Chapter 10: Hot and even hotter

After the Herbology class where Harry had received some nasty slaps from his chosen Tentacula, he had lunch and now he wanted to go for a walk on the Hogwarts territory. The weather was still quite pleasant, only dark rain clouds were slowly gathering on the North side of the horizon. Hermione and Ron had to help professors in the corridors – it seemed like it was impossible to go somewhere today without tripping due to the Leg-Locking Curse every five minutes. And, of course, the first-years didn't know how to remove it or otherwise protect themselves from it. However, Ginny had wanted to get ready for the Slughorn's class, which will be already the day after tomorrow. They had arranged to meet again for dinner. And Harry really felt like he needed to clear his head and just reflect on his thoughts – he had to think about the Trophy Room, how to find time for classes, and how to find time for his closest friends, because there was a lot to do and was also a lot of events.

Deep in his thoughts, he had walked for a long time until he got aware that he was near Hagrid's Hut. He knocked on the door, finding it worth visiting his friend since he had come this far. The door opened, revealing a giant who smiled widely in his bushy beard. "Hi, Harry. Come on in. Yer're right on the tea time."

Harry nodded and entered the giant's wooden house, greeting him. Hagrid immediately set fire to the fireplace and put water to boil – the tea should always be served to the guests.

"Well, how it's goin'? The first week at Hogwarts will be over soon," the giant said as he put tea leaves in the kettle and waited a moment for the tea to brew.

"It's all right for now. Only the homework has just started, and now it's more difficult," Harry replied.

"Well, of course, it's the N.E.W.T. year," Hagrid commented as he checked the readiness of the tea and, seeing it good enough, poured it into a mug he had put in front of Harry. "Look, I've got some apples there, maybe yer want some with yer tea?" the giant offered, pointing to a large metal bucket full of apples by the wall of the room.

"Yes, thank you," Harry said, and then he stood up and went to pick up an apple. He looked for a redder one and returned to the table.

"Look, Harry, why are you so quiet? I thought yer'd be more than happy to return to Hogwarts. Is really everythin' alright?" Hagrid seemed to be little worried.

Of course, the obtrusive thoughts of searching the Diadem had made Harry thoughtful and grumpy. When they had discussed this in the summer that the Diadem should be located in the Trophy Room, it had seemed so plausible, so possible. The last Voldemort's trophy, stored as a special treasure, as a special prize. Previously, the dark wizard had proved to be quite dramatic, trying to show off his superiority. As Dumbledore had once said, Voldemort would never hide the piece of his great soul into a grain of sand or in old worn-out boots. When it came to Voldemort, it definitely had to be something spectacular, something grand. Or maybe he had to take a look at this from a different angle – Ravenclaw's Diadem symbolized wisdom, so what if he had come up with something particularly cunning about it? If so, they could continue to search for the Diadem even for the rest of their lives and never find it. And that, however, then would mean that Voldemort would have truly achieved his goal of immortality, and that was something Harry couldn't let happen. Besides, the realization that this time Harry had to compete with Voldemort in wisdom, cunning, and persistence made him very gloomy. He rather preferred an open, understandable fight without any tricks.

But for certain reason, Harry didn't intend to tell his concerns to Hagrid, so he made the first excuse he had in his mind and which should also be treated soon. "Oh, Slughorn told us to learn how to prepare the Fire Essence, but I have no idea what to take as a raw material."

Hagrid took a swig of his tea and smiled at the young man. "Maybe I can help yer with that. There're Fire Seeds growin' somewhere between the edge of the Forest and my hut. When the fall comes, then I have to water the grass all the time. They aren't very common, but when they start to ripen, they fall to the ground and can burst into flames. Very useful if you have to go for a long hike, so when you get tired, you burst up the seed to get the flame and the fire is ready. And most importantly, it keeps on the fire for a long time, so yer don't have to waste yer own magic," Hagrid explained.

"Really? These would be useful for me. At least I would have done one of my homework. Thank you, Hagrid!" Harry felt a little more cheerful and put a small smile on his face.

As they drank the tea, Hagrid started to tell a long story about how he had used the Fire Seeds to keep the fire in his fireplace when he had Norbert's egg. Or more precisely – Norberta's egg. And now he had received news from Charlie that they had gotten another Norwegian Ridgeback, a male, and maybe the dragons will start to show interest in each other. Meanwhile, Harry just listened intently, occasionally inserting a word, "Really? Indeed? I didn't know!"

