There was a decent amount of time for lunch after Flying Class, so Seth, Dean, and Roman took their time eating, then decided to explore the castle. The staircases sent them in seemingly random directions since they didn't need to be anywhere in particular.
"You think that Quidditch Club is going to work out?" Roman asked, "Rock and I used to play all the time with the neighbors back in Florida."
"I dunno, I've never played," Seth said.
"I keep forgetting that you're Muggleborn," Roman laughed.
"Whoa," Dean said a bit behind them. The turned around, Dean had found a secret passage behind one of the photos.
"Get out of there kids!" The woman in the picture cried.
"We'll only be a second," Dean said, crawling into the small opening.
"This is a bad idea," Seth mumbled, but followed his friend down the narrow passage, Roman hot on his heels.
"Lumos," Dean muttered, holding out his wand, a pale white light illuminated the
"Oh my god, that's a huge spider," Seth yelped sitting back on his heels as the light exposed a spider the size of a mouse right next to his head.
Roman crawled right into his stopped friend, and nearly knocked him into said spider.
"C'mon ladies," Dean called back to them.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you saw that spider," Seth grumbled, giving the spider as wide a berth as he could in the tight corridor.
They crawled for a couple more yards. It felt as though they were crawling down further and further underground.
Dean stopped suddenly. Seth bumped into him, and Roman into Seth.
"What?"
"Nox," Dean whispered, "there's light ahead."
He was right of course. A faint, green tinged glowing circle was up ahead. They quietly crawled towards the light. Once they got to it, Dean peeked out carefully.
"It looks clear," Dean said and climbed out of what was essentially a hole in the ground near a bunch of ferns.
"What the hell," Seth said once he was fully out himself, "It's a forest."
"The Forbidden Forest, I'd guess," Roman said, brushing the cobwebs off his pants.
"It's like a campsite," Dean said, poking around the clearing.
"There's something on that tree," Seth said, pointing to a tree.
The something was writing of some sort. It looked like 鈴木軍た一番です, but the lines were imperfect due to the nature of the medium.
"I can't tell what that is," Dean said.
All three boys gathered around the tree.
"Is it Chinese?" Roman asked.
"I don't think so," Seth said "Japanese probably."
"Oh it must be LIJ or something," Dean said.
"Who?" Seth asked.
"The Hufflepuffs," Dean replied, "Punk says there's a group of Hufflepuffs from Japan that call themselves LIJ."
"Oh, ok, it must be them,"
Roman decided. "We should probably get to class."
They headed back through the tunnel, closing the opening with a sleeping bag to keep the animals out.