"Sorry, Aunt Petunia."

Chapter 14: The Most Awaited Moment

Really, it shouldn’t have been any surprise at all that barely half an hour later all five of them stood before the locked door on the third floor.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Neville asked.

“You don’t have to go with us if you don’t want to,” Draco scoffed, trying to hide the note of hurt in his voice.

“No, no, I’m coming,” Neville said immediately. “Somebody’s got to act as the voice of reason.”

“Are you calling me stupid?” Hermione asked in a huff.

“I’m just saying you’re all a little bit too interested in what’s under the trapdoor to consider the possible dangers.”

Hermione looked pretty skeptical.

“Aaaalso I’m the only one who can sing well enough to hopefully send a Cerberus to sleep.”

“Fair point.” Ron nodded. “Can we go inside now?”

"We better get this over with before anyone notices we're gone," Harry added, clearing the way for Hermione. She was still the only one who'd mastered the unlocking spell, no matter how hard Draco tried to pretend otherwise.

The door swung open and the five of them piled inside.

Ron pulled the door closed while Neville started singing a wordless tune, cutting the Cerberus' soft growling in half.

It took no time at all for all three heads to nod off, leaving the trapdoor sandwiched between its left head and the rest of its body, although still leaving it accessible.

Draco was the first to reach it, pulling it open with a spell. Whoever had put the Cerberus inside had clearly thought that locking the trapdoor would've been overkill.

The children stared down into the dark hole.

"How deep do you think it goes?" Ron asked, standing slightly too close to the edge for anyone's comfort.

"Only one way to find out." Harry shrugged, stepping right into the middle of the nothingness.

The only thing stopping him from plunging straight down were the four pairs of arms now clutching onto him.

"Are you actually insane, Harry?" Draco asked, pushing him out of the danger and instead into Ron's waiting arms. "There're plenty more ways to find out!"

As if to prove it, he cast a spell - Harry could only recognize the 'Lumos' part of it - creating a globe of light spiraling down into the abyss.

There was perhaps a ten-foot long drop before a plant could be seen growing at the bottom, its big, meaty leaves curling away from the light.

"~It's a Devil's Snaaare~," Neville sang.

Both Ron and Draco blanched.

"How do we deal with that?" Harry asked, looking at Hermione. She answered with a shrug, the words of 'I don't know' too bitter to pass through her lips.

"~It doesn't like fire~." Neville rolled his eyes. "~Hermione, you have some fire~?"

Ron grinned. "She set Snape on fire, of course she's got some."

"You set Professor Snape on fire?" Draco exclaimed incredulously.

Right, Hermione thought while fighting down a blush. Both Harry and Draco had been in the air at the time.

"Irrelevant," she said primly, producing the jar of blue flames from her robes' pocket. "How do we get down there?"

"Jump?" Harry proposed. "The plant will break our fall."