"Half-past eleven," Ron muttered at last, "we'd better go."

  Finally, I thought. I was on the verge of jumping up from my bed I was pretending to sleep on and going to the duel early.

  We put on our bathrobes, picked up our wands, and crept across the tower room, down the spiral staircase, and into the Gryffindor common room. The fire was slowly dying in the fireplace making the armchairs look like shadows.

  We were creeping closer and closer to the portrait hole when the chair closest to us started talking.

  "I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry." A lamp turned on proving to me that Hermione talked, not the chair.

  "You." Said Ron furiously. "Go back to bed!"

  "I almost told your brother," Hermione snapped, "Percy-he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this."

  I stopped myself in time from saying that I wasn't a prefect or Ron's brother.

  "Come on," Harry said to Ron and I. He pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady and climbed through the hole.

  It was almost a fact that Hermione wasn't giving up that easily. Thankfully I had walked the farthest I could from Hermione as I could so I didn't hear her lecture at full volume and my ADHD filtered out the rest.

  While she was talking to Ron and Harry, I noticed the paintings kept on moving and at one point the Fat Lady had left her painting. Hermione also noticed this.

  "Now what am I going to do?" She asked shrilly

  "That's your problem," said Ron. "We've got to go, we're going to be late."

  We walked down the corridor and were almost to the end of it when Hermione tagged along.

  "I'm coming with you," she said.

  "You are not."

  "D'you think I'm going to stand here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you-"

  "And you'll throw us under the bus!" I said cutting her off.

  "Shut up, the three of you!" Said Harry sharply. "I heard something."

  It sounded like it was snuffling.

  "Mrs. Norris?" Breathed Ron, squinting through the dark.

  It wasn't Mrs. Norris, but Neville. He was on the ground sleeping, but woke up when we got closer.

  "Thank goodness you found me! I've been out here for hours, I couldn't remember the new password to get in to bed."

  Poor guy, I thought.

  "Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's 'Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."

  "How's your arm?"said Harry.

  "Fine," said Neville, showing us. "Madam Pomfrey mended it in a minute."

  "Good-well, look, Neville, we've got to go somewhere, we'll see you later-"

  "Don't leave me!" Said Neville, scrambling to his feet, "I don't want to stay here alone, the Bloody Baron's been past twice already."

  Ron looked at his watch and then glared furiously at Hermione and Neville and that was how the group of Ron, Harry and I got two more to our team.

  These four would be great in a sit-com. Especially Hermione and Ron. Before they could continue their arguing, which I was watching with mild interest, Harry shushed them and made us go forward.

  We went into ninja mode. Percy Jackson, wizard during the day, ninja at night and demigod on weekends.

  We tiptoed to the trophy room and waited there for Malfoy and Crabbe to arrive. I walked around already bored of trying to read the plaques and inscriptions.

  "He's late, maybe he's chickened out," Ron whispered.

  Then a noise in the next room made them jump.

  "Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner."

  It was Filch being weird with his cat. Harry seemed horror-stricken and started signalling for us to follow him. We went this way and that way, but the strange thing was how I saw it.

  Everything seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time. I knew it was the ADHD immediately.

  After a few more minutes of running and frantic whispers, we made it to a classroom. Then the ghost came squealing along.

  "Shut up, Peeves-please-you'll get us thrown out."

  Peeves cackled.

  "Wandering around at midnight, Ickle firsties? Tut, tut, tut. Naughty, naughty, you'll get caughty."

  "Not if you don't give us away, Peeves, please."

  "Should tell Filch, I should," said Peeves in a saintly voice, but his eyes glittered wickedly. "It's for your own good, you know."

  "Get out of the way," snapped Ron, taking a swipe at Peeves, and even I could tell that was a big mistake.

  "STUDENTS OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED DOWN BY THE CHARMS CORRIDOR!" Peeves bellowed.

  We ran as fast as we could, but the door was locked. Ron whined, Neville panicked and Hermione came up with a solution.

  "Alohomora!" Hermione whispered.

  The lock clicked and we got into the corridor as quickly as possible. The others listened through the door while I surveyed the room. The only thing I could see was a giant slobbering three-headed dog. Neville also saw this and alerted the others while I stood frozen in shock.

  Before arriving to Hogwarts I had read all I could about any Greek monster that might try to attack me and I knew that this was an awful monster to meet unarmed.

  Suddenly I was pulled backward into the corridor and away from that dog thanks to Harry. We ran as quick as we could back to the common room and we were stopped when the Fat Lady started nagging.

  "Where on earth have you all been?" She asked, looking at our hanging bathrobes and flustered faces.

  "Never mind that-pig snout, pig snout," Harry panted. We ran inside and collapsed into chairs.

  Minutes flew by as we stayed silent.

  "What do they think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school?" Said Ron finally. "If any dog needs exercise, that one does."

  "That's a Greek monster." I pointed out before Hermione could insult room.

  "That's besides the point," she snapped. "Didn't you see what it was standing on?"

  "The floor?" Harry suggested. "I wasn't looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads."

  "No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something."

  She stood glaring at them.

  "I hope you pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed-or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."

  Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

  "No, we don't mind," he said. "You'd think we dragged her along, wouldn't you?"

  I'm in a foul mood thanks to a family member I won't name, but I'll update for you guys because y'all are the light at the end of a tunnel for me. I've also lost my voice and I feel like I'm swallowing fire, so a good day (sarcasm alert).

~Violentvixy