[21] 200 Points Lost

                                    

                                          
Things couldn't have been worse.
                          
Filch took us down to Professor McGonagall's study on the first floor, where we sat and waited without saying a word to each other. Hermione was trembling. 
                          
Excuses, alibis, and wild cover- up stories chased each other around Harry's brain, each more feeble than the last. I appreciated Harry trying to find us a way out of detention. I couldn't see how we were going to get out of trouble this time. We were cornered. 
                          
How could we have been so stupid as to forget the cloak? There was no reason on earth that Professor McGonagall would accept for our being out of bed and creeping around the school in the dead of night, let alone being up the tallest astronomy tower, which was out-of-bounds except for classes. Add Norbert and the invisibility cloak, and we might as well be packing our bags already.
                          
Remember how I thought that things couldn't have been worse? I was wrong. When Professor McGonagall appeared, she was leading Neville. 
                          
"Harry!" Neville burst out, the moment he saw us. "I was trying to find you to warn you, I heard Malfoy saying he was going to catch you, he said you had a drag --"
                          
Harry and I shook our heads violently to shut Neville up, but Professor McGonagall had seen. She looked more likely to breathe fire than Norbert as she towered over the four of us.
                          
"I would never have believed it of any of you. Mr. Filch says you were up in the astronomy tower. It's one o'clock in the morning. Explain yourselves."
                          
It was the first time Hermione had ever failed to answer a teacher's question. She was staring at her slippers, as still as a statue. I didn't dare meet Professor McGonagall's eyes. 
                          
"I think I've got a good idea of what's been going on," said Professor McGonagall. "It doesn't take a genius to work it out. You fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and-bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble. I've already caught him. I suppose you think it's funny that Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too?"
                          
I saw Harry try to catch Neville's eye and try to tell him without words that this wasn't true, because Neville was looking stunned and hurt. Poor, blundering Neville -- I knew what it must have cost him to try and find us in the dark, to warn us. Now he was going to pay as much as we were. 
                          
"I'm disgusted," Professor McGonagall continued. "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before! You, Miss Granger, I thought you had more sense. Miss Weasley, I thought you knew better than your brothers about breaking rules. As for you, Mr. Potter, I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this. All three of you will receive detentions -- yes, you too, Mr. Longbottom, nothing gives you the right to walk around school at night, especially these days, it's very dangerous -- and fifty points will be taken from Gryffindor."
                          
"Fifty?" Harry gasped -- we would lose the lead, the lead he'd won in the last Quidditch match. 
                          
"Fifty points each," said Professor McGonagall, breathing heavily through her long, pointed nose.
                          
"Professor -- please-- " I begged her.
                          
 "You can't --" Harry shook his head.
                          
"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Potter. Now get back to bed, all of you. I've never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students."
                          
Two hundred points lost. That put Gryffindor in last place. In one night, we'd ruined any chance Gryffindor had had for the house cup. I felt as though the bottom had dropped out of my stomach. How could we ever make up for this?
                          
I couldn't sleep. Hermione had cried a little went we got back before eventually falling asleep. I kept wondering about what would happen in the morning. What would happen when the rest of Gryffindor found out what we'd  done? My thoughts became worse and worse, I had to stop thinking about it, but that seemed impossible. I could only imagine how Harry must be feeling about this.