When their tea mugs were empty, Harry said goodbye to his giant friend and waded through the long grass in the direction to the edge of the Forest, wanting to find those Seeds Hagrid was talking about which should look like dark-red pieces of coal.

Arriving at the tall, slender trees of the Forbidden Forest, where the grass was already reaching to his knees, Harry actually noticed some shrubs with berries having dark rust color. Besides, the grass here was watered very wet here – as Hagrid had said – that's in order to not catch fire.

Harry rummaged in his bag and pulled out a handkerchief. He didn't have a more suitable container for flammable berries now. Well, time to practice for Thursday's Transfiguration class. He focused his mind and began to recite under his breath, "Turn, turn the handkerchief, turn the fabric into metal." He had never felt like a great poet, so sometimes he had some difficulty with the Transfiguration, however, this time the spell had worked and the handkerchief had turned into a hard metal plate. Now all he needed was to bend the edges – it could be done with a simple 'Bendio'. Look, the bowl was made – Harry supposed it had to keep its form until the class on two days after tomorrow. Now all he had to do was pick the very berries.

He went to the bush with dark green leaves and reached out for the first of the red berries, but immediately withdrew his fingers as he had burned them. The berry had indeed turned out to be hot – as Harry had touched it, it swayed and fell to the ground with a loud hiss. Harry didn't get confused; he used Wingardium Leviosa to levitate about the dozen berries in his bowl. As he conjured up a lid, he turned to leave, but then immediately froze – he had noticed something shiny in the grass. He leaned closer to it and his eyes widened in the surprise. It can't be!

Onto a wide leaf of grass, there was a big, shiny beetle, which had frozen at the exact moment as Harry had noticed it. He tried to quickly grab it with his hand, but he wasn't agile enough, and the beetle buzzed away, swiftly disappearing from his sight.

"Are you flying around here again? Don't you have anything better to do, Skeeter?" Harry yelled angrily after the beetle. The beetle didn't respond anything to his fury, however, the Forbidden Forest did.

"What?" a voice sounded somewhere high in the tree not too far away from the young man. "What, what?" soon other whatacrows started to chant along.

Harry began to feel uncomfortably as the hairs on his neck stood up, so he started to head back to the castle. Now he could hear the voices of whatacrows fading as they turned to ghostly whispers, sounding like there would be the dead talking. He felt like a cold chill went down his spine, and he hurried out of the long grass, carefully holding his bowl with the Fire Seeds.

As he looked at his wristwatch, Harry saw the time was close to four o'clock in the afternoon, which meant that in another twenty minutes, there is going to end Hermione's class of Ancient Runes – then he'll be able to tell the girl about him seeing Skeeter skulking along Hogwarts castle.

Meantime, Harry had managed to walk down to the castle and climb up to the Gryffindor Tower, where he put his picked berries on his nightstand, and then he found the classroom of Ancient Runes on the sixth floor, where he hoped to meet his friend. Soon after, rang the bell, and Luna came out of the classroom first as the door opened, and she was soon followed by Hermione Harry was waiting for. When she saw the young man's tense face, she realized immediately that something was wrong. Harry also didn't hesitate and started telling her right away what he had found behind his back on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

"If that Skeeter's buzzing around here, Harry, you need to brace yourself that in a couple of days, you'll have to read something horrible about yourself," Hermione foresaw, indignant at Skeeter's audacity. "Just look – this woman is able to nip in practically everywhere when she has turned into one bloody… beetle." The girl's outrage slowly subsided as a thought had come into her mind. She tilted her head and explained in more detail.

"On Saturday in the meeting with McGonagall, she said that when she and Flitwick had restored the security systems previously set by Dumbledore and Snape, they also had added the Animagus Detection Spell. It's for the means of the protection – in order that no one could simply fly in here and then start doing some kind of atrocities. Do you see what it means?" Hermione stated worriedly.

"If I understood you correctly, it might mean that McGonagall knows about all the Animagus who currently are in the territory of Hogwarts," Harry said as they both walked down to the library.

"Practically, you're correct. I suppose she only knows the fact if an Animagus crosses the boundary of Hogwarts protection shield, but, yes, in principle, she knows whether an Animagus has come in here or gone out of here. And if Skeeter can roam around here so freely, then who's helping her?" Hermione asked with a hint.

