In the castle's Entrance Hall, right in front of the marble staircase.
The ginger cat stood at the foot of the stairs. The long, bushy fur on its tail was still damp with dew. Instead of immediately going up the stairs and entering the castle, it circled around a couple of times, seeming a little guilty.
But then again, Crookshanks thought, convincing himself, no wizard is going to suspect that a cat is working with Black.
Running out of the castle early could also be explained as simply fishing down by the Black Lake.
Crookshanks finally gave himself a mental nod. His four paws bent slightly, his hind legs pressing lower than the front ones. With a simultaneous push from his muscles and joints, the entire cat sprang onto the steps with surprising agility and slipped straight into the Entrance Hall, making barely a sound.
"Mrow..."
Mrs. Norris, who was standing guard in a corner, raised her head.
Crookshanks immediately stopped and steadied himself. Without appearing to, he looked at the caretaker's assistant, then deliberately puffed out his chest to show the tag hanging from his neck, flaunting his status as a student's pet. He sauntered past her with exaggerated confidence.
The noise in the Great Hall hadn't stopped; breakfast was about to finish. Students were opening letters and parcels brought by the owl post, all while discussing the previous night's attack.
Towards the middle-to-back section of the Gryffindor table, Hermione was in the middle of a rather public secret plotting session with her two friends.
Crookshanks hopped onto the bench and curled up right by the little witch's hand. He turned his head to look at Neville, who was feeding his owl not far away, then glanced at Neville's two robe pockets. His smooshed, persimmon-like face remained expressionless as he silently tried to guess the location of that pesky parchment password list.
When Neville first arrived at Hogwarts two years ago, he constantly forgot the routinely changing passwords, so he'd prepared a list on parchment full of them.
It didn't help Neville much, though, because he was so scatterbrained he usually lost the list anyway.
It wasn't until later, after he learned the Summoning Charm and his parents regained their memories, that Neville gradually shed his psychological burdens and his tendency to be careless. He no longer needed the list; he could remember the passwords on his own.
Now, carrying the list was merely a habit, and sometimes he could even use it to help out the first-years.
"Neville, Sir Cadogan has taken over from the Fat Lady, and all the passwords for this month have been swapped out."
"I know. I've already replaced my list with the new ones."
Neville pulled the parchment out of his right robe pocket and showed it to a few students nearby. The expressions on the faces of the surrounding students were complex. Slang like "dirty curs" and "vile brutes" fit the typical speech patterns of an Arthurian-era knight, and they were certainly catchy.
They were just a bit too crude.
"Shouldn't we perhaps mention to Professor McGonagall that Sir Cadogan's passwords are just a little bit..."
"Percy already reported it. Sir Cadogan said that during special times like these, we should use passwords that are totally unexpected."
While talking to his classmates, Neville rolled up the parchment list and casually stuffed it into his right pocket.
Crookshanks stared intently at the corner of the list peeking out from the pocket, his cat eyes narrowing slightly.
...
At the high table, Melvin sat next to Professor McGonagall and could clearly hear the two heads discussing their plan to deal with the attack.
"Do we need to inform the Ministry of Magic and the Dementors?" Professor McGonagall asked in a low voice. "The search last night seemed to alarm them. The Aurors passed along the Dementors' request, offering to enter the school to help."
"Oh, let's not," Dumbledore replied with notable coolness. "I suspect that as long as I remain the Headmaster of Hogwarts, I will absolutely forbid them from stepping across the school's boundary."
Professor McGonagall strongly agreed: "Yes. They are only looking for a chance to get closer to the students. Their lively souls make them simply ravenous."
"But we still need to be careful..."
After a brief discussion, Dumbledore looked up at the professors seated around him: "We don't know Black's intentions. Although last night's nighttime raid didn't injure any students, it caused significant damage to the Fat Lady. We cannot relax our vigilance until this matter is resolved."
