Hermione and the Hellhound

For Gryffindor students, Potions Class was a thoroughly miserable lesson.

Professor Snape went all out, firing tricky questions at them one after another.

Harry bore the brunt of it.

For some reason, the Potions professor seemed to have it in for him. Every few sentences, he had to bring up Potter, leaving Harry completely flustered.

The other students fared no better. He criticized nearly every Gryffindor, with the sole exception of Hermione.

Neville even panicked and knocked over a classmate's cauldron, drenching himself in potion. Red, swollen boils erupted all over his arms and legs, and he cried out in pain.

As a result, nearly all the Gryffindors, including Harry and Ron, had lost the will to speak by the end of class. They left in silence.

Of course, Slytherin was an exception.

Professor Snape made no effort to hide his favoritism toward his own House.

Not only did he take no points away, he even awarded points to Malfoy for successfully stewing a batch of horned slugs.

The two Houses in the same classroom had presented two completely different scenes.

"Do you have a moment, Glenn? I wanted to talk to you about something."

Unexpectedly, Hermione Granger approached the Slytherins and called out to Glenn as he was about to leave.

Glenn considered it. This was his last class of the week, and he had nothing else to do afterward.

"Sure. What is it?"

Feeling the other Slytherins' curious eyes on her, Hermione blushed and hesitated for a moment.

"It looks like this isn't the best place to talk. Let's go somewhere else," Glenn said with a smile.

At that, Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and gladly agreed.

Perhaps deliberately, Snape waited until Harry and Ron had fled the classroom before watching Hermione and Glenn walk away. His brows remained furrowed.

The other Slytherins all agreed that their Head of House clearly disapproved of this sort of thing.

"A Slytherin actually talking to a Gryffindor Mudblood," Malfoy sneered without thinking. "How pathetic."

He had expected Professor Snape to agree with him, but Snape only shot Draco Malfoy a sidelong glance.

"Draco, I think there were still a few problems with your experiment..."

In an empty classroom, Hermione shut the door and told Glenn what Harry and Ron had mentioned earlier—the details of their duel with Malfoy that night.

"I'd already tried to talk them out of it." Hermione roughly ran a hand through her untidy hair.

"They knew perfectly well that Malfoy wasn't the sort of person who'd have the courage to duel, but they still risked losing points for their House to go meet him. That—that was so selfish..."

Though he had already heard the story once, Glenn didn't interrupt her.

If he had guessed correctly, Miss Granger probably didn't fit in very well with the other Gryffindors.

Usually, a topic like this was better discussed with girls from one's own House.

Even though he'd made a fairly good impression on her aboard the train to Hogwarts, Slytherin still had a poor reputation.

Coming to him to confide in was certainly not a good choice—unless she couldn't find anyone else to talk to.

Of course, Glenn didn't mind listening for a while and letting Hermione vent, within reason.

Changing Slytherin's negative image started with little things like this.

On the other hand, based on his first impression of Hermione, this incident alone didn't seem enough to make her brave the curious looks of others just to confide in him.

She wasn't that fragile.

Sure enough, after finishing her account of what Malfoy had done, she took a deep breath.

"To stop them from getting into trouble, I followed them, and then..." Hermione stood and walked over to the classroom door. She checked that no one was passing by before sitting back down.

"We went to the corridor Dumbledore had strictly forbidden anyone to enter." Her voice trembled slightly, but she forced herself to stay composed.

"Those who wish to avoid an untimely and painful death, do not enter the corridor on the right-hand side of the fourth floor?" Glenn recalled.

After the Sorting, the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, had warned them about it.

Gemma Farley's letter had mentioned it too.

"Yes." Hermione swallowed, still shaken. "I used a spell called 'Alohomora' to open the door. Inside, we saw a three-headed dog bigger than a house..."

Glenn sat up straight, his expression turning serious.

"How did you survive?"

