Harry Potter: Don't touch

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***

There are times when a chance meeting and one dropped phrase can completely change a person's character, behaviour and priorities.

That's what happened to Harry Potter. On Sunday, his first completely free day, he had nothing to do. He was looking forward to the time when he could do what he wanted to do, for four full days of lessons had worn him out, and Saturday's work had not improved his condition; but when Sunday came, he found that there was simply nothing to do.

At first he thought of going to Gryffindor Tower to visit Ron Weasley, but Harry quickly realised that he had no idea where he was going or where the Hufflepuff common room was; and even if he did find it, he still didn't know what special steps he had to take to get in, and the possibility of getting a shot of vinegar in the face, as he had when he'd tried to enter the Hufflepuff common room, was definitely not appealing to Harry. In the end, he found nothing better to do but go and try to explore the castle. He stripped off his Hufflepuff robes and changed into the clothes he had gotten from Dudley, which were perfect for long walks.

Harry walked for quite some time from his living room in a randomly chosen direction. He went up somewhere, down somewhere, met up with Professor Beans - wow, he does come out of his office sometimes! - He said hello to him, went on, and finally came upon a spiral staircase. After quite a long climb he found a corridor before him, at the end of which was a door which had neither handle nor keyhole. Standing next to it was a pretty girl of Asian appearance, Harry thought she was two or three years older than him.

- Are you one of ours? - she wondered. - Oh, well, whatever, try it.

She pointed to a wooden hammer in the shape of an eagle and leaned against the wall, staring at Potter, expecting him to do something clever. If the girl could read minds, then looking into Potter's head, she would have realised perfectly well that there were no smart moves to be expected here.

Harry's thoughts were swarming along a very primitive direction:

"Aha... The hammer. What am I supposed to do with it? Hmmm. You need a door hammer to bang on. Isn't that right? I guess so. Yeah. Then I'll knock."

He, feeling like a complete idiot, knocked three times using that door hammer. Harry knew immediately that he had done the right thing. The eagle's beak opened, but instead of a bird's croak, a gentle melodious voice came from there:

- 'With what object will you not get lost in the hot desert or the cold taiga?

"Aha, a riddle. It's elementary. The answer is a compass." Harry heard Uncle Vernon explaining to Dudley how to use it.

- If anything, it's not a compass, I tried it," the girl said as she continued to stare at him.

- I didn't even think about the compass, I knew right away it wasn't one," Harry said quickly.

Why did he just say that now?

Harry scolded himself, for some reason he felt uncomfortable around this senior girl. He really didn't want to show his bad side.

- Well done, in that case, go ahead and answer the riddle correctly, please. I need to get to the drawing room urgently, and all of us are in the library right now.

"Drawing room"? Is that the kind of entrance to the Ravenclaw's living room? Okay, that's not important, now we need to think about the riddle. What else could fit besides a compass? A map, for example. That seems to fit as well, but how is it better than a compass? What does the riddle sound like? Cold taiga and hot desert. Yeah. A map can't show both of those places at once. It has to show only one location, for example, the Sahara Desert... There can't be some taiga on the same map at the same time... Or can there? Then there must be some special map. For example, a world map. Or maybe a globe? Which is it? Why does he even bother with a map? A compass is a much better fit than any of those options anyway. We have to look at the problem from a different angle. The riddle was set at Hogwarts, where only wizards study, and it must be known to all eleven-year-old children, otherwise some of them will be simply impossible to answer. Most likely the answer has to do with magic, since that's all they teach at this school, right? So the answer is most likely some kind of magic item.... Hmm. And what magic items fit the description of "always being able to find your way"? No, that's the wrong question..."

Harry took off his glasses, wiped them with his t-shirt, and put them back on the bridge of his nose.

Here's the right question. What magical items does he know about anyway? I mean, he should know about those anyway. A magic broom that can be used to fly. He's seen one for sale in a shop. How do you use it to keep from getting lost? Erm... OK, let's say it's not a broom, what other items are there? A magic hat? Put it on your head and ask for directions? I don't think so. Maybe some kind of potion? No, freshmen don't know about that. Flobberworms? What's that got to do with anything? Think, Harry, think, the answer's probably somewhere on the surface. Of course it does!

