Chapter 126 — The Ground Beneath the Willow

The second stone came through the same window. I ducked as it struck the kettle above the spout with a metallic crack, and Hagrid jerked his hand aside. The lid fell onto the worktop, followed by a splash of hot water spreading towards Scabbers’s board.

Harry caught the board’s edge and pulled it clear. One corner struck the fallen lid, tilting the wood enough for the weight to slide from the colander. I shouted for him to hold it down, but grey fur flashed beneath the rim before his palm reached it.

Scabbers ran behind the jug, crossed the broken pottery and reached the window ledge. I lunged as he dropped out of sight, catching nothing but cold air. Ron was already running towards the back door.

‘Don’t grab him!’ I called. ‘Tell us where he goes.’

Hagrid set the kettle down while water hissed on the stove’s edge. He asked whether anyone was burnt. Harry flexed the hand that had moved the board and said the water had missed his skin, though his sleeve was wet near the cuff.

Outside, Ron shouted that he could see the rat by the wall. I leaned far enough out to look along the slope and saw Dumbledore approaching with Fudge and the executioner. Hagrid opened the front door as I told him Scabbers had escaped through the window and Ron still had him in sight.

He called to the headmaster. Dumbledore answered at once, telling him to keep us together; he was coming down. Hagrid turned back to me and pointed towards the path beside the hut.

‘Wait there. Don’t go near the forest.’ I nodded and went out after Ron, with Harry and Hermione following. They shut the back door on the spreading puddle, and the cold outside reached straight through the warmth I had brought from the kitchen.

Ron pointed between the end of the wall and a low tangle of bare brambles. A grey shape moved through the gap. I reminded him that Dumbledore had been told, and we took our places on the path where Hagrid had asked us to wait.

From there, we could watch the near edge of the tangle and the strip of ground beyond it. Harry held out his wet sleeve while Hermione folded the dry part back from his wrist to check it again. He said he had been trying to keep the water from Scabbers, and I told him I knew.

The crack against the kettle kept returning to me. A branch moved near the trees, but I could see nobody to point out, much less identify. For a second, I wanted to go and find whoever had thought throwing stones through a window was entertaining. Ron said the rat was still there, and I turned back to the thing we could actually follow.

Below us, Fudge paused near Buckbeak while the executioner shifted the axe between shoulders. Dumbledore spoke to them, then to Hagrid in the doorway. I caught the words the rat before the headmaster looked past the side of the hut, searching for us.

I raised my arm. Dumbledore saw me and held up his hand, asking us to stay where we were. We stayed while Fudge produced an envelope and a silver streak left the headmaster’s wand, vanishing towards the castle.

Dumbledore spoke to Hagrid again before taking the Minister inside. Hagrid came around the hut and told us help had been summoned. He would stay with us until it arrived, and he wanted to know where Scabbers was now.

Ron pointed out the brambles. Hagrid kept to their lower side while we watched from the path above, trying not to lose the flashes of grey among the branches. Buckbeak turned towards us, shifting enough for me to see the curve of his neck and the chain disappearing behind the pumpkins.

I remembered that neck stretching ahead of me in the air. I raised a hand a little, though I doubted the gesture meant much to him. He gave a short call, and I had to look away before I decided he was asking me for something I had already failed to give.

‘He’s moved,’ Ron whispered. Scabbers had reached a root at the far end of the tangle, with his nose just beyond the shadow. Open ground separated him from the next patch of cover.

‘Don’t go down there,’ I said. Ron answered that he wasn’t going to, and we stood together watching the root. Below us, Hagrid crouched to improve his view without putting his hand where the rat could bite.

Voices rose inside the hut, loud enough to reach us without becoming clear. Hermione kept looking towards the door. Harry folded his arms across his chest, and I tried to keep my attention on the grey nose beneath the root instead of measuring how long we had been waiting.

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The executioner came out first. He walked behind the pumpkins, leaving only his shoulders visible, then bent out of sight. When he straightened, the axe rose above him.

I took a step before realising I had moved. The blade came down behind the pile with a heavy crack, followed by a man’s shout. Birds burst from the fence, wings beating against the pale sky, and Hagrid stood abruptly to look towards the sound.

Hermione turned into Ron’s shoulder. He put an arm around her, still staring down the slope, while Harry stood close on her other side with a hand on her arm. I couldn’t see Buckbeak. My mind supplied a body behind the pumpkins before I could remind myself of everything the slope concealed.

I swallowed against a painful tightness in my throat and looked back at the root. The grey nose had gone. Before I could warn Ron, Scabbers ran onto the path almost at his feet.