"You don't mean of Voldemort, don't you?" Harry replied to her with a question, frightened.

"No, no, hardly. However, if someone's helping her, that means there's someone who feels like your enemy," Hermione concluded. Harry simply chuckled about her statement as they slowly strode forward down the hallway.

"Aren't there enough Slytherins, whom I've done a bad turn? Just think about it – a nice, little trash story about the great Harry Potter. It's exactly what an enemy needs to spoil my day," Harry said bitterly. Soon, they reached the library door, through which he could see his beloved Ginny sitting on a chair and writing down something on a parchment from a book.

Harry and Hermione went to her and said hello. She answered them with a smile, putting her long red hair behind her shoulder. The girl's delight seeing him was, however, soon gone as Harry told her about Skeeter.

"That crazy witch," Ginny said. "She mocked Snape and now she's getting on the big fish. Hermione, really, do you still have that jar?" the girl demanded with fury in her eyes.

Hermione smiled at her friend's feistiness. "I see what you mean. But- Oh, Ron's here too." Their friend came into the library, bringing along with him two young, short girls, telling them about the giant spiders in the Forbidden Forest. He approached his friends and the girls had to go away with sad expressions on their faces when no one was paying any more attention to them.

"Hi, you all have come here, too? I swear they are getting lost even more with each day. I need to guide them around all the time," he grinned, but then he got confused by the angry and gloomy look on his friends' faces. "Did I say something wrong?" the red-haired young man said as he turned his head slightly to the side and frowned.

"No, Ron, you're perfect," Hermione replied without hesitation, "but Harry saw Skeeter flying around here." Hermione also told him about the protection set by McGonagall in order to detect the Animagus. Ron, who had initially felt very pleased with his girlfriend's unexpected appreciation, now seemed to look angry and scared.

"It's You-Know-Who," Ron stated.

"I already said it to Harry, when he mentioned the same thing – do we really lack enemies here? Anyone could've helped her," she explained.

"And the greatest of all our enemies is You-Know-Who," Ron persisted.

"Ron, it's ridiculous. We don't even know who had let her in, or if anyone at all had let her in," Ginny objected.

"Exactly, so we don't know either, whether anyone hasn't let her in," Ron argued. "Oh, well, let it be – for now we actually don't know anything for sure." The young man finally sat down next to his sister and asked what she was doing there, trying to distract everyone's attention from the topic about Voldemort.

"I'm reading about Alchemy. I was just getting interested in the managing of the elements. The Aberratius book wasn't saying much about it," she explained.

It seemed to Harry that Hermione winced upon hearing it. "There couldn't be anything much in that Alchemy – basically it's consists of the same Charms, Potions, and Transfiguration. Only Alchemy has its own macabre goal, but the principles don't change. The magic is the same; the question is just for what purpose it's being used."

"Hermione, I understand very well your dislike of that particular stone; I also had never wanted to write a diary again, but I was more curious about why Harry couldn't control the air element," she explained composedly not letting in her friend's grudge.

"But you have only had one Alchemy lesson. Maybe later you'll do rather well with the controlling?" Hermione suggested.

"I'm sure you'll succeed in Alchemy later, Harry," Ron reassured his friend, smiling at him. "Look, how much time is it left before dinner?"

"We have little more than an hour," Harry replied as he looked at his wristwatch.

"Maybe we could go and see how Kreacher's doing with cooking dinner?" Ron suggested.

"Ron, there's just an hour until the dinner; I'm sure you can endure that long," Hermione remarked.

"But the éclairs they make are so perfect. So light and puffy. So finger licking good. And isn't there really any book telling that sweets should be eaten before dinner?" Ron asked his friends, grinning mischievously. The girls laughed.

"Yeah, right," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "I rather think we should now go and investigate again that disappearing step while the seventh lesson isn't over yet. What if there's some kind of trick?"

"It's a great idea, Ginny," Harry replied.

The beef and bean stew was coming to an end on Harry's plate while he was having dinner with other schoolmates and professors in the Great Hall. The friends were still discussing the strange step about which earlier they hadn't found out much new – just that there was really a lot of cobwebs, dust, and some real, living spiders, and Ron, seeing one of them, had refused even to come near that hole.

"I suppose there's nothing more to it and it's just a joke step," Hermione finally concluded, sipping her pumpkin juice.