- The answer is a magic wand," Harry said in a confident voice, though he really thought all his logic was rubbish and the answer was something else.

- 'Elegant reasoning,' the voice said, and the door swung open.

"Does that mean the answer is correct? Or what?"

- That's the dumbest riddle I've ever heard. It's amazing that you were able to solve it. My name is Zhou Chang, what's yours? - The girl introduced herself.

- I'm Harry Potter. You should probably know me.

Upon hearing the name, Zhou scrutinised him once more, already much more interested.

- Yes, I know you," she smiled. - But you're from Hufflepuff, aren't you?

- Yeah, I'm from Hufflepuff. Does that mean I'm not allowed in your living room?

- No, why not, you can come in. Just what are you going to do here? We're all in the library, I told you that.

- Oh, well, I'll be off then, I'll see you later.

- Bye Harry," Zhou smiled once more and disappeared out the door of the Ravenclaw living room.

Potter stomped around the entrance for a moment, then turned and sprinted down the stairs. For some reason, he felt an unreasonable sense of happiness.

Harry began to explore the castle further.

On the fourth floor, he found a small room that was full of various cups, certificates, badges of honour, and other awards of all kinds for various merits. Next to the spell room, Harry found a secret passage behind a tapestry. Following this passage, he came across a long corridor with stone pillars around its perimeter. At the end of the corridor was a locked door.

This was the first time Harry had discovered a locked passage at Hogwarts. Absolutely all doors opened somehow. Sometimes under some special conditions: asking politely for it to open, touching it in a certain place, saying a password, guessing a riddle, and many, many other different ways, you couldn't list them all. For some reason, Harry was determined to solve the riddle of this passage at all costs and find out what was behind the locked door.

It hadn't occurred to him that the door might be closed for a reason. That there could be something dangerous behind it, no. Harry was pretty sure it was some kind of puzzle. He started questioning the door, touching it in all sorts of places, shouting at it, banging on it with his wand. After these attempts failed, he just started kicking it with all his might, not really hoping for success.

This was what Professor Flitwick caught him doing.

It turned out that this door was locked for a reason, there was danger behind it, and it was in a corridor where students were strictly forbidden to enter. Of course, everyone knew about it, except Potter. Professor Flitwick had told him that everyone had been told about it at the distribution, but the thing was that Harry had escaped from the ceremony, so he couldn't even theoretically know about the ban. And afterwards, none of the students or teachers had bothered to tell him. Flitwick was satisfied with Harry's explanation and did not take points off him, but added them:

- Five points to Hufflepuff, Mr Potter. I am aware that you helped my student get into the Ravenclaw drawing room by answering a rather difficult question. Now come on, I'll lead you out of the Forbidden Corridor, or if Mr Filch catches you here, it won't be without lost points.

On the way, Flitwick said the very phrase that had changed Potter's behaviour completely.

- You're a lot like the students in my department; like you, they go exploring the castle on the first weekend, and they love puzzles and experimenting. Would you like to try it? Do some simple experiments? It's not that hard. Find a topic that you're interested in and conduct a scientific investigation to see if you can solve it.

They parted ways with Flitwick at the first corner, and his words stayed in Harry's mind.

What was his problematic topic? Fire? No, the mere existence of fire didn't bother him, and burns could hardly be saved by scientific research. Touch is another matter: such seemingly harmless, but for Harry very unpleasant, and you can expect from anyone. And if somehow to sort it all out, it is possible, perhaps, to avoid them.

- But it's hard, I don't think I can do it on the first try," Harry decided. - I should go for something much simpler.

What else annoyed him? He hated being stared at at meals.

At the last meal, for example, a senior student from Slytherin was staring at him across the room with a predatory expression on his face. Harry had been so uncomfortable and scared that he'd left the lunch without even finishing that very appetising wiener. It was that wiener that occupied his thoughts the entire time until dinner came.

I think that's what it's all about. That's what he's going to do. It would take effort to avoid the stares of the other students while eating.

Throughout the day that followed, Harry sat down to eat the very last thing he ate. He wrote down in his notebook the number of students in the Great Hall. Only when there were two or three students left in the room would Harry sit down at the table and try to eat as fast as possible. By some miracle, he managed to not even be late for a single class.

