Chapter 24 — The Wrong Landing

By October, I could open a lock more reliably than I could keep a feather in the air. The comparison annoyed me whenever I set out the equipment. Locks were made to resist being opened. The feather appeared to be giving me trouble entirely on its own initiative.

Flitwick had supplied a practice lock and made me explain the Unlocking Charm before allowing another practical attempt. Several tests taught me the difference between opening a mechanism and trying to force its bolt aside. The bent metal on his desk provided a particularly clear example of the approach I ought to avoid.

When I finally threw a properly prepared talisman with ‘Alohomora!’, the lock clicked open without damage. Flitwick examined it, closed it again and asked for another test. A result on one simple mechanism was a beginning, he told me. It did not mean every locked door in Hogwarts would respond as helpfully.

The Disarming Charm presented a different limit. Ron stood across the courtyard holding a short stick while I worked through the preparation. My first successful release, with a throw and ‘Expelliarmus!’, pulled the stick loose and sent it a short distance into the grass. Ron himself remained where he was, which pleased him when I explained that taking the object was the result I wanted.

‘You could have told me that first,’ he said as he retrieved it. I pointed out that he would have gripped harder. He did exactly that for the next attempt, and the released spell tugged without freeing the stick. Another spent piece joined the cost of discovering that a successful inscription did not guarantee the same outcome against more resistance.

We kept the practice sessions short. Harry worked on the Leg-Locker Curse with Ron while Hermione corrected their attempts to lift it, until each could free the other without asking her. Homework and Quidditch training limited the time available. My treated paper put a separate limit on what I could attempt, no matter how willing the others were to remain in the courtyard.

Levitation still refused to settle into anything useful. I could make the feather twitch, and once it rose just far enough to fall off the desk, but maintaining its position was another problem. Something had to continue after the initial release. I kept losing that connection or correcting too sharply, leaving very little distinction between the table and the floor as places to retrieve the target.

Flitwick watched my hand and asked what I wanted the feather to do next. When I said it should stay where it was, he suggested I stop trying to move it once it reached that position. I wrote the advice down without being pleased by how simple it sounded. Understanding the sentence was proving much easier than applying it.

Other lessons improved now that I could demonstrate practical work. McGonagall expected me to learn the same transformations as the rest of the class. Snape expected measurements which survived his inspection, and he still hadn’t requested his notebook. I continued copying it, keeping the relevant pages where I could compare them with my own results.

Defence Against the Dark Arts gave me less of what I wanted. Questions sent Quirrell searching through his notes, and an unexpected noise could interrupt the lesson long enough for me to begin watching the corridor myself. After the flying lawn, I wanted to learn how to respond when something went wrong. Copying another passage from the board felt a poor preparation for the speed at which Neville had left the ground.

Harry had meanwhile discovered that reading was tolerable when the subject involved broomsticks. Wood showed him the Quidditch balls and began regular training. He returned windblown and muddy, with questions for Ron and requests which sent Hermione looking for books. I listened when they discussed timing or following a moving target; some of that knowledge might be useful with my feet on the ground.

One evening, the help became an argument which followed us from the library through dinner. Ron thought Harry needed more practice in the air. Hermione wanted him to understand the situations he would face there. Both had examples ready, and neither seemed interested in the fact that the boy concerned was already doing both things.

‘A picture won’t teach him to avoid a Bludger,’ Ron insisted. He tapped the diagram beside Hermione’s plate for emphasis.

‘It might teach him where to look for one,’ she replied. She turned the book towards him, pointing to a passage he evidently considered unnecessary.

Harry took a long time over his last mouthful. I had finished eating several minutes earlier and could no longer follow which of his problems they were supposed to be solving. When Ron reached towards the page again, I put my hand over the diagram and asked what was missing from training with Wood and reading with Hermione.

They both looked at Harry. ‘Sleep,’ he said. That finally gave us something practical to do, and Hermione closed the book while Ron gathered his scraps of parchment. Most of the table had emptied during the discussion. We followed the remaining students towards the stairs before another example could reopen it.

In the entrance hall, Ron admitted that one diagram had been useful. He added that Hermione did seem to find things the rest of us missed, including the shield with Harry’s father’s name and information about my family. She began explaining the difference between looking carefully and simply walking through a place. Then the staircase moved beneath us and gave everybody a reason to pay attention.

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Hermione caught the rail. I grabbed a stone post while the landing we had wanted slid beyond reach. Harry appeared much less surprised, which suggested he and Ron had acquired experience I would have preferred to avoid. Ron pointed to a narrow landing above us and told us to reach it before the stairs changed again.

We climbed off. A wooden door stood opposite the top step, with a draught passing beneath it and dust along the frame. Behind us, the staircase settled briefly before beginning another sweep away. Hermione suggested waiting until it returned. I studied the door and considered how likely another passage was to take us towards more cooperative stairs.

