Chapter 19: Another Adventure Part 1
Jake sat at the breakfast table, his demeanor tinged with a hint of melancholy. Serafall, regretfully, had departed from the school grounds and returned to the Underworld the previous night.
Today, the Hogwarts students were joined by members from the other two tournament schools for breakfast. The Ravenclaw and Slytherin tables were once again filled with foreign students, yet Jake noticed that Fleur and Victor weren't present. Presumably they were still healing from their injuries from the first challenge. They both got pretty banged up after all. Meanwhile, the Hogwarts students were eagerly gossiping with students from the other schools as they shared tales of the "epic duel" that took place last night between the Hogwarts champion and a young Slytherin contender. Well the Ravenclaw students were at least, for the Slytherins it was so embarrassing that they just wanted to forget it ever happened!
Throughout the morning, Harry made numerous attempts to uplift Jake's spirits by speculating about the nature of the upcoming second task in the tournament. Harry entertained the idea that it might involve brooms and flying, while Ron believed it would entail an adventurous scavenger hunt through the Forbidden Forest. Hermione just sat there reading her book, she had an exam coming up in three whole weeks after all!
Exasperated, Jake finally addressed Harry, saying, "Harry, please, for the last time, I have no interest in practicing flying on your broom. I am perfectly capable of flying on my own."
Ron, not knowing about Jake having literal wings, leaned in and whispered eagerly to Jake, "Do you have a magic carpet or something!? I've always wanted to try flying on one, I hear they're absolutely wicked! But sadly, they're illegal." He pouted, displaying his disappointment.
Interrupting her reading, Hermione set her book down and scoffed. "They're illegal for a reason, Ron! Magic carpets, like the ones in Aladdin, have minds of their own. If they develop an aversion to their riders, they have been known to intentionally fling them off, where they will fall to their almost imminent deaths!" With that revelation, a fragment of Jake's childhood innocence was shattered...
Jake felt a tap on his shoulder, and he turned around in his seat and spotted Luna standing right behind him, holding Blaze in her arms. "Oh hey there, Luna," Jake smiled at her.
Luna gave Jake a dreamy smile back. "Come on, Jake," she said. "We've got a place to be very soon. And you know what they say about people who are late."
"That they're the protagonists of the story," Jake said jokingly, to which Luna just gave him a pout.
Blaze chirped happily as Luna tugged on Jake's sleeves, forcing him to stand up. The Golden Trio, who were just watching this play out in front of them, just shrugged, chalking it up to the typical weirdness that was Jake's life. Harry, for once, was just happy that the weirdness wasn't revolving around him. "Come along, Harry, you're needed too," Luna interrupted his thoughts.
'Never mind then,' Harry thought to himself as he sighed and stood up too. Ron and Hermione just gave him confused looks.
"Wait, where are you three off to!?" Hermione asked, 'They weren't going to go and break more school rules, were they!?' She thought to herself. She was lucky enough that they didn't get punished for the mermaid incident because there was no physical proof that they caused it, but she had noticed that McGonagall had been glaring at the three of them a lot more recently! Hermione was saddened that even her wise professor didn't believe in the trio's innocence….
"Wait up," Ron said before stuffing one last muffin in his mouth. "Don't leave me out of the fun. Come on, Hermione, let's go." Hermione just sighed before she closed her book and stuck it back in her bottomless bag where it joined dozens of others. She might as well follow them and make sure they don't cause too much trouble.
Luna took the lead down the hallway as the others just followed her along. As they were walking, Harry turned to Jake and asked, "So, what exactly is going on? I know you're friends with Luna from Ravenclaw and all, but it was kind of strange, right? Her just saying 'let's go' and you not even questioning about any details or anything." Harry elaborated his confusion.
Jake just shrugged and rubbed the back of his head. "Ah well, I've found it's usually better not to just question Luna. And besides, the last time I went out on a day trip with her, I ended up with a phoenix as a familiar!" He said proudly.
*Chirp chirp!* Blaze chirped in happy agreement!
And it was because of said little Phoenix that Jake was even alive to tell this story in the first place. Otherwise, he would have been done in by that dragon. 'Well, Serafall probably would have saved him,' Jake thought in hindsight, 'but then she would have ended up exposing the supernatural world to the closed-off Wizarding community in the process and probably would have caused a giant panic.' That would have been a lot to deal with, and all that hassle was prevented by Luna. Jake was still incredibly grateful to her!
The group of five, plus one bird, finally came to their destination on the second floor. "We're here," Luna said.
Hermione let out a sigh. "I really don't want to have to deal with Moaning Myrtle right now…. Why are we in the girls' bathroom?!" She said somewhat annoyed.
Ron had a look of panic on his face. "Oh no, we're not going where I think we are, are we? I don't want to go back there. That place sucked," he said, and Harry, who had also picked up on their location, started nodding as well. He was only 14 right now, but he felt like he might be getting PTSD flashbacks from the giant snake!
"Huh, what's down there?" Jake asked.
"It's the Chamber of Secrets!" Ron exclaimed. "It's Salazar Slytherin's super evil lair where he kept his giant monster basilisk that terrorized the whole school in our second year and it almost killed Harry and Hermione!"
"Wait, really?" Jake asked. "It's not still down there, is it?"
"Oh, it's still down there," Luna said knowingly, "but you don't have to worry, Ronald Weasley. It's very much dead. Harry saw to that."
"Why are you freaking out so much over a dead snake?" Jake said as he teased Ron and Harry a bit.
"You'd be freaking out too if you had to face that snake when you were only 12, with nothing but a sword…" Harry muttered to himself.
