Don't Jinx It!

"Oh... is it still 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. He quickly grabbed Kane and the still-dazed Ron, intending to flee this troublesome place.

The situation was already clear: Malfoy had played them.

"Once I get out of this in one piece 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 of them kept running with their heads down, but Filch's build really did not resemble that of an old man. On the contrary, he was more like a proper track-and-field athlete, with astonishingly nimble legs. In the blink of an eye, he had chased them up three or four flights of stairs without even breathing heavily, looking every bit like a powerhouse as he drew closer and closer.

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

"No, we can't. Filch is a Squib. What if we lose control and kill him?" Ron was unusually clear-headed at that moment. Getting caught wandering at night would at most cost them points, and the worst punishment would be detention.

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

Kane clearly did not see it that way. Compared with his unique Shadow Magic and summoning magic, hadn't Quirrell just taught him a spell not long ago? It dealt basic damage, plenty of people knew it, and it definitely would not cause serious injuries.

Knockback Jinx!

Kane drew his wand. As blue light flashed, Filch, who had been relentlessly chasing them, was suddenly struck by a tremendous force and knocked to the ground. He rolled several times before tumbling into a nearby room with a thud.

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

"This seems to be the fourth-floor corridor. That room Filch just rolled into... couldn't it be the one Dumbledore mentioned at the start-of-term feast..." Ron swallowed, and the next moment, all three of them rushed toward the room at once.

As the terrifying sound grew closer, Kane could already imagine fragments of Filch's skin flying everywhere.

Fortunately, Filch was lucky enough—or perhaps he was sturdy enough. Or maybe the three-headed dog attacking him had just eaten and was merely toying with him. It looked terrifying, but Filch did not actually have any serious wounds.

He was, however, covered in saliva.

In short, the moment the three of them entered, they saw a massive three-headed dog licking Filch. If not for Filch's miserable cries, 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, cleanly pulling Filch free.

The frog's code ranked above the three-headed dog's code.

After saving Filch, Kane and the other two were finally seen clearly by him. But when he remembered that they had just saved him from danger...

As for where that danger had come from...

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

Filch looked at the three young wizards before him and ultimately decided he should show a little humanity. "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 turned 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 a wizard's 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 nonstop back to Gryffindor Tower.

Perhaps it was because Ron had only raised his flag halfway. Filch had let them leave, but the flag had still been raised in the end, and they ultimately failed to escape punishment.

Professor McGonagall, wearing cat pajamas, had been waiting in the Gryffindor common room for quite some time.

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

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

"Good. Go get some sleep. You should be grateful that you have no classes tomorrow morning."

And so, the Gryffindor students got up early, each one crying, "Good morning, Hogwarts!" Yesterday's point-deduction jackpot had totaled a full thirty points.

Hermione, who had also risen early, had clearly seen the deduction notice. Perhaps Kane and the others had been set up last night?

But what truly surprised her was that points had actually been deducted. Considering Kane's status, where he could slap Filch so hard he would not know north from south, then make Filch say thank you without it seeming strange at all, he could still lose points?

Professor McGonagall truly was impartial.

Hermione sighed as she sat on 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? And you came back almost right before or after Harry and the others. 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 eighth floor, and then split up."

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

In an instant, more than half the people in the common room who had been following the point-deduction incident turned to look at Seamus.

With so many people staring at him, Seamus subconsciously scratched his nose. "I woke up to use the bathroom last night, then remembered that the Wizard's Chess set from our dormitory was still in the common room. I came down to get the pieces, and when I arrived, 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 did not catch Kane and the others by chance. She already knew they were sneaking out and waited 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 not broken a few rules? But if a fellow Gryffindor was pulling something like stabbing them in the back, that changed the nature of things.

And the only person who knew Kane, Harry, and Ron were sneaking out last night and had their timing lined up 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 probably be harder than teaching hyenas in Africa to write with their tails.

Just as she was silently mocking her classmates, she suddenly sensed 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?"