Chapter 28: The Depressed Twins

Filch's admonitions were naturally ignored as he continued to wander around Hogwarts, amused by the moving portraits and secret passages.

Occasionally he would jump up and slap the portrait figure, then flee as fast as possible to the sound of his opponent's roar.

When he got bored, he would find a corner and lie down there, rest for a while, and then set off again.

As he made his way down the stairs, Fish turned around and arrived at the Grand Dining Hall on the first floor.

After wandering around the Great Dining Hall for a while without finding the talking hat, Fish decided he was ready to go back.

As much as he would have liked to leave his mark and scent all over Hogwarts castle to mark his place, the "new place" was too big to cover the entire castle in one night.

The complex paths inside Hogwarts were nothing to a cat, not to mention the fact that Fish had already left his markings and scent and claw marks everywhere he walked, so it was easy to find his way back.

In fact, even without these marks, Fish remembered all the paths he had traveled.

Just as Fish was about to turn back, a voice called out to him, "Master Fish?"

The voice belonged to Comey, the house elf who had cared for Fish for more than two years.

After Fish had been accepted at Hogwarts, Professor McGonagall would no longer be living there, so naturally Comey had returned to Hogwarts with him.

"Meow?", Happy to see someone familiar, Fish took a small step to Comey's side and nuzzled his arm with his nose.

"Master Fish, the professors will deduct you house points for being out so late!", Comey's eyes widened and he lowered his voice to a whisper, remembering Fish.

"Meow!", Fish didn't care about the point deductions, tossed Comey's rag bag and asked him for food as usual.

It was okay if he didn't know Comey, but now that he did, Fish wasn't going to let him off the hook.

He wasn't going to leave until he gave him food!

Knowing Fish's nature, Comey looked around cautiously and said quietly, "Master Fish, please follow me."

With that, he led Fish into the entrance hall and down the two stairs to the basement.

"Meow?", Fish had wandered around the basement a bit earlier, finding nothing special, but out of trust in Comey, he followed him down.

He went down the stairs and headed down the hallway towards a huge picture of a fruit plate, he reached out and scratched the pear on the plate, the pear on the picture moved slightly and turned into a green handle, which Comey pulled and opened the picture as if it were a door.

As the door opened, out came the aroma of a myriad of mixed foods.

"Meow!"(=?ω?=)

Without waiting for Comey's introduction, Fish, who smelled the fragrance, turned into a gray shadow and jumped out.

...

After a delicious dinner in the kitchen, Fish said goodbye to the enthusiastic house elves and returned to the end of the eighth floor corridor with a relaxed and happy step.

"Meow~," Fish bowed his head and purred at the portrait of the fat lady.

However, his kitten's purr was too quiet to wake the sleeping Fat Lady.

"Meow!", Fish raised his voice and stood up, scratching at the Fat Lady's picture frame with both front paws.

"Who is it?", The Fat Lady woke up from her sleep and looked around, but saw no one.

"Meow!", It wasn't until Fish called out for the third time that he noticed him,

Only then did she realize that there was a small cat with tiger spots underneath her.

"You're... the boy Professor McGonagall adopted? I think it's... Fish, isn't it?", The portraits were always going back and forth chatting, so it was only natural that the Fat Lady would know about this particular student.

"Meow~," Fish nodded.

"You did a night tour on the first day after joining the school, no wonder you were assigned to Gryffindor," The Fat Lady laughed and scoffed, knowing that since the founding of Hogwarts, Gryffindor had always had the highest number of night owls in the house, so she hadn't been surprised, "But it's no use meowing at me, you'll have to tell me the password before I'll let you in."

"Meow?", Fish looked down for a moment, remembering what the tall redhead had said to the portrait when he had brought them here, but he hadn't been paying attention.

Unable to remember the password, Fish transformed into his human form, took a deep breath and tried to call someone inside to help him open the door.

"The password is dragon scum, so remember it next time," Dumbledore, who had been following Fish all night, finally appeared and stopped Fish from knocking on the door, telling him the password.

Dumbledore had been following Fish mainly because he feared he would sneak into the owlery and wreak havoc on the Hogwarts messengers. After all, the owlery was close to Gryffindor tower.

But since Fish was worried about Professor McGonagall coming back, he didn't spend much time on the eighth floor to begin with, and Dumbledore had nothing better to do than follow behind with the invisibility spell activated.

"Bad old man!" shouted Fish.

Dumbledore wasn't offended at being called a mean old man, he even liked it, he winked at Fish, "Go back to bed, I won't dock you points."

But Dumbledore's gesture was a wink to the blind, Fish didn't give a damn about House points, he didn't even have an accurate idea of what they were.

With a puzzled look at Dumbledore, Fish dove into the gaping hole in the wall.

Back in the boys' dormitory, where the others were still sleeping, Fish reverted to his catlike form and leapt straight onto Neville's bed, the one closest to the door, stomping on the sleeping Neville, leaving a trail of tiny paw prints on his comforter, bedding, and face.

Sleepy Neville just frowned and mumbled incoherently, but Fish didn't wake him up.

After using Neville's bedding to wipe his paws, Fish licked his fur carefully for a while before jumping back into his bunk, plopping down on the soft pillows and closing his eyes as he drifted off to sleep.

...

The next morning, the seniors arrived first at the Great Dining Hall for breakfast, but instead of being at their long tables, the Gryffindor House students were gathered around the funnel where the House scores were displayed, confused.

What the hell is going on here? why was Gryffindor's score twenty points lower when classes had just started?

The group turned their attention to George and Fred.

The twins denied it under the gaze of the students.

"This has nothing to do with us!" said Fred.

"We fell asleep as soon as we got back to the dormitory last night," said George.

"We didn't even wash up," Fred continued.

"And we didn't put on our pajamas," George continued.

"And Jordan and the others can attest to that," Fred continued.

Only after the twins' confirmation did the crowd let them go with a look of suspicion.

Then they thought of the freshman who had dared to grab the Sorting Hat at the house sorting ceremony.

"By the way, cats are nocturnal creatures."

After it was confirmed that Fish had subtracted the points, the crowd's attitude took a 180-degree turn.

"If it was Fish, then there's nothing we can do."

"Anyway, we have no hope of winning the Cup with Professor Snape around, so it doesn't matter if we score too much or too little."

"It doesn't matter, we're good enough to make up for the points Fish took away from us."

"Actually, as long as George and Fred don't get into any more trouble."

"That's right, that's right."

"Seconded."

"Did you hear that?!"

The group talked for a long time and then turned their attention back to George and Fred.

The twins: ???