On Monday the first class of the afternoon was History of Magic, Harry didn't sleep in, as most students did, but worked through his notes and calculated the time.

After getting the results he wanted, he was about to relax, but immediately remembered that the results could vary from day to day. After all, on Monday students might get up earlier because they had slept in on Sunday, and on Tuesday they might get up later. So Harry decided that at the next breakfast he would do the same calculations and compare the results with Monday.

Early Tuesday morning Harry stood in a corner of the Great Hall and watched the faculty tables carefully.

- Oh, are you watching again? Harry, did you know that if you look at food and put it in your mouth, you can digest it better," Justin said snidely.

- I'm not looking at the food, I'm carefully counting the number of people," Harry replied, not taking his eyes off the count.

- Yeah, okay. Well, I guess I'll let you in on a secret - the food doesn't really digest that way either.

- I'll come round at the end, I did that yesterday, I'll have a couple of pieces of toast, that'll be enough for me. This experiment is more important.

Justin grimaced.

- Yeah, well, I won't interfere with your mysterious research. When you're done, or rather, if you're suddenly done, then come back to the faculty lounge and tell me about your experiments.

Harry didn't react in any way to this phrase, and Justin, taking silence as agreement, headed for the exit of the Great Hall.

Half an hour later, Harry finished his calculations, ate three pieces of toast with jam and, taking two more sandwiches with him, headed for the faculty lounge.

On the way, he checked the attendance results from today's and yesterday's breakfast.

- Come on, tell me about your experiments. Yesterday I thought it was strange that you didn't eat with everyone else, and now you're behaving the same way today. Maybe you're on a hunger strike. - Justin lifted himself off the bed and stared at Harry.

The timetable the head teacher had given out for this week only showed two lessons on Tuesday for Hufflepuff, and both of those lessons were to be in the afternoon, which meant they had free time until one o'clock.

- Look Justin, you know what time breakfast, lunch and dinner start, right?

- Harry, let's not go into this whole foreplay thing, can you keep it short?

- Okay, well, I've decided to calculate the best time for me to come to the Great Hall for meals," Harry explained, seeing Justin's confused look, "When there are the fewest people there. I just hate having ten people staring at me at the same time.

Harry was exaggerating. There were no more than five people staring at him at any one time.

- I did the calculations yesterday, and now I was just comparing whether the results I got on Monday matched the results I got on Tuesday. And they did, so now I know when I should be eating," Harry said happily.

- And what is the best time to come for breakfast? - Justin asked sceptically.

- Six fifty-two.

- Erm... And why is that?

- You said to keep it short, but, well, listen," said Harry. - Breakfast starts at six thirty. I've divided the students of Hogwarts into two camps: those who get up earlier than six thirty and those who get up later. Obviously, there are more people in the second camp. A lot more. This is because the first class starts at eight thirty, and getting up before six thirty doesn't make the slightest sense to most people. But still in the first camp is not so few people, someone has a special sleep regime, someone just wants to prepare for lessons in advance, it does not matter. There are a lot of reasons, the main thing is that there are a lot more people who get up earlier than six thirty than people who get up, for example, at six thirty one or six thirty two, it doesn't matter.

- Um, so what? How does that help at all? I don't understand," Justin puzzled.

- You keep listening. It means that at six-thirty there are a certain number of people in the Great Hall, and that number will dwindle over time as people finish their food and leave the hall and most of the students continue to sleep. Accordingly, the smallest number of people in the Great Hall will be when the number of students leaving for the first time equals the number of students coming in. The exact time of this is seven zero seven.

Harry looked at Justin as if he were an uncomprehending child who didn't realise how much two plus two was.

- I haven't figured it out yet, to be honest, but pretend for a second that I understand it perfectly. But you explain to me, why according to your logic it is necessary to come not at seven zero seven, when students in the hall are the least, but at six fifty two?

- It's because breakfast also takes some time, we can't eat in a second, right? Here, seven zero seven, let's call this time the point of minimum, at this time there will be the least amount of people in the hall, and therefore the closer the time gets to seven zero seven the less people in the hall, it follows that I should finish my breakfast exactly halfway through by seven zero seven, okay? - Harry paused briefly. - 'And the rest is simple. I calculate that I spend about half an hour on breakfast, that is, fifteen minutes each before and after seven point seven, and it follows that I should start at six fifty-two and finish at seven twenty-two.

