It wasn't until Wednesday afternoon, after a double Transfiguration period, that Harry found time to complete his tour of the castle.
Percy Weasley had been helpful enough, but there was no substitute for exploring and imprinting the castle alone - technically, with his Guide, as there was no way Hermione would let him go without her. Nor, Harry admitted privately, would he have wanted to explore it without her, and not just because he might need her help to ground his senses.
He'd cataloged at least a dozen secret passageways - though not necessarily how to access them - before they arrived at the third-floor corridor on the right side.
Hermione's hand twitched in his. He glanced at her, concerned, but her expression matched the determination he felt through their bond.
"What?" he asked softly.
She blew out a breath. "I know Hogwarts is your territory - our territory - and that we have an obligation to learn all of it. It just … it feels like I'm breaking the rules."
Ah. He should've expected something like that. He hadn't, and that made him feel like an idiot. But he could try to reassure her, at least.
"Technically," he said, "there's not a rule saying we shouldn't be here, just a warning. And even if there were, no rule is more important than the tribe."
"I know. It's just that Guides don't feel the territorial impulse as much as Sentinels - or so I was taught. Rules, though-"
Harry squeezed her hand. "Rules are a comfort. I get it."
She quirked a half-grin at him. "But Sentinels aren't made for comfort."
"No," Harry answered seriously. "We're made for war. That we drag our Guides into it beside us - hurts. It's necessary, and many Guides are just as ready for it as a Sentinel, but it still hurts."
"Really?" Hermione's eyes lit with curiosity. "Guides can be just as ready for war as Sentinels?"
It was Harry's turn to grin. "You haven't met the Alphas?"
"Well, no. But Alpha Sentinel Mallory works in MI-6, everyone knows that. And Alpha Guide Holmes has a minor position in the government."
Harry couldn't help chuckling, even when he felt hurt embarrassment through their bond. He controlled himself as quickly as he could.
"Sorry," he said, sending apologetic feelings through the bond. "That's technically correct, but Alpha Holmes…. Well - you'll understand when you meet him."
Her eyes widened almost comically. "Meet? The Alpha Guide?"
Harry just grinned at her and started down the corridor, opening his senses of hearing and smell a little as he walked. Hermione trailed beside him, muttering under her breath.
He tuned her mostly out, instead focusing on the other sounds and scents around him, searching for anything that might be out of place ... there.
"A heartbeat that I haven't imprinted - a little slower than normal," he told Hermione, his voice low enough that it wouldn't hurt his ears. "Another, a lot slower than normal. And beyond that, a noise like a fluttering of wings. Lots of wings."
"What on Earth-" Hermione began, equally quietly, only to be interrupted.
"Well, well, well. What have we here, brother mine?"
Harry flinched at the volume and adjusted his hearing back to normal levels, even as Hermione whirled around.
"Hush!" she whisper-shouted. "Or do you want him to go deaf?"
The tone of her voice indicated quite clearly that the answer to that question had better be, no, of course not.
"Sorry." This time there were two - quieter - voices, which only confirmed Harry's perception.
He turned to face the Weasley twins, who each bore smugly satisfied grins, despite Hermione's chastisement.
"Ickle firsties," the second twin - Harry was fairly sure it was Fred, though he hadn't cataloged both of them enough to be absolutely certain - gave him and Hermione a thorough once-over. "What are ickle firsties doing in a corridor holding a painful death?"
Harry was tempted to respond, the same thing you are, but Hermione spoke before he could form the words.
"Harry's exploring his territory," she said. "If there's a problem, he needs to know how to get there, quickly."
The twins exchanged a glance that probably communicated more than most people could manage in several complete sentences and exchanged nods so millimetric that Harry might have missed them entirely if he hadn't been watching carefully.
"We don't know much about Sentinels," the first twin - probably George - said. "But we did some reading. We'll help you map your territory."
"Did you know," Fred said conspiratorially, "there are seven secret passages in Hogwarts?"
Harry smirked. "Twelve."
And he wished he had a camera - their identical flabbergasted expressions would always make him smile.