‘We could see whether there’s a way through,’ I said. Ron tried the handle, but it wouldn’t turn.

Hermione observed that the dust might mean nobody used the door for a reason. I told her we could look and return if it led nowhere useful. That made the idea sound cautious enough to proceed, provided I ignored her perfectly workable suggestion that we remain where we were.

I waited for Ron to stand clear, threw an unlocking talisman towards the mechanism and said, ‘Alohomora!’ The paper released its stored spell, and the lock clicked. I pushed the door open with a satisfaction which lasted only until the light reached the floor beyond it.

Dust covered the passage. Shapes ahead resolved into statues, with cobwebs strung between their arms and the walls. No voices suggested another group of students heading towards bed. We stepped inside, and a lamp on the wall flared, followed by another farther along. The light improved my view without making the route seem more inviting.

Hermione stopped behind us. She thought this was the third floor, she said, and reminded us which corridor Dumbledore had warned against entering. For a moment I heard the feast announcement again, including the unnecessarily precise description of the death on offer. Finding a shortcut no longer seemed worth exploring the architecture.

‘Bad route,’ I admitted. ‘We go back and wait for the stairs.’

A thin cat stood in the doorway when I turned. Mrs Norris looked up at us, her eyes catching the new light, then slipped out towards the landing. A man’s voice followed from beyond the opening, addressing her with an affection I didn’t expect him to extend to the four children beside an unlocked door.

Ron went rigid. We could have stayed and explained how we had arrived there. At the time, I concentrated on Filch, the door I had opened and the evidence against us which now included standing in a forbidden corridor. I whispered for the others to follow and led them farther inside.

Lamps lit as we passed, shifting our shadows over the statues. I tried two handles without finding a door which would move. Footsteps sounded behind us, slow enough that I began imagining the person making them listening for ours. Harry pointed to another door at the far end. Ron reached it first and pulled hard enough to rattle the frame.

It was locked too. I took the second prepared piece and told him to move aside, then threw it with the Unlocking incantation spoken under my breath. The mechanism released. Ron pushed through, Harry and Hermione followed, and I slipped in last with my hand already drawing the door behind me.

I eased it shut as Filch’s footsteps reached the passage outside. Ron caught my sleeve, but I raised a finger to my lips without looking round. I had found a place out of sight and was giving the man beyond the door all the attention I ought to have spared for what was in the room with us.

The handle shifted under my other hand. I held it steady and waited, breathing as quietly as I could. After a moment, Filch muttered something to his cat and the footsteps began moving away. I was almost ready to believe we had solved the problem when Ron pulled my sleeve again, hard enough to turn me towards him.

He was staring past Harry’s shoulder. At first I could distinguish only fur in the darkness ahead, a mass rising and falling slowly. Then a huge head lifted from a pair of paws. Another opened its eyes beside it, and a third yawned wide enough to make the size of the teeth a separate and urgent concern.

I caught Ron’s hand before he could make a sound and pointed behind me. Harry reached for the door while Hermione edged towards it, keeping her eyes on the creature. One pair of eyes found us. The dog began to stand, using so much of the room that the space between its shoulders and the doorway seemed to disappear.

Three throats growled, slightly out of time with each other. I told everyone to get out. Harry pulled the door open, I pushed Ron after him and caught Hermione to get her clear as the nearest head lunged. Its jaws struck the frame with a crack I felt through my chest.

I threw my weight against the door. Ron and Harry pushed beside me, but the head blocked it for a moment before withdrawing. The wood slammed shut when it did. Hermione stood with her hands over her mouth until I took her elbow and started running back along the corridor.

We passed the lamps and statues without trying another handle. Filch and Mrs Norris were nowhere I could see, and the possibility of meeting them had lost much of its power to frighten me. We went straight out onto the narrow landing. This time, we waited there until the stairs returned, with nobody suggesting a more interesting way to reach the tower.

Ron dropped into a chair in the common room and looked at his hands. He had tried to tell me, he said. I sat on the hearth beside him and admitted I should have turned round the first time. Being intent on avoiding Filch had made me ignore the person close enough to warn me about something worse.

Harry wanted to know why anybody would keep that animal in a school. I tried to reconstruct what I had seen beyond the teeth and said it looked as though it was guarding something. There had been precious little room around it for any other purpose.

‘A trapdoor,’ Hermione said, lowering herself onto the arm of Ron’s chair. ‘Under its feet. I saw the ring when it stood up.’

We looked at her. I had been wrong about there being nowhere else to go from that room, but finding another route no longer appealed to me. Ron glanced at the pouch and asked whether we could give up shortcuts for a while. I agreed before he had time to develop the argument.

Upstairs, I put the two emptied paper pockets together as I unpacked. The Unlocking Charm had worked exactly as I intended, and I had spent two useful preparations getting us into danger. Someone had placed a three-headed dog beyond that second lock. Being able to open a door did very little to tell me whether it was a good idea to pass through it.