There was silence. Justin sat and tried to count something in his mind, coming to some conclusion; he finally opened his mouth.

- I think I've got it roughly right... I think... Even if I've got it wrong, the fact that you've gone to all this trouble with such useless stuff is amazing! Why didn't they send you to Ravenclaw? This lust for experimentation and discovering useless stuff is their thing. Your brains should be in astronomy.

Potter looked questioningly at Finch-Fletchley. He smirked.

- This Friday, I think half the class heard you and Ron talking using some combination of letters and numbers. I don't know what they meant, but I think they were hardly astronomy-related. At the time I thought you were just playing a game, but now I'm not so sure... Maybe you're inventing a time machine in astronomy on the sly. The great innovators: Ron Weasley and Harry Potter. What's that? Sounds good!

* * *

After class, Harry, elated by his success, wanted to learn more. He began to write down in his notebook all the unusual things he would notice at Hogwarts. The unusual things started with Peeves chasing Potter. Although it couldn't really be called an unusual thing, as the fidgety ghost was only ever chasing someone.

Peeves had managed to steal a lighter from someone and for some reason he thought it would be funny to try and set fire to students' trousers.

Harry really didn't want to check how funny it would be and did his best not to participate in such a prank. He rushed with great speed as far away as possible from the naked ghost, who immediately headed after him. Along the way Potter met many students from different faculties, but no one tried to help him drive the ghost away, as if no one knew any ways that could stop Peeves.

There was still no way Harry could break away. Speed was on his side, but the ghost could pass through walls, thus cutting off decent sections. Realising that he couldn't get away, Harry headed up to the eighth floor to the very room where he had hidden on the day of the allocation. There were, after all, a huge number of different wardrobes, beds, boxes, curtains, meaning plenty of places to hide. It seemed to him that Peeves even with a great desire could not check them all. The key was to get there first.

And he did. Finding the room he wanted rather quickly, Harry entered it and immediately ducked under the nearest bed. He put his notebook down beside him and froze, trying not to move, and if possible, not even breathe.

Fifteen minutes passed. No one came into the room. After sitting for another half hour, Harry concluded that Peeves couldn't see through walls, and he probably just hadn't noticed where exactly he had run in.

Harry left the room and slowly made his way to the faculty lounge, looking around carefully. He needed to ask Justin about who he could complain to about the disembodied pest.

After going down a couple of floors, Harry realised that he had managed to forget his notebook under the bed in the escape room. Returning to the eighth floor, Harry, to his utter surprise, found not the slightest hint of any passage. There was nothing where the door used to be, in other words, there was a bare wall.

The room had simply vanished!

Potter returned to the faculty lounge and started asking about the disappearing rooms to the students. Neither Justin, Ernie, nor Zachariah were aware of anything of the sort. Harry, not giving up hope, approached his Dean Pomona Stable and asked the same question of her as well, but she too had not encountered anything of the sort.

Not getting any information from anyone, Harry decided to get to the bottom of it himself. He once again remembered Flitwick's instruction and began another experiment. He called it "The Search for the Vanishing Room."

It started out simple. Harry went down to the floor below and every fifteen minutes went back up and checked to see if the door leading to the room with his notebook had accidentally appeared. An hour passed without much success. Harry surmised that this room might appear on certain hours, but immediately disproved his hypothesis, for the first time he had discovered this room, it had been open both in the evening and morning, and yes, it had been open this afternoon as well.

Realising that if he came to the eighth floor every fifteen minutes he would get nowhere, Harry began to look for common features in his two visits to this room.

On both occasions he had been running and afraid of something. Well. Might as well give it a try. Harry went down to the ground floor, then pretended to be followed by a mob of upperclassmen intent on touching him twenty-four hours a day, and ran as fast as he could to the eighth floor. The only thing Harry was able to achieve was a hitched pant.

In place of the door leading to the room was still a bare wall. The trolls in the painting grunted loudly, expressing their laughter when they once again saw him.

It didn't work!

