Yes. And she makes it to the staircase as well.

The side hallway was narrower than the main corridor, the torches spaced further apart. Hermione turned into it and the sounds of the castle fell away behind her.

The dust on the floor was already doing its work on her feet — the tacky pulls of the pumpkin juice going quieter with each step, the stone grit coating her soles and muffling what had been an uncomfortable sound.

The hallway stretched ahead, lined on both sides with classroom doors, dark beyond their frames, nameplates tarnished to illegibility. Service closets. A storage room, door slightly ajar, showing nothing but shadow. Between the doors, old tapestries hung flat against the stone. A few portraits, their subjects slumped and sleeping in their frames. Hermione watched them as she passed but didn't slow. No light showed beneath any of the doors. No voices carried from the main corridor behind her. The hallway was as empty and quiet as she'd hoped.

Which meant there was nothing to focus on except the cold air moving against her bare skin, the silence, and how very exposed she still was. She kept her eyes forward and her pace steady.

The door at the end was different from the others — heavier, older, iron fittings instead of brass, no nameplate. Hermione recognized it without needing one. The handle was cold against her palm. The door resisted, then gave, swinging inward on hinges that creaked once and went quiet.

A narrow stone staircase, spiraling upward into dimness. She listened. Nothing moved above or below.

Hermione slipped through and pulled the door shut behind her. Stone and shadow and cold air moving from somewhere higher up. She put her foot on the first step and began to climb.