Don't Jinx It!

"Uh... is it still not too late for us to run?" Ron said numbly as he watched Filch slowly rise to his feet in front of them.

"Of course it isn't! He didn't see our faces!" Harry reacted the fastest this time, swiftly grabbing Kane and the still-dazed Ron as he prepared to flee this troublesome place.

The situation was already clear: Malfoy had played them.

"Once I get out of this intact today, I swear I'll—" Ron was about to make a grand vow when Harry stopped him. "Don't! Don't say that! Something bad will happen!"

"Fine." The three continued running with their heads down, but Filch hardly moved like an old man. On the contrary, he looked like a proper track-and-field athlete. His legs were unbelievably nimble; in the blink of an eye, he had chased them down three or four flights of stairs without even sounding winded, looking every bit the stronger party as he drew closer and closer.

"Kane, do something! He's about to catch us!" Harry whispered to Kane.

"No, Filch is a Squib. What if we don't hold back and accidentally kill him?" Ron's mind was surprisingly clear at that moment. Getting caught out at night would mean, at worst, losing points or getting detention.

But if Filch was seriously injured, the three of them would probably be sent home.

Kane clearly didn't see it that way. Compared to his exclusive Shadow Magic and summoning magic, hadn't Quirrell just taught him a spell not long ago? Its damage was basic, plenty of people knew it, and it definitely wouldn't seriously injure anyone.

Knockback Jinx!

Kane drew his wand. As blue light flashed, Filch, who had been hot on their heels, was suddenly blasted backward by a tremendous force. He fell to the ground, rolled several times, and tumbled with a thud into a room beside them.

Just as the three of them breathed a sigh of relief, an uneasy growl from deep in a beast's throat made them all shudder.

"This seems like the Third Floor Corridor. The room Filch just rolled into couldn't be the one Dumbledore mentioned at the start of term..." Ron swallowed, and the next moment, all three rushed toward the room at once.

As that terrifying sound drew nearer, Kane could already imagine fragments of Filch's skin.

Fortunately, Filch was lucky enough. Or perhaps his body was sturdy enough. Or maybe the Three-Headed Dog attacking him had just eaten and was merely playing with him. It looked terrifying, but he did not actually have any serious wounds.

Though he was covered in saliva.

In any case, the moment the three entered, they saw a huge three-headed dog licking Filch. If not for Filch's miserable screams, it almost looked like an owner playing with his pet dogs.

In an instant, Kane used the Summoning Charm to summon a frog. Its long tongue shot out, sticking heavily to the Three-Headed Dog, then snapped back, pulling Filch right back with it.

The frog's code was above the Three-Headed Dog's code, apparently.

Having rescued Filch, Kane and the other two had now truly let him see their faces clearly. But when he thought about how they had just saved him from disaster...

As for where that disaster had come from...

At least they had stopped him from becoming a pile of dog shit the next day...

Filch looked at the three young wizards before him and finally decided he should show a little human kindness. "Just this once. Don't let it happen again! Understand?"

Kane and the other two hurriedly nodded.

"Get back to your dormitory. I'll give you one minute to disappear from my sight," Filch said.

"Thank you, Mr. Filch." Kane was about to leave, but Harry still wanted to confirm his suspicion. "Mr. Filch, why were you waiting for us there?"

"Have you forgotten who you arranged that wizard duel with? Anyway, get out of here. You have forty seconds left." Filch put that stern, frightening expression back on his face.

The three immediately quickened their pace and hurried all the way back to the entrance of Gryffindor Tower without stopping.

Perhaps because Ron had only halfway jinxed it, Filch had let them go. But the jinx had still been made, and in the end, they did not escape punishment.

Professor McGonagall, dressed in cat pajamas, had been waiting in the Gryffindor Common Room for a long time.

"You wandered around at night for nearly half the evening. I think ten points deducted from each of you is neither too harsh nor too light a punishment." Professor McGonagall's lips were pressed into a thin line.

"We have no objections," Kane and the other two said in unison.

"Good. Go back to sleep quickly. You should be grateful that you have no classes tomorrow morning."

And so, the Gryffindor students rose early, each of them greeting Hogwarts with, "Good morning, Hogwarts." Yesterday's points-deduction jackpot had totaled a full thirty points.

Hermione, who had also risen early, had clearly seen the notice about the deducted points. Perhaps Kane and the others had been set up the night before?

But what truly surprised her was that points had actually been deducted. Considering Kane's status—someone who could slap Filch so hard he would not know which way was north, then make Filch thank him without it feeling strange at all—he could get points deducted too?

Professor McGonagall truly was impartial.

Hermione sighed from the sofa.

At that moment, Hermione's roommate Lavender Brown sat down beside her. "By the way, Hermione, didn't you sneak out last night too? You came back only moments before or after Harry and the other two. Do you know how they got caught?"

Hermione turned a page in her book. "I don't know. We just returned to the castle together, went to the Seventh Floor, and then split up."

"I think I know a little about it," Seamus Finnigan suddenly said.

In an instant, more than half the people in the common room who were paying attention to the points deduction turned to look at Seamus.

With so many people looking at him, Seamus unconsciously scratched his nose. "I woke up to use the bathroom last night, then remembered that the Wizard's Chess from our dormitory was left in the common room. I came down to retrieve the pieces, and when I got here, I saw Professor McGonagall sitting in the common room like she was waiting for a rabbit to walk into a trap."

Hermione frowned. "So Professor McGonagall didn't catch Kane and the others by chance. She knew they were out at night beforehand and was waiting for them in the common room?"

In an instant, everyone had the same thought: there was a traitor in Gryffindor.

They were not afraid of losing points. As Gryffindors, who had never broken rules? But if a fellow Gryffindor was pulling something as underhanded as stabbing them in the back, that was a different matter entirely.

And the only one who knew Kane, Harry, and Ron were sneaking out the previous night, while also matching the timing perfectly, was...

Hermione looked at her classmates, who had not considered Kane and the others' enemy, Malfoy, at all, and sighed helplessly. She felt that getting these eleven-year-old Gryffindors to put aside their hot blood and use logic and their brains to deduce the real culprit would be harder than teaching hyenas in Africa to write with their tails.

Just as she was secretly dissing her classmates, she suddenly felt something strange. Looking up, she saw that more than half the gazes in the common room had gathered on her.

Hermione's mouth twitched as she looked at the scene.

"...You don't think I was the one who betrayed Kane and the others, do you?"