Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Chapter 141: Crookshanks and the New Password

Chapter 141: Crookshanks and the New Password

Evan, Harry and Hermione stepped out of the Great Hall. Actually, there was no crazy axe killer in the hallway.

Professor Trelawney and Ron disappeared around the corner. She went in the direction of the basement, while he followed the stairs back to the Gryffindor Tower.

“We’d better hurry up!” Evan said hurriedly, he noticed that the stairs leading to the second floor were moving.

The three of them were just one step too late. When they arrived, the stairs had already moved and they had to turn around. That slowed them down and got them five minutes behind Ron.

Right when they entered the Gryffindor tower, Evan noticed a ginger figure coming out from the shadow.

It was Crookshanks, which had a white piece of paper in its mouth.

When it saw the three of them; it came closer, purring and strangely meowing.

Hermione picked the paper up, looked at it curiously and said: “Crookshanks, where did you get this paper? What’s written on it?”

Evan and harry were curious, they looked together and found that a few letters on the paper were wriggling to form together: “Scurvy Cur”!

“I don’t understand. What does that mean?” Harry said strangely.

“That’s very rude! Maybe it’s some prank made by a student!” Hermione said with a frown. “Crookshanks; didn’t I tell you not to pick up random stuff?”

Crookshanks meowed and purred lazily in Hermione’s arms.

Evan didn’t speak. Looking at the dirty little piece of paper, he had a peculiar feeling. Knowing Crookshanks, that clever little pet was no ordinary cat. It shouldn’t be picking up useless notes for no reason.

Scurvy Cur, is that really just a simple prank?

Still, someone had deliberately written this note to Crookshanks, hoping it would deliver it to them.

On their way, they discussed the matter of the paper for a while. When they reached the portrait hole they found Sir Cadogan enjoying a Christmas party with a couple of monks, several previous headmasters of Hogwarts and his fat pony. He pushed up his visor toasted them with a flagon of mead.

“Merry — hic — Christmas! Password?”

“Oddsbodkins!” Harry said to Sir Cadogan.

“Wrong password, that’s not it!” Sir Cadogan came to him immediately, pulling his big, outrageous sword out of its sheath and violently shrieking and shouting, “Are you prepared to do it? Into this room behind me?! I will not let you in. Stand and fight, you mangy cur!” yelled Sir Cadogan.

“Shut up!” said Harry, puzzled. “How could the password be wrong? It was that just this morning.”

“I just changed it and I have notified you of the new password!”

“But we don’t know it! Let us pass, we’re in a hurry.”

“No! I won’t let you in, not without the correct password.” Sir Cadogan shouted, “Draw your sword you filthy cur! Face the wrath of Sir Cadogan, I’m going to defeat you! Otherwise, I’ll be dying bravely in combat!”

Harry looked helplessly at Sir Cadogan. Facing such a madman, he was completely helpless.

“Perhaps he told Professor McGonagall the new password and we should go back…” Hermione said with some doubt.

“Hold on a second, the words on that piece of paper!” Evan suddenly remembered.

“What?!” Harry turned and looked at him strangely.

“The words on the paper may be the new password.” Evan said to Sir Cadogan, “Scurvy Cur!”

“And the same to you, sir!” roared Sir Cadogan, as the painting swung forward to admit them.

There was no one in the deserted Common Room.

“This is stupid; this guy just keeps on changing those ridiculous passwords all the time!” Harry was the first to enter the room and said angrily, “This time he’s actually giving the cat the new password, if we didn’t meet Crookshanks, we would’ve…”

“That piece of paper could not have been written by Sir Cadogan!” Hermione said. “He is a portrait. How can he write?!”

“Who else would it be?”

“It must be Ron!” Evan narrowed his eyes and analyzed.” Sir Cadogan actually just said it; he said that he had notified us of the password. There are only four Gryffindor students in the castle, and all three of us didn’t know about it. So yeah, it can only be Ron.”

“But why would Ron write the password on a note? Isn’t that too weird?!”

Hermione looked worried. She looked around and whispered, “Evan, what is that guy going to do?”

“I don’t know!” Evan shook his head. He felt it was really strange, and he couldn’t understand why Pettigrew would do such a thing.

Why would he write down the new password and then hand it to Crookshanks?

No matter how he looked at it, it was meaningless, too dumb, and even too dangerous for Peter Pettigrew to do such a thing!

He knew too well that Black was looking around Hogwarts for him. He even broke into the castle and tried to enter the Common Room back on Halloween Eve. He couldn’t do it back then because he had no password. Now, it’s one of two possibilities: it’s either that Pettigrew made Ron write the note and then it was found by Crookshanks; or, he deliberately gave it to the cat himself.

It was too strange. Pettigrew should know well the relationship between Crookshanks and Sirius Black. The cat had been chasing him in his Animagus form for the past 6 months!

But now he gives him the password, meaning that he was giving it to Sirius Black!

In other words, Peter actually wants Black to enter the castle!

Evan had a bad feeling about this whole matter. What does Peter want to do? Last night, Ron accused Professor Lupin of attacking him, and from that moment on, everything has been just too different from the original storyline and progressing in a really unpredictable way. All of these changes were beyond Evan’s control.

Evan tried to think of the whole matter from Peter’s perspective: He first controlled Ron and framed Professor Lupin, and with that, he managed to get professor Dumbledore away from the castle. Now, he’s taking that opportunity to bring Black inside!

This all was obviously too abnormal. After all, Pettigrew had been hiding from Black all this time! Why get him into the castle now?

Evan suddenly remembered that Peter couldn’t have known about his plot with Black, and shouldn’t actually know that Black was coming to the castle tonight. It means that he wanted Black to come into the castle and into the Gryffindor Common Room.

He is not mad, he has a new plot!