"Twelve?" the twins chorused.
"So far," Hermione put in. "Along with two secret rooms, though there may be more. We're not done yet."
The twins exchanged another expressive look.
"Right," George said. "Tell us how we can help you, and then what we have to do to convince you to show us the other passageways."
"I am entirely certain," Hermione said in her prissiest tone, "that we should not help two troublemakers like you."
"I am entirely certain we should," Harry countered, and met her outraged glare with a calming feeling sent through their bond. "The alternative is to have two troublemakers becoming a bit cross with us."
"That's-" Hermione began, and Harry could read by her expression the moment she caught his reference. The English have not been a bit cross since the blitz in 1940. "-a very good argument," she finished.
"I thought so," Harry said cheerfully before focusing on the twins again. "Now - give me a minute to scout what's on the other side of that door."
"What do we need to do?" Fred asked.
"Or what do you want us to do?" George finished.
"Just stand there quietly," Harry said, and the word triggered a memory. "How did you sneak up on us? I had my hearing turned up."
"Silencing charms-"
"-on our feet-"
"-and everywhere else-"
"-except our throats."
Have to figure out a way around that. But all Harry said aloud was, "Okay. Let me concentrate. If anyone comes along, don't let them touch Hermione or me."
The twins snapped off identical - and identically bad - salutes before Harry turned back to the door.
"You said two heartbeats," Hermione reminded him.
"And a fluttering of wings," Harry said. "Let's see what else I can find."
He turned to the door and opened his hearing once again. Oddly, having the twins guarding their backs helped him focus even more - only, no; it wasn't that the twins were guarding their backs. It was that the twins were guarding Hermione's back.
Knowing his Guide was as safe as she could be helped his focus immensely.
Two heartbeats, one closer and somewhat faster than the other. A fluttering of wings, but muted, as if distant and behind a barrier or two.
What else was there? What had he missed the first time?
Drawing on lesson from Uncle Ben and Alpha Holmes, Harry allowed the heartbeats and the wings to drift out of focus as he searched for other things in his auditory landscape.
Breathing. Lots of breathing. More than two heartbeats would suggest, unless….
A yawn, and at the same time, a licking of the chops, all while a third breath continued without interruption, and the fourth remained steady in the distance.
Some kind of creature, then? Creatures? Maybe scent would tell him more.
Harry shifted attention to his sense of smell, noting first Hermione's scent of paper and mint, then the twins, who were a catalog of potion ingredients and who knew what else. Then he sniffed at the edge of the doorjamb.
Canine. Big canine.
Vegetation, a kind he didn't know the name of and hadn't scented before.
Metal - bronze, maybe, though he wasn't certain.
Then he gagged, as old socks and a filthy toilet invaded his nostrils.
He jerked back from the door, his throat convulsing as he fought to keep whatever remnants of lunch were still in his stomach from retracing their journey into it.
"Harry." Hermione's voice sounded far away. "Focus on me, Harry."
Harry heard the words, but they had no meaning. Then he smelled paper and mint, inhaling his Guide's scent deeply, letting the freshness of it wash away even the memory of whatever that had been.
Once he'd returned to normal, Harry realized that Hermione held him in her arms, gently pressing his face against the junction of her neck and shoulder.
"What happened?" the twins chorused.
Harry could almost feel the glare Hermione doubtlessly gave them as she said, "Give him a minute."
It was half that before Harry was straightening away from her and glaring at the door as though it were somehow at fault, rather than whatever lay behind it.
"Something stinks," he said. "Badly. Like stagnant dirty dishwater - or a sewer. And there's something … wrong about whatever's behind this door."
Harry glanced at Hermione, her fear as well as her determination to help her Sentinel - him - etched clearly in the lines of her face.
"Is it a threat to the tribe?" she asked, her voice shaking just a little.
Harry grinned, though the situation wasn't funny at all. "Professor Dumbledore told us to avoid this corridor unless we wanted to die a painful death."
