Getting Dressed and Removal of Evidence

Hermione left the bath and headed up to Gryffindor Tower, still naked. The Fat Lady made her tell the whole story about the previous night before letting her in, much to the amusement of both the Fat Lady and Violet.

"Oh, everyone should enjoy a house-elf... Just once for the absolute pleasure!" Violet bubbled.

"You've had an evening with one, too, Vi?" The Fat Lady asked in astonishment.

"Oh yes, good old Bonbor... He was wonderful..."

Hermione awkwardly sat with her labia open so that the Fat Lady would let her in as they conversed. She cleared her throat to remind them that she was there.

They looked down briefly. "Oh, yes, go on in!" The Fat Lady said.

When Hermione got up to her bedroom, she pulled one of her borrowed robes. "Six left..." Hermione thought to herself. When she had to give these back, would McGonagall even allow her to wear an old robe to classes? Sure, she'd at least be allowed to wear undergarments by then, but still...

Now that Hermione was dressed once again, she decided that she needed to get to work on removing the footprint from the offices of Professor Sprout and Filch.

She sat down in the common room and began to plan. She didn't know much at all about Professor Sprout's office, other than it was in one of the greenhouses.

Meanwhile, Hermione knew somewhat about Filch's office, having heard about it from Harry. She knew that it was a small, simple room filled with filing cabinets containing records of punishments, as well as items that Filch regarded as dangerous.

That would be the tricky part... Since Filch didn't know which student he was looking for, the footprint may not be in a filing cabinet at all.

Given the amount of time Hermione had before dinner, she decided that Filch's office would be a good place to start. She picked up her bag and wand, just in case she needed it, and went down to the entrance hall, and stood before the door to the caretaker's office.

Hermione took a deep breath and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. It seemed Hagrid really was looking out for her here, though she was unsure if he'd leave Sprout's office unlocked, too.

Hermione walked into the windowless office. The room smelled vaguely of fried fish. She could make out the outline of all of the Hogwarts Portraits, stacked in a corner with a sheet of muffling cloth over it. It appeared that Filch didn't like to be annoyed by the paintings if he wasn't actively working on them. She decided to start by checking around the desk, hoping he'd have left it around there, but had no luck.

As she looked at the filing cabinets, not even knowing where to begin to look, Hermione had an idea. Filch knew little to nothing about magic, so he wouldn't have cast any sort of protective charm.

She pulled out her wand. "Accio footprint!" A filing cabinet jostled as the footprint tried to get out of it, but the cabinet was locked. Evidently, Hagrid hadn't chosen to let Hermione access everything in Hogwarts, just the rooms themselves.

Hermione realized she hadn't tried the unlocking spell without a wand yet, so she put her wand away to give it a shot. Pointing her finger at the cabinet and concentrating hard, she spoke aloud. "Alohomora!" The spell zoomed into the lock, and there was a brief flash from inside the keyhole.

She almost cheered for herself when she heard the lock click. Hermione opened the drawer and, after moving a few sealed boxes out of the way, found the footprint! She immediately went over to the oil lamp and ignited it, destroying the footprint in the fire.

One down, and one to go. Hermione turned to the cabinet to return the objects to the drawer and lock it up again. As she put the boxes back into the drawer, it didn't register that one of the boxes was now open as she closed it again and put it inside the drawer.

She knew she couldn't lock the drawer using the locking spell, otherwise, Filch wouldn't be able to open it, even with a key. She could merely hope that, after two weeks being away from his office, he wouldn't remember whether or not he had locked the drawer.

As she turned to leave, she suddenly felt something grab the hem of her robe. What looked like a black leather glove was now holding her in place!

The empty box finally clicked with Hermione, and she realized that she must have overdone the unlocking charm, as it had gone through the lock and unlocked something else!

The glove began to tug at the robe. Hermione looked for her wand and saw that it was on the desk. She reached for it, but the glove tugged her again. The wand was just out of reach.

"Accio wand! Accio wand!" Hermione repeated, doing the hand gesture, but her mind was too full of panic to move her wand more than a feeble roll.

Hermione took a breath, knowing what she'd have to do. She unbuttoned the top of the robe and got out of it.

Standing stark naked in Filch's office, she ran to her wand. "Stupify!" She half-shouted, aiming right at the glove. It seemed that stunning the object worked.

Hermione moved to the filing cabinet and found the empty box it had come from. It was only then that she finally read the label.

Grabby Glove
Confiscated from Evan Rosier 4 November, 1967
Object grabs and drags students around by their robes. Possible that it will drag students out of bounds. Item sealed in box with magic. Rosier punished with detention: scrubbing potion bottles clean without magic

Well, that explained why it had been sealed away. Hermione picked up the glove, its grip now loose, even with its fingers twitching. Hermione put it back in the box. Still holding it shut, she pointed her wand at it. "Colloportus!" The box now sealed, Hermione put it back in the filing cabinet. All considered, things could have gone much worse!

Hermione turned around and her heart dropped. The robe was already gone. A house-elf must have heard her shouting and informed Gilpy of the discarded robe. Hermione was wondering now if she should look for the elf and ask him not to take any more until it was closer to the start of term, but a feeling inside of her told her she wanted this risk.

As she grabbed another borrowed robe from her bag, Hermione reasoned that she still had five left, so she should be fine if she was careful. All the same... The Holidays weren't even halfway over yet, and she was now down to these borrowed robes and the small robe as the only clothes she was allowed to wear in the castle...