THE MIDNIGHT DUEL
and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, saliva
hanging in slippery ropes from yellowish fangs.
It was standing quite still, all six eyes staring at them, and Harry
knew that the only reason they weren’t already dead was that their
sudden appearance had taken it by surprise, but it was quickly get-
ting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous
growls meant.
Harry groped for the doorknob — between Filch and death,
he’d take Filch.
They fell backward — Harry slammed the door shut, and they
ran, they almost flew, back down the corridor. Filch must have hur-
ried off to look for them somewhere else, because they didn’t see
him anywhere, but they hardly cared — all they wanted to do was
put as much space as possible between them and that monster.
They didn’t stop running until they reached the portrait of the Fat
Lady on the seventh floor.
“Where on earth have you all been?” she asked, looking at their
bathrobes hanging off their shoulders and their flushed, sweaty faces.
“Never mind that — pig snout, pig snout,” panted Harry, and
the portrait swung forward. They scrambled into the common
room and collapsed, trembling, into armchairs.
It was a while before any of them said anything. Neville, indeed,
looked as if he’d never speak again.
“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that
locked up in a school?” said Ron finally. “If any dog needs exercise,
that one does.”
Hermione had got both her breath and her bad temper back
again.
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