‘Ooooh, urgent, is it?’

‘Ooooh, urgent, is it?’ said the other gargoyle in a high-pitched voice. ‘Well, that's put us in our place, hasn't it?’

Harry knocked. He heard footsteps, then the door opened and he found himself face to face with Professor McGonagall.

‘You haven't been given another detention!’ she said at once, her square spectacles flashing alarmingly.

‘No, Professor!’ said Harry hastily.

‘Well then, why are you out of class?’

‘It's urgent, apparently,’ said the second gargoyle snidely.

‘I'm looking for Professor Grubbly-Plank,’ Harry explained. ‘It's my owl, she's injured.’

‘Injured owl, did you say?’

Professor Grubbly-Plank appeared at Professor McGonagall's shoulder, smoking a pipe and holding a copy of the Daily Prophet.

‘Yes,’ said Harry, lifting Hedwig carefully off his shoulder, ‘she turned up after the other post owls and her wing's all funny, look—’

Professor Grubbly-Plank stuck her pipe firmly between her teeth and took Hedwig from Harry while Professor McGonagall watched.

‘Hmm,’ said Professor Grubbly-Plank, her pipe waggling slightly as she talked. ‘Looks like something's attacked her. Can't think what would have done it, though. Thestrals will sometimes go for birds, of course, but Hagrid's got the Hogwarts Thestrals well-trained not to touch owls.’

Harry neither knew nor cared what Thestrals were; he just wanted to know that Hedwig was going to be all right. Professor McGonagall, however, looked sharply at Harry and said, ‘Do you know how far this owl's travelled, Potter?’

‘Er,’ said Harry. ‘From London, I think.’

He met her eyes briefly and knew, by the way her eyebrows had joined in the middle, that she understood ‘London’ to mean ‘number twelve, Grimmauld Place'.

Professor Grubbly-Plank pulled a monocle out of the inside of her robes and screwed it into her eye, to examine Hedwig's wing closely. ‘I should be able to sort this out if you leave her with me, Potter,’ she said, ‘she shouldn't be flying long distances for a few days, in any case.’

‘Er—right—thanks,’ said Harry, just as the bell rang for break.

‘No problem,’ said Professor Grubbly-Plank gruffly, turning back into the staff room.

‘Just a moment, Wilhelmina!’ said Professor McGonagall. ‘Potter's letter!’

‘Oh yeah!’ said Harry, who had momentarily forgotten the scroll tied to Hedwig's leg. Professor Grubbly-Plank handed it over and then disappeared into the staff room carrying Hedwig, who was staring at Harry as though unable to believe he would give her away like this. Feeling slightly guilty, he turned to go, but Professor McGonagall called him back.

‘Potter!’

‘Yes, Professor?’

She glanced up and down the corridor; there were students coming from both directions.

‘Bear in mind,’ she said quickly and quietly, her eyes on the scroll in his hand, ‘that channels of communication in and out of Hogwarts may be being watched, won't you?’

‘I—’ said Harry, but the flood of students rolling along the corridor was almost upon him. Professor McGonagall gave him a curt nod and retreated into the staff room, leaving Harry to be swept out into the courtyard with the crowd. He spotted Ron and Hermione already standing in a sheltered corner, their cloak collars turned up against the wind. Harry slit open the scroll as he hurried towards them and found five words in Sirius's handwriting:

Today, same time, same place.

‘Is Hedwig OK?’ asked Hermione anxiously, the moment he was within earshot.

‘Where did you take her?’ asked Ron.

‘To Grubbly-Plank,’ said Harry. ‘And I met McGonagall ... listen ...’

And he told them what Professor McGonagall had said. To his surprise, neither of the others looked shocked. On the contrary, they exchanged significant looks.

‘What?’ said Harry, looking from Ron to Hermione and back again.

‘Well, I was just saying to Ron ... what if someone had tried to intercept Hedwig? I mean, she's never been hurt on a flight before, has she?’

‘Who's the letter from, anyway?’ asked Ron, taking the note from Harry.

‘Snuffles,’ said Harry quietly.

‘"Same time, same place?” Does he mean the fire in the common room?’

‘Obviously,’ said Hermione, also reading the note. She looked uneasy. ‘I just hope nobody else has read this ...’

‘But it was still sealed and everything,’ said Harry, trying to convince himself as much as her. ‘And nobody would understand what it meant if they didn't know where we'd spoken to him before, would they?’

‘I don't know,’ said Hermione anxiously, hitching her bag back over her shoulder as the bell rang again, ‘it wouldn't be exactly difficult to re-seal the scroll by magic ... and if anyone's watching the Floo Network ... but I don't really see how we can warn him not to come without that being intercepted, too!’

They trudged down the stone steps to the dungeons for Potions, all three of them, lost in thought, but as they reached the bottom of the steps they were recalled to themselves by the voice of Draco Malfoy, who was standing just outside Snape's classroom door, waving around an official-looking piece of parchment and talking much louder than was necessary so that they could hear every word.

‘Yeah, Umbridge gave the Slytherin Quidditch team permission to continue playing straightaway, I went to ask her first thing this morning. Well, it was pretty much automatic, I mean, she knows my father really well, he's always popping in and out of the Ministry ... it'll be interesting to see whether Gryffindor are allowed to keep playing, won't it?’

‘Don't rise,’ Hermione whispered imploringly to Harry and Ron, who were both watching Malfoy, faces set and fists clenched. ‘It's what he wants.’

‘I mean,’ said Malfoy, raising his voice a little more, his grey eyes glittering malevolently in Harry and Ron's direction, ‘if it's a question of influence with the Ministry, I don't think they've got much chance ... from what my father says, they've been looking for an excuse to sack Arthur Weasley for years ... and as for Potter ... my father says it's a matter of time before the Ministry has him carted off to St. Mungo's ... apparently they've got a special ward for people whose brains have been addled by magic.’