Stakeouts in the Dead of Night Can Catch "Thieves" / There Are Some Things Hermione Shouldn't Get Dragged Into

After dinner that day, Harry hadn't managed to catch up with Hermione. In the time that followed, the number of times they acted together began to dwindle sharply.

Even in class, Hermione rarely sat with Harry anymore, and they hardly ever shared a wand.

Harry found Hermione's childish attempt to cover up her feelings rather unconvincing, but all he could do for now was leave the matter alone... He simply couldn't bring himself to be proactive about it.

Was he supposed to go out of his way to clear things up and tell Hermione, "We're just a pure and innocent adopted brother and sister, and I'm not interested in you at all"?

That would really be asking for a beating~

When it came to girls, especially girls you were close to, you could have no feelings for them, but you absolutely couldn't bluntly show that you weren't interested in them. That was genuinely hurtful.

So, in that case, he'd have to do the opposite... Please, the opposite would be an even bigger problem!

Was Harry supposed to go and admit outright that their adopted-siblings relationship wasn't pure and innocent?

In any case, Harry was at a loss for the moment.

Besides, something else had recently caught his attention—an incident that had left Filch completely frazzled—so he could only put off dealing with Hermione's problem for now.

In late October, a string of strange events took place in Hogwarts Castle.

Why had a shadow suddenly appeared in an empty corridor? Why had a clean carpet become muddy in the blink of an eye? Why had the kitchen's food supplies kept disappearing? Was it all a pointless prank, or a sign of disaster to come...

Professor Sprout, who was in charge of the Hogwarts Kitchens, had entrusted the whole matter to the caretaker, Filch.

"So this is why you wouldn't let me sleep and insisted I come watch the kitchen with you in the middle of the night?" Harry asked, sharing a tiny table with Filch and giving him an unimpressed eye roll.

"Halloween's coming up. We need to solve this as soon as possible," Filch said solemnly. "You're always full of ideas, so you might as well help me figure this out."

"Heh. Should I thank you for the compliment?" Harry's mouth twitched. He crawled out from under the table. "All right, tell Mrs. Norris and Peeves to call it a night. Let's go over what they found and head back. We've been watching since nightfall, and it's nearly two in the morning. You might not be tired, but I am."

"All right." They were roommates, after all, and Filch didn't want Harry to suffer alongside him, so he had no choice but to end the night's stakeout.

"Heh heh heh, I'm back, I'm back! Hurry up and praise me!"

"Meow~"

It wasn't long before Peeves and Mrs. Norris returned after Filch called them back.

The two of them had been sent by Harry to patrol the corridors and staircases. After spending so much time together, the poltergeist and cat had grown quite familiar with Harry, and lately they'd joined him for the stakeout every night.

However, just like Harry and Filch, they hadn't found any useful clues so far...

Sigh, who knew if they'd find anything tonight~

Fifty-Five: A Late-Night Stakeout Can Catch a "Thief"

"Heh heh, no clues at all! The staircases are completely clean. There wasn't a soul in sight, haha~"

Peeves was a bully who picked on the weak. After Harry had spent day after day patiently reasoning with him, he'd finally learned that causing trouble meant getting beaten up. He'd become much more docile since then, and was occasionally willing to follow Harry's orders.

That was good news for everyone at Hogwarts, because it meant there was one more person who could keep Peeves in check, and his pointless pranks would become much less frequent.

Unfortunately, the braggart was clearly better at causing trouble than doing anything useful. One look at his empty hands told Harry he hadn't found a single clue again.

"Meow~"

Mrs. Norris, on the other hand, had recently shed her old coat and was now looking sleek and shiny. Living up to expectations, she carried over the only discovery they'd made in days, clamped between her teeth...

A half-eaten piece of bread!

"There seems to be something strange about this bread, but it's too dark in here. I'll have to take it back and examine it properly."

Harry thought the marks and toothprints on the bread looked odd, but the kitchen was too dark for him to make a more careful judgment.

"Fair enough. It's our only clue, so we should examine it closely," Filch readily agreed. Then, still pleased, he teased Harry. "You're really putting your heart into helping me with this. Don't tell me you've given up on the idea of dropping out for good?"

