired, she was still extremely nervous. Her return to work was subject to conditions - she must be specially protected.The school hired a group of rough and rude dwarfs to protect her.They walked with a commanding step in the corridor, talked and compared the size of the sticks in their hands.

Ron became an instant celebrity.Now wherever he goes, someone notices him.This was the first time in Ron's life that he had been treated like this, and he obviously liked the experience.Although he was still shaken by the events of that night, he was willing to tell people what had happened, adding many details, to anyone who asked.

"...I fell asleep, and I heard the sound of tearing things. I thought I was dreaming, you know? But there was another draft...I woke up, and one side of the curtain beside the bed was torn down...I Turning over... I saw him standing in front of me... like a skeleton, a big mass of dirty hair... holding a big long knife, it must have been twelve inches long... He looked at me , I looked at him, and then I screamed and he ran away."

Because of Black's reappearance, Aaron has also stepped up his surveillance of Harry, and now he is almost always with Harry.But there was one thing he was confused about, and that was why Black ran away without doing anything to Harry.He had already found Harry's dormitory. Even if he went to the wrong bed, why not kill Ron and continue looking for Harry? Twelve years ago, Blake showed that he didn't care about killing innocent people. This time he faced five unarmed boys, four of whom were still asleep.

Harry and Ron were also confused about this.They deliberated for a long time, and in the end they could only guess that Ron's shouting woke everyone up, making Black realize that if he insisted on killing Harry, he would never be able to leave the school.Because other students and even professors are likely to hear the noise and pass by.

Neville was humiliated by the incident.Professor McGonagall was very angry because of him and forbade him from going to Hogsmeade again.And he was put into confinement, and no one was allowed to give him the password to enter the tower.Poor Neville had to wait outside the common room every night to see who could take him in, while the dwarfs teased him unpleasantly.

However, these punishments are not as good as the "gift" his grandmother prepared for him.Two days after Black broke into the Tower, she sent Neville the worst thing a Hogwarts student could receive at breakfast - a howler.

On this day, the school owls flew into the hall and delivered the mail as usual. A huge barn owl stopped in front of Neville, holding a scarlet envelope in its mouth.Neville was dumbfounded, Aaron, Harry and Ron were sitting across from him and immediately recognized it as a howler letter, one that Ron had gotten from his mother last year.

"Run, Neville," Ron advised him.

Neville didn't need to be told a second time. He grabbed the envelope and ran out of the hall like a bomb. The Slytherin students burst out laughing when they saw him.They heard the roaring letter speak in the front hall.Neville's grandmother's voice was a hundred times louder than usual, and she screamed that Neville had brought disgrace to the entire family.