She had often locked eyes with Harry while he washed her hair, but usually she'd only found it novel and amusing. This time, though, felt completely different.
In the dim candlelight, Harry's eyes seemed unusually bright, and his expression was so serious, so...
"What are you looking at?" Harry asked without warning.
"N-nothing~" Hermione's cheeks flushed slightly, and she hurriedly closed her eyes, afraid to look at him again.
"What about that egg? I'll just use it now." Harry hadn't noticed anything unusual. After washing all the shampoo from Hermione's hair, he remembered that she'd gone to the kitchen especially to get an egg as a "hair-care product."
"Here it is~" Hermione handed the egg to Harry, looking a little embarrassed. "Maybe you could just wash my hair and leave it at that. It's so late; you don't have to go to all that trouble..."
"I've never thought this was a bother."
Harry vigorously shook the egg with one hand while adjusting the water temperature with the other. Once it felt right, he mixed the beaten egg thoroughly with the shampoo and spread it evenly over Hermione's hair.
Then he worked his fingers down to her roots and began massaging slowly and gently... just as he did at home.
As she felt the familiar touch on her scalp, Hermione relaxed into the pleasant sensation, but suddenly felt her nose sting.
So much had happened during her few months at Hogwarts. She really missed home.
"Hey... Harry, what were you and Mr. Filch talking about in the kitchen earlier?" Perhaps she didn't want to sink into homesickness, so Hermione started a conversation.
"Just chatting about our theories on the thief. And then I caught you~" Harry teased her nose with a lock of hair.
"Don't be annoying~" Hermione gave a disgruntled little huff. "By the way, I found a really terrifying Three-headed Dog in that room on the fourth floor. It seemed to be lying on top of a trapdoor. I have no idea what it was guarding."
"That room is strictly off-limits on Headmaster Dumbledore's orders, so whatever's in there isn't something we need to concern ourselves with."
Harry had a pretty good idea what the Three-headed Dog was guarding, but he didn't think it had anything to do with him.
Most importantly... he didn't want Hermione getting involved in it at all!
"Harry... thank you~"
At Hermione's soft murmur, Harry froze. Even his hands, still massaging her scalp, stopped moving...
The Fifty-Seventh Chapter: The Thief Had Come from Outside
Harry wasn't sure exactly what Hermione meant by her gratitude.
He didn't know whether she'd understood what he'd been hinting at, was simply offering belated thanks for the brawl earlier, or... was speaking from the heart about the past few months.
But after Harry fell silent for a while and tried to ask Hermione, he realized the girl in front of him seemed to have fallen asleep. Her breathing had evened out.
Colorful bubbles floated around them in a gentle rhythm. As Harry gazed at Hermione's sleeping face, his heart stirred without him realizing it.
At that moment, Hermione looked exactly like the mermaid in the painting on the wall.
She lay fast asleep on the rock, her long hair spread across her face, stirring slightly with every breath...
Looking at Hermione like that, Harry didn't wake her. He simply tidied her damp hair a little, then carefully wrapped her in a bath towel and carried her out.
The walk from the Prefect's Bathroom to Professor McGonagall's room was a long one. Harry never let go, and he stepped with utmost care, as if afraid of waking the girl in his arms...
"Mr. Granger, you know this is highly inappropriate, don't you? You might think it doesn't matter, but for Miss Granger, this is really, truly, completely inappropriate!"
Sure enough, when Harry arrived at Professor McGonagall's with Hermione wrapped in a bath towel, her expression turned stormy at once.
Professor McGonagall, whose nature was somewhat old-fashioned, had never approved of how close the Granger Siblings were.
She also disapproved of their sharing a wand.
Well, clearly, the big bumblebee hadn't told Professor McGonagall the whole story about why Harry didn't have a wand.
Back when Hermione had started keeping a proper distance from Harry and moved in with her, Professor McGonagall had been pleased that the two children were finally behaving sensibly. She never expected the Granger Siblings to pull a stunt like this tonight!
"You should be asleep at three or four in the morning, not wandering around the corridors—and wrapped in a bath towel, no less! This is simply... Anyway, you should be grateful no one saw you!"
Professor McGonagall scolded Harry furiously, but he could tell she was all bark and no bite. She kept her voice low so she wouldn't wake Hermione.
"Mm-hmm~" Harry nodded over and over like a well-behaved child. "It was my fault. I'll do better next time. Professor, let me get Hermione settled first~"
"I'm taking thirty points from Ravenclaw... thirty points from each of you, you and Miss Granger!"
Professor McGonagall was furious just looking at Harry's face. Both his cheeks practically read, "I'll admit I'm wrong, but I'll never change!"
