Ch 20: Another Adventure and a Deal?

"Boom!"

A massive explosion shook the chamber. Ron and Hermione, who had just left, ran back inside in panic, wondering what that giant explosion was? When they saw Jake standing next to the now completely destroyed giant statue of Salazar, they just deadpanned at him.

Jake gave them a friendly wave. "Hey, you two, welcome back. Guess what, the minor roadblock is cleared, and we're free to proceed."

Ron just left, gob-smacked, while Hermione put her hands on her hips and glared at Jake. "What the bloody hell, Jake? You just destroyed a priceless historical monument!"

Jake just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh… sorry, I guess." What was he supposed to do? According to Luna, they were in some kind of time rush here, and Harry had forgotten the damn password. So the answer was simple: blow up the statue, and you gain entrance, as simple as that.

"I don't really see what the big deal is," Ron said. "It's just some stupid statue of Slytherin. I say the world's better off without it anyway." Ron gave Jake a thumbs up.

"Jake, we really should keep moving," Luna reminded him.

With that, the group reunited. The five of them headed into the dried mouth of the statue to see what the inside looked like. After they made it past a slightly gross tunnel that was absolutely full of snake skins and even more animal bones, they came to a surprisingly intricate wooden door covered in Gaelic writing that Jake was surprisingly able to understand.

"Wow," Hermione said inspecting the ancient door, "this door looks absolutely ancient, and the writing on it is ancient Gaelic. Amazing! Nobody uses that language anymore. I wonder what the writing says on here?" She pondered out loud as she gently traced her hand along the letters, not wanting to damage them.

"I hate to break it to you, Hermione," Jake said, "but the writing says, 'Private Office of Salazar Slytherin. All mudbloods need to keep out!' And that's all it says…"

Hermione just scoffed. "I know you're just messing with me, Jake. It obviously doesn't say that. A refined man like Salazar Slytherin, who helped found Hogwarts, obviously would have a deeper message left on his door than 'Mudbloods keep out!' Hermione absolutely did not believe Jake. Unfortunately, it was the truth. That is exactly what was on the door… Jake figured it was better just to let that go and not crush Hermione's fantasies about the founders too much.

They went through the door and entered what was a surprisingly large office. There were a few separate bookshelves, all packed with books and scrolls that looked remarkably well-preserved. Jake figured that must be due to some kind of stasis spell or the like. In the very center of the room, carved into the floor, was the thing that really shocked Jake, though. It was a summoning circle, specifically a devil summoning circle! Serafall had shown him her own summoning circle before so he could tell that the circle carved on the floor was similar, but had a lot of noticeable differences in the letterings and markings. There were supposedly 72 pillars at one point, Jake figured, so this circle could be for any of them.

"Argh, I can't believe this!" Jake's pondering was suddenly interrupted by Hermione's devastated shouts. Jake looked over and saw that Hermione had immediately dove towards the books on the shelves and was flipping through them rapidly. "Every single one of these books is just written in squiggly gibberish code! They're not readable at all. What kind of monster would do this?"

Ron just scoffed and pouted slightly at the fact that there was no treasure even in Salazar's office, just a bunch of stupid books and some weird circle on the floor. "What a complete waste of time," he thought to himself. Harry, meanwhile, just picked one of the books up off the floor.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Hermione," he said, "I can read this just fine. It's written in English, after all." He started reading through the book he picked up. It was full of magical tea recipes. "That's somewhat disappointing…" he thought to himself.

"It's your Parselmouth magic that allows you to read those books, Harry," Luna said from off to the side. "You're the only person in the whole of Britain, besides Voldemort, who will be able to read those books. You should go through them. In a way, they could be considered your legacy, after all." Luna wisely gave advice to Harry. Harry, meanwhile, just looked mortified at the thought of having to read what had to be at least 50 books! Hermione, meanwhile, was devastated that Salazar's Legacy was denied to her simply because she wasn't a Parselmouth…

Jake moved to the center of the room to observe the magic circle carved into the floor more carefully. "So, the thing we came for, Luna, can I assume this is it?" He asked her, to which she just nodded in affirmation.

"So, what's that circle on the floor supposed to be anyway?" Ron asked, listening in on their conversation. It's not like there was anything else to do in this room. It was pretty barren, other than the bookshelf and that circle. Harry and Hermione also perked up at hearing Ron's question. They were curious too!

Jake, meanwhile, just let out an internal sigh. How does one go about explaining to three young teens that everything they thought was a myth was actually real? Well, he supposed he might as well just rip off the band-aid and say it out loud. "It's a…" he started, "it's a devil summoning circle."

Ron just scoffed, "Yeah, good one mate. Way to pull our legs. As if devils are actually real." He laughed out loud. Harry and Hermione, however, could tell from the expression on Jake's face that he wasn't kidding, or at least he didn't think he was. He was totally serious, they thought to themselves.

"Wait, are you for real?" Hermione exclaimed, "Devils are actually a thing? I've never read about them in a single textbook!" She said worriedly.

Jake looked a little bit nervous. This would be the first time he was ever metaphorically coming out to his human friends—minus Luna of course. She just seemed to know everything, so she didn't count. "Yeah, listen guys," Jake started, "the truth of the matter is that I am actually half devil." And as he said that, his devil wings sprang forth from his back! Harry and Hermione gasped in shock! Meanwhile, Ron… he fainted and collapsed to the floor. The other two didn't even bother helping him, too surprised at the wings that literally sprouted from their friend's back!

"Holy shit!" Hermione exclaimed, and that was only the second time Jake had ever heard her swear. He must have really surprised her!

"Language, Hermione," Luna joked off to the side.

