Late at night... Gryffindor Tower girls' dormitory.
By the moonlight, Hermione leaned against the windowpane. After Lavender grunted a few times in bed, she swayed upright, slipped on her slippers, and raised her wand to cast a rather gentle Lumos. Then she saw Hermione sitting on the windowsill, enough to scare any normal person into having a heart attack.
"God, Hermione, what are you doing sitting on the windowsill instead of sleeping?" Lavender asked, patting her chest in lingering fright after Hermione startled her.
"Nothing... I'm waiting to go downstairs for a midnight snack," Hermione said stiffly.
Lavender nodded. "If you can, bring me a serving too... Forget it, it's so late. I'll go with you after I use the bathroom."
Hermione nodded mechanically and let Lavender head to the bathroom. Then Hermione pulled open the window and poked her head outside. "If that's the case..."
In a daze, she took a deep breath, stepped onto the windowsill, then straddled the open window frame. She shifted herself around, turned in a circle, and placed her whole body outside the window.
Just then, Lavender finally emerged from the bathroom. She instinctively looked toward the windowsill, intending to go downstairs with Hermione for a midnight snack, only to see Hermione somehow seeming to clip through the window and end up outside.
"Am I still half-asleep?" Lavender asked strangely, slapping her own face. Then she reacted with startling speed. "You said we were going to the first floor, but you never said we weren't taking the stairs!"
She shouted and lunged toward Hermione.
But Hermione had already assumed the posture for a critical hit against Hogwarts's lawn.
In an instant, ghostly blue fire flashed through the air. Grindelwald appeared in midair, while Hermione, who had just begun a free-fall attack on the grass,