Chapter 50: I Have a Way
Kyle was not someone who liked to waste time. Once he had an idea, he acted on it immediately. Without further ado, he told Kanna to head back to the dorms while he made his way straight to Gryffindor Tower.
Unfortunately, when he arrived, Percy wasn't in the dormitory. After asking around, no one seemed to know where he had gone. With no leads, Kyle had no choice but to set the matter aside for the time being. It seemed Scabbers wouldn't be as lucky as he'd hoped.
When Kyle returned to the Hufflepuff common room, he found Kanna curled up on a sofa in the corner, clutching her pet rat nervously. Across the room, perched on the windowsill, a large owl was staring at her menacingly, occasionally clicking its beak.
Ratton, the owl, had never seen such a fat, shiny mouse before. To its hungry eyes, Pocky looked like the perfect snack—plump and gleaming. However, Ratton knew that this mouse belonged to the little witch and was definitely off-limits, so it was content to simply observe.
The problem was that Kanna had no idea what the owl was thinking. When Kyle entered the room, he saw her pale and tense, gripping the hem of her shirt in sweaty hands. Oddly enough, she hadn't even been this nervous when she realized her galleons were missing earlier.
It wasn't until Kyle distracted Ratton with a piece of Murtlap jerky that Kanna finally began to regain some color. As the owl's attention shifted to the jerky, Kyle walked over and shrugged.
"I couldn't find Percy. He's not in Gryffindor Tower."
"Hm," Kanna responded, not giving it much thought. In her eyes, all field mice were rather ugly, and she doubted Pocky would be interested in Scabbers. After all, her pet spent most of its time playing with a hamster, so it didn't seem likely. Besides, Kyle had rushed off so quickly earlier that she hadn't had a chance to refuse his idea in the first place. As far as she was concerned, the current situation was ideal.
She returned Pocky to her dormitory, and when she came back out, she seemed much more at ease. She even gave Ratton a defiant grin.