"Mr. Filch, please don't bring that up again, all right? I'm already miserable enough as it is." Harry rolled his eyes in frustration.

Of course he wanted to drop out. The problem was that old Albus Dumbledore was keeping such a close eye on him, and Harry had no other way around it for now.

Clack~

Suddenly, a distinct sound broke the silence of the night, as if something had just shattered!

"Is that... an egg?!" Harry reached the kitchen doorway and quickly spotted a puddle of smashed egg on the floor.

"We've finally got them! After them!" Filch shouted, sending Mrs. Norris and Peeves in pursuit!

Tonight's haul was enormous. They hadn't just found a clue—they might have caught the culprit in the act. Driven by excitement, the ever-diligent Filch immediately launched into a relentless pursuit!

In an instant, the whole corridor erupted in a flurry of cats and ghosts.

"Stop! Don't run! Wahahaha!"

"What an idiot..." Harry sighed helplessly as he watched Peeves holler somewhere ahead. He shouldn't have brought the nuisance along tonight.

Shouting that loudly, were you trying to catch the culprit or scare them away?

With Peeves causing a commotion, the shadow from the kitchen kept fleeing. Before long, Harry and Filch had chased it to the door of a secret room at the end of the fourth floor.

"Peeves, are you sure he ran in here?" Filch asked, frowning at the battered wooden door.

Dumbledore had specifically warned them about this place at the start of the school year, saying that getting too close could be life-threatening.

"The door's locked. If someone really ran inside, they must have used an unlocking spell..."

"Ahhh!!"

A scream interrupted Harry's analysis. The locked door swung open at once, and a burst of fragrant air rushed straight into his arms.

Mmm... Let's smell that properly. This breeze even smelled like eggs~

"Woof!!"

Suddenly, a huge black dog's head lunged out of the doorway, snarling at Harry and Hermione. But Harry reacted quickly. He spun around with Hermione in his arms, kicked the door shut, then drew the wand from Hermione's arms and cast Colloportus at the lock!

At the same time, Filch lifted the oil lamp in his hand closer to Harry, a teasing smile slowly spreading across his face.

The Ravenclaw know-it-all, the genius girl who was always winning house points, had been caught on patrol by the Eagle House's most notorious troublemaker and point-loser. It was undeniably an amusing sight.

"Hermione?" Harry asked, puzzled, as he looked down at the girl in his arms. "Why were you in the kitchen? And, uh... how did you end up looking like this?"

Harry had actually wanted to ask why Hermione had been running, but the moment he saw what she looked like, he understood everything.

Hermione looked as if she'd just been fished out of a bowl of egg-drop soup.

Her hair was dripping wet and covered in yellow and white egg, with quite a lot of it stuck to her pajamas too. She seemed to have lost one slipper while running, and had nowhere to put her bare little foot except to hide it awkwardly behind her.

She'd run so fast—though maybe she'd also been frightened by what was inside the room—that her chest was still heaving. Her expression was a mix of embarrassment and fear... And in one hand, Harry noticed, she was holding an egg~

"Heh heh, looks like we don't need to examine the evidence to reach a verdict." Filch put on a cold expression and sneered. "Caught red-handed! Hermione Granger is the culprit behind the recent kitchen thefts!"

"I-I didn't..." At Filch's words, Hermione's eyes immediately reddened.

For her, this was truly the worst night imaginable.

She'd wanted to wash her hair properly, but ended up looking like this. Then someone had chased her as if she were a thief, and she'd even lost a slipper. And just moments ago, she'd seen such a terrifying monster in that secret room!

Then there was what she'd overheard Harry and Filch saying while they chatted...

All in all, Hermione was frightened and upset, and desperately wanted to find somewhere private to have a good cry.

"Don't take it to heart. Mr. Filch is joking with you. He knows you didn't steal the food." Harry shifted Hermione around to block Filch from view with his back. "But... if you wanted to wash your hair, why didn't you come to me?"

"I... thought I could handle it myself." Hermione lowered her head awkwardly, her cheeks so hot they could have fried the egg on her hair.

She felt like such an idiot tonight~

"Mr. Filch, do you know somewhere in the castle with a private bathroom? I need to take her to clean up."

Harry couldn't just leave Hermione in that state, so they'd have to postpone examining the clues they'd found that night.

