Another Prisoner, Another Professor

A few weeks later.

Harry woke one Friday morning to hear Ron shouting; he groped for his glasses and shoved them on his face. "Scabbers is gone!" Ron was yelling. "He was on my pillow last night and now he's not there!"

"He's probably under your bed," muttered Dean, pulling his blankets over his face.

"I looked there already!" Ron was in his shorts and undershirt, pulling his robe over his head. "I looked behind everywhere and under everywhere and he's gone!" Yanking open the door, he rushed down the stairs.

Harry had just sat up and put his feet on the floor when he heard a hissing and squealing coming from the common room. A heavy feeling in his chest, he grabbed his dressing gown and went out to the stairs.

Scabbers was running across the molding on the wall, the fastest Harry had ever seen him move; Ron was shouting and holding on to Crookshanks, who was trying to lunge at Scabbers as he hissed. "Hermione!" Ron yelled at the top of his lungs. "Get your cat!"

A moment later Hermione bolted down the stairs. Ron thrust Crookshanks at her, his face purple with rage. "Your cat was about one second from swallowing Scabbers whole! He had his mouth open and everything!"

Crookshanks leapt from Hermione's arms and raced upstairs to the girls' dormitories. "Well, if you want him to be safe you should keep him in your room!" said Hermione. She was already dressed for class.

"You know what I should do if I want him to be safe? I should give your cat to Hagrid, if he isn't too wild for him!"

It was not a good morning.

Snape was giving a quiz in Potions, which consisted of making a complete Energizing Elixir without looking at any directions. Neville whispered to Harry as they walked into the dungeon that he had spent his last two lessons with Black repeating the instructions over and over again. "I can do it now," Neville said. "Heat water for five minutes, add three ounces of plantain extract, stir four times counterclockwise, add four ounces of ground tangerine peels and five strands of fairy hair - "

"Professor!" Pansy Parkinson called out. "Professor, Longbottom and Potter are trying to cheat!" Malfoy looked delighted.

"They're not!" Ron snapped. Despite Harry's advice he'd taken Scabbers to class in his pocket, convinced that Scabbers needed solace and support after his terrifying ordeal, and now Harry saw the rat-sized lump in Ron's pocket squirm. "We haven't even started class yet!"

"Yes we have!" said Pansy, pointing at the clock. "We started twenty seconds ago!"

"Yeah, well, if we started, why were you filing your nails?"

"Silence!" Snape shouted, swooping bat-like from his desk to Ron and Pansy's table. "Everyone sit down!"

Pansy glowered at him, apparently irritated that he hadn't taken her side at once.

"There will not be a single word from any of you for the rest of the class. I want your Elixirs finished by the end of the period and there will not be one word, is that understood?"

Everyone shifted nervously in their seats, uncertain as to whether to agree out loud would be to disobey. Ron, it seemed, must have shifted too much, because a moment later a shrill squeal came from his pocket. No one spoke.

Snape stared down his hooked nose at Ron. "Weasley, what is that noise?"

Ron took Scabbers from his pocket, his hand trembling slightly.

Perhaps Snape was afraid of rats, or perhaps he had just not expected to see one in his classroom; either way, he stared in horror for several seconds. He was whispering something to himself; Harry strained to hear. "Can't..." Snape seemed to be saying, "not..."

The room was silent for a moment. "Get out your cauldrons!" Snape snapped. The class clamored for their supplies and ingredients. Snape dropped Scabbers on the table and marched back to his desk. Ron quickly stuffed Scabbers into his pocket and reached for a bottle of plantain extract.

"I think I did all right," said Neville happily once they were outside of the dungeon. "I remembered all the directions, but I think I stirred too fast."

"What was Snape whispering?" Hermione asked Harry and Ron.

"Something about 'can't' and 'not', I think," Harry replied.

Ron refused to look at Hermione.

By lunch, it seemed that Percy had somehow found out about Ron bringing Scabbers to Potions. "I cannot believe you actually brought that rat to a class," he hissed. "What were you thinking?"

"He was scared out of his mind by Hermione's cat!" Ron retorted. "Just because you didn't want him once you got your owl doesn't mean he doesn't need - "

"Oh, so he brought a rat to class," said Wood; he was rolling his eyes, but for some reason he was smiling at Percy anyway. "Big deal. Here, Ron, give it to me, I've got History of Magic next class, Binns won't notice. Rats like me. Right, Perce?" He nudged him in the ribs as though this were some sort of joke between them. Ron, oblivious, reached into his pocket and handed Scabbers to Wood.