Eventually, with half the members doing so reluctantly, they entered the bathroom. They were also lucky enough for moaning myrtle to not be present. Once inside, Luna told Harry to open the entrance to the chamber with his Parseltongue. Harry had a resigned look on his face as he just hissed at the sink, and to Jake's shock, the floor nearby suddenly caved in, revealing a massive slide. The bottom of the slide couldn't be seen because it was too dark.
Luna just happily shoved Blaze into Jake's arms. "See you all at the bottom!" And then she hopped right onto the slide and gave a happy cheer as she started heading downwards!
Jake, with Blaze in his arms, just followed along right after her. For a secret villain lair, he found that it had a pretty fun entrance...Eventually, he slid to the bottom of the slide, which let out over a pile of bones absolutely everywhere. He could definitely see why this was called an evil chamber now. Harry, Ron, and Hermione slid down shortly after him.
"So, this is the chamber, huh?" Hermione asked curiously, and she looked around slightly disgusted. "It's a lot grosser than I expected one of the founders to leave it."
"Yeah, apparently, the Basilisk had been feeding on rats as its main food source for the past thousand years, and so the bones are just absolutely everywhere at this point," Harry commented.
"I wish the slimy bastard ate Scabbers when he had the chance," Ron added on.
"Had you let my darling Crookshanks eat your stupid rat, then the entire mess last year could have been avoided in the first place!" Hermione said smugly. Ron just turned his head to the side in shame. He was never going to live that down. He even frequently let that little rat sleep in his bed, he shuddered to himself in absolute disgust...
Eventually, they came to the door blocking the true entrance to the chamber, which Luna asked Harry to open for all of them again. "Wait!?" Harry exclaimed, "Is the only reason I'm here to open doors for you two?"
Luna smiled kindly at Harry. "Of course not, you're an incredibly important part of this adventure!" Luna then caught Jake's eyes with her own slyly before she shook her head no at him. Yes, Harry was pretty much just there to open doors for them.
"Well, at least you're doing something, Harry," Ron said. "Hermione and I just feel like tag-alongs."
"You two are tag-alongs," Luna giggled, making Ron and Hermione sputter in indignation.
"I'm just here to make sure you all don't break any rules!" Hermione retorted.
Harry hissed at the door, which fully opened, revealing the Chamber of Secrets in all of its glory. Magical torches flared to life as the group entered.
"Holy crap, Harry, you killed that when you were 12!?" Jake exclaimed, looking at the huge skeleton of the Basilisk. It had to be at least 40 feet long! Harry just stood there and looked smug.
Hermione walked forward and placed her hand on the snake's skull. "Wow, I know you told me about it, Harry, but I can't believe you actually slew Slytherin's monster." She was genuinely impressed with her best friend.
Harry just blushed and scratched his cheek. "Well, I mean, I had to save Ginny, you know, and also the snake attacked you, Hermione. I had to make it pay too!" He declared. Hermione, meanwhile, felt a blush form on her cheeks. 'He fought this for me!?' She thought to herself. A weird feeling formed in her chest at the thought of Harry doing that for her...
"Hey, do you guys think Slytherin left any treasure down here?" Ron called out, interrupting Harry and Hermione's angst-filled moment.
"Didn't you guys say Moldywart has been down here before? If so, he probably took it all," Jake commented, ruining Ron's mood as Luna just giggled at the depressed redhead. "Anyway, Luna, is this where we need to be, or do we have to keep going?"
Luna shook her head. "The place we're needed is deeper in, just past that," she said as she pointed to the giant statue of Slytherin's face. Jake thought that was pretty tacky and cringe. He couldn't believe the guy actually carved a statue of himself... multiple times because there were a bunch of other mini-Slytherin faces scattered all over the chamber as well.
Luna turned to Harry one final time and just looked at him expectantly. Harry just gave a resigned sigh before he walked up to the giant face statue and hissed at it... and nothing happened! Harry frowned and took on a pondering look for a moment before he hissed at it again. Once more, nothing happened!
Jake smirked. "What's wrong, Harry? Are you having performance issues or something?" He said jokingly as Harry and Hermione blushed at his crass comment. Ron didn't react... he didn't get the joke.
"I forgot..." Harry mumbled quietly, somewhat embarrassed.
"Wait, what?" Jake asked. "What did you forget?"
Harry's face was red. "I forgot the password, okay! It was two years ago, I was 12 and too focused on Voldemort's 16-year-old self trying to murder me to remember what the password was!" He said aloud. Everyone just stared at him.
"..."
"Well, good adventure, I guess, Luna. Don't invite me to the next one! Wish i didn't invite myself to this one!" Ron said as he turned around and headed back out of the chamber. Hermione scoffed but decided to just follow him out. She didn't want to come in the first place anyway.
Noticing his friends leave, Harry turned to Jake and Luna with a dejected look on his face. "I'm really sorry, Jake. I just can't remember it at all!"
Jake just patted Harry on the shoulder and gave him a small smile. "Don't worry about it, Harry. I was just messing with you a bit." Jake turned to Luna. "So, on a scale of one to ten, how important is it for us to get in there?"
Luna took an unusually serious look on her face before she placed her finger on her chin, and her eyes turned somewhat cloudy. She held that distant-looking thinking pose for about 30 seconds before her eyes became clear again, and she snapped herself out of her trance-like state. Jake watched all this in fascination. He had obviously suspected multiple times, but that pretty much confirmed that Luna was something special!
"I'd say about a solid 8!" Luna said cheerfully!
Jake nodded at that number, while Harry just looked confused. "Alright then, hold Blaze for me, Harry," Jake said as he handed off his tiny familiar. "We're getting in there, and you two might want to step back a bit." Jake's magic flared around him as spell circles formed in his hands...
-end chapter-
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