Chapter 33

[Chapter Size: 2200 Words.]

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"You really, really came!" Hermione's deliberately hushed voice failed to hide her anger.

At the entrance to the trophy room, she stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Harry, Ron, and Neville.

"Wait, Hermione..." Ron sighed in exasperation, nearly covering his face. "Did you seriously break school rules just to catch us breaking school rules?"

"Huh?" Hermione was momentarily stunned before realizing that something indeed seemed a bit off.

After leaving the library, she had felt uneasy.

Thinking carefully, she recalled that Harry and Ron had arranged a duel with Draco in front of the trophy room that night.

Although Ron had sworn they had only been lying to Draco, she still couldn't help but worry. So, she had quietly left the dormitory and hurried over to confirm.

She arrived early and found no one there, which was to be expected. Who would actually show up at the remote trophy room in the middle of the night?

At that time, Harry and Ron were still struggling with their homework in the library.

Seeing the empty corridor, Hermione felt somewhat relieved. But then she worried that she had simply arrived too early and that they had yet to show up.

Standing here was against the rules, but going back without knowing for sure made her uneasy.

She hesitated. Minutes passed. Before she knew it, she had been debating with herself for over half an hour. Midnight struck.

As Ron had predicted, Draco never appeared. Neither did Harry or Ron.

Hermione silently told herself she had been overthinking things and was about to leave, when she suddenly spotted three figures sneaking toward the trophy room.

"This is all your fault!" Hermione turned her sharp glare on Ron, expertly shifting the blame.

Ron pursed his lips but didn't argue. He was all too familiar with being blamed.

"Alright, Harry, Ron, Hermione, let's just go back," Neville said, glancing around nervously. "If the night patrol catches us, I'll lose a lot of house points, won't I?"

"Neville's right. Let's go." Hermione, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had been the first one here, insisted.

Harry and Ron had no objections, especially Harry. If Ron hadn't brought it up, he would have completely forgotten about Draco's challenge.

Just as they were about to turn back, footsteps echoed from the direction they had come.

At the same time, a rough, unpleasant voice called out from afar:

"Mrs. Norris, come here. Let's see if we've got a little ghost sneaking out of bed."

The four young Gryffindors exchanged glances and, without a word, understood each other instantly.

Without discussing it, they turned as one, swiftly rounded a corner, and slipped into the trophy room. Carefully, they shut the door behind them and hid inside.

Harry's mind raced.

He knew of two spells that could be useful right now.

One was the Disillusionment Charm, he had read about it in a thick book while researching for his History of Magic essay. It wasn't mentioned in their school textbooks or supplementary reference books, but its effect was simple: it blurred the caster's body, blending them into their surroundings like a chameleon, creating an illusion of invisibility.

It wasn't true invisibility, but it worked almost as well.

The other was Mirror Image, though that was a spell from Neil's world. It functioned similarly to the Disillusionment Charm but was even more effective, allowing the caster to create a moving illusion to distract pursuers. In the magical classification of Aegean-world magic (where Neil was from), it was considered a standard spell of the air and water elements.

If he knew either of those spells now, this would be easy.

Unfortunately, he didn't. Which was, annoying.

"That slimy rat, Draco, actually ran to Filch and tattled!" Ron grumbled, while Harry silently regretted not mastering the most essential skill for nighttime school adventures.

Filch's words made it clear, he knew students were sneaking around. Given the circumstances, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened.

Draco had challenged them, failed to show up, and then gone straight to Filch to report them.

"That bastard!" Harry spat without thinking. Neville, who had caught up on the situation during their walk, didn't say anything but nodded in agreement.

"Shut up and run!" Hermione hissed, cutting off their complaints.

Of course, they hadn't hidden in the trophy room just to be caught inside it.

They had chosen this room because it had two exits, one in the front, one in the back, each leading to different hallways. Entering through one door and escaping through the other meant they could quickly put distance between themselves and Filch.

So far, everything had gone smoothly.

Hermione slipped through the back door and carefully shut it behind them. The front door remained unopened, meaning they were now in a different corridor from Filch.

"Please, just don't get into any more trouble," Hermione sighed, turning to scold the boys.

Since she helped them with their schoolwork, they tolerated this.

Harry and Ron exchanged glances. Without speaking, they reached a silent agreement. Then, in complete synchronization, they obediently nodded.

Hermione seemed pleased with their response and was about to say something else. But as she turned, she misjudged the distance and bumped into a suit of armor.

CRASH! CLANG! CLATTER!

Hermione froze, her words dying in her throat.

Harry: "…"

Ron: "…"

Neville: "…"

"RUN!" Harry was the first to react, barking the order as he bolted.

At that moment, he deeply regretted leaving his books in the common room. If he had been carrying them, they would have seriously slowed him down.

Ron took off at nearly the same time, following without hesitation.

Hermione and Neville hesitated for just a second, but that was enough for them to fall seven or eight steps behind. Harry and Ron were fast.

Realizing their disadvantage, Hermione and Neville kicked into gear and quickly caught up.

They sprinted through several corridors before Harry finally ran out of steam and stopped, panting. Ron and Hermione were in even worse shape, Ron slid down against a wall and sat on the floor, gasping for air.

Neville, however, seemed completely fine.

"That little round-faced kid is in good shape?" Harry thought, surprised.

Then he realized, Neville hadn't been carrying a load of oversized textbooks. Unlike Harry and Ron, whose books were about as heavy as bricks, Neville had been running unburdened.

That explained a lot.