"Of course, there's something in it – and they are big and disgusting spiders," Ron said, wincing.

"Dear brother, you forgot to mention those cobwebs too. There were plenty of them, too. And they stuck very well to the fingers or wand," Ginny said, grinning as she looked at him knowingly through her forehead.

"And that's why my hands are clean now, because I had the sense to not put my hands into those disgusting things. So now I can eat this lemon bun with no worries. Though, you better check if you don't have any spider-poop left on your fingers," Ron objected arrogantly and acted as if carelessly removing a tiny dust from his fingertips.

"You had the sense or didn't have the courage, didn't you?" Ginny teased him. "There's nothing on my fingers that can't be washed away with water and soap," the girl scanned her palm.

"What do you say if we go to the Prefects' Bathroom?" Harry suggested, turning his head to Ginny. "I got dirty also when I waded through that long grass today, so I'd be happy to take a bath and at the same time we could check whether there's anything suspicious in there, too."

"Oh, Harry," she said, fluttering her eyelashes in the direction of the young man, "it's the first date and you are already taking a girl to a bath." Hearing it, Harry laughed.

"Well, if she's as perfect as you, then why not?" he replied, smiling just as mischievously.

"Well, I don't really know. What if my mom doesn't allow me to go?" the girl said, acting like being very shy.

"Whoa, whoa, what's going on between both of you now?" Ron demanded. "You aren't actually considering taking a bath together. Being completely naked!"

"Ron, calm down. You take baths there too, so you know it's so big there could freely fit in the whole Quidditch team," Harry explained seriously.

"But you just be aware – if Ginny will ever feel like she is hurt in any way, our friendship will be over," Ron threatened Harry, caring for his sister's honor.

"Ron, I trust Harry. And how could you even think that Harry could hurt me?" Ginny objected. She understood her brother's concern, but she also thought it was exaggerated and inappropriate. Of all the people in the world, Harry was the last to hurt her.

"Anyway, I've warned you, because she's my sister," Ron said, casting his friend another cautionary look, then he calmed down as he finished his lemon bun.

"Oh, look, McGonagall has finished her dinner already; she's getting up," said Hermione, who hadn't said a word in the conversation before.

"Then, wait for me please" Harry told his friends, "I'll go ask her something."

Ten minutes later, Harry met his friends at the Entrance Hall near the door of the Great Hall.

"I asked McGonagall about Skeeter, and she told me she had caught that woman and had expelled her out of the territory," Harry explained in a single breath as they began to climb up the stairs.

"That's good, it means it was her own idea to sneak in here, if McGonagall had caught her," Hermione said happily. Of course, she preferred a rational explanation rather than being ready to exclaim upon hearing every nonsense that it had to be Voldemort's work.

"Although, I made a mistake stating that it must be You-Know-Who, I'm still pleased that McGonagall had called that Skeeter on the carpet. It means – she did get what she had deserved!" Ron said victoriously.

"But I suppose, she'll manage to do the damage anyway," Ginny said grimly, climbing up the great marble steps.

"You could be right, but what could be so scandalous she could find out about me?" Harry guessed. "That I'm wandering along the edge of the Forbidden Forest picking berries? Like that's a big sensation."

"Just wait for it, Skeeter is actually able to make an elephant out of a fly," Hermione warned.

"But still, Harry is our hero and savior now. Then, she really must have some very intriguing material. Whatever gossip wouldn't be enough otherwise the public will take it hard on her," Ginny said wisely.

Still discussing the vices of Skeeter, Harry and Ginny said farewell to Ron and Hermione on the first floor and then continued their way up to the fifth floor, coming out in a long hallway, where there was the Prefects' Bathroom not far from the statue of Boris the Bewildered. Coming closer to it, Ginny admitted she had never been there, though she was the Captain of the Quidditch team last year. Last year, this bathroom had been more of the Slytherin privilege, and unless you weren't eager to get to the Hospital wing with the effects of some kind of unpleasant curse, others – especially Gryffindors – had avoided using it.

"You'll like it, you'll see," he said, trying to reassure her. "And I'll show you my favorite bubbles. Nettle Balm," Harry said the password, and then there opened the stone door, revealing the aisle to a neatly tiled, clean and tidy bathroom with a picture of a mermaid on stained glass window at its far end, and under it was a huge, tiled pit built inside the floor, having a flock of various sizes and types of faucets and taps at one of its sides.

