Sirius Black breaks into Gryffindor Tower

On the night of Gryffindor's Quidditch victory against Ravenclaw, the common room was still littered with the debris of a party that had gone on all day and well into the night. Fred and George Weasley had returned with armfuls of butterbeer, pumpkin fizz, and Honeydukes sweets, and the celebration had only ended when Professor McGonagall appeared in her tartan dressing gown and hair net at one in the morning to insist everyone go to bed. Harry and Ron climbed the stairs to their dormitory, still discussing the match, and Harry fell asleep almost instantly.

The Attack

Harry had a strange dream of walking through a forest, following something silvery-white, when he was jolted awake by a scream. Ron was sitting up in bed, the hangings torn from one side, his face full of terror. "Black! Sirius Black! With a knife!" he shouted. Ron insisted that Black had been standing over him, that he had slashed the curtains and woken him. Dean Thomas suggested it might have been a dream, but Ron pointed to the torn curtains as proof. The entire dormitory scrambled out of bed, and Harry reached the door first, sprinting back down the staircase with the others. Doors opened behind them and sleepy voices called out, but the common room, lit only by the dying fire, was deserted.

The Aftermath and Investigation

Professor McGonagall arrived, furious at the disturbance, and initially dismissed Ron's story as a nightmare. But Ron insisted, pointing at the portrait of Sir Cadogan, who had replaced the damaged Fat Lady. When McGonagall demanded to know if Sir Cadogan had let a man into Gryffindor Tower, the knight replied proudly, "Certainly, good lady!" He had the passwords, he said, reading them off a little piece of paper. McGonagall, white as chalk, turned to face the stunned crowd and demanded to know which "abysmally foolish person" had written down the week's passwords and left them lying around. In the utter silence, Neville Longbottom, trembling from head to toe, slowly raised his hand. The castle was searched again, but Black had escaped once more.

Consequences and Security Measures

The break-in had immediate and severe consequences. Neville was in total disgrace: Professor McGonagall banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, gave him a detention, and forbade anyone to give him the password into the tower, forcing him to wait outside the common room every night for someone to let him in while security trolls leered at him. Two days later, his grandmother sent him a Howler at breakfast, shrieking about how he had brought shame on the whole family. Throughout the castle, security was tightened everywhere: Professor Flitwick taught the front doors to recognize a picture of Sirius Black, Filch boarded up everything from tiny cracks in the walls to mouse holes, and Sir Cadogan was fired, his portrait returned to its lonely landing. The Fat Lady, expertly restored but still extremely nervous, agreed to return only on condition of extra protection, and a group of surly security trolls was hired to guard her, pacing the corridor in a menacing group. The statue of the one-eyed witch on the third floor, however, remained unguarded and unblocked, known only to Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, and George.

Ron's Celebrity and the Unanswered Question

Ron became an instant celebrity, enjoying the attention as he recounted the story in detail: how he heard a ripping noise, woke to find his bed hangings pulled down, and saw Black standing over him "like a skeleton, with loads of filthy hair" holding a twelve-inch knife. But the question that haunted Harry was why Black had run. Having got the wrong bed, why had he not silenced Ron and proceeded to Harry? Black had proved twelve years ago that he did not mind murdering innocent people, and this time he had been facing five unarmed boys, four of them asleep. Harry reasoned that Black must have known he would have a job getting back out of the castle once Ron had yelled and woken people up, that he would have had to kill the whole house to get back through the portrait hole, and then would have met the teachers. The break-in, though terrifying, remained a puzzle, and the threat of Sirius Black loomed larger than ever over the school.