Some months later, around April, Dennis received another surprise. He had long since quit searching for the door every morning, despite Harry's urges that the door should be sought after with all their strength. But what did he expect? It had been months, and nothing had changed! Dennis had always pulled back the rug to find nothing but floorboards. 'Things don't just show up for no reason,' Harry had written to Neville. 'That door could be important, or at least useful in some way.' But what could be useful to Harry at Hogwarts, while he was away doing Merlin knows what? Ginny thought that meant Harry was planning on coming back to Hogwarts; perhaps he thought there was something in the trapdoor that could help him with his fight against Voldemort. But if the door could not be found, then it certainly couldn't be of much use.
In any case, Dennis had lost faith in the trapdoor. If it wanted to be found, it would be, right? Coincidentally, precisely as he had been thinking those thoughts, a door handle appeared under his feet on the floor.
Dennis subsequently tripped, falling flat on his face.
Groaning and rubbing his nose, Dennis sat up and make sure that no one had seen him slip. After he had deemed the coast to be clear, he began to get up and examine the thing that had most ungraciously caused him to fall.
What met Dennis's eyes was a simple metal handle rising out of what appeared to be the solid rock of the third floor corridor. With recognition dawning both in his mind and on his face, he reached down to take hold of it and as he did so, the floor around it began to change appearance from stone to wood. Seconds later, a trapdoor had completely formed in the center of the corridor.
Dennis awed over the door for a second, while wondering if this was the same door he had tripped over in the common room. After all, how many disappearing trapdoors could there be in one school? Should he run and find Ginny or Neville, and bring them to see it too? Or would it only disappear again?
Deciding not to take any chances this time, Dennis chose to go ahead and enter the trapdoor, warm clothes or not. He tugged it open (it was a rather heavy door) and looked down into the hole in the floor.
For that is what it was, a mere hole in the floor. He didn't remember it looking that way- All he remembered was the burst of cold air and the ensuing thought that the trapdoor must lead somewhere outdoors. But now he noticed that while the air was cold, it wasn't fresh at all, which successfully ruled out the idea that it lead anywhere on Hogwarts grounds. Interrupting his thoughts, gentle footsteps began to echo through the corridor. Just as quickly as it appeared, the door vanished. The ground in front of Dennis was once again stone.
Only seconds later, Luna Lovegood lightly stepped into the third-floor corridor to find Dennis Creevey sitting alone, looking immensely crestfallen.
"Are you alright, Dennis? You look immensely crestfallen."
Dennis sighed and muttered, "Yes, I'm fine. You wouldn't understand, anyway." Luna frowned. Dennis made no move to get up, so Luna gracefully sat down beside him.
"I think you would find that I understand quite a lot more than you think," Luna replied curtly, obviously offended. Dennis reasoned that this was probably true, since Luna was apt to understand things that didn't even exist, and quickly decided her trustworthy. But then again, he would probably have told her anyway, being teen-aged, upset, and a Creevey all at the same time. Dennis proceeded to tell her the tale of when he had first discovered the trapdoor, and his encounter with it only seconds before. Luna was a good and patient listener and gave him feedback in all the right places. Once Dennis had finished with his story, he asked Luna,
"Well, what do you think I should do?" He waited for her answer expectantly.
Luna put her hand to her chin and thought for a moment. Silence ensued. After a few minutes, Dennis wondered if she had fallen asleep. Seeming to come to a conclusion, she placed her hand back in her lap and said,
"First, we are going to tell Ginny and Neville what you have discovered. Then, you should wait for the trapdoor to appear again. I think you should all have your DA galleons with you, in case one of you finds it while the others are away. You're right, Dennis, this does seem very interesting. It seems as if this trapdoor is seeking you out. Perhaps it is trying to tell you something, or maybe it has something to show you." Luna looked terribly serious for just surmising that a door was sentient enough to follow Dennis around. Dennis supposed that was simply how Luna worked. However, what she was saying made a certain amount of sense… maybe he just needed to ask Ginny what she thought, too.