Chapter two
Hermione taps her feet on the ground: they've been walking around the castle in circles for over twenty minutes now, and she's getting homesick for her beloved fire in the Common Room. "If you didn't know the way, why didn't we stay at the Three Broomsticks and study the map?"
The group is stopped at the bottom of a dead-end hallway. "We knew the way, but we didn't count on there being a wall blocking our feet." Fred scratches the base of his neck and looks away from the parchment: in his seven-year career, his instincts had never failed him. The prefect's eyes linger on him, and when he discovers her, the witch lifts a corner of her mouth in amusement: it is strangely calming to watch their plan go up in smoke.
"Our dear Hogwarts could not do us such a disservice, it has always allowed us to go down any path." George complains, slipping the map into his twin's pocket and beginning to feel the bricks of the wall.
"It means our dear Hogwarts is offering us the path back." Neville seems to unearth the solution to that heavy - because it's a wall - problem. Luna smirks to her side: she found her friend's remark particularly amusing, and the other two witches seem to think so too.
Lee shakes his head and rolls his eyes, "You young people are so limited."
"I'm not limited." The smaller Weasley crosses her arms over her chest and clenches her jaw.
Ron pats her back twice, "We all know you're not, no need to reiterate that." Ginny blushes a little on her cheeks now, worried that Harry heard her or worse, thinks that too. Instead, the Chosen One is looking behind a large tapestry on the side of the hallway and soon disappears under the drape hanging on the wall.
"Now, that's not limited!" Lee laughs and follows him into the secret passageway.
It's Fred who offers to hold the drape for his companions to pass through the hole and that's probably why Hermione hesitates and lets Luna go in before her. She allows herself a couple of seconds to catch her breath: it's one thing to tease him from afar, quite another to pass so close to him that you can feel his breath on your skin. On that path, she knows, she is the more inexperienced of the two.
When the prefect decides to put one foot after the other, the twin thinks of a way to attack her: lately talking to her is a pastime that amuses him greatly. "Tell me, is Harry always like this?" He whispers, lowering himself to her ear. The witch doesn't stop to look at him, but she proceeds smoothly into the passage that loses its light as soon as Fred lets go of the tapestry.
"Always like that."
He laughs and flanks her as he raises an arm to signal to the others that they are coming. "How the hell are you people still alive?"