"Well, excuse me," Hermione responded sarcastically, "I only just found out that not only do devils apparently exist, but my schoolmate is a half devil! And you, mister," she pointed her finger at Jake, "I have so many questions!" She said enthusiastically with stars in her eyes, causing Jake to sweat drop…

"I don't mind answering your questions later," Jake said, "both of yours," he looked over at Harry, who was still too stupefied to even say anything. Harry shook his head and snapped himself out of his funk. He just nodded, "Ok."

"But we are kind of on a timeframe here according to Luna."

Luna just nodded and slowly stepped forward towards the middle of the devil summoning circle carved on the ground. She pulled out a small knife from her robe pocket and pricked her finger with it, allowing a few drops to gently fall and splash on the circle. Immediately, the entire thing lit up with a bright glow as Luna took a few steps back.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Hermione said, shocked, "we're actually summoning a devil right now. Is it safe?" She asked justifiably.

"Well too late for regrets now!" Jake said with a laugh to which the still conscious member of the golden trio just glared at him.

The summoning circle on the floor started growing brighter and brighter, much to the shock of Harry and Hermione, while Jake and Luna just looked on. Slowly, two figures materialized right in the middle of the circle. One of them was an incredibly beautiful woman with brown hair and purple eyes. The other one looked like a 5-year-old boy dressed in a little tailored black and purple suit. He also had the same purple eyes as the woman.

Once the summoning was completed, the lights faded away, and the little boy eagerly jumped up and held his arms in the air, "Behold mortals! I am the super awesome Sairog Bael! And I am here to grant your—uhm—" he turned to the older brown-haired woman behind him, "what was that last part, mom?" He questioned her.

The older woman just let out a sigh of exasperation. "We've been over this before, sweetie. It's 'I am here to grant your request…' remember?"

The little devil boy just nodded, "Oh right, that was it," and he turned back to his summoners who were all just staring at him in slight confusion, and in Hermione's case, disappointment. She expected devils to look… not so normal. Also, why did they get a little kid?

Jake himself was also wondering why they summoned a kid devil. He turned to Luna to ask her, but she just gave him that knowing smile, and he chose not to say anything.

The beautiful older woman addressed the group of summoners, "I would like to thank you all for summoning my son and possibly being his first official contractors," she gave them a smile as she bowed to them in gratitude.

Jake just scratched his cheek, "Umm… you're welcome, I guess?"

Luna stepped forward and held out her hand for the little boy to shake, "Hi there, my name is Luna, and it's nice to meet you. I'm actually the one who wants to form a contract right now if that's okay," she said, and the boy eagerly nodded his head.

He was ecstatic to get his first official contract as a devil. "Hi Luna, my name is Sairog Bael, and I'm 5 years old!" he said happily.

Hermione, who was listening in and was even going so far as to ponder if devils age slower than humans, just facepalmed when she heard that he actually was 5 years old. She also wondered about what kinds of requests devils were capable of fulfilling.

Harry, meanwhile, was feeling a bit left out and decided to just go and talk to the mother devil off to the side. "S-so you're really a devil, huh?" He asked with a small initial stutter. She was absolutely gorgeous after all.

She just nodded a yes back to him, "Indeed I am." Harry noticed that she had an incredibly pleasant-sounding voice too. "Once again, thank you for summoning my son. Things lately have been… strained at home, and him getting his first official summons and contract will definitely cheer him up for a while. It's nice to meet you, by the way, my name is Misla Bael." Harry, ignorant of devils being even a thing until about 2 minutes ago, just nodded his head along like he understood the terms she was saying. Both of them turned their heads back to Luna and Sairog to listen in as to what kind of request Luna had for the boy.

"Okay, Sairog," Luna spoke in a normal voice for once, "this is super important, so I need you to listen carefully." Sairog was shaking his head up and down eagerly. This was a super important moment for him; he was absolutely listening! "My request is this," she continued and she pointed over at Jake, "when you're older and big and strong, I'm going to need you to lend a helping hand to my friend over there."

"Wait, what!?" Jake exclaimed as he listened in. He looked down at the little boy who almost could have had stars in his eyes for how excited he was that Luna apparently believed that he would be super strong in the future.

"Excuse me, miss," the boy's mother cut in from the side, "are you sure you want to make that request to my son? It's just that the thing about my son is…" she didn't want to say the rest verbally out loud. She and her son had been recently kicked out of the main house of the Bael Clan because it was found out that young Sairog didn't possess the power of Destruction. Misla wondered if this girl would end up being disappointed when she found out her son didn't have the power.

Luna just shook her head at Misla, "No, I'm absolutely sure Sairog is the one I want to fulfill this request. And to show my sincerity, I'm going to pay with this." Luna held up a small vial that seemed to be filled with some kind of clear liquid. "This is an entire vial filled with real phoenix tears. It took me two weeks of getting Blaze over there to cry for me a bit every day to fill it up," Luna said calmly. "The process involved a lot of bribery with bacon strips and feather scratches," she spoke that last bit quietly while looking over at Blaze in Jake's arms.

*Chirp!* The small bird chirped happily as it reminisced about all the delicious bacon and scratches it got just for a few measly tears. It was an absolutely fantastic bargain in Blaze's opinion!

Misla, meanwhile, was shocked to not only see a real phoenix but to also see a vial full of its tears! One should know that the Phenix Devil Clan sold a single one of their tears for around a million US dollars each, something that was extremely hard to afford for most devils. And those tears were generally considered to be far less valuable than genuine real phoenix tears! The vial in Luna's hand may be worth over a billion dollars…

"Okay, I accept your request," Sairog said eagerly.

Suddenly, the summoning circle that the two devils had arrived in started to glow all on its own…

-end chapter-

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