9 comes and Harry and Hermione meet up in the common room. "I really don't like this Harry." Hermione says, wringing her hands. "I don't know what I'd do if I got detention."
"Relax Hermione, you're going to give us away with your nervousness." Harry says, he takes her hands in his. "Do you trust me Hermione?" Harry asks.
"More than anything," Hermione says, looking into his eyes, flushing a bit that he's holding her hands.
"Then trust me when I say that it's going to be fine. The worst a detention could be is writing lines or scrubbing the floors. They might just take points, and we all know that we make enough points that it doesn't really matter. This even assumes we're caught. Remember what our cover story is." Harry says, reassuring his friend.
"We're leaving because you left your Potions book in the Sphinx Club room." Hermione says.
"Yup, now, let's make our way to the corridor." Harry says getting up and making his way towards the portrait.
The pair then begin to stealthily make their way to the third floor corridor, arriving just outside the room at five minutes until 10.
"Do you think he'll be here, Harry?" Hermione asks, looking around nervously. Hermione had been an absolute nervous wreck the entire walk to the room, and Harry was convinced that if he had had any doubts about being here, she would have turned him around before they left the Ravenclaw wing of the school.
"Honestly, no. The fact that I am though, at least means I was 'man' enough to accept his challenge. Just keep an ear out for someone coming." Harry whispers, crouching low behind one of the various suits of armor that line the halls. He'd be fairly visible if someone was specifically looking for him, but he hoped that the fear of the corridor would keep most away. Hermione crouches next to him.
A series of footsteps are then heard down the hall. "Yes Ms. Norris I know, I too smell students out after curfew… maybe Dumbedore will let me use my cat o' nine tails on these ones." Filch's voice rings out.
"Malfoy set us up." Harry harshly whispers. "We need to get someplace else he'll see us for sure here."
"What about that room? It's supposed to be dangerous so maybe he won't look in there." Hermione says pointing to the room he was supposed to meet Malfoy inside.
"Worth a shot, lets go." Harry says, slinking out from behind the statue and heading inside, Hermione following closely behind.
The pair have just managed to mostly shut to door as they see Flich and Ms. Norris glancing down the hallway. Seeing nothing though, the man and his cat move on to another hallway.
"Phew, that was close." Harry says, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding. From behind him he can feel a few large puffs of hot air. "I understand your concern Hermione, but can you pack up a bit? You're breathing down my neck."
"Harry, I'm beside you." Hermione said, her voice in fact coming from his left. Harry turns around and comes face to face with an absolutely massive three-headed dog.
The dog lets out a deep growl that courses through the pair's entire body before lunging at them, stopping from snapping their faces off by mere inches as a sturdy chain attaches it to the back of the room. In a panic, Harry and Hermione fling open the door and escape into the hallway, too terrified to even scream.
"What was that?" Harry manages to breathe out between his adrenaline filled pants.
"A cerberus from greek mythology? One was said to guard the gates of the underworld. I had no idea they were real!" Hermione says, equally struggling to maintain her composure. "It was standing on a trapdoor though. What do you think was down there?"
"I've no clue, and at this moment I don't want to find out. Obviously Malfoy isn't showing up. Let's just head back to the common room and hope no one paid attention to the fact that we were gone.
"We should tell Professor Flitwick about this tomorrow, what if that creature got loose? It'd be worse than the troll!" Hermione says, her mind flooding back to the deep primal fear she felt in the bathroom that night.
"We will, don't worry Hermione. You saw it was chained up, and there's a whole castle full of powerful wizards here. Even if it got out it couldn't get very far." Harry says, rubbing his friend's back in an attempt to calm her down.
"It's just so big and scary… I never liked dogs, my neighbor had this big bulldog named Brutus who would always bark at me from his fence. I lost a stuffed animal on the other side of it once and he just shredded it to pieces." Hermione says, shaking a bit.
"It's okay… if it'll make you feel any better, I'll keep you safe. I'll learn everything I can about how to deal with Cerberuses. Why didn't you say something about it when we went to see Hagrid? Fang is a big dog." Harry asks.
"Fang never made any noises, and then he just sat calmly with Padma most of the time. I don't know, he just felt safe and nice. Maybe it was because Hagrid was there." Hermione says, flustered. Apparently not understanding why Fang didn't scare her when Brutus did is driving her a little mad.
The pair, frightened by their experience, begin making their way back to the Ravenclaw common room, thankfully not seeing anyone on their way back. The few students still milling about the common room pay them little heed as they make their way to their dorms and crawl into bed, determined to sleep this night away.
The following morning, Padma and Stephen confront the pair at the breakfast table.
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