After dinner, the brightly lit Hufflepuff Common Room was filled with students ready to spring into action, busily preparing a party to celebrate Roy's return.
The incident had happened so suddenly that no one had had much time to prepare. Fortunately, Roy's welcome party did not need to be grand. Some tasty food from the kitchen beside the common room, along with drinks and alcohol from Owen's private stash, was more than enough.
Roy had just been summoned away by Professor McGonagall and had yet to return. The students in the Hufflepuff Common Room were hurriedly decorating the room. They had a bellyful of questions about Roy and Aisling's bizarre disappearance and were eager to ask Roy himself.
"Say, where's Roy? Why isn't he back yet?"
Owen, the prefect, had just finished hanging the streamers and jumped down from a ladder. Roy had been called to Professor McGonagall's office after dinner, and more than an hour had passed without him returning.
Tonks, who had just escaped from the Hospital Wing, sat on the sofa watching the other students work, holding an ice-cold bottle of Butterbeer she had just gotten from Owen. The moment she heard Roy had returned, her headache was gone and she was full of energy again. Madam Pomfrey had never agreed to discharge Tonks, and Tonks knew that perfectly well. She had not even told Madam Pomfrey before running back to the Hufflepuff Common Room on her own.
Speak of Roy, and Roy arrived. The undisputed center of attention in all of Hogwarts Castle, a firsthand witness to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's betrayal, a brave warrior who had fled for his life across America, Hufflepuff's absolute "vote-carrying" big brother—Roy Smith returned to his loyal Hufflepuff common room.
All right, Roy's titles certainly did not