Ron moved before either of us finished breathing. He bent, closed his hand around the rat and brought it against his chest with a sound of relief. I began telling him to keep Scabbers away from his face while I called for help, but Ron cried out before I finished.

His hand opened. Scabbers struck the ground running, and blood welled from the side of Ron’s finger. He stared at it for a second, saying the rat had bitten him, then went after it.

‘Ron, stop!’ Hermione shouted. I called towards Hagrid that Scabbers had gone up the path. He answered that he was coming around the brambles, but Ron had already reached the bend.

Harry started after him. I caught Hermione’s eye and told her to stay where the adults could see her long enough to show them our direction. She turned downhill, waving both arms, and I ran after the boys.

Beyond the rise, the ground opened towards the castle and the darker shape of the Whomping Willow. Ron gained on Scabbers in short, furious bursts, then lost ground whenever the grass thickened. I shouted at him to leave the rat, reminding him his hand was bleeding. He pointed ahead without looking back.

‘He’s right there!’ Ron left the path. Harry ran ahead of me, calling Ron’s name rather than the rat’s, and I lengthened my stride until the cold air bit into my chest.

Behind us, Hermione called something to Hagrid. I glanced around long enough to see her on the higher part of the path, pointing in our direction. Then Ron lunged near the roots, and I turned back with the tree’s name already in my mouth.

He closed both hands around Scabbers and faced us on his knees, triumphant. Harry stopped so abruptly that his shoes slipped on the wet grass. I caught his sleeve and pulled him back a pace before telling Ron to move slowly away from the trunk.

One long branch shifted above him. Ron looked up, his face emptying as he began trying to get his feet beneath him. He kept Scabbers pressed inside a fold of his robe, making the movement more awkward than it needed to be.

Hermione reached us, breathing hard enough to break the news into pieces. Hagrid had heard and was coming. I told her to stay back while I searched for a route between the roots, unable to find one outside the reach of the lower limbs.

Ron had managed to stand. Instead of coming towards us, he froze, staring past my shoulder. When he told us to look behind, I turned to find a large black dog several yards away.

Its ribs showed beneath the rough coat. It held its head low, lips drawn back from its teeth, with no crystal ball or painted warning between us and the animal. Harry whispered Sirius’s name as the dog gathered itself to spring.

I pulled a pulse strip from my pouch and threw it across its path. ‘Impello!’ Earth scattered where the spell struck the grass beneath the leap. The dog was already above it, clearing the space beside Harry before I could draw another piece.

It landed near Ron. He tried to turn, but the jaws closed around his leg, and his scream cut through the noise of our feet in the grass. I had the second strip ready when his body crossed the line of my throw.

I put it back and ran. Ron clawed at the ground with one hand, his other arm trapped against his chest around the fold of his robe. His heels dragged two crooked tracks through the wet earth towards the opening between the roots.

‘Oswald!’ He reached towards me as the dog backed into the dark. I caught his hand, felt it slip and went down on one knee with my fingers closing on mud where his wrist had been.

Wood creaked above me. I looked up to see Harry and Hermione running into the sweep of a branch, and drove myself sideways. My arms caught Hermione around the shoulders while my leg struck Harry’s shins as I turned. They fell beside me, and the branch tore through the space where their heads had been.

Wind slapped my face. Bark and wet twigs showered over my back as I shouted for the hole. Harry rolled towards it; I pushed myself off Hermione and caught her arm to help her up while the lower limbs drew back again.

‘Above you!’ Harry called from the opening. I shoved Hermione towards him and threw my weight backwards. He caught her wrist and pulled as the next branch struck the ground between us.

For a moment, it drove itself into the earth, thick as my arm. The impact travelled through my shoes, and then the wood began to rise. I shouted for room, waited until Hermione crawled further in and Harry flattened himself against the side, then jumped over the lifting branch and dived beneath the root.

Another blow struck behind my feet. Soil fell down my collar, and for several seconds I could only breathe against the damp ground, listening to the movement beyond the entrance. Harry’s hand settled on my shoulder as he asked whether I was hurt.

I moved my fingers, then my legs. My right palm stung from a scrape, and my knee hurt, but it bent when I asked it to. I told them I could move and checked that both of them could too.

Hermione nodded. Harry rubbed the shin I had knocked from under him and said he was all right. I apologised, but he looked back at the branches moving outside before answering.

‘Don’t be.’ He kept his hand on my shoulder while I caught another breath. Somewhere beyond us in the tunnel, Ron was still ahead with the dog.