AN: Chapters are going to be shortish for a while.
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"Careful, Hermione, it tastes foul," said Ron as Harry doled out the doses. The reddish light of the dying common room fire gave the ordinarily green potion a sickly orange tinge.
"There, that's three tablespoons for each of us, that should be plenty," said Harry. "And here's our doses…remember, save a drop for each of your clothes…"
Ron looked queasily at the dose Harry handed him. "Couldn't we just put one drop on a cloak or something, and put that on?" he asked.
"What? No. A cloak? That would be a tremendously bad idea—imagine if it got caught on something, or if you took it off and left it somewhere. It's safer this way. Anyway, none of us has a big enough cloak. Don't be such a big baby, Ron, it's not all that bad."
"Well, at least it's not a tablespoon, like last time."
"You're sure twenty minutes will be enough, Harry?" Hermione asked.
"If not, we can just take some more. Come on, it's getting late. For all we know he could be there already."
They downed their doses, Ron holding his nose and making terrific grimaces the while. Hermione seemed more scientifically interested in the effects, as it was her first time drinking the stuff.
"Your father was a clever sort of man, wasn't he?" she asked as her fingertips dissolved.
"I guess so," said Harry. "I rather wish I'd known him. Inventory check."
"Wands? I have mine. I've been looking up defensive spells all afternoon."
"Got mine," said Ron's disembodied head.
"Me, too," said Harry.
"Let's see," went on Hermione, "Neville and Lavender and the others have all been charmed to sleep through the night, so they won't notice we're gone, I hope there's not a fire or anything…music for Fluffy?"
"I have the pipe Hagrid gave me for Christmas. And I dunno if singing will work, but I guess we'll find out if we have to."
"Trust me, you don't want to hear me sing….And we're all sort of roped together, and we know the spell to cut ourselves apart in case we need to split up…extra doses…anything else?"
The Fat Lady had left her portrait to go visiting by the time they climbed out of the hole. They couldn't see each other's faces, but Harry was pretty sure Ron and Hermione were thinking the same thing he was: as soon as that portrait swung to, there would be no going back through, maybe for hours or maybe all night. They'd have to go through with it if they let it close behind them….
It closed.
At first it looked like everything was going according to plan. They passed by both Mrs Norris and Filch, but neither of them had so much as turned a head. They hadn't gotten lost, or knocked anything over. They arrived at the door without a mishap of any kind.
"I'll unlock it," said Hermione. Harry felt her brush by him, and heard her whisper "Alohomora." The lock clicked, the handle turned, and the door swung inward.
"Start playing," hissed Hermione as one of Fluffy's heads perked up at the sound. Harry groped in his pocket, grabbed the pipe, and began to play—not really a tune, but apparently it made an acceptable soporific, because the dog's eyes began to droop at the first note. As soon as he was really asleep, Ron and Hermione dragged the trapdoor open.
"Want to go first, Hermione?" Ron teased.
"No, I don't!"
"I'll go," said Harry, taking his lips from the flute for a second and a half, which was just long enough for Fluffy to open one eye before the music sent him under again.
"You want to go first? Are you sure? I don't know how deep this thing goes—give the flute to Hermione…"
He did; Hermione was if possible even worse on the thing than he was. Harry peered into the deep blackness.
"If anything happens to me," he said, "just go. Go get Dumbledore, maybe. You might get expelled, but don't follow me unless you hear me say it's okay, because whatever Hermione says, you'd better be expelled than dead…"
He cut the rope connecting him to the other two, held his nose, and jumped, like one jumps from a diving board. Cold, damp air rushed past him as he fell down, down, down, and—
FLUMP.
With a funny, muffled sort of thump he landed on something soft. He sat up and felt around, his eyes not used to the gloom. It felt as though he were sitting on some sort of plant.
This'll be Professor Sprout's…better to get away from it…
Sure enough, as he scrambled away he felt little tendrils curling around his legs, trying to hold him down. He struggled away until he felt solid, if damp, stone beneath his feet, and looked up at the light, a postage stamp-sized square in the distant ceiling.
"It's all right," he called. "You can jump, there's a sort of plant, but get off it as fast as you…"
A second FLUMP. "What is this stuff?" said Ron's voice.
"Dunno, but it eats you if you stay too long, hurry up off toward my voice…"
When Ron's feet hit the stone with a squelch, he called up "It's all right, Hermione! You can jump!"
The distant music stopped, Fluffy gave a bark, and a dark shape hit the plant with a doubly-loud FLUMP.
"Ow! Harry? Ron?"
"Over here," said Harry. "Don't let it eat you. Watch out for the tentacles. Don't stop moving till you reach the stone…"
"Oh, this must be a Devil's Snare," said Hermione.
"Because if you dropped Hermione in the middle of the ocean she'd tell you what kind of bulrushes she'd landed in," muttered Ron.
A bright blue fire erupted to light the invisible Hermione's way, and the plant shrank back from the heat and light.
"Thanks," said Hermione's voice as it landed beside them. "But bulrushes don't grow in the ocean, they grow in fresh water."
"Right then, this way," said Harry, striking off down a corridor, the only way forward.
The passage sloped downward. They must be a mile under the school. Underground. What sort of things live underground? Goblins, like at Gringotts? Gringotts had a dragon. Maybe dragons live underground. Would there be a dragon?
"Can you hear something?" Ron whispered.
Harry listened. A soft rustling and clinking seemed to be coming from up ahead.
I wonder….
"There's a light up ahead, can you see? There's something moving."
They reached the end of the passageway and saw before them a brilliantly lit chamber, its ceiling arching high above them. It was full of small, jewel-bright birds—no, not birds; Harry looked more closely—they were keys, hundreds of glittering keys, with wings all the colours of the rainbow. On the opposite side of the chamber was a heavy wooden door with a big, old-fashioned silver lock.
"Looks like we have to catch the right key," Harry said. Ron squinted at the flurries of wings. Harry saw that Ron and Hermione and Harry's own arms and legs were starting to come back into focus, like a picture being developed.
"How are we supposed to catch it when it's thirty feet up in the air?" Ron said. "How are we even supposed to find it?"
"Dunno. Let's go take a look at that lock, though. Maybe there's another way to open it." They started across the room;
"Like that Al—Alamo—that thing Hermione used on the outside door, you mean?" Ron's freckles slowly faded onto his face, like stars coming out.
"Alohomora, you mean," Hermione said. "And they would have thought of that, it's a fairly simple spell, but I might as well try it, sometimes clever people overlook important things, or maybe it's a puzzle with an obvious answer, like the joke about the chicken crossing the road."
"What joke about the chicken crossing the road?" Ron asked.
Harry and Hermione actually stopped walking to look at him. By now his hair stood out bright and red and clear, and they could see the puzzled line between his eyebrows.
"Er, never mind," said Harry quickly. "We'll…we'll talk about that later. Here's the door…."
Hermione tried Alohomora, but it didn't work. Then Ron held out a pin that had been holding together a rip in his bathrobe and they tried picking the lock.
"This is not going to work," said Harry at last, handing the pin back to Ron.
"Of course it doesn't work," drawled an all-too-familiar voice behind them. "It's a Bluebeard lock."
They turned and stared at the middle of the room in horror. Draco Malfoy stood there, smiling sardonically, a dilapidated old broom in one hand and a large, silver, blue-winged key in the other.