At eleven o’clock that night, Ariana specifically changed into a loose set of tattered old clothes—who wore nice clothes to a fight?
She tied her hair into a bun behind her head and began warming up on the floor, shaking her head and kicking her legs.
Hermione, watching her stretch out her limbs in preparation to leave, called out to her with a dark face, “Are you really going to fool around with them?” Ariana corrected her with utmost precision, “They’re fooling around with *me*, Hermione.
I’m the main fighter.” “But this will cost our house points—Ariana!” Ariana had already slipped out the door.
Spotting Harry and Ron peeking around nervously in the common room, she grabbed them both and dashed toward the portrait hole.
“Hurry up!
Hermione’s catching up!” “What—” The two were yanked off balance, but the moment they saw a flush-faced Hermione sprinting after them, their movements instantly sharpened.
The three of them scrambled through the portrait hole in a flash.
Hermione, huffing and puffing, climbed out right behind them and grabbed the sleeve of Ron, who was trailing at the back.
“Listen to me!
You can’t!
Think of Gryffindor’s points!
You could be expelled!” “Let go!” Ron yanked his sleeve back in annoyance.
“This has nothing to do with you!” “Ow!” “Aaagh!” Ariana, who was leading the sprint, stepped on something squishy, slipped, and hit the ground with a loud thud.
A dark shadow scrambled up from the floor.
Everyone screamed at once—including Hermione and Ron, who had been arguing a second ago.
“It’s me,” the shadow spoke, and they finally recognized Neville.
He ducked his head, looking pitiful.
“I forgot the new password, so I couldn’t get in.” Hermione looked thrilled, as if she had just found an ally.
“Neville!
They’re sneaking out at night to duel Malfoy!
It’s against the rules!
Help me stop them!” Neville looked at Ariana, who had her chin raised and clearly looked like bad news.
Then he looked at Harry, who was frowning with annoyance, and finally at Ron, whose face was still bright red as he panted like a bull after his row with Hermione.
Neville stammered, “M-me?” “Alright, Hermione,” Ariana said, idly twirling her wand in her hand.
“Take Neville back to the common room.” “If we get caught by Filch, I’ll stall him and let Harry and Ron run first.
That way, only my points will get deducted.
I can always win them back in class—you know I can.” “Fine!
I can’t talk sense into you!” Hermione’s chest heaved heavily.
She spun around toward the Fat Lady’s portrait, only to freeze on the spot.
The frame was completely empty.
The Fat Lady hadn’t gone to sleep; she had wandered off to visit someone else’s picture for a midnight chat.
“Oh ho,” Ariana whistled.
“Looks like you two darlings have to wait out here until she comes back.
Let’s go.” She turned to Harry and Ron.
Before they could take more than a few steps, Hermione caught up with a rigid face.
“I’m coming with you.” She said stiffly, “If we run into Filch, I’ll tell him the truth—that I was trying to stop you, even though none of you would listen!” She bit down hard on the last few words.
Ariana shrugged.
“Sure thing.
I’ll even vouch for you when the time comes.
Who knows, maybe he’ll give you five points for your valiant effort in lecturing us!” “Ariana!
Do you think I’m joking with you?!” Hermione snapped, thoroughly exasperated.
“No, no, of course not.
How could you be?” Ariana turned to offer Neville an invitation.
“Do you want to come with us?” Seeing Neville look somewhat tempted, she offered encouragement.
“I heard Malfoy bullied you before, right?
Just wait.
I’ll twist his head off for you tonight, and you can use his skull as a goblet to drink pumpkin juice from now on!” Neville drew in a sharp breath, looking so overwhelmed he was practically moved to tears.
Ariana grew even more smug.
“Want to come watch the manufacturing process of your future drinking cup?” “N-no, no thanks,” Neville said, shaking his head frantically.
“I’ll just wait here for you guys to come back.” Hermione instantly seized the opportunity.
“Look at him!
Offered a chance to sneak out, and he still won’t!
*That’s* a good boy!” Neville had probably never been praised like that before.
He looked both proud and flustered, his face flushing red.
“Alright, Hermione,” Ariana said.
“I’ll send you Malfoy’s femur as a gift.
You can carve it into a walking stick.
Next time you encounter disobedient kids like us, you can whack them over the head—one club per head, knock ’em cold, and they’ll obey.” “Shut your mouth, Ariana!” Hermione snapped, caught between anger and laughter.
“Leave Malfoy’s head and thighs attached to his body!” Trailing behind them, Neville nodded silently but frantically.