"When did Percy and Wood get to be friends, anyway?" Harry asked Ron as they sat down at the Gryffindor table. "I mean, I know they're in the same year, but - well, Percy's Percy and Wood's Wood."

"People can have friends who are different from how they are," said Hermione. From the way she was nervously pressing her lips together, Harry got the impression she was trying to find some way to get back into Ron's good graces. "I'm - I mean - "

"Are you saying something?" said Ron coldly.

"I'm really sorry Crookshanks tried to eat Scabbers," said Hermione, so fast that the words ran together. "I should have fed him more so he wouldn't be hungry. But - if I try to keep Crookshanks away from Scabbers, you should try to keep Scabbers away from Crookshanks too - "

"I don't know how he got out of the room!" Ron said. "I mean, the door was shut and there's not enough room between the bottom of the door and the floor for him to get out. It's not like he can turn doorknobs."

"I don't know how Crookshanks got out of my room either," said Hermione. "I shut my door too." She paused for a moment and then leaned forward past Harry and Ron, looking at the head table.

"What?" said Harry.

"Black's not there," said Hermione.

"Really?" Ron looked at the high table too. "Yeah, you're right...that's weird. I looked up the date of the next full moon and it's not until Tuesday. Full moons don't last for five days, right?"

"Ron," said Hermione, "how have you ever passed your Astronomy exams?"

"I know they don't last for five days," said Ron indignantly. "I just said that in case you were going to say - " his voice changed into a very credible imitation of Hermione's " - 'actually, Ron, there's a rare phenomenon known as Lunar Thingy Whatsit in which the full moon does last for five days...' - hey, speaking of the full moon, this is your last chance to bet, Hermione. Black's not in class on Tuesday, I win, he is, you win."

"All right," said Hermione, to Harry's surprise. "If you win, I have to keep Crookshanks in my room until Easter. If I win, you've got to keep Scabbers in your room until Easter."

Ron swallowed; Harry could tell he had not anticipated this turn of events. "Okay," he said after a moment. "You're on."

Black was not in their Defense Against the Dark Arts class either; instead, Flitwick was levitating books onto Black's chair. "Where's Professor Black?" Seamus asked him before Harry could.

"I'm really not sure," said Flitwick cheerfully. "Professor Dumbledore asked me at lunch if I could take over this class period - very last-minute, whatever it is. Now, what are you studying?" He climbed up the stack of books and looked at Black's lesson plan. "Oh, blood magic!"

Lavender raised her hand. "Professor Flitwick?" she said timidly. "Do you - if you were going to write an exam about blood magic, what exactly would you ask?"

Although Harry's class had spent the last few weeks very entertained by the various accounts of blood magic, confirmed or suspected, it was the general consensus that it was the least concrete subject they had ever studied, and no one could imagine how they would be tested on it. In the dozens of pages they had read there were only a few firm facts amid a great deal of conjecture. "Well, I'm not sure if I could write an entire exam," said Flitwick. "I'd make sure that you all knew the history of it - that's the important part, the history."

"But it's a history of things people aren't sure happened," said Hermione. There was a murmur of agreement among the rest of the class. "I mean, take Stanton the Sanguine. He studied blood magic, he got some puffskeins, and his enemies died. We're studying blood magic, but if any one of us bought some pet puffskeins and their enemies died - "

"And his or her enemies died, Miss Granger," said Flitwick, still smiling.

Hermione was thrown off-course. "What?"

"A 'one' doesn't go with a 'their', it goes with 'his,' 'her,' or 'his or her.'"

Lavender giggled, apparently pleased to see Hermione corrected by a teacher. "Oh, right," said Hermione, somewhat flustered. "But if any one of us bought some pet puffskeins and his or her enemies died, I doubt there would be a connection."

"Yes," said Flitwick, "but suppose you felt your skin being pricked during the night while you stayed with a puffskein owner! Then you'd find the knowledge very useful. It's always better to know something than to know nothing, Miss Granger. My goodness, haven't any of you been asking Professor Black these questions?"

"I wish I knew something about where Black is," Harry whispered to Ron.

Black was absent at dinner as well, but seeing as Harry had received no message that their anti-dementor lesson at eight was cancelled, he arrived at Black's office on time and knocked on the door. There was no answer. When he knocked a second time, a low voice replied, "Come in."

Harry opened the door cautiously. The room was completely dark except for the light of a solitary candle, which was nearly burned out. Black was sitting in one of his armchairs, his head in his hands. The gaunt look had returned to his face.

"Professor?" Harry said.

Black looked up. "They found a button from my brother Regulus's coat," he said. "In the woods half a mile away from where the Malfoys live."