"That's what I got, the ability to turn into creatures I've touched." said Tom, and Hermione nodded, marveling at the realism of the transformation. But after the initial novelty, a strange feeling soon took hold of them both.
"Is this what it feels like to be a girl...?" said Tom, sensing that something was strange, this was a new experience. He looked at the ring on his hand and noticed that the second of the six human-shaped faces had a scratch on it.
Hermione blushed slightly, the scene before her seemed a little strange and she felt a little unhappy.
"Can I have a little respect for my privacy?" Hermione gave Tom a look of disgust, "You are not allowed to become me in the future! And don't use my appearance to do strange things!"
Tom nodded and returned to his original form.
"That's an amazing ability!" exclaimed Hermione sincerely. "Let's go back, we have class in the morning."
"Alright," Tom said and walked towards the door, and before he opened the door, he still looked at Hermione with a strange look on his face.
"What's wrong?" Hermione noticed the difference in his gaze, she noticed that Tom seemed to be looking at his shoes....
"Aren't your feet covered in these shoes? I felt congested a moment ago when..." but the sentence didn't finish, as Tom noticed Hermione's gaze becoming increasingly dangerous.
The two had left the Room of Requirement with the intention of returning to the common room the same way, but then something unexpected happened: a suit of armor suddenly moved, spinning and making a creaking sound. The sound was like a cannonball being fired in the silent corridors of the castle.
The sudden movement of the armor startled the two.
"What is this? is it a magical item from the school?" asked Hermione quietly to Tom, who was standing next to her.
"I think it's more likely to be something else, some kind of... Peeves, is that you?" said Tom.
The armor stopped its somewhat comical footsteps, and then the helmet's head lifted and a ghost emerged from it, with a pair of evil eyes and a large mouth, it floated cross-legged in the air, letting the unsupported armor fall to the ground with a thud.
"Peeves! Shut up, if the Professor or Filch are attracted..." Hermione called out to Peeves in a panic.
"You'll be expelled!", Peeves didn't seem to be trying to keep his voice down at all, but shouted cheerfully, "The new naughty children, wandering in the middle of the night instead of sleeping. Tsk, tsk, tsk, naughty, naughty, you will be punished."
"No, shut up, Peeves, please." Hermione panicked at the sound of his loud voice, he was even pleading with Peeves.
"I should tell Filch, hehe." With a mischievous glint in his eyes, Peeves said in a serious tone, "It's for your own good, you know?"
"Ignore him, come on." whispered Tom to Hermione, but he hadn't even taken two steps when he heard a strange sound: something like a snort and a gasp, as if someone was speeding up from where they had come.
Peeves laughed, "It's Filch, I'm sure of it! They're finished."
Then he flashed a grin that, in Hermione's eyes, was the grin of a devil, "Filch, the students aren't sleeping! He's in the hallway on the seventh floor."
"Run!" Tom immediately shouted at Hermione, telling her to run in the opposite direction, anything to get away from Filch. The two ran, and when Peeves saw that they were still trying to run away, he kept grabbing hooves and things and throwing them at them. There was a roar loud enough to wake the castle.
The two ran down the corridor at full speed, using all their strength,
They didn't even have the courage to look back to see if Filch was following them, and rightly so, as long as they didn't see their faces, everything was fine. They ran for a while and finally saw a staircase, down which they ran even though they didn't know where it led, with Peeves following noisily, daring them to stop. They passed door after door and ran down corridor after corridor. At first Tom could barely make out which floor he was on, but then he was completely lost, he didn't know where he was or where he was running to, but the Peeves was getting closer and closer to them.
Finally, in a panic, he and Hermione ran into a dead end, with a locked door at the end of the corridor! Footsteps could be heard behind them and Filch was running towards them, following the sound of Peeves.
Tom pushed at the door, found it locked, Hermione pushed him aside, pulled out her wand, tapped the lock and whispered, "Alohomora!".
One of the few spells she had mastered over the vacations, the lock clicked, the door opened, Hermione dragged Tom behind the door, closed it behind her, put her ear to it and listened to the sounds outside.
"Where did they go, Peeves?" Filch walked up to the door and said to Peeves, "Come on, tell me."
"They're behind the door~" said Peeves in a hum that made Hermione's heart leap into her throat.
Filch sneered, "Don't mess with me, Peeves, did you really think you could fool me with a trap of this magnitude? It seems this is all a double act on your part, I'll be sure to report this to Professor Dumbledore tomorrow and have him throw you out of the castle..."
Filch cursed angrily and left: now he had to go back and tidy up the corridor that Peeves had messed up.
Hermione, who was peeking in from behind the door, whispered, "I think we'll be all right, what is it, Tom?" She felt Tom tugging on her sleeve. He turned around and saw a scene he would never forget and, for a moment, thought it was all a nightmare: He saw a three-headed dog the size of a house!
The space behind the door was not a room as they had imagined, but a corridor, and the icy Hermione realized immediately that it was the forbidden corridor on the third floor, and she had understood why it was forbidden to enter it.
The huge body of the three-headed dog filled the space from floor to ceiling, and more than its size, it had three heads, three pairs of slightly dull eyes staring at her and Tom, three pink noses twitching and twitching in their direction, and slimy saliva dripping from its yellowish teeth onto the floor.
