By the time it came time to go back to Hogwarts, Hermione was eager to return. The break was nice but having spent the last few months at Hogwarts, she had gotten used to the routine, it felt weird to not be studying. It was an uneventful trip back to Hogwarts other than Pansy waxing on about how the ball was so spectacular and how Draco danced with her twice and soon Hermione found herself next to the carriages.
Hermione stepped up to the thestrals attached to the carriage, patting the leathery skin, it was surprisingly warm. Glancing up the line of carriages she saw many people looking at her with suspicion or fear, but a few stroking the thestrals as well, mostly older years, but she could also see Theodore Nott in her year glaring at them with a strong look of distaste.
After a delightful feast celebrating the new year, soon all the students were warm and full, asleep in bed.
Hermione woke up and opened her eyes, was it already morning, no it was still dark, why was someone shaking her. She pulled out her wand and was about to curse them into oblivion until she recognized Aurelia in the pale green glow that filled the room.
Seeing that she was awake, Aurelia stopped shaking her. "Come on we have to go check something out."
"Right now? What about Filch?" Hermione was all for late night sneaking, but not if it could result in trouble.
"Don't worry about him, this is important."
Hermione got out of bed and started getting dressed, she knew Aurelia well enough to trust that she wouldn't drag her out for something menial. Also, Aurelia had been acting a little odd ever since Halloween. Christmas had caused a bit of a respite but the past couple of months she had seemed more withdrawn, as if she was always lost in thought, maybe Hermione would finally learn what it was that she had been contemplating.
Dressed they padded out into the common room, silent in their bare feet. Moving through the common room they quickly checked the map on the wall which in the aftermath of the Slytherin vs. Gryffindor match had been left up as it was a very handy way of tracking Filch at night. He was somewhere on the seventh floor -did the man ever sleep? - which Aurelia seemed pleased by and quickly moved out of the deserted common room.
Hermione followed Aurelia as she briskly led through the dungeon, she couldn't take it anymore, "Aurelia where are we going."
"The third-floor corridor." She said with a little smirk.
"The painful certain death one?"
"Yeah." Hermione rolled her eyes, if the look of superiority on Aurelia's face was any indication, she was clearly dying to be asked.
"Why?"
"Think about all of the odd things that have been going on." Hermione cast her mind back, what odd things, the troll, Potter's broom, what else? Nothing came to mind.
"To start off with Dumbledore, he acted senile at the beginning of the year, announcing it to everyone, has he ever acted mad in your lessons." Hermione thought back, it was true Dumbledore always acted a bit eccentric, but he had never acted as he had at the opening feast. "Then both Snape and Quirrell, one of them was cursing Potter's broom, and Snape has been limping since Halloween even though he never encountered the troll and Quirrell's stutter is clearly fake, and I don't believe his act of being scared of everything, also I saw Hagrid trying to sneak in through a side door carrying a literal entire cow carcasses early in the morning a few weeks ago." Aurelia looked over at her, probably checking to see if she thought she was crazy, "I just think they are related somehow to this mysterious corridor."
Hermione did not say anything, she just gave a short nod. Aurelia was better at reading people and noticing thing than she would ever be, best to take her word for it.
Making it to the third floor without running into Filch or his infernal cat, Hermione and Aurelia tried the door to the forbidden corridor. Pressing their ears to the door they heard nothing except for what sounded like the quite gusting of the wind. Pulling on the latch Hermione felt that the door was very much locked, made sense for something guarding certain death in a castle of children.
Drawing her wand, she tapped the lock "Alohomora" it wouldn't work if anyone had put any sort of actual persuasions against entering on it, but it was worth a try. A clear audible click could be heard as the door unlocked. Okay now she really had to agree with Aurelia, putting death behind a door any student in their second year could get through.
They crowded round the door and slowly pushed it open, glancing inside, they were greeted by a growl so low it seemed to vibrate through them. As they watched a massive three headed dog stood up from where it had clearly been lying down sleeping. As it stood fully up its large heads brushed the ceiling twenty feet above them. Leaping back Hermione slammed the door closed.
They sat there in silence for a second before Aurelia broke it, "Did you see the trapdoor it was standing on?" Hermione gave a small nod. It had looked as if the Cerberus had been guarding it, what could be through that trap door. The silence descended again. Hermione looked over at Aurelia, she had the look on her face that she only ever got when she was deep in thought. "Aurelia? Maybe we should go back to the common room?"
Aurelia looked up, her look a mixture of frowning and determination "We should ward it"
"Why would we ward it?"
"If Dumbledore announced it to the students, he clearly intends for a student to find it. Let's not allow some idiot Gryffindor to be dismembered."
Hermione was confused, this was so unlike Aurelia, why did she care what happened with the room. Aurelia seemed to see her confusion "It also has the added benefit of Dumbledore being confused about what student set up an illegal blood ward. The search for that upper year, going to be brutal."
That made more sense, Aurelia just wanted chaos. The two of them ran back to the common room quietly and grabbed a small knife and the book Aurelia got Hermione for her birthday. Despite her misgivings about the whole plan, Hermione couldn't help but be excited. She was going to ward something! It was the most complicated and the most interesting magic she had performed.
Aurelia held the book open to the correct page and illuminated it with her wand as Hermione carved the runes into the door as small but as neatly as possible. It wasn't going to be a particularly powerful ward due to its simplicity and that the grounding object was wood, but it would take more than an alohomora to get past it. Activating the ward took a couple of tries for Hermione to get the wand movement right but she eventually saw the brief flash in the runes that signified it was working. Turning to Aurelia she groaned, "Can we please go to sleep now."