"We... should have... already... lost him... right?" Hermione panted, struggling to catch her breath. This time, she didn't feel like complaining, after all, she was the one who had knocked over the armor.

"Where are we?" Neville looked around hesitantly.

They had run wildly in every direction, dashing up and down stairs without caring where they led. As a result, he had no idea where they were now.

After all, Hogwarts' staircases moved randomly, making it impossible to rely on memory alone to know where they'd end up.

The moment Neville asked, all three turned instinctively to Hermione.

As a model student, remembering the structure of the castle and the location of every classroom was undoubtedly one of her skills.

"This... should be the fourth floor? I don't think I've been here before. Hmm..." Hermione hesitated, looking around. Then, her expression darkened.

"This is... the right-side corridor of the fourth floor."

Harry, Ron, and Neville froze.

It had been over a month since Dumbledore had warned at the start of term that the right-side corridor on the fourth floor was dangerous and strictly forbidden.

No one had mentioned it since, and Harry had long forgotten, though, back then, he had been more interested in sneaking a peek at the Forbidden Forest. The excitement of starting school and all the new experiences had made him completely overlook it.

Now, hearing Hermione say it out loud, he vaguely recalled the warning.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm, have a look around, hmm, hmm, hmm, take a peek inside," a voice drifted toward them from the distance, light and playful but laced with mischief.

"Peeves!" Ron's face fell. They had barely escaped one disaster, only to land in another.

Ron and Harry fumbled around frantically and soon spotted a wooden door to the side.

"Quick, in there! We can't let Peeves see us!" Ron whispered urgently, tugging at the handle.

But the door was locked.

Meanwhile, Peeves' voice grew closer.

"Move!" Hermione shoved Ron aside, pulled out her wand, and whispered, "Alohomora!"

With a soft click, the lock sprang open.

The four of them rushed inside, shut the door behind them, and pressed their ears against it, listening carefully.

Peeves continued his sing-song chant as he floated past the door. His voice gradually faded, showing no interest in investigating.

"It's safe," Harry breathed, whispering, "Let's go."

He reached for the doorknob, only to feel someone clutching his sleeve.

Harry turned, confused.

And then he froze.

Harry's scalp prickled. He was sure his hair must have puffed up, or even stood on end.

What he saw in front of him was beyond his worst nightmares. He even wondered for a moment if he was dreaming, trapped in a nightmare!

They were now inside a forbidden corridor.

And Harry suddenly understood why it was off-limits, lying before them was a massive dog.

A massive, three-headed dog.

The corridor, wide enough for a ten-meter-tall giant to pass through, was half-occupied by the enormous beast sprawled across the floor.

Each of its three heads was the size of a small car.

Harry had seen three-headed dogs in myths and video games, but never had he imagined one would appear before him in real life, even in the wizarding world.

At that moment, one of the heads twitched, its nose wrinkling as if catching a scent.

Then, its enormous, soup-bowl-sized eyes slowly opened.

With a deep, guttural yawn, it bared its dagger-like teeth. Sticky saliva dripped from its jaws.

Harry parted his lips but quickly clamped a hand over his mouth, not daring to make a sound. Even Gryffindors, known for their bravery, could only feel sheer terror in the face of such a beast.

The monstrous dog, however, didn't fully wake. Its eyes drooped shut once more.

"Move. Slowly. Quietly," Hermione whispered. Her voice was barely audible, slow and deliberate.

The shock of seeing the beast before her far outweighed any fear she had ever experienced in her entire eleven years of life. She had no intention of interacting with it in any way.

Neither did Harry, Ron, or Neville.

They carefully opened the door, slipped out, and gently, very, very gently, closed it behind them.

"Phew!"

Even with the door shut, the giant dog didn't stir. It neither barked nor growled, allowing Harry and the others to breathe a sigh of relief.

God knew how loud it would have been if it had woken up, how many professors would have come running.

"Hurry up and get back, and this time, follow me!" Hermione shot Harry a glare for leading them into danger.

But, considering she was the one who had sent them running blindly through the castle, she ultimately said nothing more and simply took the lead.

Harry, Ron, and Neville had no interest in arguing. They followed her in silence.

Only when they finally reached the Gryffindor common room did they let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Why would they put something that dangerous in a school?" Even back in the common room, Harry felt a chill run down his spine at the thought of the enormous three-headed dog.

"Exactly. If it had woken up, we would have been…" Ron shuddered at the thought of the possible gruesome consequences. Neville, still looking pale, nodded repeatedly.

"There's a trapdoor beneath it!" Hermione took a deep breath, as if trying to suppress her emotions. "It's obviously guarding something."

"You actually noticed its feet?" Ron gaped. "I was too busy looking at its heads. You do realize it had three of them, right? Three! I…"

He wanted to say more, but Hermione cut him off.

"Listen to me, Harry, Ron, Neville." She looked at the three of them seriously.

"Please, please, don't do anything like this again. We were this close to being eaten by that thing. Or worse…" she lowered her voice, "we could have been expelled."

With that, she clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture, then turned and marched toward the girls' dormitory without a second thought.

"Hang on, didn't she run off first?" Ron muttered suspiciously. "And since when is getting expelled worse?"

Harry just shrugged. He wasn't paying much attention to their argument.

One phrase kept echoing in his mind.

"It's obviously guarding something..."

For no reason at all, Harry thought of the small package Hagrid had taken from Gringotts. He remembered the Daily Prophet articles about the break-in at Gringotts and the ongoing rumors surrounding it.

But the moment he pictured that enormous dog again, Harry shook the thoughts from his head and sighed deeply.

Hogwarts is way too dangerous.

******

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