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“I’m not fussed, really, I prefer flying,” said Harry, glancing over his shoulder to see where Malfoy was, and speeding up as they came into the entrance hall. “Look, hurry up, will you, there’s something I want to do. …”

Perplexed, Ron followed Harry back to the Gryffindor Tower at a run. They were temporarily detained by Peeves, who had jammed a door on the fourth floor shut and was refusing to let anyone pass until they set fire to their own pants, but Harry and Ron simply turned back and took one of their trusted shortcuts. Within five minutes, they were climbing through the portrait hole.

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing, then?” asked Ron, panting slightly.

“Up here,” said Harry, and he crossed the common room and led the way through the door to the boys’ staircase.

Their dormitory was, as Harry had hoped, empty. He flung open his trunk and began to rummage in it, while Ron watched impatiently.

“Harry …”

“Malfoy’s using Crabbe and Goyle as lookouts. He was arguing with Crabbe just now. I want to know — aha.”

He had found it, a folded square of apparently blank parchment, which he now smoothed out and tapped with the tip of his wand.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good … or Malfoy is anyway.”

At once, the Marauder’s Map appeared on the parchment’s surface. Here was a detailed plan of every one of the castle’s floors and, moving around it, the tiny, labeled black dots that signified each of the castle’s occupants.

“Help me find Malfoy,” said Harry urgently.

He laid the map upon his bed, and he and Ron leaned over it, searching.

“There!” said Ron, after a minute or so. “He’s in the Slytherin common room, look … with Parkinson and Zabini and Crabbe and Goyle …”

Harry looked down at the map, disappointed, but rallied almost at once.

“Well, I’m keeping an eye on him from now on,” he said firmly. “And the moment I see him lurking somewhere with Crabbe and Goyle keeping watch outside, it’ll be on with the old Invisibility Cloak and off to find out what he’s —”

He broke off as Neville entered the dormitory, bringing with him a strong smell of singed material, and began rummaging in his trunk for a fresh pair of pants.

Despite his determination to catch Malfoy out, Harry had no luck at all over the next couple of weeks. Although he consulted the map as often as he could, sometimes making unnecessary visits to the bathroom between lessons to search it, he did not once see Malfoy anywhere suspicious. Admittedly, he spotted Crabbe and Goyle moving around the castle on their own more often than usual, sometimes remaining stationary in deserted corridors, but at these times Malfoy was not only nowhere near them, but impossible to locate on the map at all. This was most mysterious. Harry toyed with the possibility that Malfoy was actually leaving the school grounds, but could not see how he could be doing it, given the very high level of security now operating within the castle. He could only suppose that he was missing Malfoy amongst the hundreds of tiny black dots upon the map. As for the fact that Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle appeared to be going their different ways when they were usually inseparable, these things happened as people got older — Ron and Hermione, Harry reflected sadly, were living proof.

February moved toward March with no change in the weather except that it became windy as well as wet. To general indignation, a sign went up on all common room notice boards that the next trip into Hogsmeade had been canceled. Ron was furious.

“It was on my birthday!” he said. “I was looking forward to that!”

“Not a big surprise, though, is it?” said Harry. “Not after what happened to Katie.”

She had still not returned from St. Mungo’s. What was more, further disappearances had been reported in the Daily Prophet, including several relatives of students at Hogwarts.

“But now all I’ve got to look forward to is stupid Apparition!” said Ron grumpily. “Big birthday treat …”

Three lessons on, Apparition was proving as difficult as ever, though a few more people had managed to Splinch themselves. Frustration