Chapter 100

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"It seems," Hermione spoke quietly. "Nobody knows what happened."

"That is great. You eat, or the pie will get cold."

"It's with pumpkin."

"I can't taste it."

"Neither do I."

"Well, think like it's with meat."

"It's ginger."

"With very strange meat."

After the feast, we all moved in a friendly and noisy crowd to the common room. There was an even bigger crowd in front of the portrait, and I guessed the reason why.

"Well, what happened there again?" Dean lamented.

"I bet it's Neville forgot the password, and now he's tormenting the Fat Lady."

"Hey!"

"Oops," smiled Ron. "I didn't see you."

Making her way to the portrait, Hermione sighed in surprise - the canvas was all scratched up, as if from claws, and the Fat Lady was nowhere to be seen.

"Haven't you heard?" the younger Weasley, Ginny, popped up in front of us. "The Fat Lady has disappeared! Oh, hello, Max."

Blushing, Ginny hurried to hide in the crowd of friends from her class. No-no-no, I don't need this - go flirt with Potter.

Not only the noise of students beat on the ears, but also portraits hung around the shaft of the main tower on every free meter of walls. They all chatted about horrors and nightmares, about where the world is heading, and other nonsense.

"Make way… make way..." Filch's voice drew nearer, as did Filch himself.

We all went to the sides, and Dumbledore walked up to the empty and cut canvas with Filch. He carefully examined the canvas, ran his hand over the cuts.

"Mr. Filch," the Headmaster spoke anxiously. "Gather the ghosts. Have them search every painting. We must find her."

"No need to search, Professor," Filch interrupted the Headmaster, looking at one of the paintings on another flight of stairs, pointing his finger at it. "The Fat Lady is over there."

Everyone immediately ran toward that painting, and Dumbledore was not far behind. When he reached the picture of the green meadow with the steer grazing on it, the Headmaster spoke up:

"Dear Lady, who did this to you?"

The weeping Fat Lady looked out from behind the steer, howling as she began to answer:

"Eyes like the Devil he's got and a soul as dark as his name. It's him, Headmaster, the one they all talk about. He's here somewhere in the castle. Sirius Black!" with a cry and a roar, the Fat Lady, disappeared behind the steer again.

The Headmaster ordered a search of the entire castle and the students to be placed in the great hall and give out sleeping bags. I had to obey and go to the sleeping bag that was already waiting for us in the Great Hall.

"Geez..." Hermione sighed as we got into the sleeping bags. Somehow we happened to be lying next to each other. Also nearby were Lavender Brown, Parvati, and Padma Patil. The girls were whispering about their own things, and we just happened to be in the same place for conversation.

"I totally agree, Hermie. So much panic."

"How else could it be?" she shrugged, zipping up her sleeping bag and staring at the ceiling. "A criminal at that level and in a school full of kids. Who knows what he can do?"

I nodded in agreement, but at that moment, the lights went out and the illusion of the night sky on the ceiling of the Great Hall projected the starry sky, galaxies, comets, and other beauty.

"Max," Lavender whispered softly. "What are you doing here?"

"Sleeping."

"That's the female half."

"So, I'm sleeping in good company."

After this phrase, Hermione's fist flew sharply in my side.

"Ouch, Hermione, why fight."

"In good company, he sleeps..."

The girls giggled quietly, but everyone quickly calmed down - it had been a busy day, and even I wanted to sleep. But, twenty minutes later, I was awakened by Snape and Dumbledore talking. Although, there's no point in this conversation, at least to me. I wonder if Potter had heard that Snape wanted something to warn the boy, and about Lupine generally had some concerns? Hermione had definitely heard it - she was still awake, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling.

Before I fell asleep, decided to think about when to catch Black? No seriously! Since I missed Peter, I should at least catch Black. When will he get into the common room there? I need to come up with some kind of trap. The main thing is not to kill inadvertently ... otherwise, two are already a bit too much.

Days flew by one after another, and in the meantime, autumn finally came, giving the world around it its gloomy colors. After the infiltration of Sirius Black into the castle, the regime of patrolling of the surroundings by Dementors was tightened, and now at night, they are somewhat closer to Hogwarts than before. This could not but affect the perception of the world, and coupled with the autumn gloom, a kind of dejection was felt even more in the castle.

Once again, as in the past years, I ordered the ingredients for the restoring musculoskeletal system potion through the twins. Though, the prices increased slightly - the general inflation and the presence of Dementors. Still, these factors did not affect the speed of delivery of the ingredients. Therefore, on the third of November, Hermione had finished the potion. However, there were some difficulties - Confundus had almost no effect on us properly, and the fault could only be the practice of occlumency. We had to put a lot of willpower into the spell to force ourselves to inflict the proper trauma to the entire body. But, in the end, everything went according to plan, and until the third of December, we were particularly hard on physical training. Now Hermione went beyond jogging and such, joining me in working with her own weight, but with a kind of manic persistence. She said, "The monotonous work, the training, and the practice of magic leave no time or energy to think about Dementors and be depressed. I agree with her.