Harry unlocked his door and stepped in front of the cracked mirror. Goyle stared back at him out of dull, deep set eyes. Harry scratched his ear. So did Goyle.
Ron’s door opened. They stared at each other. Except that he looked pale and shocked, Ron was indistinguishable from Crabbe, from the pudding bowl haircut to the long, gorilla arms.
“This is unbelievable,” said Ron, approaching the mirror and prodding Crabbe’s flat nose. “Unbelievable. “
“We’d better get going,” said Harry, loosening the watch that was cutting into Goyle’s thick wrist. “We’ve still got to find out where the Slytherin common room is. I only hope we can find someone to follow…”
Ron, who had been gazing at Harry, said, “You don’t know how bizarre it is to see Goyle thinking.” He banged on Hermione’s door. “C’mon, we need to go—”
A high pitched voice answered him.
“I—I don’t think I’m going to come after all. You go on without me.”
“Hermione, we know Millicent Bulstrode’s ugly, no one’s going to know it’s you—”
“No—really—I don’t think I’ll come. You two hurry up, you’re wasting time—”
Harry looked at Ron, bewildered.
“That looks more like Goyle,” said Ron. “That’s how he looks every time a teacher asks him a question.”
“Hermione, are you okay?” said Harry through the door.
“Fine—I’m fine—go on—”
Harry looked at his watch. Five of their precious sixty minutes had already passed.
“We’ll meet you back here, all right?” he said.
Harry and Ron opened the door of the bathroom carefully, checked that the coast was clear, and set off.
“Don’t swing your arms like that,” Harry muttered to Ron.
“Eh?”
“Crabbe holds them sort of stiff…”
“How’s this?”
“Yeah, that’s better…”
They went down the marble staircase. All they needed now was a Slytherin that they could follow to the Slytherin common room, but there was nobody around.
“Any ideas?” muttered Harry.
“The Slytherins always come up to breakfast from over there,” said Ron, nodding at the entrance to the dungeons. The words had barely left his mouth when a girl with long, curly hair emerged from the entrance.
“Excuse me,” said Ron, hurrying up to her. “We’ve forgotten the way to our common room.”
“I beg your pardon?” said the girl stiffly. “Our common room? I’m a Ravenclaw.” She walked away, looking suspiciously back at them.
Harry and Ron hurried down the stone steps into the darkness, their footsteps echoing particularly loudly as Crabbe’s and Goyle’s huge feet hit the floor, feeling that this wasn’t going to be as easy as they had hoped.
The labyrinthine passages were deserted. They walked deeper and deeper under the school, constantly checking their watches to see how much time they had left. After a quarter of an hour, just when they were getting desperate, they heard a sudden movement ahead.
“Ha!” said Ron excitedly. “There’s one of them now!”