Percy folded the old page and put it in his pocket. He had enough questions to keep Hermione busy for an evening.
He wanted to reach her before acquiring any more.
A shadow moved between the shelves.
Percy stopped beside the desk. The nearest candle made it difficult to see beyond the first aisle.
"Is someone there?"
He heard fabric brush against a shelf.
He drew his wand and lit it.
A cloaked figure moved at the far end of the aisle. Percy recognized the outline before it turned away.
He followed.
The choice was quick, and he regretted its speed as soon as his foot slipped on the smooth floor.
He caught the edge of a shelf, recovered, and continued more carefully.
"Stop."
The figure did not stop. It turned past another row of books and reached a stone wall.
There was no visible door.
Percy slowed. He expected the wand to rise again, as it had in the corridor.
Instead, the figure put one hand against the wall.
The stone moved beneath its palm. A shallow circle spread across the surface, and the figure stepped into it.
It disappeared.
Percy reached the wall a moment later. He held the light close without touching the stone.
No opening remained.
He checked the floor. He checked the shelves nearby. The wall was too thick for an ordinary concealed door to explain what he had seen.
At last, he put his palm against it.
Cold stone. Nothing moved.
He took his hand away. He had followed a person into a dead end and nearly put himself through an unknown opening.
Hermione's question from the classroom came back to him.
What if it wanted him to follow?
Percy returned to the reading table. He collected the title he had copied, then left the library without looking for another way through the wall.
Hermione sat in the common room with an unfinished essay. She looked up when he placed the old parchment beside it.
"I found that in a book."
She read the warning.
"The One Who Walks Between?"
"That is all I could read clearly."
"Which book?"
Percy gave her the title and page number. She seemed pleased that he had written them down.
Then he explained the figure.
Her pleasure ended.
"You chased it again."
"Yes."
"Percy."
"I stopped at the wall."
"Because it became a wall."
He could not improve that account without lying.
Hermione checked the old sheet against her book. She studied its handwriting and the damaged lines without pretending she could read them yet.
"A Vanishing Enchantment might hide something," she said. "That does not explain stepping through solid stone."
"Could it be a passage?"
"It could. We need to establish what sort."
Percy sat opposite her. The chair was warmer than the library, and he had finally stopped gripping his wand.
He put it away.
Hermione noticed the movement.
"Did it threaten you?"
"No."
"Did it try to stop you taking the page?"
"No."
She looked at the warning again.
"Then we should not assume the page and the figure have the same purpose."
Percy had made that assumption almost at once. He disliked how many decisions were easier to question after someone else heard them.
"The first note told me to stay away," he said.
"This one tells you to beware."
"They could mean the same thing."
"They could. Or somebody could be warning you about somebody else."
He looked toward the portrait hole. Students were coming back from the library, complaining about homework and the rain.
The figure had walked through stone. Whoever wrote the note had entered Gryffindor Tower.
He had been treating those acts as one mystery because it was convenient.
"We should find what the name means," he said.
Hermione nodded.
"And tell the others before they discover it by following you."
He agreed. He meant to do it after she had finished examining the page.
That intention was still there when Ron asked him to join a chess game. Percy refused, then had to explain why without putting the old parchment in the middle of the crowded room.
Ron looked annoyed, but accepted tomorrow as an answer.
Percy knew it would have to be tomorrow.
In bed, he listened to the rain against the window. He considered the phrase again.
Between places? Between worlds? The wording was too incomplete to choose one.
He remembered John pointing to a universe in the Gap. He also remembered the old sheet in his pocket.
A similar phrase did not prove a connection. It only made one harder to stop thinking about.
Ron fell asleep. Harry turned over and pulled his blanket closer.
Percy looked toward the window when the wind moved the curtain.
The moon appeared through a gap in the clouds. Light reached the corner beside the wall.
A figure stood there.
Percy sat up.
It faced his bed. Its cloak was still, though the curtain continued to move beside it.
His wand lay on the bedside table. He reached for it.
The figure disappeared before his hand reached the wood.
Percy turned on the light with Lumos. The corner was empty.
He left the bed and examined it. No water, no mark, no disturbed dust showed where the figure had stood.
Harry stirred.
"Percy?"
Percy kept the wand raised for another second, then lowered it.
"I saw something."
Harry sat up.
This time, Percy did not tell him it was nothing.
To Be Continued... Next week!
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