She waved him away in distaste, signaling for him to get Hermione settled and then leave immediately.
"Take all the points you like, as long as it makes you happy. Anyway... I really am grateful you've been looking after Hermione."
"You..." Harry had been grinning a moment earlier, but then he nodded solemnly in thanks. Professor McGonagall couldn't help staring at him in surprise.
Harry had already quietly slipped past Professor McGonagall, laid Hermione on the little bed in the room, and tiptoed away.
He didn't notice that, just as he turned to leave, Hermione suddenly opened her eyes and stared blankly at his retreating figure.
When he returned to the caretaker's hut, Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris were both still awake.
"You're both looking lively. Let's go over the clues, then."
Harry wasn't sleepy either, so he decided to help Mr. Filch solve the problem first.
"The clues... What exactly is so special about that piece of bread?" Mr. Filch asked eagerly, his face full of puzzlement.
Before Harry returned, he'd examined the bread over and over, but hadn't found anything unusual about it.
"There's a lot wrong with this bread!" After inspecting the evidence carefully under the light, Harry suddenly held the bite mark up to Mrs. Norris's mouth. "Mr. Filch, take a look. Doesn't the bite mark look a lot like Mrs. Norris's mouth?"
"You suspect Mrs. Norris is the thief who's been stealing food? I'll have you know that's absolutely impossible!" Mr. Filch glared, his whiskers bristling. Harry had practically pinned the thief's hat on his cat.
"Of course I'm not suspecting Mrs. Norris. We feed her so well every day that she'd have to be out of her mind to sneak into the kitchen for bread~"
"Meow!" Mrs. Norris angrily raised a paw at Harry, clearly offended by his unflattering remark.
"The problem with this bread is the shape of the bite mark. This kind of tapered bite, with both the upper and lower jaws protruding, similar to a cat's, isn't something you'd be likely to make in one bite unless you were a human doing it on purpose," Harry explained, holding up the bread.
"So you think the thief might be another cat in the castle?"
"No." Harry shook his head, rejecting Mr. Filch's guess. "This bread wasn't bitten by a cat. You can tell from another mark on it."
"Another mark... This?"
Mr. Filch stared at Harry in surprise. Harry was imitating the thief, holding the bread by the dents left from the way it had been gripped.
He pressed three fingers together against three tiny indentations on the front, while his thumb rested just right against a slightly larger dent on the back. Like that, he lifted the whole piece of bread with four fingers.
At that point, Mr. Filch finally understood what Harry meant.
The thief had been in a hurry, both when biting into the bread and when grabbing it. But the bread bore no mark from a fifth finger. That meant...
The thief didn't have a fifth finger—a little finger!
"I haven't seen anyone at Hogwarts with a similar disability. And judging by the bite mark, the thief we're looking for probably isn't human, either." After piecing together the clues, Harry reached a general conclusion. "Protruding upper and lower jaws, a narrow mouth, and only four fingers. The most likely culprit is... a House-elf!"
That was right. The creature that best fit all those clues was a House-elf who worked in the Hogwarts kitchen!
"It was them?" Mr. Filch's eyes widened. "I'll tell Professor Sprout tomorrow and have her interrogate every House-elf in the kitchen, one by one!"
"No. That'll only put the thief on guard!" Harry rejected Mr. Filch's suggestion with a shake of his head. "Just ask Professor Sprout to investigate discreetly, and tell Headmaster Dumbledore what we've figured out."
House-elves were creatures with a strong instinct to serve. They wouldn't steal from the places they served, so even if a House-elf really was stealing food, it must have come in from outside Hogwarts!
The thief had managed to stay hidden in Hogwarts for so long, so they were probably quite capable. A large-scale investigation could easily alert them and let them slip away.
What's more, Harry was also worried about something else... House-elves usually served wizarding families!
If a wizard had sent one to infiltrate Hogwarts, then its purpose was worth thinking about.
Was it after something at Hogwarts, or...
Had it been sent to target Hermione and him?
A Few Words Before Going Premium
Well, we're at 120,000 words. I've heard that writing a note before going premium makes your readership drop—is that true? Let's be terrified for a moment~
After thinking it over, I decided I should thank all my friends here first.
First, I want to thank one lovely reader, who was the first to suggest—and gave me permission—to take the childhood classic, Harry Potter, and rework it. Otherwise, there wouldn't be A Certain Harry.
So I really do need to give them special thanks. From outlining the story to writing the chapters, Sanmiao has been excited every single day. There are so many plot points in Harry Potter that can be reimagined, and one wild idea after another can be expanded endlessly. I just can't stop digging into all the different possibilities~ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
Then I want to thank all the friends who have supported Sanmiao. I was introduced to this site, and after arriving here as a newcomer, I found the atmosphere really wonderful. Writing and updating here has been easy and comfortable, and I'm truly grateful for that.
