Aftermath

Once Malfoy had fainted, the werewolf stopped its attack midway and transformed into Neville's appearance.

Yes, this whole farce had been conducted by him to prank Malfoy.

Initially, he had only planned to scare him a bit and only gain the 50 percent completion reward at most.

But he had underestimated the pale boy's fear of lycanthropes.

Malfoy was simply too scared due to the transfigured head and simply fainted at the attack.

It was simply a genius idea to use Confundus Charm as it made Malfoy think that it was a full moon night.

If he had only looked around carefully he would have found his wand lying not very far from him.

Regardless of the outcome he planned to alter his memories by the reward he had just got.

He did not want Malfoy to raise any alarm and get his memories checked as there were many flaws in his prank that an adult might be able to notice right away.

He would instead replace the werewolf by a Boggart in both their dreams.

Hagrid had already commented that Fang was a coward and so he would not be suspicious of Fang fainting along Draco at the sight of a werewolf.

As for him he managed to chase the Boggart away with the Riddikulus Charm.

After checking that all details at the "crime scene" matched his description he sent the red sparks toward the night sky.

Hagrid approached them followed by Harry who had a serious expression on a centaur.

He slid off the centaur who turned and cantered back into the depths of the Forbidden forest.

It turned out that they had already met the dark lord and Firenze had told Harry about Voldemort's attempt to steal the stone.

Now that they had completed their task they were sent off back to the Castle with Malfoy being admitted to the infirmary.

He would come out soon as he had not been injured badly by Neville.

Ron had fallen asleep in the dark common room, waiting for them to return.

Hermione too had gone to sleep while clasping a book in her hands.

Neville gently woke her up and she got up while arranging a bookmark on the page she last read.

On the other hand Harry roughly woke up Ron who shouted something about Quidditch fouls.

In a matter of seconds, the two were wide-eyed as Harry began to recount his adventures at the Forbidden forest.

Harry could not sit down. He paced up and down in front of the fire. He was still shaking.

"Snape wants the stone for Voldemort ... and Voldemort's waiting in the forest ... and all this time we thought that Snape just wanted to get rich..."

Ron terrified to hear the dark Lord's name so many times tried to stop Harry but the latter simply wasn't listening.

"Firenze saved me, but we shouldn't have done ... Bane was furious ... he was talking about interfering with what the planets say is going to happen ... They must show that Voldemort's coming back ... Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me ... I suppose that is written in the stars as well."

"Will you stop saying that name!" Ron hissed.

"So all I have got to wait for now is Snape to steal the stone," Harry went on feverishly, "then Voldemort will come and finish me off ... Well, I suppose Bane will be happy."

Hermione still looked frightened but she added a word of comfort that everyone says Dumbledore is the only one the dark lord was ever afraid of. With Dumbledore around, You know who won't touch you. "Anyway, who says that the centaurs are right? It sounds like fortune telling to me and Professor McGonagall says that is a very imprecise branch of magic."

The sky had turned light before they finished talking.

Neville and the others went to bed but the night's suprises were not over.

When Harry pulled back his sheets, he found his Invisibility cloak folded neatly beneath them.

There was a note pinned to it: Just in case