As winter wore on the days seemed to blend together in a blur of cloudy frigid days. Hermione continued to excel in her extra classes. Now that they had gotten through the second-year charms material, Flitwick was practicing dueling with her, he said that performing under pressure was the best way to improve and test your mastery and Hermione had to agree. It was just so damn frustrating though, Flitwick would always allow their duels to go on, wearing her out until she made some particularly egregious error and then he would go for the kill, laying her out on her back each time without fail. Dumbledore seemed to have absolutely no regard for the syllabus, instead of focusing on the transfigurations she needed to learn he pushed her with exercises to train and test her control.
One thing was always in the back of her head however, the box. She thought she knew how to open it and when she had first figured it out that had been what she had wanted to do. But she talked herself down from it, she would do some more research, see if she found anything about it. She had found nothing in her research. Now as the weeks passed by, she couldn't help but keep on avoiding doing it. She was plagued by doubts, what if she wasn't strong enough, every time she tried to dual Flitwick she was destroyed, and he wasn't even trying.
That was what she was thinking about as she mechanically ate her dinner with Aurelia and Daphne. Daphne had been hanging out with her and Aurelia much more recently, Hermione was certain that she was not going to be getting her favor back anytime soon, but she now counted Daphne as a friend. Once you got to know her better, she wasn't the ice queen she was made out to be, she could be quite nice. Her ruminations were derailed however by Draco sitting down loudly next to her.
"Hagrid has a dragon." He whispered to the three of them. Now that warranted attention.
"Did you see it."
Draco looked smug, "I overheard Potter talking about something that would get Hagrid in trouble, so I followed him, Weasley, and Longbottom. The great oaf hatched a dragon in his hut. I think I'm going to turn him in."
He was quickly shut up by a unanimous chorus of disagreement. When that died down Aurelia said, "If you turn him in now, Dumbledore will get him off on some technicality and Potter won't even get in trouble."
Daphne nodded her agreement, "We need to wait for something substantial if we want to actually get any of them in trouble or we could try blackmail." They all considered that for a second before realizing that the three Gryffindors did not have a single thing they wanted, and they really didn't trust them to honor any favors.
Draco scowled a little bit "Waiting it is." He looked very put out by the idea.
They watched the trio of Gryffindors like a hawk for the next few days. It was honestly challenging to figure out when they were talking about the dragon because of how those three were always huddled up, talking in whispers. Hermione guessed that they knew a secret passage they didn't, because some how they had gotten out to help with the dragon despite no one seeing them, evidenced by Weasley's massively swollen dragon bite of a hand. Then Weasley in all his infinite wisdom, dropped information right into their laps.
On Saturday night at around 10 o'clock, Hermione, Aurelia, Daphne, and Draco snuck out of the common room and hiding in an alcove with a view of the staircase to the astronomy tower they settled down to wait for Potter.
The castle was never really silent, there was always some noise, the grinding shifting of a staircase or the quite breaths of the portraits. Sometimes it was a nuisance, but this time when the Slytherins crammed into the alcove could hear a portrait complaining about a light, it was a blessing. Peeking out of the alcove they were greeted by a view not by Potter and a dragon, they instead heard McGonagall voice, "O shut up you old geyser."
Hermione saw her life flash before her eyes, with the amount McGonagall hated her and having three other people with her, Slytherin was doomed in the house cup. Unless… she would have to go for it. Turning to the others she whispered, "I'll try to outrun her and hopefully distract her from noticing you."
Daphne and Aurelia looked relieved, and Draco gave her a small salute as you would a soldier marching to their death. Pulling up her hood she exited the alcove, walking along as if she had been taking a pleasant nighttime stroll through the castle, as McGonagall rounded the corner into their corridor, wearing the uglies tartan bath robe Hermione had ever seen, she broke into a run, sprinting like her life depended on it, which it honestly might if McGonagall caught her.
She heard a shriek from behind her as McGonagall started running as well, trying to catch her. Merlin she was fast for an older woman, it probably helped that her legs were likely twice as long as Hermione's. Hermione ducked around a corner as what looked like a tripping jinx hit the wall next to her. She cut through a classroom onto an adjoining hallway, McGonagall hot on her heals, she just needed to make in two corners away, there was a secret passageway that she could cut through and lose McGonagall on the other side. She was so close. She spun around the corner, only one corridor left, and immediately ran head on into someone else.
She felt panic rise up in her throat and she looked up and was greeted by the cold black eyes of Snape. She had never felt more relieved in her life, well that was an exaggeration, but she felt extremely relieved. "Ms. Granger, ten points from Slytherin and detention." He drawled as McGonagall rounded the corner.
McGonagall looked furious, she clearly thought that the punishment was too lenient. "Now Severus I think that a transgression of this magnitude-"
Snape sent her a glare and Hermione thought that the two of them might break out into a fight, "Well Minerva" he stressed her first name, clearly displeased by her familiar use of his name "as her head of house I think that I am fully qualified to determine punishment. Now if you will excuse us, I have to escort Ms. Granger back to the common room."
With that he grabbed Hermione's shoulder and hauled her to her feet, roughly pushing her in front of him in the direction of the staircase. They walked through the castle in silence, but he stopped physically dragging her once they were out of McGonagall's line of sight. The only other time he touched her on the way to the common room was when he pushed her off course, detouring around the usual route. Hermione gave him a look of confusion, "I have no desire to possibly run into Ms. Burke making her way back to the common room."
Despite Snape's seeming omniscience, when Hermione entered the common room none of the others had arrived back, so she settled down to wait. It didn't take long before the three of them entered the common room, looking equal parts sad, grateful, and gleeful. It was quite a funny combination. Apparently, Potter and Weasley had somehow managed to sneak by them and get rid of the dragon but had walked straight into Filch coming back down the stairs. Draco especially looked mad that he hadn't been able to do anything before they had been caught by Filch.
