Yes.

The corridor stretched ahead, lit by torches burning at their usual evening intervals. She moved at a brisk pace, both hands pressed against herself, wet feet leaving faint damp prints on the stone. The filth on her skin had settled into something almost familiar by now — flood water and grime and things she preferred not to think about. The crisis was behind her. That was what mattered.

The tapestry. Find the tapestry hallway. It's somewhere on this floor.

She navigated by memory and instinct, the mental map of seven years asserting itself. The castle had been rebuilt in places, but the bones of it hadn't changed. Corridors didn't move, usually. She knew this floor.

Then she turned a corner and nearly walked straight into a suit of armor. Then she heard them.

Her heart jumped.

Voices — students, from the sound of them, coming straight towards her direction. Moving fast, talking over each other.

Hermione caught herself, pressing into the shadowed alcove where the suit of armor stood.

"Did you see it? Water everywhere!"

"Myrtle must have really lost it this time."

"Professor McGonagall and Filch are going to have to deal with it."

They passed without slowing, without glancing into the alcove. She waited until their voices faded, then stepped out and kept moving.

The navigation took a few more minutes of careful progress — ducking into shadows twice when she heard footsteps, pressing herself flat against the wall at one point while a single student passed close enough that she could hear them humming. But the second floor was thinning out now, the post-tutoring dispersal mostly done, and she made it to the intersection without incident.

Three corridors. She listened at each before looking.

Left: voices, at least two students.

Straight ahead: more voices, closer. Right: silence.

She peeked around the corner to the right.

Empty. And the walls were lined with tapestries.

There it is.

Hermione moved into the corridor quickly, staying light on her wet feet. The hallway stretched ahead — torches, doorways, and between them tapestries hanging on both sides. Six or seven visible from her position, maybe more further down. One of them hiding a passage. She just had to find which one.

She worked through them methodically, lifting each edge just far enough to see behind it. The first showed nothing but solid stone. The second the same. She kept moving, kept checking, forcing herself not to hurry the process — rushing meant missing something, and she couldn't afford to miss anything tonight. The frustration was there, a low persistent hum beneath the focus, but she kept it where it belonged: background.

Stone. Stone. Stone.

Then she reached one that stopped her.

A mermaid, rendered in faded blues and greens, rising from stylized waves. Her arms were crossed over her chest — not by accident, not compositional, but with a specific deliberateness that Hermione recognized immediately.
Covering herself.
Protecting herself.
The posture she'd slept in once without meaning to, the reflex her arms had developed into something almost muscular.

She looked at the mermaid for a moment longer than she needed to.

I know exactly how you feel.

She reached for the edge of the tapestry.

Then she heard them again.
Voices, from back the way she'd come, from the direction of the intersection.
Multiple people, moving down this corridor toward her. Getting closer.

Hermione ducked behind the mermaid tapestry without stopping to think about whether there was anything behind it. She pressed herself against what she expected to be solid stone and hoped the fabric would be enough.

Only to feel nothing there.

She lost her balance. Fell backward, arms instinctively out but catching nothing, the tapestry swinging closed in front of her as she went down—

She landed hard on her bottom on cold stone, the impact jarring up through her spine. She sat there for a moment, blinking in the sudden dimness.

She was in the passageway.

Narrow stone walls on either side. The tapestry hanging in front of her, blocking the corridor, her only connection to the second floor she'd just left. And ahead: darkness, and the suggestion of a curve in the passage leading somewhere.

She'd found one. Whether it was the right one, she had no idea.

(Note: This chapter was beta’d by user qwertpoint.)