Chapter Eighteen
The common room slowly emptied as the cloak ticked away. They had, apparently, redeemed themselves enough for Sally to at least tell them to go to bed before stomping up the stairs. There was only a week more of term and Slytherin was definitely coming last in the house cup; ruining the seven year run Slytherin had had.
At eleven on the dot Daphne opened the common room door and pretended to look around the hall; once she felt the tap on her shoulder she went back in. They had a quick double check of the common room to make sure it was empty before Neville pulled the cloak off.
"How are you guys?" Neville asked.
"We're OK. Ready to go?" Harry asked.
Everyone nodded. They checked they had everything; wands, Pansy's flute and Daphne took a book of general magic.
Harry took Pansy and Daphne hidden safely under the cloak to the little cupboard just outside Fluffy's corridor.
"Are you two going to be OK?"
"Yeah we'll be fine." Pansy whispered.
Harry nodded and headed off. The girls huddled together waiting, every second seemed to last a minute as they were alone in the dark with no distractions. They could hear footsteps coming closer. Daphne went to open the door but Pansy stopped her.
"Wait we can't be sure it's them." Pansy pointed out.
They waited as the footsteps grew closer but then continued down the hall.
"I'm sorry….I can't..." there was a mumbled cry of pain and a few desperate sobs.
"Just...do...it! After tonight it will all be over!" another sick raspy sounding voice said.
The footsteps started again and faded away. Pansy and Daphne pressed up against the door holding it's shut even though it was already locked. Not daring to move.
"Aalohomora." Neville said as quietly as he could.
"It's just us." Harry whispered.
The lock glowed briefly and Pansy and Daphne let the door open. Harry pulled the cloak off him, Draco and Neville.
"Everything OK?" Pansy asked taking deep breaths to calm herself.
"Yeah we ran into Peeves but got rid of him easy enough." Draco smirked, "Harry pretended to be the bloody Barron."
"You girls OK?" Neville asked.
"Yes but someone came along. It was like there was two people, well two voices but only one set of footsteps. I couldn't tell who it was." Daphne explained.
"We best get going then." Draco said solemnly.
They moved out the cupboard and took a few calming breaths. Pansy pulled out her flute and began to play. Harry let the notes drift through the air few a few moments before opening the door. It was already unlocked a small harp sat in the room clearly used by whoever put Fluffy to sleep and that same person was already in whatever was under the trapdoor.
Fluffy lay just drifting in and out of sleep sprawled across the floor.
"You're really good at that." Draco whispered
Pansy rolled her eyes and kept playing walking slowly across the room. Thankfully the trap door wasn't covered by the large amount of sleeping fluffy dog. Draco and Neville pulled up the trap door between them and took deep breaths.
"I don't want to light my wand in case it wakes Fluffy up." Draco whispered, "I can't see the bottom."
"I'll go first." Harry said moving closer, "I'll call down to say it's safe. If you don't hear from me then just get out and send Hedwig to Dad. Tell every teacher you find."
"Harry don't be silly." Draco said shaking his head.
Pansy blew an extra loud note to tell them to hurry up. Harry gripped his wand in his teeth and carefully lowered himself down the trap door until he was holding on, dangling down the hole. He had really been hoping he'd be able to touch the bottom by this point.
With one big breath, before he could think about it to much, he let go. The air rushed around his ears as he felt himself fall. He was expecting a crash, and almost certainly a lot of pain. He was not expecting the painless squish and slight splat from whatever he landed on.
"I'm OK, there's a soft squishy thing down here to brake your fall." Harry called up, he could only just hear the flute music coming from above.
A few moments later, all five of them stood in a dark and damp room underneath the trap door. Draco pointed his wand up and the trapdoor swung closed plunging them into darkness. Fluffy waking up and moving slightly as the music stopped.
Pansy tapped her flute with her wand making it shrunk enough for her to pop it into her pocket. She was just straightening her robs when Daphne screamed.
"There's something grabbing my ankle!" Daphne cried out falling to the floor.
Draco tried to move towards her before falling; also covered in what felt like thick ropes squeezing him, "I'm caught too!"
"And me." Neville said struggling against whatever was grabbing them, "I can't reach my wand."
Pansy, who was the last down, quickly pulled out her wand, smacking away something trying to wrap around her wrist.
"Lumos!" She called and a bright light shone out from her wand.
They could all now see the plant-like veins spread thickly across the floor,
"It's devil's snare. I'm sure of it; mother loves herbology. No one struggle!" Daphne ordered, "It'll only get worse if we struggle."
Everyone froze as still as they could and the vines lessened their attack on the five children.
"Ok. We're nice and calm and not struggling. What do we do now?" Harry asked.
"Umm, it's shying away from the light so can you guys get to your wands?" Pansy asked, waving the light across the room to keep the plant still.
"No" they all answered.
"Ok well lets think...this room is dark because devils snare hates light. It's also damp and cold so fire?" Pansy asked
"Go for it." Neville said.
"Good job you taught me that charm Daph." Pansy muttered something and a bright blue flame shot from her wand.
The plant instantly recoiled back and let them go. They slowly made their way over to a small door and took a few deep breaths. Once they were safely away from the plant Daphne extinguished the flames.
"I think before we set fire to anything else we talk about it. Sensibly rather than risk being tied up by a plant burning to death!" Draco hissed.
"Well it worked." Pansy pointed out hissing back.
"Enough!" Harry snapped, "We have to keep going OK? This is challenge one out of a hundred for all we know. One out of a thousand. We have to keep going."
"It's OK Harry. Come on." Draco said pushing open the door wands at the ready.
They weren't sure what they were expecting but it wasn't, what at first glance appeared to be an empty, but very noisy room.
