Chapter 112 — Ways Through

The lion offered questions I could answer more readily than the broken pouch. Walking without overreaching came first, followed by running and the considerably harder business of turning. My familiar habits belonged to two feet, while four paws required practice of their own. The roar improved too, which Hermione took particular care to record.

Once McGonagall was satisfied with changing and returning, she permitted the basic exercises with an agreed companion present. New experiments still required discussion. I told Harry and Ron what I had been doing and showed them the room, including how to reach it when they needed to find me. Harry remained in the doorway for a moment, looking at the mat before saying this was where we had been.

‘Yes. I did promise it was more than homework,’ I said. Ron looked from me to the mat, evidently finding a problem with that account which had nothing to do with the room.

‘You didn’t promise anything. You said Transfiguration work and vanished.’ He folded his arms while I conceded the point, then listened to the first attempt, McGonagall, the detentions and the pouch. When I finished, he wanted to see the ruined fastening. Harry asked about coming back.

Their silence when I changed lasted longer than Hermione’s had on the first day. I chose the sound carefully, though Ron stepped back anyway, and returned before attempting to improve the performance. Afterwards Harry kept looking between me and the mat with a grin I had missed since the match. He called it brilliant, and I was glad he could hear the whole account alongside the part I wanted to show.

Luna attended a later practice with Hermione. She asked where to stand before I changed, and I showed her the space needed around the mat. As a lion, I sat while she looked at me, trying to keep the tail still long enough for it to stop distracting me.

‘You kept your eyes,’ she said. She remained where I had asked, looking at my face rather than the paws and claws which occupied most of my own attention in the mirror. I kept still, finding it pleasant to be recognised without a demonstration.

After I returned, she took my hand and glanced towards the watch. ‘I think I’d recognise you. Even without the howling,’ she added before I could offer that as an additional clue. I enjoyed the answer sufficiently to leave the next demonstration for another day.

Hagrid later helped find a clear place near the edge of the grounds for outdoor movement. McGonagall knew the arrangements, and Hagrid knew what animal to expect. I left pouch and brush safely with the people watching, then changed where I could run without frightening passing students or entering the forest.

Cold air carried scents I could not separate so easily as a boy. Ground yielded beneath my paws, and running began to fit together differently from movement between walls. I wanted to go further, but Hagrid’s agreed boundary remained visible before the trees. Turning back while exhilaration urged me onwards proved an exercise of its own.

Harry’s next visit to Hogsmeade required another kind of judgement. The last outing before Christmas approached, bringing back the expression he wore during the first permission check. One evening I opened the map at our table and showed the others a passage behind the one-eyed witch. It ran towards the edge of the parchment without giving us enough about the far end.

‘For Harry?’ Hermione asked. I nodded and showed the way it avoided the departure queue and carriages, which the cloak alone could not do. She followed the line towards its unfinished end. ‘That still leaves quite a question.’

‘Where does it go?’ Harry leaned closer, trying the adjoining fold as though I might have overlooked it. I wanted to establish that before calling it a plan, I told him. An unfinished line supplied no useful place to meet.

I examined the statue separately and asked the twins about the map they sold me. They knew its entrance and supplied the opening instruction. Touching the point they described with my brush and speaking the opening word brought the concealed entrance into view. I returned to the others before treating an open hole as an invitation to disappear indefinitely.

Hermione came to trace the passage with me. We left Harry and Ron its route and our expected return time, then followed it to a way up beneath Honeydukes. Sounds from the shop reached us in the cellar, finally giving the line an end I could identify. We returned without entering the shop, and Harry looked at the map as though it had produced a new country when I told him.

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‘Honeydukes? Brilliant!’ Harry caught me in a brief hug before looking at the route again. ‘I can meet you there. I can actually come.’ Hermione waited until he stopped speaking, leaving him a moment with the discovery before raising the part it had not changed.

‘You still haven’t permission, Harry,’ she said. ‘This doesn’t provide it.’ Ron added a reminder about Black, reducing Harry’s smile without removing it. I had recently spent evenings in detention for ignoring a condition and could offer no claim to improved obedience here.

‘We need to agree where to meet and what happens if you don’t arrive,’ I said. ‘And you still need the cloak.’ I was helping him break the rule, and a guarantee of safety would disguise something all four of us understood. Harry studied the passage before saying he wanted to come with us, and we began arranging details.

