Chapter-13: Cerebrus

It was a very frustrating night for Ronan, not only he was out of his bed, roaming in the castle at midnight, but he was also being pursued by Flich. But the worst thing that could happen in this situation was that he came across Peeves. 

"Shut up, Peeves… please… you'll get us thrown out." Hermione pleaded, making Peeves cackle.

"Wandering around at midnight, ickle firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty." Peeves with his joker-like voice, Ronan truly hated that voice. 

"Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please." Harry pleaded.

"Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

"Get out of the way." snapped Ron, taking a swing at Peeves. Seeing this Ronan groaned, this was a big mistake, at that moment he really wanted to strangle the redhead.

And on cue, "STUDENTS OUT OF BED!"Peeves bellowed. "STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!"

Ducking under Peeves they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor, where they slammed into a door – and it was locked. "This is it!" Ron moaned as they pushed helplessly at the door.

"We're done for! This is the end!" They could hear footsteps, Filch running as fast as he could toward Peeves's shouts.

Instantly he pushed Ron away, whipped out his wand, and whispered, "Alohomora!" The lock clicked and the door swung open, they piled through it, shut it quickly, and pressed their ears against it, listening.

"Which way did they go, Peeves?" Filch was saying. "Quick, tell me."

"Say 'please'."

"Don't mess me about, Peeves, now where did they go?" He felt Neville tugging his robes, he waved his hand to make him quit. He wanted to hear what was happening out there.

"I won't say nothing if you don't say please," said Peeves

"All right!" Filch yelled. Then with a softer tone spoke, "Please."

"NOTHING! Ha haaa! Told you I wouldn't say nothing if you didn't say please! Ha ha! Haaaaaa!' And they heard the sound of Peeves whooshing away and Filch cursing in rage.

"He thinks this door is locked," Harry whispered.

"I think we'll be OK now" Ronan whispered back, then he felt another tug from Neville, which made him turn around with fury, "What is.." Words didnt come out of his mouth.

They all turned and saw, quite clearly, what. For a moment, he was not sure whether he was dreaming or not. Because this was a nightmare. They weren't in a room, as he had supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads. Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes, three noses twitching and quivering in their direction, and three drooling mouths, saliva slipping from its yellowish fangs. It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them.

Ronan figured that the only reason they weren't already dead was that their sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant. He immediately gripped the doorknob and pushed it open.

They fell backward, Harry slammed the door shut, and they ran. Filch must have hurried off to look for them somewhere else because they didn't see him anywhere, but they hardly cared, all they wanted to do was to go to their dorms. The Gryfindors went their separate ways, while he started heading towards the dungeon…

***

Harry and his friends scrambled into the common room, and collapshed, trembling on armchairs.

It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed, looked as if he'd never speak again. "What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."

Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back again. "You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you?" she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

"The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

Hermione replied, "No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something." She stood up, glaring at them. "I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed… or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed." With that, she turned around and went away.

Ron stared after her, his mouth open. "She thinks that we dragged her along! We didnt ask her to come with us, did we?"

As Harry got to his bed, a lot of things were going through his mind. He remembered that when he came to Diagon Alley, Hagrid took a small packet from Vault number 713. He said that he was here to pick up the packet for Hogwarts, didnt tell him what the packet was, or for whom it was.

Last Friday when he and Ron went to have tea with Hagrid, he had a cutting of newspaper, titled, Gringotts Break-In. According to the cutout, there was a break in Gringotts on 31st July, the same day when he and Hagrid emptied vault 713. According to the report, the goblins denied anything being stolen break-in saying the vault had been emptied the morning of the same day.

And most importantly he remembers Hagrid saying, Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide – except perhaps Hogwarts. Joining the dots, Harry had found out where the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.

***

When Ronan came up for breakfast, he was in a very good mood. He was happy that he found the room where he could practice his magic without any interruption, and he was happy because the canon of the movie was going just as it was supposed to be, without his interference. To be honest, he did forget about the three-headed dog from the movies, and his last night's adventure came as a dreadful surprise to him. 

It was also weird that Neville was there with them. Because as far as he could remember, in the movies Neville wasn't in the scene where the golden trio comes across the dog. But he figured that something might changed from the original plot, considering he was there.

During the breakfast, it was fun to see Malfoy seething with anger when he saw Ron and Harry nonchalantly having breakfast. And when the owls came bearing everyone's letters and parcels, he was alarmed by six large owls who were all carrying a rather thing and a large parcel, and those owls deposited on the Gryffindor's table, just in front of Harry and Ron, toppling the basket of bacon.

The shape of the parcel made it apparent to everyone that the parcel contained a broomstick. He looked around and everyone was looking at Gryfindor's table with surprise and confusion. He saw Malfoy and his goons stand up and go away from the table. It didnt matter to him what Malfoy was planning now, he just concentrated on the sausage that was kept before him.

"They would expel him right?" He turned to his right, Daphne was sitting beside him. He never noticed that someone was sitting beside him.

"Dont know about that, but he bound to get in a lot of trouble." Said Marcus Flint, a fifth-year Slytherin.

"I dont know about that," he said, gathering their attention, "Everyone knows that McGonagall may seem like a strict and rule-following witch, but in reality, she is not. I mean look at what she had done, to make Gryffindor this year's cup, she went out of her way to recruit Harry. So she might Dumbledore to look away from the matter."

Marcus looked confused, "What are you talking about?" To flex in front of his housemates, he raised his eyebrows, "You do know why Harry got the broom right?"

Marcus then leaned in, "No. Why?"

"He is going to be the guy that catches the golden ball in quidditch." From Daphne's other side, Pancy squealed, "A Seeker,"

He nodded, "Yeah that one." He then tore into sausage when Marcus leaned in closer, "Who told you that? Is that true?"

He nodded, "Yeah, it's true. You didnt know that?" He chuckled seeing their confused faces. The truth was, no one told him, he just remembered it because he saw it in the movies.

Marcus then immediately ran off, while Daphne asked him a question, "How did you come by this information? Flint is the captain of the Slytherin team, and even he didnt know that,"

He shrugged, "Unlike you guys I have an amicable relationship with other houses. I treat them with respect, and in return, they treat with me respect as well. And you hear things when you have friends."

Soon Malfoy came back and sat down in the empty seat before him, "What the hell is that old coot Dumbledore smoking? He is letting Potter have a broom, even though he is in the first year? How is that fair!"

Daphne then spoke, "Harry Potter is going to be the new seeker of the Gryffindor team."

"But first years are never allowed to be on a team!" Malfoy gnashed his tooth, "My father will hear about this."

Hearing Malfoy made him chuckle, which only fueled his anger, "Stop laughing mud blood."

It was then with his power of telekinesis, he made Draco straighten his arms and slammed it on the table, startling everyone. It is then he got up, and stabbed his knife between Draco's fingers. To say the boy was shocked would be an understatement, he was paler than usual and was frightened to his core. 

 "Look to your right Draco." He commanded, and the boy turned, Professor's table was empty.

"Draco, there are some people in the world that you cannot afford to offend. I am one of those people, never forget that." He took his knife, now there was a hole where he had stabbed. Everything happened so fast that no one was able to react properly. Crabbe and Goyle looked scared as well, which made sense as they were kids as well.

He looked at his knife, it was bent and there was a hole in the table. He took out his wand, and whispered, "Reparo" twice to fix the hole and the knife. After he was done, he slowly walked away, leaving behind a stunned group of Slytherins.