I know my abilities are limited, and I can't write a story that will satisfy every reader. All I can say is that I'll do my best.
Some issues in the story—like Scamander showing up in the wrong place and the protagonist being swept along by fate—are setup for later plot developments. They'll be gradually explored later on. Other issues are simply inevitable when you make a fictional world feel real.
Harry Potter is indeed a fictional fairy tale, but I can't write fanfiction that's also a fairy tale, creating another fictional, beautiful story that floats above the clouds and has no connection to reality.
So many of the issues in this book—like the clash between magic and science, why Transfiguration ignores the conservation of energy, and plenty of other questions—will all have reasonable answers once the worldbuilding is firmly grounded. Looking at Harry Potter, a story that seems like a fairy tale but is really fantasy, through the lens of science is one of the reasons I started writing this book~
Anyway, that's how it is for writers. Every step Sanmiao takes depends on the support of all my old and new friends. I've always been incredibly, incredibly grateful to you all!
Finally, let's talk about the question everyone cares about: there will definitely be a big update when the book goes premium. Let's get one hard one out of the way today~
As for tomorrow, hey, I'll keep that a secret for now~
The Fifty-Eighth Chapter: "Deception" Always Gets Exposed (1/10)
After drawing their conclusions, Mr. Filch reported them the next day. Soon, over the following few days, there were no more reports of food being stolen from the Hogwarts kitchen.
Harry didn't think this was a good sign. It meant the thief was clever enough to hear the news right away and knew to keep a low profile until the danger passed.
So... what was Old Dumbledore thinking?
Harry absolutely refused to believe that Dumbledore was incapable of catching the thief. But he'd chosen to do nothing, and that left Harry deeply dissatisfied.
If you really want to show me some goodwill, then knowing that I've already arranged for Hermione to live with Professor McGonagall to keep her safe, shouldn't you take the initiative and catch the thief right away so I can stop worrying?
You had your chance, and you blew it~
But there was a saying: when it rains, it pours. Sometimes, bad luck really did come in waves.
As Harry grumbled to himself every day about Old Dumbledore's inaction, another problem had already crept up on him...
One day, with Halloween approaching, Hermione ran into Hagrid on campus. She hadn't seen him in ages.
"Ah, Hermione!" Hagrid waved excitedly and made his way through a crowd of students to her. "It's been ages since we last saw each other! Have you and Harry been doing well? Wait, why aren't you together?"
"We... you know, Hagrid, sometimes we have things to do on our own..."
Hagrid's bluntness embarrassed Hermione. She'd recently worked hard to make her relationship with Harry look "a little more normal" to other people. Now, after Hagrid had called out like that, the students around them were sure to remember how the Granger Siblings were always going everywhere together.
Noticing the amused, teasing looks and pointing fingers around them, Hermione quickly changed the subject and led Hagrid away.
"By the way, I heard from Harry that you have a Kneazle. Could you take me to see it sometime?"
Like Harry, Hermione was a devoted cat lover, so she'd always been curious about Crookshanks's heritage and the Kneazle's status as a Magical Creature.
"A Kneazle?" Hagrid furrowed his brow in confusion. "When did I ever have one of those? Harry must've remembered wrong."
"You haven't got one?" Hermione froze. "The week we first started Flying Class, Harry clearly said you'd found a Kneazle kitten!"
"Impossible~" Hagrid waved dismissively. "I'm allergic to cats. Even a little fur makes me sneeze nonstop. And they aren't friendly at all. Fang and I... Anyway, I'd never keep a cat! Besides, I wasn't even at Hogwarts the week you started Flying Class. Otherwise, I'd definitely have backed Harry up after his fight with Malfoy."
"You weren't at Hogwarts? Where were you, then...?"
"At the time, I went on a trip with Professor Kettleburn, who teaches Care of Magical Creatures, to look at the Magical Creatures for next term's lessons," Hagrid explained. "Professor Kettleburn's getting on in years, after all, and he's lost half his arms and legs from teaching. Dumbledore didn't trust him to go out alone, so he asked me to be his assistant."
So that was what had happened... Why?!
After hearing Hagrid's explanation, Hermione staggered where she stood, then abruptly turned and ran away. No matter how Hagrid called after her, she didn't stop.
She ran all the way back to the room Professor McGonagall had given her, then buried her face in the pillow in anguish. She stayed there from afternoon until evening and didn't even eat dinner.
She couldn't believe it. Harry had lied to her!!
Before you continue