Professor Trelawney looked thoroughly startled.

“The Dark Lord? He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? My dear boy, that’s hardly something to joke about… Rise again, indeed—”

“But you just said it! You said the Dark Lord—”

“I think you must have dozed off too, dear!” said Professor Trelawney. “I would certainly not presume to predict anything quite as far fetched as that!”

Harry climbed back down the ladder and the spiral staircase, wondering… had he just heard Professor Trelawney make a real prediction? Or had that been her idea of an impressive end to the test?

Five minutes later he was dashing past the security trolls outside the entrance to Gryffindor Tower, Professor Trelawney’s words still resounding in his head. People were striding past him in the opposite direction, laughing and joking, heading for the grounds and a bit of long awaited freedom; by the time he had reached the portrait hole and entered the common room, it was almost deserted. Over in the corner, however, sat Ron and Hermione.

“Professor Trelawney,” Harry panted, “just told me—”

But he stopped abruptly at the sight of their faces.

“Buckbeak lost,” said Ron weakly. “Hagrid’s just sent this.”

Hagrid’s note was dry this time, no tears had splattered it, yet his hand seemed to have shaken so much as he wrote that it was hardly legible.

...

Lost appeal. They’re going to execute at sunset. Nothing you can do. Don’t come down. I don’t want you to see it.

Hagrid

“We’ve got to go,” said Harry at once. “He can’t just sit there on his own, waiting for the executioner!”

“Sunset, though,” said Ron, who was staring out the window ill a glazed sort of way. “We’d never be allowed… ’specially you, Harry…”

Harry sank his head into his hands, thinking.

“If we only had the Invisibility Cloak…”

“Where is it?” said Hermione.

Harry told her about leaving it in the passageway under the one-eyed witch.

“…if Snape sees me anywhere near there again, I’m in serious trouble,” he finished.

“That’s true,” said Hermione, getting to her feet. “If he sees you… How do you open the witch’s hump again?”

“You—you tap it and say, ‘Dissendium,’” said Harry. “But—”

Hermione didn’t wait for the rest of his sentence; she strode across the room, pushed open the Fat Lady’s portrait and vanished from sight.

“She hasn’t gone to get it?” Ron said, staring after her.

She had. Hermione returned a quarter of an hour later with the silvery cloak folded carefully under her robes.

“Hermione, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately!” said Ron, astounded. “First you hit Malfoy, then you walk out on Professor Trelawney—”

Hermione looked rather flattered.

They went down to dinner with everybody else, but did not return to Gryffindor Tower afterward. Harry had the cloak hidden down tie front of his robes; he had to keep his arms folded to hide the lump. They skulked in an empty chamber off the entrance hall, listening, until they were sure it was deserted. They heard a last pair of people hurrying across the hall and a door slamming. Hermione poked her head around the door.

“Okay,” she whispered, “no one there—cloak on—”

Walking very close together so that nobody would see them, they crossed the hall on tiptoe beneath the cloak, then walked down the stone front steps into the grounds. The sun was already sinking behind the Forbidden Forest, gilding the top branches of the trees.

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The heat was overpowering and his nostrils were stinging with the perfumed smoke wafting from the fire beside them. He thought of what Ron had just said, and decided to pretend.	\|	They reached Hagrid’s cabin and knocked. He was a minute in answering, and when he did, he looked all around for his visitor, pale faced and trembling.

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