The scream was followed a moment later by Sirius, who came running down the staircase in his dog form. I ran over to the portrait hole and opened it for him, then I ran over to an armchair and curled myself up in it, casting a spell to make my eyes look slightly out of focus. I knew that Sir Cadogan would be questioned about this, and as he would almost certainly say that he saw me with Sirius, I needed to look like I'd had some sort of spell cast on me.

Harry came racing down into the common room now, followed by the rest of the boys from his dormitory.
"Who shouted?"
"What're you doing?"
The common room quickly filled up as hundreds of curious Gryffindors tried to find out what happened.

"Are you sure you weren't dreaming, Ron?"
"I'm telling you, I saw him!"
"What's all this noise?"
"Professor McGonagall told us to go to bed!"
"Excellent, are we carrying on?" said Fred.
"Everyone back upstairs!" said Percy Weasley, pinning his Head Boy badge onto his pyjamas as he spoke.
"Perce — Sirius Black!" said Ron faintly. "In our dormitory! With a knife! Woke me up!"

The common room went very still.

"Nonsense," said Percy, looking startled. "You had too much to eat, Ron — had a nightmare—"
"I'm telling you—"
"Now really, enough's enough!"
Professor McGonagall came into the common room, slamming the portrait behind her and staring furiously round at everyone.

"I am delighted that Gryffindor won the match, but this is getting ridiculous! Percy, I expected better of you!"
"I certainly didn't authorise this, Professor," said Percy, puffing himself up indignantly. "I was just telling them all to get back to bed! My brother Ron here had a nightmare—"
"IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE!" Ron yelled. "PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE!"

Professor McGonagall stared at him.
"Don't be ridiculous, Weasley, how could he possibly have got through the portrait hole?"
"Ask him!" said Ron, pointing a shaking finger at the back of Sir Cadogan's portrait. "Ask him if he saw—"

Glaring suspiciously at Ron, Professor McGonagall pushed the portrait back open and went outside. Everyone was silent, and I could tell that they were all listening.
"Sir Cadogan, did you just let a man enter Gryffindor tower?"
"Certainly, good lady!" cried Sir Cadogan.
"You — you did?" said Professor McGonagall. "But — but the password!"
"A girl had it!" said Sir Cadogan. "Said it right to me, my lady! Let him in!"

Professor McGonagall pulled herself back through the portrait hole to face the stunned crowd. She was as white as chalk.
"Which person," she said, her voice shaking, "which abysmally foolish and treasonous person—"
She stopped suddenly as she caught sight of me.

Everyone's eyes followed her gaze, and they looked at me too, worry and confusion etched on all of their faces as they saw my out-of-focus eyes, my pale face, my far-off expression.
Thank Merlin I've got better at acting in the last couple of weeks.

"Miss Riddle?" said Professor McGonagall sharply.
I didn't react.
McGonagall walked over to me.
"Miss Riddle?" she said again.
I just kept staring straight ahead, giving no indication that I'd heard her.
"Miss Riddle?" she said, sounding worried now.
Still no reaction from me.
She pointed her wand in the general direction of the portrait hole, then three patronuses suddenly burst out of the tip and flew from the room.

A few minutes later, Madam Pomfrey came hurrying in, followed shortly after by Professor Lupin. McGonagall quietly explained the situation to them, and I heard words like "password", "eyes", and "Dark magic."

When she'd finished telling them what had happened, Professor McGonagall left, most likely to search for Sirius. Lupin and Pomfrey both came over to me, as did Harry and Ron.
"Don't come too close," Lupin warned them. "She's been cursed, she might attack you."

Pomfrey was muttering spells and counter-curses, but nothing was working. I'd based the side-effects of the 'curse' on a piece of Dark magic my father liked to use. It worked much like the Imperius Curse, but mixed with the memory modifying charm. It wore off after a period of time, leaving the person who fell victim to the curse completely clueless as to what happened. There was no known counter-curse, you just had to wait until it wore off naturally.

After a couple of minutes, Madam Pomfrey finally gave up.
"I can't do anything about this," she said with a small sigh. "We'll just have to wait."
"What's wrong with her?" Ron asked.
"She's been cursed with very Dark magic," Pomfrey explained. "Thankfully it doesn't look like this particular spell was too powerful, so we shouldn't have too long to wait before it wears off."
"Do you think she'll be able to tell us what happened?" Harry asked.
Pomfrey and Lupin both shook their heads.
"If the spell worked like it's supposed to, she won't remember anything that happened."

"How did Black do magic anyway?" Ron said, sounding a little confused. "His wand would've been taken off him when he went to Azkaban, surely?"
"I reckon he used Ivory's wand," Harry answered.
"That could explain why the curse is so weak," Lupin said, nodding. "He wouldn't have had full control over the wand, especially if it's got a phoenix feather core."

I waited a few more minutes, then wandlessly and non-verbally removed the spell from my eyes, blinking rapidly.
"Ivory?"
I looked around the common room, faking confusion, then at Harry, Ron, Lupin, and Pomfrey, who were all watching me worriedly.
"What happened?" I asked quietly. "How did I get to the common room?"

Lupin just shook his head and said, "Ivory, what's the last thing you remember before you were in here?"
I frowned slightly, acting as if I was thinking.
"We won the Quidditch match..." I started slowly, "Harry said something about a party... but I stayed outside... then I went to the forest... and I saw... I saw footprints... and I followed them... and then... then... then I can't remember."

There was another stunned silence throughout the common room. It seemed like Harry and Ron weren't the only students who were curious about what had happened to me — everyone had been listening.

Well, if they want to listen, I'm going to have to give them something worth listening to.