After explaining the situation to the new arrivals, McGonagall gathered the others together and spoke.
"Well, children, I suppose you're all tired? Go to bed! But the prefects will have to work a bit harder, and you'll have to manage and guard…"
The prefects nodded. They were extremely sleepy, but they forced themselves to perk up, and Percy seemed to be on steroids. He saw this as his responsibility and his right as a prefect!
Just as the wizards were about to get into their sleeping bags, McGonagall remembered something and called out to Ivan.
"Hales! You did well this time, calming everyone at once and bringing them to the common room to stop a possible riot…"
"It's the least I can do, Professor," Ivan said humbly.
Professor McGonagall smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "So, as a professor, I have to do what I have to do, like… give you fifty points!"
"That's all I have to say. Go to bed. You have classes tomorrow!"
Ivan nodded and went to find a sleeping bag in the designated area. He slipped the note Sirius had given him out of his pocket and opened it.
As he had expected, Sirius had written a message on the back for him to meet in the passage beneath the Whomping Willow the following evening.
After reading the note, Ivan quickly put it away to avoid being discovered, and fell asleep.
The night passed in the blink of an eye…
At six or seven o'clock the next morning, Professor McGonagall woke up all of the young wizards and witches who were still half asleep.
The young wizards who heard the news were so worried that they even went to the bathroom in large groups, afraid that they would be left alone.
Though it was said that Sirius was after Harry, everyone knew that he was a vicious criminal who would kill anyone who crossed his path.
As a result, a tense atmosphere hung over Hogwarts for the rest of the day, with everyone talking about Sirius and wondering how he managed to sneak into Hogwarts Castle.
Hannah Abbott of Hufflepuff, for example, took a wild guess that Black would turn into a flowering shrub, but when others asked how a shrub ended up at the school on its own two feet, she stammered and could not answer.
Seamus, on the other hand, got the majority to agree with him that Black was an emotionless killing machine, a complete lunatic, so the Dementors could not sense his presence…
Ron, on the other hand, enthusiastically told interested young wizards about the terror of Sirius and how he had been scared off by them.
In Ron's story, the greatest credit goes to his precious rat, Scabbers, whose blood-curdling screams woke everyone in the dormitory and thwarted Sirius's nefarious assassination attempt.
For a time, the grey rat was described by Ron as almost a Gryffindor hero…
The group of Gryffindor wizards listened with great interest at first, but when Ron told the story a seventh time, changing it more and more dramatically, until his rat scared Sirius off with a glare, they treated it as a joke…
Peter Pettigrew himself was even more baffled,
'What? Did I scare Black off? But why can't he remember anything?'
Peter heard about the Sirius invasion only in the morning from the wizards.
Peter thought Ron was just making it up, but he soon realised that something was wrong. After what happened last night, he shouldn't have slept so soundly…
The more Peter thought about it, the more he failed to notice a pair of orange eyes staring at him. A moment later, a cat's paw slowly reached out and slapped his tail…
Frightened, Peter turned around and saw a furry cat face. He had no time to think about such nonsense. He let out a scream and hurriedly tried to escape.
However, Crookshanks's paws were firmly on his tail, immobilizing Peter. Crookshanks's orange eyes scanned Scabbers's body, trying to decide where to bite him.
"Hey… you fucking cat!" Ron shouted as he slapped Crookshanks's paw away, freeing his mouse.
Crookshanks was determined to get to her, but when he tried to jump up, Hermione caught him in her arms, and he was left flailing in the air…
"Knock it off, Crookshanks!" Hermione scolded him, angrily patting Crookshanks on the head before turning to look at Ron's rat.
"Get a grip on your stupid cat! He almost killed Scabbers back there… You'd better get him away from me!"
"Crookshanks is just doing what he's supposed to do, you know…cats love catching mice!" Hermione snorted.
Harry tried to calm Ron down when he saw that they were about to start an argument, but Ron kept a straight face.
Hermione did not even want to talk to him!
Hermione, who was already annoyed with Ron for scaring off Sirius by turning his pet mouse into a hero, learned from Harry that he and his mouse had done nothing but scream!
Also, Ivan was awake long before Scabbers shouted, and she felt that Sirius's escape was likely related to Ivan.
Otherwise, a few squalling wizards would not have been enough to stop the vicious Sirius Black, who had gone to so much trouble to sneak in and kill Harry before escaping.
"Odd, where's Ivan?" Hermione asked, looking around for Ivan.
"I don't know, maybe he went to the library?" Harry guessed, shaking his head.
Perplexed, neither of them noticed a grey-and-white owl flitting past the window, glancing at them before heading for the Whomping Willow.