Harry and Ron exchanged a nervous glance, their hands already moving instinctively toward their wands.
Hermione took a deep breath and stopped hesitating.
She reached out a finger and gently tickled the plump green pear in the painting.
The pear giggled, wriggling as it turned into an emerald-green door handle.
The door slid inward without a sound.
A strange smell instantly wafted out.
It mixed the rich, sweet caramel aroma of Butterbeer with the acrid stench of something burnt, along with a hint of... something like the scent rising from a frightened little animal's fur, mingled with panic and unease.
The sight beyond the door stopped Hermione and the other two in their tracks.
The Hogwarts Kitchen had always been the warmest, tidiest, happiest place in the Castle.
But now, it was a complete mess.
The four long tables, identical to the house tables, should have been covered with ingredients for dinner, but were now utterly bare.
Several of the copper pots and kettles hanging from the ceiling had fallen haphazardly to the floor. One was still giving off black smoke, clearly the source of the burnt smell.
Of the hundred-odd house-elves, not one was working.
They had split into little groups, huddling beside the enormous brick fireplace or hiding in the shadows of tall cupboards, whispering toward the center of the Kitchen with shame and fear in their eyes.
Only one house-elf was frantically busy, desperately scrubbing the burnt cauldron with a cloth and muttering under his breath, his movements so fast they almost left afterimages.
That was where the grating noise came from.
And at the center of all the chaos.
Winky, the Crouch family's former house-elf, sat slumped beside an overturned wooden stool.
The tea towel she wore, bearing the Crouch family crest, was crumpled and covered