"Well, that was odd." Harry broke the strange silence that had fallen over the group after the professors had left.
"Yea, that was a bit peculiar," Hermione agreed with a frown settling over her face. "I wonder what their connection is. I mean, it's obvious that they know each other. It would be interesting to discover how..."
"Hermione, stop right there." Ron interupted the scheming girl. "The lives of our professors are absolutley none of our business! Can't you just leave well enough alone?"
"Why should I?" Hermione rolled her eyes. "If we don't explore for ourselves, we'll never learn anything! The professors don't tell us anything, and you know that I can't just let something like this pass without investigating." She laughed. "I'm curious. I can't help it!"
Harry turned to Dawn to give an explanation. "Hermione tends to go about poking her nose in places she shouldn't. She has to know everything. She really detests being clueless about something that could be important. She also tends to get us into a lot of trouble with her curiosity." Harry was grinning but Dawn was not sharing in his fun mood.
Hermione shook her head. "Like you don't usually volunteer to accompany me in my research." She glanced briefly at Dawn and then stared pointedly at the two boys. "Anyway, who's in?"
"In?" Ron questioned. "Oh no...you don't actually mean...you're not really going to...Hermione!"
"What? I want to know what's going on with the professors! Haven't you noticed how strange everyone's been behaving lately? And now with new professors and some of the old ones leaving...I'm confused! I have to know what's going on. Besides, Professor Spike obviously has some sort of history with the new Gryffindor headmistress. I want to know everything." Hermione smiled. "I have to..."
"No!" Dawn spoke up suddenly.
"Excuse me?" Hermione frowned at Dawn's unexpected exclamation.
Dawn bit her lip and wished she could retract her statement. "I mean...umm...you shouldn't bother the professors. I'm sure their lives are very personal." Dawn was rambling, trying to cover up her accidental blunder. "I mean...I don't think they'd like a bunch of students nosing around in their personal pasts." The three students were staring at her like she was crazy. "I'm serious guys, even professors have rights to privacy."
"Dawn, calm down," Harry tried to slow Dawn's craziness. "Hermione would never be disrespectful to the teachers. She cares too much about what they think of her."
Ron nodded. "Sure, she just wants to find out what's going on."
"Whatever, I just don't think you guys should bug the teachers." Dawn filled her big-mouth with a large bite of chicken.
Hermione took advantage of the new girl's silence. "Alright, I've got to give you a bit of slack, considering you are new here and everything, but still, it might do you a bit of good to listen to me for a minute." She smiled with sarcastic sweetness. "Finding things out is what I do, and I never get in trouble...not often anyway, and when I do get into trouble, I get myself out of it just fine. I don't need a new goody-goody like you telling me what to do."
"Whoa there, slow down motor mouth." Dawn shook her head defensively. "I didn't mean for you to take offense, Hermione. I would never want to start off on a bad foot with any of my new classmates..." She sighed and tried to collect her thoughts. "Okay, let me try again..."
"Maybe you both should just let it go." Harry suggested slowly. "Everyone's finishing their dinner. Can you girls try and get along, please?" He stood up. "Let's show Dawn the Gryffindor quarters." Harry waited for both of the girls to nod and then he led the way out of the room and down the hall towards the stairways. Dawn stepped up beside Harry and Ron quickly took his place on the other side of her. Hermione was left trailing sulkily behind them.
"I don't think she likes me very much." Dawn whispered to the boys.
"Aw, don't worry about her." Harry didn't worry about Hermione hearing him. "She's very finicky about her choice of friends. She's sort of a snob too." He grinned when he glanced over her shoulder and noticed Hermione scowling at him.
"I'm not a snob!" Hermione whined.
Ron leaned close to Dawn and whispered in her ear. "Actually, she's sort of a brat too!"
Dawn glanced over her shoulder and noticed Hermione's scowl had melted into a slight look of sadness. She stopped following them suddenly and turned and ran the other way. "Am I wrong, or do you guys not like her very much?"
Harry looked back in time to see Hermione disappearing around the corner. "Oh no, Dawn, it's not that at all!" Harry looked to Ron for some help. He just shrugged and so Harry had to continue on his own. "Hermione is our best friend. She really is. It just wouldn't be normal if we didn't give her a hard time every now and then. She knows we're just joking." Harry paused at the top step of one of the marble staircases. "Hold on, it's switching directions."
"It's what?" Dawn looked around Harry's shoulder and gasped when she noticed the swinging staircases. "What's it doing?"
"The staircases change randomly. It's rather annoying actually." A few seconds later the staircases settled and Harry continued. "You have to be careful around the stairs because they don't exactly give warning to when they're going to change."
Dawn nodded. "Okay, I'll keep that in mind." Dawn followed closely behind Harry, nervously glancing down at the steps as if afraid that they were going to change again.
"Here we are." Ron announced.
Dawn frowned. "Here we are where?" She looked up at a huge painting hanging on the wall in front of them. The hallway dead-ended and Dawn didn't see a door anywhere.
"Caput Draconis," Harry spoke loudly and suddenly the painting swung open revealing a hidden passageway.
Dawn gasped. "Now, that's cool!"
"Passwords change randomly too, you'll learn them all eventually." Ron informed her as they stepped through the created space in the wall. Harry continued leading the way down the newly revealed hallway until they came to a large, open room.
"Welcome to Gryffindor Tower." Harry grinned at Dawn's dazzled expression as she stared at the enourmous room.