A Plan and A Message

"Rose, wait up!" Robert said when he noticed that the girl was leaving the Great Hall.

She heard him and stopped, her housemates knew of her friendship with Robert and gave them some space.

"Is everything alright?" the boy continued when he caught up with her.

Rose tried to give him a reassuring smile while saying, "Yeah, don't worry about it."

Rob didn't buy her words and insisted, "What did Malfoy do? He was looking really smug when he came back to our table."

Rose let out a sigh, took a deep breath and answered him, "He challenged me to a duel, and Neville accepted it in my stead."

That was a surprise, challenges were pretty rare, at least formal ones. They normally only occurred when a wizard felt that their honour had been attacked, something that hadn't happened with Draco during this first week.

"I don't think this is a good idea." Robert said to his friend.

Rose nodded her head and said, "Me neither, but it's already accepted, I won't go back on my word, even if it's with Malfoy."

"Do you mind if I go?" the boy asked her with an expectant expression.

The girl didn't want to drag him in something that it surely would be trouble, but upon seeing his expression she could only give him permission. She informed him of the date and location and left with her housemates.

Robert was certain that Draco was planning something, the duel was really late at night and he guessed that it'd be pretty far from the lion's common room.

He decided to try and investigate, maybe he could prevent whatever Draco was planning.

When he arrived at Slytherin's common room, he noticed Draco and his group laughing about something, seeing this as an opportunity, he got closer to see if they'd talk about the plan that was set in motion.

In the end all he heard was that Draco didn't plan to leave the common room for the night, he didn't say anything about the duel, only that "Filch would be really happy that night."

Robert's friends noticed that he was acting weird, so they decided to confront him about it.

"Rob is everything ok?" Daphne asked him.

The boy controlled his emotions and answered her, "Everything is fine."

He had been too cold, that made his friend be even more worried, it wasn't normal for him to keep secrets from her, normally that would only happen when it was something really important.

"Rob, whatever you're doing, just think before you act. You might be friends with Gryffindor but you are a Slytherin so act like one." she said and left him, she knew that she couldn't do anything to change him.

Thus Robert made a plan, he'd try to get to the Gryffindors before the duel's time and warn them about Draco's thoughts about staying in the dormitory and about Filch's supposed happy night. He would then use magic to create disturbances for the caretaker, so they could get back to their common rooms.

The first part of his plan worked, he managed to encounter them on the third floor, just as they were entering the Trophy Room, the place chosen to host the duel.

Rose had warned Neville about Robert's desire to watch, so the boy wasn't taken back with his presence.

The one who didn't seem to have a reason to be there was Hermione, she looked like that was the last place she wanted to be, but she stood there for her friend.

"Hey! I heard from Draco that he doesn't plan on coming. He also said that Filch would be happy tonight." were the words said as Robert entered the room.

Neville was shocked, "What? He challenged her to a formal duel and he's not coming? Even if it's Malfoy, I think he'd know better than to disregard tradition like that." were his words.

"Well, that's all I heard, I came here to warn you guys, I think it's best if you all go back to your common room." Robert said, turning to leave the room.

He stopped when he heard the sound of Ms. Norris approaching, she was pretty quiet but her meows to get Filch's attention gave her away.

Thinking quickly he turned around, made a shushing sign with one hand and with the other told them to follow him.

They left the Trophy Room and went towards their room, they entered it right before the caretaker and his pet could have seen them. After that they thought about waiting for the searching duo to go away.

A few minutes of silence later, they decided to check and see if they could leave, the corridor was empty and there wasn't a sound in any of the rooms around them.

However, Mr. Filch was experienced, he knew that the one who had the most patience won in the end, so when the students left their studying room Mrs. Norris gave a loud screech and dashed towards them.

They panicked and ran, they had a good enough lead to get to the right side of the floor and unlock a door to hide in.

It seemed that they lost the caretaker, if the sound of his voice getting lower was any indication.

With a sigh of relief they inspected the room they got in, it was pretty dark, for some reason this room didn't have any windows in it. All they could see were six small red orbs floating near the ceiling.

The orbs got closer and they managed to see what it was, they were eyes, all six of them. And their owner was a gigantic three headed dog.

The panic they felt before was nothing compared to the one that they were feeling at this moment. The first to get out of it was Robert, he managed to open the door and shove Hermione out, after that he quickly pulled the other two and closed the door and locked it with a Locking Charm.

"Let's just go to bed, this night has been way too stressful." Robert said and walked away, the other three simply followed him to the stairs and said their goodnights as they separated.

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Hey, if you're interested in why the story changed, read the Author thoughts below, if not, just the tl;dr will do.