"We still don't know how Black managed to break into the school," Professor McGonagall continued, picking up the thread. "To ensure the safety of our students and staff, we can only rely on staggered patrols." "Everyone will be divided into pairs and will patrol the entire castle at regular intervals. Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris will be assisting."
She turned to her two colleagues on the right: "Tonight will be up to the two of you, Melvin and Hagrid..."
"Don't worry about a thing!" Hagrid grumbled gruffly. "If I run into him, I won't need a wand. I'll break his arms and legs, shattering his bones one by one!"
Melvin lowered his head, a small smile playing on his lips.
...
"Regulus Black, Bellatrix Black... there hasn't been a decent pure-blood wizard from the Black family! I should have known that Sirius Black was a Death Eater too. That whole family are Death Eaters!"
"He'd better not let me catch him. Before I hand him over to those Dementors, I'll smash every single bone in his body."
"..."
As evening approached, faint plumes of smoke drifted from the Forbidden Forest. Perhaps the Centaurs were roasting meat and making soup, or maybe they were lighting fires for divination. The groundskeeper outside had already eaten dinner.
In front of his wooden cabin, Hagrid stood in the frosty vegetable patch, turning over the soil while raging to Melvin about the wickedness of the Black family and bitterly accusing Sirius of having deceived him.
"Everyone in that family went to Slytherin, and he was the only one in Gryffindor! Everyone called him a blood-traitor back then. His relationship with his family was terrible; he never went home for the summer, but stayed at James's house. Two years after graduation, he completely cut ties with them and still stayed with James. He loved Muggle stuff—beach surfing, TVs, radios, motorbikes..."
Hagrid grew angrier as he spoke, wishing he could drive his shovel right into Black's face. "We all thought he was different!"
Melvin sat on the steps, petting the dog. He beckoned Fang over to lie down, then rubbed the hound's head, scratched his chin, and smoothed his fur. This sequence of actions made the dog's tail wag like a propeller.
He then reached out to play with the young snake coiled around the dog's neck. Yulm was especially fond of the warmth of Melvin's palm and would stretch out his neck to rub against it. His gray-white scales felt cool to the touch.
He looked incredibly sweet, though he acted just like a dog.
Hagrid was still swearing and cursing even after Fang's tail was tired from wagging.
It was all the same repetitive complaining. The half-giant kept racking his brain, but the cruelest method he could think of was only smashing every bone in Black's body—he had no other truly vicious ideas. It sounded like the endless laments of a tragic figure, and after a while, it lost its impact.
The three audience members present—including Fang and Yulm—weren't paying much attention.
The sun had completely sunk into the Black Lake, and it was almost time for the night patrol.
Hagrid threw his shovel next to the fence. He glanced at the wizard and his pets huddled together, and the agitation and anger in his heart eased a bit. He scooped water from a stone basin to wash his hands, wiped them on his moleskin coat, and sat down nearby.
"If it were any other student, it wouldn't be so bad. New students come to Hogwarts every year. The Gryffindors are the bravest, and I've been catching students sneaking into the Forbidden Forest for decades. If I ran into someone annoying, I'd dock points and report them. If I met someone lively and boisterous, I'd usually warn them and give them a few more chances."
"But with James and Remus... so many times I caught them wandering around the Forest, and I never gave them a severe punishment. I really thought we were friends."
Hagrid's head drooped, his mood low, and his voice deepened. "I just can't understand why he would betray his friends."
Melvin quietly acted as a patient listener, sitting next to Hagrid. Fang shifted over to lie on Hagrid's boots. Yulm didn't interrupt, remaining coiled around Melvin's wrist.
The two men and their two pets waited for the darkness to settle, the moonlight stretching out their shadows.
Only when the truth is revealed will some misunderstandings finally fade away.
Melvin looked up slightly at the sky. A silvery light was quickly approaching—it was Dumbledore's Phoenix Patronus. It clearly wasn't its usual form, being about the size of a normal owl, covered in silver light, its eyes gathering the moonlight.
The Phoenix landed in front of them, notifying them that it was time for lights-out and for them to begin their patrol for the night.