"I think it might not have noticed us at first, but then it started growling at us. If we'd taken any longer to get out, it would've eaten us!" As she spoke, Hermione's body trembled. Her eyes went blank, as if she had been transported back to that terrifying moment.

"Besides, I saw it standing on top of a trapdoor. I think it must be guarding something—but how could they do that?! They didn't care about safety at all!"

"Harry and Ron?"

"No, the school... All right, those two as well." Hermione almost laughed in exasperation, and some of her fear eased.

"How could they keep something so dangerous in the school? What if some other idiot wandered in? Then... I mean, Glenn, shouldn't we report it to the school?"

"You're right. But Hermione, I don't think you're an idiot. On the contrary, you're very clever." Glenn first agreed with her, then made a little joke about what she'd just said.

It was clear that Hermione was in an extremely conflicted position.

First, she didn't want to report Harry and Ron. Aside from the fact that she had been involved too, she didn't want Gryffindor to lose points.

Second, now that she knew such a dangerous Three-Headed Dog was in the school, her conscience wouldn't be at ease. If another student really got hurt later, it might not be her fault, but that didn't make it feel right.

She thought that a student from another House might be able to judge the matter fairly.

Perhaps that was partly why she'd gone out of her way to confide in a Slytherin like him.

After weighing his words, Glenn said, "If I'm not mistaken, it's a Greek Magical Creature. It's extremely fierce, dangerous, and aggressive."

Hermione paled. She opened her mouth, and the balance in her mind seemed to shift.

"That's exactly why it's so fast. It could bite someone's arm off before they even had time to react." Glenn didn't give her a chance to speak and continued, "I think that if it had really meant to attack you, it would've had enough time to lunge at you a dozen times while you were opening and closing the door—not just growl."

"Are you saying—"

"I'm guessing the school, or Dumbledore, may have put some kind of restriction on it, so it won't actually attack students who wander in by mistake. It was only trying to scare you."

Hearing that, Hermione's mind filled with image after image and the knowledge she'd read in books, as she compared them with Glenn's words.

Gradually, her eyes widened.

Right. If the Three-Headed Dog had really meant to attack them, with its speed, each of them would have had one head to deal with. None of them would have escaped!

How could it have waited until they opened the door a second time?

It was a simple deduction, but fear had clouded her judgment.

"You're right, Glenn!" Hermione sprang to her feet. The weight that had been pressing on her all morning lifted from her heart.

"Of course, I can't guarantee anything if it really wants to go further, since it's guarding something," Glenn said with a smile and a shrug.

That didn't stop Hermione from breathing a huge sigh of relief. After all, she couldn't imagine any student seeing such a gigantic beast and still wanting to explore the trapdoor.

That was enough!

"Thank you, Glenn. I really enjoyed talking with you." Hermione's lips curved into a smile, and she seemed to be in a much better mood.

"Do you like reading? I mean, if you're free, we could go to the library together—um, if you don't want to, just forget I said anything..."

"Sure," Glenn answered readily.

Though it was a little disappointing, he was a first-year student and had homework to do. The quiet library was a good choice.

After getting his answer, Hermione left the empty classroom with a bounce in her step.

Sitting in the empty classroom, Glenn gradually let his smile fade.

"Harry Potter, Filch, the Three-Headed Dog..."

"Those who wish to avoid an untimely and painful death, do not enter the corridor on the right-hand side of the fourth floor." The headmaster Dumbledore's voice from the night of the Sorting rang in his ears.

As a warning, the message itself was fine.

But when faced with a danger that could cost students their lives, even an ordinary Muggle school would seal it off with a heavy lock that was difficult to open.

And this was Hogwarts, a school of magic!

They could even have made the students unaware of the door hiding the Three-Headed Dog.

Yet the reality was that a first-year student, not even a month into the term, had managed to open it with the most basic Unlocking Charm!

Unless they had meant to let people in all along, Glenn couldn't think of any other reason.