It was time to consider the less obvious versions. Harry walked over to the painting with the trolls and Varnava the Grumpy and began to question them about how this very disappearing room worked. He was sure that he wasn't the only one who knew about this room, which meant that someone else had been in it, and the painting gave him a good view of the entrance to the room. But the occupants of the painting refused to share the information, Harry received only grunting trolls and "I don't know what you're talking about" from Varnava himself in response to his questions.

Despite so many failed attempts, Harry didn't think to lose heart. He came up with a hypothesis that linked Peeves to the appearance of this room.

Potter began to talk to himself. He divided his inner self into two parts: "The self" that makes arguments that support the hypothesis, and "The self" that refutes those very arguments.

- Peeves is the ghost that brings trouble to everyone, right? - the beginning of the inner self that makes the arguments.

- That's right.

- If he did no good, but only endless harm, the school authorities would certainly get rid of him.

- Well, I doubt it. What if there's no way to get rid of him?

- That's assuming that Dumbledore could theoretically kick the ghost out of Hogwarts, and I don't want to consider a case where the entire school administration is powerless against a single ghost.

- The condition is nonsense. You haven't studied any books related to ghosts and can't draw conclusions about who can get rid of them and how, but okay, fine, you can keep going.

- The fact that no one has kicked Peeves out yet means that the claim that he does endless harm and no good is false. Since he does indeed do harm to everyone all the time, the "does no good" part is false. What good can a ghost do? It can't cook. It can't clean. It can't give educational speeches like Beeves. What if Peeves is the keeper of this room? And the room itself only opens when he's around? What counterarguments do you have to that theory?

- Well, apart from the fact that the whole thing is a load of rubbish, I have a counterargument that the first time you visited this room, Peeves wasn't even around.

- Well, we don't know that for sure, he's a ghost, he could have been in the wall or the floor, and we don't know the exact distance, maybe he was having fun downstairs.

- Your hypothesis is full of assumptions. I don't think it can be true.

Harry put his two selves back together as they were about to argue. After that, he went to test his hypothesis.

Finding Peeves was easy. Where there is shouting, rumbling and clucking laughter, that is where the Hogwarts ghost in charge of the disturbance is. Harry planned out exactly what to say to the ghost to get him to go to the eighth floor with him.

- Listen, Peeves, I've got a brilliant idea on how to make a great hooligan! On the eighth floor, there's a painting of Varnava the Puffed Up, who teaches ballet to trolls, so you can paint it with different colours. What a laugh!

Peeves clucked his agreement and stopped pulling the pigtails of passing girls. The ghost went straight to the eighth floor.Where Peeves got the paints, Harry preferred not to find out, and in general he tried to draw as little attention to himself as possible, or the ghost will remember his past ... or the joke before last, how many there Peeves manages to do in an hour?

Harry's hypothesis failed miserably. To the protesting grunts of the trolls and the cheers of Peeves, Harry sat on the floor and stared at the blank wall. He felt both vengeful pleasure at the suffering of the canvas's inhabitants and disappointment that his assumption had turned out to be wrong.

Barnabas Vzrazdruzny, along with the trolls, cleared off the canvas covered in yellow and red paint. Soon after them, satisfied with their prank, Peeves swam away as well. And Harry sat and thought of other hypotheses.

Two hours passed in this way. He was a little hungry, for he had missed supper. Harry had also been wanting to go to the toilet for quite some time. And Harry still couldn't come up with any hypothesis to explain the disappearance of the room. Finally he stood up and headed towards the nearest toilet on the eighth floor. He promised himself that he would come here every day until he solved this mystery.

Harry couldn't find a toilet on the eighth floor, so he decided to go back to the Hufflepuff common room and go there. As he approached the stairs, he heard some sounds behind him and looked back at the unfortunate wall. There was a stone door in the centre of it, as if nothing had happened. Unbelieving his luck, Harry, trying to keep his eyes on it, quickly ran over to it and pulled its handle.

The room that opened up was completely different from the place Harry had been hiding in. This time instead of a huge amount of miscellaneous furniture, boxes and curtains, the room was full of urinals, toilets and night potties.

A room that only appears when you really need it! And its appearance depends on the need of the person entering. Fantastic! The experiment codenamed "The Search for the Disappearing Room" could be considered a success.