"We're here; look – there, at the far end, is the bathtub." Harry pointed with his hand to the direction of the opposite wall of the room.

"The bathtub, seriously? If only for Grawp," she said, chuckling. Harry then led her closer to the undersized pool and opened the large water taps and the water started to fill inside the bath incredibly quickly, with the water level apparently rising. Harry opened one tap, rejoicing at the bouncing splashes of soap; then he opened another from which gigantic pink bubbles came out, slowly floating just above the water surface. Then he left his girlfriend so she could investigate the bubbles and soap as she wished, and he began to examine the walls of the Prefects' Bathroom.

"I'll take the bath first, okay?" Ginny asked.

"Yes, of course. I won't look," Harry promised. He had begun knocking along the walls with his wand, occasionally saying, "Open," or trying the same in Parseltounge. It seemed the far wall was like any other walls, but in the meantime, the girl had stepped into the bath and had started to dabble, however, Harry determinedly didn't look at the direction of her.

After few moments Ginny said, "Look, this bath is so huge, you can easily come at the other end of it. These white bubbles are really functioning like clothes."

Harry looked at the bath and saw that his girlfriend had stepped into the thick bubble foam that covered all the top of her body to the chin, and now she put on her head a heap of foam as a hat. She turned to the side and tilted her head a bit. "See?"

"Only what if Ron will throw the book at me?" Harry objected, lightly smirking, but it was true – her suggestion seemed to him as enticing as well as pleasant. Harry went to the edge of the bathtub and began to take off his shoes.

"But then, what's the point of being an adult if I still have to listen to my older brothers?" Ginny said, slyly, and then soon turned away as Harry had started to take off his robes. There sounded a splash and the young man had submerged into the water, too. At that time, in his fourth year, the bathtub had seemed extremely deep, but now the water reached only to his chest.

"But at the end, that book will land on my face," Harry finally replied to his girlfriend, who had now turned to face him and was trying to make a matching foam coat for her hat.

"Don't worry, I'll defend you. And lest that evil Ron go fry an egg," Ginny said strictly.

"You're such a sweet sister," Harry concluded, grinning. Besides, he couldn't stop looking at the girl. He wanted so much to get closer to her, but maybe he shouldn't? He automatically touched his face.

"Wait, but Ron's not your only brother. Maybe I should beware your other brothers, too. They could easily beat the pants off of me," Harry acted as frightened.

Ginny laughed. "You already have your pants off just being with me," the girl chuckled boldly, but then immediately blushed. Suddenly, they both realized they were actually naked in the same bathtub and had slowly started to move closer to each other unconsciously.

The girl seemed to recover from her embarrassment and had regained her flirty mood. "See, I made a formal dress for myself, maybe I could also help with it you too, Mr. Potter," she suggested, lifting up a huge pile of foam bubbles.

"Um, okay. Just don't mix it all up," Harry added. Ginny laughed again. She came even closer, gathering along with herself a huge amount of foam. When she was a couple of feet away from him, Ginny had pushed together a whole mountain of foam that towered over her head.

"So, the raw materials will be enough for us. Well, what do you wish for? Let's start with a shirt or a hat?" she smiled sweetly as she pretended to be actually selling some clothes.

"Um…" Harry just managed to breathe out, but Ginny had already taken a pile of soap and put it on his head. "There's a top hat for you," she said, cheerfully, but then, looking at her craft, she concluded, "No, it actually looks more like a beret."

Harry wasn't able to answer at this very moment – suddenly, his mouth felt dry and his heart was pounding unusually fast, not even mentioning those butterflies dancing their Congo dance in his stomach. He could just stand there and gaze at the redhead and obey to her every whim. Moreover, the mermaid, who had been lazily lying in the stained glass window, had suddenly begun to look extremely ugly compared to the creature in front of him just two steps away.

"Give me your hand – now, let's get you dressed properly," Ginny continued to play her imagined game, but Harry noticed that her cheeks had turned pink as well, and she seemed to have started to take deeper breaths.

Harry slowly stretched out his hand towards her, and when she touched it lightly, it seemed to him as if an electric current had shot up his arm, instantly going deep down to his stomach, rampaging the butterflies even more. At the same time it he felt like it was harder to think – his mind was only doing one job right now frantically calculating the shortest and fastest trajectory to his girlfriend's lips. Ginny put the foam on his lower arm and Harry inhaled deeply. The girl stopped for a moment and draw just as deep breath as him.