"You can take her to the Prefects' Bathroom on the sixth floor. No one will be using it at this hour, and I happen to know the password," Filch said, barely holding back a laugh.

"Then we'll go there first."

"Meow~"

As Harry nodded, Mrs. Norris brought over the slipper Hermione had lost while running.

"Mm..."

Hermione hurriedly put on her slipper, and her face turned even redder.

As he led Hermione toward the sixth floor, Harry couldn't help thinking that the whole affair had been ridiculously absurd.

Hermione's hair had always been her greatest enemy. Otherwise, she wouldn't have brought hair-care products like olive oil and eggs with her when she first arrived at school.

Back when they were still inseparable, whenever Hermione needed to treat her hair, Harry would take her to Hagrid's Hut.

Hagrid was usually busy, so nobody would bother them there. They could take as long as they wanted~

Harry meant hair treatments...

He found it rather strange himself. He knew a few hair-care tricks from his previous life, but he hadn't expected them to be so easy to pick up... It was as if he'd been born with Tony the Hairdresser's skill tree unlocked.

As for why Hermione had ended up in such a mess tonight, it was because she'd been deliberately keeping her distance from Harry lately, but still couldn't resist wanting to care for her hair. So she'd tried it herself.

The outcome was obvious. She hadn't controlled the water temperature properly and had turned the last of her eggs into an entire head of egg-drop soup...

Hermione: My heart is so bitter~

Following Harry in short, quick steps, Hermione clutched the egg in her hand, her face flushed. She had no idea what to say to make things less awkward.

Tonight had been... mortifying~

"We're here. Delicious baked apples."

The Prefects' Bathroom was on the sixth floor of Hogwarts Castle. The fourth door to the left of Boris the Bewildered's statue was the one, and Harry found it without difficulty. He used the password Sanmiao had hastily made up to open the door.

"This place is... way too luxurious!"

The moment Hermione entered the Prefects' Bathroom, even she forgot her embarrassment and stared, stunned, at the scene before her.

Everything in sight was made of gleaming white marble, including the sunken bath in the middle of the room... No, calling it a bath didn't do it justice. It was more like a rectangular swimming pool!

Around a hundred golden taps hung over and around the pool. Each tap had a different-colored gemstone set into its handle, and a large stack of clean, neatly folded towels sat in one corner.

An ornate chandelier hung from the ceiling. Its yellow candlelight flickered playfully, casting a warm glow throughout the room.

"Mmm... Prefects really are part of the ruling class. No wonder those fifth-years rack their brains trying to get elected," Harry said, then gave a rather amused look. "But I'm more curious about how they schedule bath time. Or do they all go in together?"

The bathroom was reserved for Prefects and Quidditch captains. Hogwarts students could run for Prefect in the second half of their fourth year. In their fifth year, each house would choose one male and one female Prefect, and the positions would continue through their sixth and seventh years.

In other words, at most there would be twenty-four male and female Prefects and four Quidditch captains at Hogwarts at the same time. All twenty-eight of them shared this bathroom.

But looking at the layout, Harry couldn't help thinking it looked more like a place for private pool parties.

The decor and lighting would get the place raided in a heartbeat back in his previous life. It was definitely meant to set the mood while people were "bathing"~

"Go lie down over there. I'll take care of your hair."

Harry pointed to the marble counter beside the bath. If Hermione lay there, she could spread her hair into the bath, and there was a tap directly above her head.

Hermione lay down obediently with a soft "Mm."

Harry had laid towels over the marble counter to keep it from getting cold. They felt soft and warm, like she was lying beside a hot spring.

Harry jumped into the bath. It was as deep as a swimming pool, and at his current height he couldn't even reach the edge.

That clearly wasn't a problem for Harry. His skill in Transfiguration was nearly on par with his spellwork, so it was easy for him to make the soles of his shoes as tall as stilts.

He turned on the tap above Hermione's head. A mixture of hot water and bath liquid immediately poured out, soaking her hair.

Pink bubbles floated from the tap as well. They quickly covered the whole bath, catching the candlelight and shimmering with a dreamy glow.

"Mm..." Hermione gazed at Harry, surrounded by bubbles, and found herself momentarily entranced.