She nodded, once, and the determination overtook the fear, if only slightly. "I stand ready, Sentinel."
"Does that mean-"
"-we get to see-"
"-a Sentinel in action?" the twins concluded together.
"I am a Sentinel," Harry said. "But I'm also a student of this school. I have to at least report this. If the headmaster or the staff doesn't take action, I'll have to."
= HP = HP = HP = HP =
Since that quiet "we could" earlier in the week, the nature of Ben's relationship with John and Sarah hadn't come up again. John wasn't the kind to toy with Ben's emotions, but he was careful and methodical in his approach to most everything, not just the investigations they conducted.
That said, Ben, too, was an investigator, and he'd seen the thoughtful looks John had sent his way, felt the curiosity and affection behind them through their bond. He'd returned the affection and allowed just a little of the desire he'd always felt for his Sentinel to bleed through.
He'd never pressure John into anything, but he had to be honest - as he was being now at dinner.
It was the first time John had sent him one of those looks in Sarah's presence - or at least, the first time he'd been obvious about it - and Ben wondered if he should offer to give them some privacy that night.
Before he could form the thought to send through their bond, John looked up from his roast pork, head cocked just slightly.
"Open the window, please," he said. "Hedwig's here."
Ben rose from his chair and crossed to the kitchen window - at this time, the only one large enough for Hedwig to easily pass through, though Sarah was searching for a contractor to enlarge one of the back windows as well.
He'd barely gotten it open before the bulk of a snowy owl filled it. Hedwig flew in, circled the room, and landed on the back of one of the vacant chairs at the table.
Ben took the letter from her leg while Sarah scooped some of the pork onto a plate for her.
"Well?" Sarah asked. "What does Harry have to say?"
Ben unfolded the letter and began to read.
Dear Dad and Uncle Ben,
There's a threat to the tribe at Hogwarts.
Wait, let me back up.
I didn't tell you in my last letter, but at the Welcoming Feast, Headmaster Dumbledore made some announcements. Mostly welcome to school and such, but he said that the third-floor corridor on the right side is forbidden to all who do not wish to die a painful death. (Yes, that's exactly what he said.)
When I mapped my territory, I went to the third-floor corridor and, well, my senses confirmed the threat. I haven't opened the door it's behind, but it's big, and canine, and there's also vegetation and a really nasty stink and I think it's some kind of magical creature because there's two heartbeats and three breaths.
I reported what I found to Professor McGonagall - she's my head of House and the deputy headmistress - and asked to speak with the headmaster about the situation. She refused to "bother the Headmaster with trivial concerns" and assured me that Hogwarts is entirely safe.
That's made my instincts twitchy. Really twitchy. Whatever's behind that door is a threat, and since right now Hogwarts is my territory, I have to deal with it.
But I'm not stupidly reckless, so I'm letting you know, and asking for whatever advice you have for this kind of situation.
Please don't take too long to reply. I don't know how long I can wait before my instincts drive me to open that door.
Love, Harry
John finished the last of the wine in his glass. "Well," he said, looking up to meet Ben's gaze. "Looks like we're going back to Hogwarts."
"When?" Sarah asked.
"That depends," Ben told her. "On what the Alphas have to say."
She blinked. "The Alphas? But they're not magical."
"No," John agreed. "But Alpha Holmes is part of Her Majesty's government, and magical or not, the students at Hogwarts are still Her Majesty's subjects. He needs to know there's a threat to them."
Sarah nodded slowly. Then she stood. "There's someone else who needs to know."
She turned and strode to her handbag, withdrew her mobile phone, and then crossed to the end of the counter where mail and reminders tended to pile up - the only point of constant, though minor, disarray in their home.
A moment later, Sarah had the phone to her ear. From where he sat, Ben could barely hear the ringing of whatever number she'd dialed, then a muffled voice he couldn't understand.
Sarah smiled. "Good evening, Dr. Granger? … Hello, my name is Sarah Barnaby, and my son goes to school with your daughter. Actually, my son is her Sentinel. … Is it possible for us to meet tomorrow? There's something you should know."