It seemed his mind had finished its calculations, so Harry pulled her closer and kissed her lips as he leaned in his head. They tasted sweet and pleasant, and she groaned in satisfaction; this sound sent another electric thrill through his body making his blood circulate even faster. He embraced Ginny and deepened their kiss.

They enjoyed every second of their kiss as their lips gently caressed each other, then pressing harder together occasionally, until Harry felt that she's not able to stand properly on her feet anymore, so he turned and pressed her against the side of the bathtub. Ginny instinctively moaned and Harry felt like the sound she made had swept away the last few conscious thoughts out of his mind. He pressed her against the tiles of bathtub with his body and leaned in to place a kiss on the neck as he slid off the thick foam of her shoulder.

"Harry," Ginny managed as she let out a deep breath. Not hearing his answer, Ginny grabbed his head, which he had already lowered to her shoulder.

"Harry, please stop," she repeated, now more firmly and clearly.

It was not so much that he had heard her, but rather he had felt the touch of her hands, so he hurriedly lifted up his head and kissed her again on her lips. Apparently, a second later, a realization had come into his consciousness that she had said something. He immediately pulled away from her lips, even though she had responded to his kiss.

"Sorry, did you say anything?" Harry asked, looking at her beautiful face where her pale skin on her cheeks was spotted with light freckles, and her dark chocolate eyes were burning with fire. She had parted her pink, full lips, and now she inhaled a really deep breath.

"Harry, I think we should stop bathing. Don't take this the wrong way – you undoubtedly are a great kisser – but I think it'll be enough for today. We'll definitely repeat it another time, but for now… let's get out of this bathtub, okay?" Ginny said.

Harry understood what she feared. "Yes, of course, but you get out the first. I'll need a moment to… finish my bathing," he stated timidly.

"Yes, alright. I'll get out then," Ginny replied, blushing. She gave a quick kiss on his lips and right away started to move to the opposite side of the bathtub where she had left her clothes. Initially, her pace was a bit wobbly, but as the distance between them grew wider, her steps became firmer. As his girlfriend was about to climb out of the bathtub, he turned his gaze away and looked at the stained glass with the mermaid.

They had kissed quite passionately many times in the summer before, but now that she was completely naked in front of him – although her body was all covered with a thick layer of foam – he had felt her frame with his hands and his body, awakening in both of them unknown feelings; Harry was sure she had felt the same way, and that was why she had asked him to stop. Because perhaps just a moment later, both of them wouldn't have had their minds clear enough to be able to resist this temptation of such passionate feelings.

Even now, the sensations were so intense that he wished the water in the bathtub to be much colder – then it could be easier for his body to cool and calm down. But Harry's mind certainly didn't allow for the possibility of not wanting to know what it would've been like if Ginny hadn't asked to stop.

One had to be crazy for not wanting to feel something like that. I don't understand how Voldemort could live without it… Suddenly the thought in his mind stopped. Was it really so certain? He knew that Voldemort, with his ripped apart soul, was incapable of loving somebody, but this feeling – to desire a woman – wasn't actually so much like a love. It was rather selfish. Of course, he loved Ginny, but right at this moment in the bathtub, when he had pressed her against the tiled wall and had felt her enjoying his kisses and proximity, he had felt the lust and desire to be even closer to her, to embrace her more tightly and harder. What if this feeling wasn't foreign to Voldemort? After all, he was able to show happiness, sorrow, joy or other common emotions, so then why he couldn't be able to lust for a woman?

"Harry, I think I found something," Ginny exclaimed, standing by the side wall of the bathroom.

Harry immediately turned his head towards her. The girl, dressed in her robes and her other clothes, knocked along the wall with her wand. "Do you hear – it sounds like there's some kind of void behind the wall."

"Wait a minute, I'll get dressed," he said hastily. Fortunately, the thought about Voldemort had distracted his mind from the girl's slender body, and his own body had cooled and calmed down, so Harry quickly got out of the bathtub and dried himself with a spell, and then swiftly put on his shirt and trousers, a second later putting on also his robes. Then he just needed to put on his glasses and shoes, and he was already standing next to Ginny.

She knocked again at the same area of the wall, pointing out that the sound here seemed to be suspiciously hollow. Harry tapped that section of the wall with his wand and said, "Open."