The Hog’s Head was not Hermione’s preferred meeting place. ‘People can mind their own business somewhere with clean windows,’ she said when I explained the attraction. Remembering the windows gave her expression the same warmth she might reserve for lunch in a broom cupboard. I proposed leaving once we found one another, which she accepted without enthusiasm.

We agreed where to wait if it was crowded and how long to allow before checking back towards the passage. Harry would avoid the departure queue and use the cloak for the journey. He repeated the route and opening instruction before borrowing the map. We had discussed the risks without pretending that repeating them until he stopped looking forward to anything would improve the arrangement.

Snow covered the grounds on the last Hogsmeade Saturday before Christmas. Harry was dressed before Ron finished objecting to the morning, then checked his ordinary bag for cloak and map twice. At breakfast he buttered the same toast again without taking a bite. I suggested trying to look ordinary, and Hermione moved the butter dish beyond further improvement.

A boy passing asked what made him so cheerful. ‘Nothing,’ Harry replied too quickly. ‘I mean, I’m getting a new broom.’ Dean turned at once, giving Harry enough warning to stop if he had been paying attention to anything beyond escaping the first question.

‘A Firebolt?’ Dean asked. Harry hesitated and said yes, bringing Dean onto the bench beside him. ‘You’ve ordered one? When’s it coming?’ Harry confirmed the order before admitting he had no arrival date.

I watched the second answer settle on the first. Harry knew no arrival date, but offered a probable turn on the broom when Dean asked, which sounded far more promising than it deserved. Once Dean left to find Seamus, Harry put down his untouched toast and admitted that had been stupid. I observed that the story developed quickly.

‘You agreed twice,’ Ron pointed out when Harry blamed Dean for choosing the broom. ‘A Firebolt, Harry. You couldn’t have picked something less interesting?’ A few details of its reputation followed before Hermione stopped the description becoming a sales pitch and advised correcting Dean promptly.

Harry looked towards me. ‘I can lend you a quill for the correction,’ I offered. ‘Buying a Firebolt to support a sentence seems excessive.’ He laughed reluctantly, then caught Dean’s sleeve when he passed again. Admitting he had only considered a replacement caused disappointment and questions about a future purchase, but the conversation proved survivable.

I had begun eating when Neville hurried over asking whether we had seen Hagrid. His tone brought all of us round before Hermione asked why. Buckbeak had been ordered put down, he said, making the breakfast noise seem less distinct as I remembered grey wings above the lake and the abrupt catch of claws at my leg.

I asked who told him. Hagrid had the notice himself, Neville explained, so we went to the hut before leaving for the village. Hagrid stood outside with Buckbeak and looked down at the folded paper as we approached. When he realised Neville had spoken to us, I asked whether I could read it.

The decision named the incident, danger to students and order concerning Buckbeak. It occupied remarkably little paper for something which would end the creature standing nearby. I found provision for an appeal and read it twice. ‘We should prepare one,’ I said, keeping my finger beneath that part as Hagrid shook his head.

‘They won’t change their minds because we ask nice.’ Hagrid looked towards Buckbeak, who stood a few yards away with his wings folded. ‘They’ve already got what happened. I told ’em.’

‘Then we ask for the account they used and compare it with ours,’ I said. ‘I was the one injured. That ought to be included properly.’ Hermione asked about the deadline while Ron looked for who made the decision. I held the paper where Hagrid could still read along with us.

‘Malfoy wasn’t even hurt by him,’ Harry said. He stood beside me with his attention fixed on the heading, as though the words might change if he objected to them closely enough. I let him finish before answering.

‘I was, Harry. We have to include that too,’ I said. Pretending nobody was injured would weaken the account as much as omitting the warnings. I offered a signed statement including my own actions, while Hermione volunteered to help organise the earlier material.

We could ask McGonagall how to submit it properly. Hagrid would decide how the appeal was made without having to begin from an empty page, I told him, keeping the notice open at that provision. It could fail; the wording made that difficult to forget. Doing nothing would supply no reason to reconsider at all.

Hagrid took the paper back more carefully than he gave it to me. He agreed to try, and we arranged to work on it after the visit and before the stated deadline. Then he asked to spend some time alone with Buckbeak, gently but firmly enough that we left him there without another argument disguised as comfort.