A Short Time Later:
"You did WHAT?"
Draco suddenly regretted telling her anything. His sense of self-preservation kicking in, he backtracked a little and said, "Well I wasn't actually planning on going."
Apparently that was not the correct thing to say. His mother had always taught him not to make a lady mad. His father had muttered something along the lines of "an angry witch is a scary…" in reply, but Draco hadn't heard the last part before his mother had demonstrated exactly why he should never make a lady mad. Did Ivy count as a lady? Given the look on her face Draco was going to go with yes.
Ivy seemed to be mentally compiling a list of Draco's every fault, and come on Ivy, the list can't be that long, but she eventually spoke. "That is so much worse, Draco. He's going to go there and be waiting for you and he'll get in trouble and it'll all be your fault."
Draco was about to explain that that was sort of the point, but thought better of it. "Come on, Ivy. Weasley and Longbottom will be fine. Look, I'm sorry I said you'd be my second but it's not like we're going so why does it matter?"
Oh no. That face did not look good.
"So not only did you drag me into this, you dragged Neville into this too?"
"Technically Weasley dragged Longbottom into this."
"Because you challenged him to a duel. What were you thinking?"
Apparently, that was a rhetorical question because when Draco went to explain his thought process in precise detail Ivy just glared at him.
Later That Evening:
"Ivy, come on. What are we doing? We're going to get caught and then we are going to get in trouble and Snape will be mad at me and then he will tell my dad and then he will tell my mum and then I'll be in real trouble."
Ivy shook her head and continued to drag him down the corridor. "You're the one who challenged them in the first place…"
"Technically it was only Weasley…"
"AND," Ivy continued, completely ignoring Draco's last statement, "we didn't find Neville or the twins before they headed back to their common room and I don't know where that is, so now we have to find Neville and tell him not to worry about this stupid duel."
"Wait, so you don't care if Weasley gets in trouble?"
Ivy looked surprised. "Why should I? You were stupid enough to challenge him to a duel but he was stupid enough to accept. Plus if we find Neville we'll probably find him so it's not like we have to do anything extra."
Draco seemed to accept this response, and Ivy found that she didn't have to drag him quite as hard the rest of the way.
They were almost there, when Draco pulled Ivy abruptly to the side. "Shh," he whispered when she began to question him. "Do you hear that?"
Ivy listened, and picked up on a voice. "Who is that do you think?" It certainly didn't sound like Weasley or Neville. Or any kid for that matter.
Draco suddenly looked panicked. "It's Filch. Quick, we have to run."
Had any portraits been paying attention at that moment they would have heard a voice say "I told you this was a bad idea," with the strangest type of echo. It was almost as if it had been said by more than one person at once. But none of them were, so there was no one to comment on it, or on the sight of two children running through a mostly deserted corridor late at night.
September 13, 1991, Morning
"So then what happened?" George asked.
Ivy was more than happy to continue her tale. "Well we kept running, and found ourselves in the forbidden corridor on the third floor…"
"Accidentally," Draco inserted.
"…and we thought we heard Filch coming so we tried to find a room to hide in, and we only found this locked door, so we went in it…"
"Less accidentally."
"…and went in a room with this huge Cerberus in it…"
"Definitely not on purpose."
"…so we turned around and ran straight to the common room…"
"Very much on purpose."
"…except we didn't know the best way there so it took a really long time and we had to wait for a minute to sneak back in so no one saw us and that's why we're really tired this morning."
The twins looked at each other, then back at their favourite little snake and her slowly-growing-on-them friend. "Wicked," they said in unison.
Sometime Later
Dear Ivy,
No, we may not adopt a Cerberus. And no, you may not ask Hagrid if you can have a Cerberus puppy. You already have a deadly magical creature. No more until AFTER you graduate from Hogwarts.
With Love,
H.P.
Ivy reread the letter one last time. So that's who the Cerberus belonged to. Good to know.
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