A skull mug?
That was way too terrifying, aaah!
“Excuse me, ladies,” Harry finally found an opening to cut in.
“Do you remember that we’re supposed to be sneaking around?
Could you please keep it down?” The group tiptoed forward, making their way smoothly to the fourth-floor Trophy Room.
Malfoy was nowhere to be seen.
Moonlight streamed through the gaps between various trophies onto the floor, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.
“Are we too early?” Ariana pulled out her pocket watch and checked the time.
“It’s not that early though.” “Maybe he’s late,” Harry suggested.
“Or maybe he chickened out,” Ron said.
Right then, a raspy voice echoed from the adjacent room: “Sniff around, my sweet.
They might be hiding in a corner.” A meow sounded, as if in response to him.
—It was Filch!
“Maybe…
we got stood up!” Ariana lowered her voice and hissed, “Run!” With Harry taking the lead, the four of us tiptoed single-file along the wall, holding our breath in sheer terror as they crept away.
Just as they turned a corner, they ran straight into Peeves.
He was floating around in midair.
Spotting the stunned line of students below, he shrieked with glee: *”Naughty little first years out of bed—wandering around the castle in the middle of the night—”* He zoomed upward and smashed right into a suit of armor nearby, creating a deafening crash.
“Meow—” The cat’s screech rapidly approached.
“RUN!” The four of us ran for our lives—sprinting through empty classrooms, jumping out back windows, winding through corridor after corridor, scrambling up an unknown flight of stairs, and finally diving headlong into a hallway out of pure desperation.
This time, luck wasn’t on their side—it was a dead end, blocked by a single locked door.
“Get back!
I’ll blast it open!” Ariana whipped out her wand instantly.
“No!” Harry and Ron grabbed one of her arms each, holding her back tightly.
“The whole corridor is intact!
If we leave one broken door here, what’s the point of hiding?!” “Let go!” Ariana looked ready to lose her mind.
“Then I’ll blast the whole damn corridor!
That way nobody will notice!” “Out of the way, all of you.” Hermione shoved her way aggressively through the three wrestling kids.
“Let me do it.
*Alohomora!*” The four of us tumbled inside and slammed the door shut, leaning against it.
Tension amplified their hearing.
They heard Filch’s curses draw near, then slowly fade away into the distance.
“Looks like we’re safe,” Harry said, leaning against the door like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Maybe…
just barely,” Ron stammered, wiping a hand through his hair with trembling fingers.
The other three turned around—and came eye-to-eye with three giant dog heads sprouting from a single neck.
The creature with three heads looked like a pig—an overgrown, monstrous pig.
At least, Ariana had never seen a pig tall enough to reach the ceiling of a room.
She managed to stay somewhat calm as she pulled out her wand and gestured at the dog.
Against a beast that size, her wand looked like a tiny tooth-pick.
“I think blowing up Filch would’ve been easier.
What do you guys think?” “RUN!!!” Holding Hermione with one hand and Harry with the other, while Harry dragged Ron along, the four of them sprinted out of the room, screaming bloody murder.
Perhaps the Goddess of Luck finally took pity on these poor little chicks who had just brushed past Death.
They yowled and dashed all the way back to the Gryffindor Tower without bumping into Filch or any other patrolling professors.
Ariana collapsed over an armchair, panting heavily as if trying to cough up her lungs.
“So after everything tonight…
all we accomplished was wasting our time?” She finally caught her breath after a long while.
Harry was still shaken.
“At least we still have time left to waste in the future…
That dog was huge!
One bite per head and there wouldn’t even be enough of me to go around.” Ron stared blankly ahead, babbling nonsensically, “Why did they put a dog like that inside the school?
To feed disobedient young wizards to it and purify the campus?” “If you two used your eyes for something other than set dressing,” a recovered, irritable Hermione scoffed with rare sarcasm, “you would’ve noticed that dog was standing on a trapdoor—it’s guarding something!” She stood up angrily.
“Now I’m going to sleep!
I can’t believe what I went through tonight.
No reading, no studying, almost getting killed, or worse—getting expelled!” Ariana stood up in a huff as well.
“I can’t believe Malfoy actually stood me up!
Calling a duel and then flaking out—I’m going to twist his bulbous head right off!” The two girls stomped up the stairs toward the girls’ dormitory one after the other, leaving Harry and Ron staring at each other.
“Don’t you think…
their priorities are a bit off?” After a long pause, Ron finally managed to squeeze out the sentence.