Getting Pigeoned

At eleven o'clock at night, Eliana specifically changed into a loose but not cumbersome set of old clothes—who wears nice clothes to a fight?

She tied her hair into a bun at the back of her head and stretched her limbs on the ground with kicks and twists.

Hermione watched her with a stern face as she finished her stretches and was about to go out, then called her back, "Are you really going to mess around with them?"

Eliana corrected her rigorously, "They're messing around with me, Hermione, I'm the main force."

"But this will cost our House points—Eliana!"

Eliana had already slipped out.

She saw Harry and Ron peeking around furtively in the common room and grabbed them, rushing towards the exit, "Hurry up! Hermione's catching up!"

"What—" The two were pulled off balance, then saw Hermione chasing after them with a flushed face, their movements instantly becoming agile.

The three of them scrambled through the exit, and Hermione, panting, followed them out, grabbing Ron's sleeve as he was the last one crawling. "Listen, you can't, think about Gryffindor's points! You could get expelled!"

"Let go!" Ron angrily tugged at his sleeve, "This has nothing to do with you!"

"Ouch!"

"Ah!"

Eliana, who had already run ahead, stepped on something and fell to the ground with a thud. A dark shadow stood up.

Several people screamed together—including Hermione and Ron, who were arguing.

"It's me," the shadow spoke, and everyone recognized Neville. He hunched his neck, looking pitiful, "I don't remember the new password, so I can't get in."

Hermione looked delighted, as if she had found an ally, "Neville, they're going to sneak out to duel Malfoy. This is against the rules, come and stop them with me!"

Neville looked at Eliana, who was arrogantly looking unapproachable, then at Harry, who had a frown on his face, and then at Ron, who had just finished arguing with Hermione and was panting like a bull with a flushed face. He stammered, "Me, me?"

"Alright, Hermione," Eliana lazily twirled the wand in her hand, "You take Neville back to the common room."

"If we get caught by Filch, I'll hold him off and let Harry and Ron go first, so only I will lose points. I can make them up in class, you know."

"Yes, I can't persuade you!" Hermione's chest heaved twice. She suddenly turned back to the portrait of the Fat Lady and froze.

The frame was blank. It was late at night, and the Fat Lady wasn't sleeping and must have gone visiting someone.

"Oh dear," Eliana whistled, "Looks like you darlings will have to wait for her to come back here. Let's go."

She said to Harry and Ron.

But they hadn't taken a few steps before Hermione, with a stiff face, caught up, "I'm going with you."

She said stiffly, "If we encounter Filch, I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to persuade you—even though neither of you listened!"

She emphasized the last few words.

Eliana shrugged, "Okay, I'll testify for you then. Maybe he'll even give you five points for trying to persuade them!"

"Eliana! Do you think I'm joking?!" Hermione said furiously.

"No, no, how could I?" Eliana turned to Neville and invited him, "Do you want to come with us?"

Seeing Neville seemed a little tempted, she encouraged him, "I heard Malfoy bullied you, didn't he? You wait, I'll twist his head off for you then, and you can use his skull as a cup to drink Pumpkin Juice from in the future!"

Neville gasped, looking tearfully moved.

Eliana became even more smug, "Do you want to come with us and see the process of making your future cup?"

"No, no need," Neville shook his head repeatedly, "I'll just wait here for you to come back."

Hermione immediately seized the opportunity, "Look at him! He won't even sneak out at night! That's a good child!"

Neville seemed to have never been praised like this before, looking proud and a little flushed.

"Alright, Hermione," Eliana said, "I'll give you Malfoy's thigh bone then. You can make it into a cane, and when you encounter disobedient people like us again, you can hit them one by one, and they'll be obedient once they're knocked out."

"Shut up, Eliana!" Hermione was both annoyed and amused, "Just let Malfoy's head and thighs stay on his body!"

Neville, left behind, nodded silently but earnestly.

