"Sir, Professor Snape said he means to recommend to the Board of Governors that we be expelled..." Hermione asked tentatively.
"If I were you, I should not worry," Professor Dumbledore replied with a smile. "You fought a most valiant battle against Peter Pettigrew, and in the end removed a threat to the wizarding world.
That is a very brave thing to have done, and deserves some special recognition from the school... though, of course, you did break some fifty school rules along the way."
She had known it! Hermione groaned inwardly; she had already braced herself for the matter of the broken rules!
Seeing their rising alarm, Dumbledore raised a hand to calm them and went on, "I shall not deduct any points, since there was good reason for it all. But you must accept some manner of punishment. How would it be if you went with Hagrid into the Forbidden Forest to do some useful work? I understand the hippogriffs had rather a rough night of it, several of them injured, and he cannot see to them all alone."
Draco's eyes flickered guiltily; the birds had been hurt precisely because of their own deliberate diversion.
He glanced at Hermione and noticed she too looked uneasy, stealing a glance at him out of the corner of her eye.
"I have no objection," Draco said to Dumbledore, and Harry and Hermione nodded in agreement.
"Then that is settled!" Dumbledore's blue eyes gleamed with delight. "Now, I suggest you hurry along to the Great Hall; nothing is more restorative of a morning than a cup of hot pumpkin juice!"
"Professor Dumbledore, will you be joining us in the Great Hall?" Harry asked.
"Oh, I must first write to Mr Scamander, and ask him to come and see how the hippogriffs are faring," said Dumbledore.
"He has a real gift with magical creatures."
~~~~~~~
Just as Draco and the others breathed a sigh of relief and set off happily for breakfast in the Great Hall, Severus Snape, the untouched bottle of Wolfsbane still in his pocket, filled with anger and worry, limped towards his office.
For an entire school year, he had watched over Potter like some long-suffering nursemaid, dreading that something might happen to him. This business had proved more trouble than all the advanced potions he had ever researched put together.
Potter... what a hopeless troublemaker!
He recalled the dreadful scene of the night before... werewolves and Dementors. It had been a disaster! Had he not clung to his last shred of strength and cast the Patronus Charm, Potter would very likely be dead.
That said, after casting his own Patronus, just before he fainted, he thought he had glimpsed two deer.
But that was impossible; everyone present had collapsed at that point.
It must have been some trick of the light reflecting off the lake.
He pressed his lips together firmly, a wave of weariness washing over him.
As he passed the cellar that was so seldom opened, a casual glance showed him that the door, usually kept firmly shut, stood ajar. This unusual sight brought a flicker of surprise to his normally expressionless face.
He flung the door open and, dragging his injured leg, hurried inside. He made his way through numerous safeguards to the very depths of the cellar, where he confirmed something that shocked and appalled him... Quirrell's body, together with the Dark Lord's soul, had vanished.
No one knew how Quirrell had escaped.
All that remained at the scene was a wand, and the unconscious form of Neville Longbottom.
"What happened, Neville?" Dumbledore asked Neville, who had only just woken, in the Hospital Wing. "Why were you down there?"
"Professor Dumbledore, I was looking for my wand! It keeps vanishing and turning up again near the dungeons!"
Neville recalled, a bandage wrapped round his head, a great lump at the back of it, and a mournful expression on his face. "Then, I heard voices behind a door, so I went to look, and found it dark inside. Slowly, someone stood up... he was holding my wand!"
"Did you see who it was?" Dumbledore asked.
"It was Professor Quirrell!" Neville blinked and stammered. "I tried to get my wand back from him, but he used it to knock me flying! I hit the wall... and then I do not remember anything else!"
"That lump on the back of your head is probably from hitting the wall," Dumbledore said gently.
"Wait! Did he take my wand?" Neville's voice was tinged with despair.
"I believe this is your wand," Dumbledore said gently, handing back the ash wand that had been left at the scene.
"Thank Merlin for that, or my gran would have killed me!" The poor boy, ignoring the lump on his head, took the wand and turned it this way and that with great joy.
Besides Neville's account, there were also fragmentary memories from the portraits scattered throughout Hogwarts, which helped Dumbledore piece together a good part of the truth.
Sir Cadogan, out visiting his drinking companions, had caught sight of Quirrell, the former Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, appearing briefly in the passage near the entrance to the dungeons on the day of the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match.
Rather curious, Sir Cadogan had followed the pale-faced Quirrell from painting to painting, wanting to see what he was about, until Quirrell had swaggered out across the empty grounds and vanished into the distance.
Quirrell had chosen the moment with some care.
As he fled, Gryffindor had been locked in a long, fierce contest with Hufflepuff on the pitch, the score at one point standing at one hundred and forty-nine to one hundred and fifty, with the Golden Snitch still nowhere to be seen; every student was gathered in the stands watching the thrilling match; and the professors... Professor Dumbledore, Professor Snape, Professor McGonagall, and the rest... were all out on the grounds, ensuring no Dementor troubled the players on the pitch or the students in the stands.
For two years, Dumbledore had said nothing of the Dark Lord's soul lodged behind Quirrell's head.
The students of Hogwarts knew only that Quirrell had been harming unicorns in the Forbidden Forest, and had later been caught out by Hermione and the others.
No one could have guessed that the Dark Lord had possessed Quirrell, and had escaped along with him.
Otherwise, people might have been rather more alert to Quirrell's reappearance.
Only now did Dumbledore understand what Peter Pettigrew had truly been doing.
He had crept into Hogwarts time and again in the shape of a rat, never once intending revenge, or Harry's death... in this respect, he had been, oddly enough, quite honest.
He had faithfully searched Hogwarts for the body harbouring his master's soul, and had at last succeeded.
Before Harry and his friends had ever found Peter Pettigrew in Hagrid's tea caddy, he had already completed his wicked errand:
He had successfully stolen the wand of Neville Longbottom, the student with the worst memory, the least regarded, and seemingly the least dangerous in all of Hogwarts, without rousing anyone's suspicion.
He had found the cellar where Quirrell's body was kept, and used the wand to cast a spell, freeing the petrified Quirrell along with Voldemort's soul.
Then he had turned back into a rat, scurried away, and left the wand behind with his master.
He had simply had the misfortune of being chased by Hermione's beloved pet Crookshanks, which was why he had been forced to hide in Hagrid's hut.
Otherwise, he might well have completed his errand and fled together with his master.
They had all been thoroughly fooled.
Sirius Black's suspicions had been entirely correct. This had never been a scheme Peter Pettigrew could have devised alone.
There had to be some hidden adversary, one who thought nothing of treating them all as foolish pawns to be toyed with at will.
That adversary had made everyone fix their attention upon Peter Pettigrew as the sole target, forgetting that Peter Pettigrew had a master standing behind him all along... Voldemort.