The five of them walked though slowly.
"What's that noise?" Pansy asked.
Harry tapped her on the shoulder, "Look up."
She looked up and saw the room was filled with brightly coloured birds, no not birds, keys with wings.
"What the?" Daphne asked wondering into the room. The keys didn't move, they didn't attack. In fact the five children might as well have not been in the room. They kept their wands out and walked to the door on the other side of the room and pulled on the door handle.
It was locked.
This didn't exactly surprise them. Harry tapped it with his wand and tried to unlock it.
"Alohomora. Alohomora!" he said, "That's a pain."
"It's the keys." Draco said, "Look brooms." he pointed to where three brooms sat up against the wall.
"So we catch the key and then we can unlock the door." Pansy confirmed
"There must be thousands of them though." Neville pointed out, "We can't catch all of them to try."
Harry looked up and scanned the fluttering keys. "That one."
"Which one?" Daphne asked, "And why?"
"It's an old silver one with blue wings. All the other keys look newish so that must be the right one, to match the door." Harry explained.
"Yep I see it." Draco nodded
The five of them walked over to the brooms and stopped.
"There's only three." Draco said, "So which two are going to stay on the ground?"
"Well I'll be one of them." Neville said, "I think it should be Draco, Harry and Daph. They're the best flyers I think."
The others nodded in agreement. Harry handed out the brooms and kicked off. The keys fluttered around annoyingly quickly. He nearly had it in his grasp before it darted away in another direction, he also managed to catch three that weren't the right key.
"You need to work together." Pansy shouted up, "Enough being Seekers and start being Chasers!"
Draco pulled his broom around seconds before he crashed into the wall. He signalled to Daphne to circle around and to Harry to go across the room. Draco and Daphne flew quickly towards the little silver key and herded it towards Harry who just managed to catch it. He swung upside down on his broomstick clutching onto the key with one hand while the other stopped him from falling to the ground.
Daphne quickly flew underneath him and took the key so he could climb back on his broom. The three of them landed and propped the broomsticks back against the wall.
"You got it!" Pansy said happily.
Harry took the key back and fought it into the lock. It turned and the door swung slightly open. Harry let the key go where it flew away quickly, it's wing even more crumpled than before and it's other wing looking worse for wear.
They pushed the door open and walked through.
"Well this one is pretty obvious." Neville sighed as they looked out across the giant chess board.
Several of the pieces looked like they had already been broken and repaired themselves.
"So assuming from the look of those pieces this is wizards chess; which means that some of us could get really really hurt." Daphne said looking across the board, "Are we sure we want to do this? What are we even going to do if we catch up with Professor McGonagall?"
"We distract her. Dad will give Dumbledore the message and he'll come help. We just have to keep trying until then." Harry shrugged, "But you're right that this one could get really dangerous so anyone who wants to go back should do so."
"We're sticking with you Harry." Pansy assured him.
"That's right, you're not doing this alone." Draco smirked, "You'd never have even made it past the mutt."
Harry smiled and they walked forward. Draco and Pansy, by far the best chess players walked up and down the board.
"Right no one move until everyone has agreed the move." Pansy instructed.
They all nodded in agreement.
"Right Pansy Queen, if you're up for it?" Draco said, Pansy nodded and went up to the queen who graciously gave up her spot, "Harry Castle. Neville bishop, Daphne knight and I'll be the other bishop."
They all took their places and faced the huge white pieces on the other side of the board.
"Well white goes first." Harry said as he spoke one of the white pawns moved forward making a loud grating noise as it's stone base moved along the stone floor.
"I'm taking lead but if anyone sees a normal piece move that would work better than the one I've suggested, just shout." Pansy said, "Pawn to D5."
They played quickly and ruthlessly through the game. Pansy was easily the best in her year and possibly the year above at chess but the white team was just as capable.
"Not Daphne knight to E2." Pansy said rubbing the back of her neck, that knight, the king and a single pawn were the only none alive players they had left.
"No wait, send it to C2." Neville suggested, "Otherwise the bishop can get it."
"Yes!" Pansy shouted excitedly, "Then Draco or Harry will be able to get checkmate if the king moves."
The knight slide forward into place; as expected the king through down his sword and bowed his head. The white pieces shuffled to either side allowing them to pass through.
The five of them rushed forward to the newly opened door, grateful to get out of the room. Behind them the chess pieces were already reforming to be ready for another game.
"I can't believe we all made it out of there unharmed." Neville said, "Well done Pansy!"
"Well done you too." Pansy smiled, "You saw the winning move."
No sooner had they walked through the door than they were hit by the horrific smell of troll. Harry clamped his hand over his nose and mouth so he wasn't sick. The troll itself was out cold on the stone floor.
"Clearly someone got here first." Draco said, "I'm glad we didn't have to fight this thing it's at least three foot bigger than the one at Halloween."
Harry stopped suddenly.
"Lets get out of here before it wakes up." Daphne suggested moving towards the other door, "Come on Harry."
They walked to the door when Harry told them to stop.
"Wait just here then we can get though the door if it starts to wake up." Harry said.
"What's up?" Draco asked.
"We've missed something. You said it was bigger than the one at Halloween which got me thinking. We assumed that McGonagall let in that troll as a distraction."
"So?" Neville asked
"So surely the chess set was her obstacle! So what's a troll doing here?" Pansy said finishing Harry's train of thought.
"It would be a bit of a coincidence." Draco said, "And I was so hoping it was McGonagall; she's such a bitch."
"Well it might still be her, we're just going to have to keep our eyes open." Daphne pointed out.
She pulled open the door and swept a low curtsy telling them to get in.