Head as a water cup, too scary, ahhhhhh.

"Excuse me, ladies," Harry finally found an opening to interject, "Do you remember we're sneaking out? Please be quiet!"

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The group crept along, but managed to reach the fourth-floor trophy room relatively smoothly.

Malfoy wasn't inside. Moonlight shone on the floor through the gaps between the various trophies. There wasn't a ghost of anyone inside.

"Are we too early?" Eliana took out her pocket watch and looked at it. "It's not that early."

"Maybe he's late," Harry said.

"Maybe he's afraid to come," Ron said.

Just then, a hoarse voice sounded from the next room, "Smell around, they might be hiding in some corner."

A cat's meow seemed to respond to him.

"It's Filch!"

"Maybe he tricked us!" Eliana whispered, "Run!"

Harry led the way, the four of them tiptoeing one after another along the wall, barely daring to breathe. Turning a corner, they ran straight into Peeves.

He floated around in the air, and seeing the frozen group below, he shrieked with delight:

"First-years aren't sleeping—running all over the castle in the middle of the night—"

He suddenly flew higher, then crashed into a suit of armor nearby with a loud clang.

"Meow—" A cat's meow rapidly approached from the distance.

"Run—"

The four ran desperately forward—through empty classrooms, jumping out of back windows, winding through corridor after corridor, climbing countless flights of stairs, finally stumbling blindly into a long corridor.

This time, luck wasn't on their side—there was no way out, only a locked door.

"Get out of the way! I'll blow it open!" Eliana suddenly drew her wand.

"No!" Harry and Ron grabbed her hands tightly, one on each side. "The whole corridor is empty, what's the point of hiding if we get caught at this one broken door?"

"Let go!" Eliana looked frantic. "Then I'll blow up the whole corridor, and no one will notice!"

"Everyone move aside." Hermione roughly shoved the three who were struggling. "I'll do it, Alohomora!"

The four rushed in, then bumped against the door with a thud.

The tension made their hearing exceptionally sharp; they heard Filch's curses grow closer, then fade away.

"We seem to be safe." Harry said, leaning against the door as if all his strength had left him.

"Maybe not entirely." Ron trembled as he wiped his hair.

The other three turned around and were met by three dog heads emerging from a single neck.

This three-headed creature was like a pig—bigger than a pig—at least Eliana had never seen a pig stand up as tall as a room.

She managed to calm herself and drew her wand, making a gesture towards the dog—it now looked like a small wooden stick: "I think it would be easier to blow up Filch, don't you think?"

"Run!!!"

She pulled Hermione with one hand and Harry with the other, Harry pulled Ron, and the group shrieked as they rushed out of the room.

Perhaps the goddess of luck finally took pity on these poor little chicks who had just brushed past the god of death. They howled all the way back to the Gryffindor tower—without running into Filch or any other patrolling professors.

Eliana collapsed onto an armchair, panting heavily, as if trying to expel her lungs.

"So, we just wasted our time tonight?" she managed after a long while.

Harry, still shaken, said, "Good thing we'll have more time to waste later—that giant dog! One head would be enough to take me down."

Ron stared blankly and babbled, "Why did they put that dog in the school—to feed disobedient little wizards to cleanse the campus?"

"If you had eyes not just for decoration," the now-calm but still irritable Hermione said, uncharacteristically sarcastic, "you would have seen that the dog was standing on a trapdoor—it was guarding something!"

She stood up angrily. "I'm going to bed now! I can't believe what I went through tonight, no reading, no studying, nearly died, and even worse—getting expelled!"

Eliana also stood up angrily. "I can't believe Malfoy tricked me! He agreed to a duel and didn't show up, I'm going to twist his lightbulb head off!"

The two walked up to the girls' dormitory, one after the other, leaving Ron and Harry looking at each other.

"Don't they think their priorities are a bit off?"

After a long pause, Ron finally managed to say something.