As being hit by a charm, there opened a rectangular section of dark stone wall, revealing a black entrance hole of the passage.

"Well, are you ready for adventure?" Harry said, smiling at her, and she nodded in agreement.

Having lit the light at the end of their wands, they both entered the dark passage, whispering their guesses where it could lead. It seemed to be going upwards, and given the thick dusting, it also seemed like no one had used it for a very long time.

So far, there in the passage wasn't anything unusual, it had no side aisles, and they were able to move forward quite freely, standing straight, but the gangway was very narrow, so Harry went in front of Ginny. Slowly and carefully, going upward for about five minutes, Harry felt there was sweat formed on his forehead. Wiping the sweat with his sleeve, he said, "Is it just me or is it actually getting hotter? I don't think this is going to be another exit of Hogwarts."

"Yeah, I'm also sweating too, and it's not because of fever," Ginny confirmed.

Harry chuckled anxiously, casting his gaze over his shoulder to Ginny. "I suppose we aren't getting close to the center of the Earth, eh?" he joked, remembering Jules Verne's novels he had read back in those days in the Dursley residence.

"Why there would be the center of the Earth at Hogwarts?" she didn't understand him. Harry was about to reply that it was just a bad joke when suddenly Ginny stopped him as she grabbed his shoulder.

"I don't know anything about the center of the Earth, but I'm ready to bet on five Galleons and a Pygmy Puff that we have found a passage to the Hogwarts Hell," Ginny stated. When Harry stared at her with a puzzled look on his face, she explained what she had meant, "I think in front of us is the Room of Requirement where there's still raging Fiendfyre inside. The Fire of the Hell."

"Oh, right. It really is the most hellish place in Hogwarts right now," he agreed.

"Better let's go back then; I fear the fire could break out at any moment. We don't know how strong the wall is in front of us. And where does this passage leads, we've already found it out," Harry said as he turned around to face Ginny. She nodded. The wall didn't look good in front of them – it was red-hot, glowing with heat.

"You are right, let's go away."

Sitting on their chairs in the library, Harry and Ginny had told about their latest find to Ron and Hermione. Hermione had immediately agreed that behind the hot wall was definitely the Room of Requirement, especially since the passage had also led upwards.

"I think it might have been an old passage created by the Room of Requirement to link itself with the Prefects' Bathroom. If it had once been created, then why it shouldn't remain there?" she thought out loud.

"By the way, guys, I was beginning to wonder that we actually don't know whether Voldemort really hadn't been with a woman," Harry said.

Before Hermione or Ginny could say something, Ron had already growled, angrily, "And how has that particular thought come into your mind?"

"He simply thought of it and that's all you have to know," Ginny replied to his brother, harshly. "If you keep sticking your nose into something that's not your concern, just you aware – you could easily end up like Voldemort – noseless!" she exclaimed furiously, blushing slightly.

"Please, don't joke like this, okay!" Ron said as his ears turned into the shade of radish red. Hermione seemed to feel uncomfortable, too, but she was finally able to express her thoughts.

"Harry, I suppose no one knows it for sure whether he had been with any woman or not, and whether he has any children – and even more, if he actually has a descendant, it is not known whether he or that child actually does know the truth. That is, don't we forget that he actually isn't capable of love, so I doubt he would have stayed with a woman for such a long time to get to know at all that she was pregnant."

"Um, but how about that Bellatrix?" Ginny offered. "She was his favorite officer after all."

"But she was already married to Lestrange," Ron objected.

"But that doesn't exclude that she could have been, as the saying goes, having relations with Voldemort," Hermione said.

"Unlikely. She had already spent loads of time in Azkaban. If she had indeed given birth to Voldemort's child, then he or she should have been older than us, but no one has ever heard of such a child," Harry concluded, thoughtfully.

"Harry, although, your theory is really interesting, but it's not at all related to our task of finding the Diadem or at least – finding out what has really happened to it," Ginny replied.

"You're right," Hermione agreed. "So tomorrow, we'll ask Flitwick about the Locator Spell. I think it could be the most effective method."

After spending the evening still discussing these topics and doing their homework, eventually the young people had gone to sleep with high expectations for tomorrow. Though, Harry's mind, before he fell asleep, couldn't resist imaginary scenery how it could've been if the bath hadn't been so full with the foam.