Once she got back to Gryffindor Tower, she waited until Parvati and Lavender went to sleep before trying to confront Harry and Ron again. She was not sure exactly what to do. Just before going to bed she had even considered asking Percy for help, but decided against getting him involved. At eleven o'clock she put on her pink bathrobe and went down to the common room to wait. A half-hour later Harry and Ron come down in their bathrobes, wands drawn. They were almost at the portrait hole when Hermiony finally caught them. "I can't believe you're going to do this, Harry." In the quiet empty room her voice frightened all three of them.
"You," hissed Ron, his face turning white with rage. "Go back to bed!"
"I almost told your brother," said Hermiony furiously whispering at Ron, "Percy - he's a prefect, he'd put a stop to this."
For the first time, Harry looked at her with the same disgust she usually only saw in Ron's face. It upset her and she froze. Ron motioned for Harry to follow him out the portrait hole. As she saw them leave, Hermiony unfroze and followed them out. She needed to stop them.
"Don't you care about Gryffindor, do you only care about yourselves, I don't want Slytherin to win the house cup, and you'll lose all the points I got from Professor McGonagall for knowing Switching Spells."
She knew it was the wrong thing to say, but in her anger she no longer cared. She was trying to save them from getting expelled, but they just kept telling her to go away. "All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you're on the train home tomorrow, you're so..." She stopped talking. The fat lady was gone from the portrait and there was no way she could get in.
"Now what am I going to do?" she asked, nearly in tears of rage.
"That's you're problem," said Ron, "We've got to go, we're going to be late."
They walked off. Hermiony had a vision of her standing there and Argus Filch discovering her. The next day she, not Harry and Ron, would be on the Hogwarts Express. So she ran after them and caught up just before they reached the end of the corridor. "I'm coming with you," she said.
Ron started to argue with her but she retorted, "D'you think I'm going to stand out here and wait for Filch to catch me? If he finds all three of us I'll tell him the truth, that I was trying to stop you, and you can back me up." Her voice was full of anger and smug satisfaction. For the first time she began to hate the two of them.
Ron's rage matched her own. "You've got some nerve-" he began, but Harry quieted their arguing. He heard something. All three of them held their breaths, thinking it was Mrs. Norris.
But it was Neville. He was asleep on the floor, curled into a fetal position. He awoke as they drew nearer and started thanking them for finding him because he forgot the new password. His voice, now a frantic high pitched squeak, echoed through the corridor.
Ron spoke first, "Keep your voice down, Neville. The password's `Pig snout' but it won't help you now, the Fat Lady's gone off somewhere."
"He didn't even ask about poor Neville's wrist," thought Hermiony indignantly. However, Harry did. Neville told him it was fine and healed. When Harry suggested he wait for them, he begged them to take him with him. The Slytherin ghost, the terrifying Bloody Baron, had already passed by twice and scared him. He was afraid to be alone.
Ron was livid. "If either of you get us caught," he hissed, "I'll never rest until I've learned that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about, and used it on you."
Hermiony was about to tell Ron that she already knew the curse, she knew the counter-curse, and she also knew how to defend herself from any spell Ron could conjure, but before she could, Harry preemptively told her to shut up and they all headed toward the trophy room.
The trophies glimmered in the moonlight and illuminated no one. Even without hearing Filch's inevitable arrival, Hermiony could have predicted that Malfoy meant to set a trap for Harry and Ron. But sure enough, Filch was approaching, telling Mrs. Norris to sniff out the students. The quartet tried to quietly back away through the corridor, but Neville tripped and took Ron down with him, knocking over a suit of armor and causing a loud ruckus. They did not need Harry to yell "RUN!" to know what to do. They did need a map however, as they ran through a secret passageway, ending up in Flitwick's classroom. Hermiony felt a pain in her chest from running.
"I - told - you," she gasped in pain, frustration and anger. "I - told - you."
Ignoring her Ron, stated the obvious, "We've got to get back to Gryffindor tower."
But Hermiony was not through yet. She was furious with Harry. She expected better of him. "Malfoy tricked you. You realize that, don't you? He was never going to meet you - Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off."
She could see in his face that he knew she was right but didn't want to give her the satisfaction of knowing it.
Getting back to the tower proved to be exceedingly difficult. As they left the classroom, Peeves bumped into them and started to taunt them. Ron took a swipe and him. Peeves did not kindly to that and started shouting for Filch. They ran to the end of the corridor, but the door was locked. They were desperate as they heard Filch approaching. Hermiony needed to do something. She grabbed Harry's wand and recited "Alohomora." The unlocking spell was the first she taught herself before her arrival at Hogwarts and she knew it perfectly. Years later she realized how important that simple spell was to her life. But at that moment it opened the door for them. They all rushed in and shut the door behind them.
Outside Peeves refused to tell Filch where they went, as the two of them hated each other passionately. Inside they realized that they would have been better off with Filch. They were in the forbidden corridor and now they knew why it was forbidden.
There was a three-headed dog the size of a small house growling and staring at them. It looked like it had been surprised by their arrival. Hermiony felt sick, certain that she was going to die. And like with many people faced when with death she noticed things that she would not have normally seen. The dog was standing on a trapdoor. Suddenly she felt pulled from behind. Harry had opened the door, dragged her out, and then shut it again. The four of them started to run toward the tower. Hermiony no longer cared about Filch. She just thought about the dog. It must be a guard dog. And what was under it must be precious. And it would have killed her to protect it. And it was Harry and Ron's fault. They ran four flights of steps to the Fat Lady's portal. She started to ask about where they were.
"Never mind that - pig snout, pig snout," said Harry, doubling over from exhaustion. They ran into the common room and collapsed into the soft armchairs. None of them could say anything. Neville looked the worst of any of them.
Then Ron asked the most asinine question that Hermiony ever heard him ask. "What do you think they're doing, keeping a thing like that locked up in a school? If any dog needs exercise, that one does."
Hermiony wanted to punch him in the stomach. "You don't use your eyes, any of you, do you? Didn't you see what it was standing on?"
Harry snorted. "The floor? I wasn't looking at its feet. I was too busy with its heads."
"No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It's obviously guarding something." She stood up and snarled at them. "I hope you're pleased without yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to bed."
She stalked off, up the stairs to her room. Parvati woke up. "Where were you?" she yawned.
"If you have any friendly feelings for me, never ask that question again," Hermiony said. But it did not matter; Parvati had fallen back to sleep.
Hermiony was shaking. The rage, the fear, the loneliness, every emotion she felt since arriving at Hogwarts built up inside her and burst forward. She silently cried herself to sleep.
