The Next Adventure

Graveyards have their secrets

"Should we follow him?" Asked Harry curiously. He really wanted to follow the other wizard, as his actions had raised tremendously his curiosity. But he was eager just as much to find out how much trust his newly discovered relative would blindly put to Merlin's decisions.

"I do believe we should" Fleamont answered confidently. "Merlin might seem a bit... off... sometimes but I assure you, everything he does, he does for a reason."

"How did you meet him anyway? And to be honest, shouldn't Merlin be dead by now? I never really read History of Magic but wasn't he supposed to have lived and died centuries ago? And the philosopher's stone is destroyed so I don't see why..."

"People sometimes choose their deaths and others have their lives chosen for them..." Fleamont said swiftly and stepped on the key looking at the spot where Merlin had disappeared moments ago.

"Wow, you and Professor Trelawny would make great small talk buddies..."

Fleamont turned to Harry and gave him the slightest smile, a mischievous smirk Harry remembered seeing on his dad's face in one of Snape's memories. After that, Fleamont followed Merlin through the portal.

Harry was left alone in the room. The silence was terrifying. Harry felt alone, forgotten by the rest of the world. Abandoned. If buildings had feelings, that's how the one around him would feel. He took a deep breath and then sighted, thinking that one day he should stop chasing trouble after he saw an opportunity to hide from it. He climbed at the edge of the key's bow and looked down.

"Here goes nothing" he said to himself and jumped inside the portal.

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The smell of rotten milk was the first thing someone would notice entering the room. The only source of light was a result of a lumos. The small white light's rays revealed the brutal and hard faces if the guests. Perhaps it would have been better if there was no light at all, since the light only brought creepy shadows to the previously dark room, making the environment even more uncomfortable. But then, they wouldn't be able to put the code.

"Deatheaters! Creatures of the night! Here we are, ready for our first victory! Because there is no losing in battling the dead. That is our mission after all. Now I can tell you"

"The dead? What are you saying Greyback?" A weak male voice echoed in the silence.

"You'll find out soon enough, Milthrazir. You'll find out soon enough..." Greyback said calmly before turning back to his followers:

"Beyond these doors lies a land long forgotten to our kind. It was concealed from  human eyes ages before us. It's creator might be known to you. The first sorcerer to defeat death itself! WE ARE HIS LEGACY!"

A roar of celebration came from the crowd. Grayback kneeled in front of the wall and whispered something in a strange language. The wall cracked in half and opened a new path to the darkness. Grayback stood up and Hector walked beside him.

"Didn't know you spoke Parselntongue" he said.

"I don't. But it is amazing what you can learn from ancient ruins." Grayback responded enigmaticly.

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"Where are we?" Harry asked as soon as his head stopped spinning from the trip.

"We passed through a portal to our destination" Merlin said calmly as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Which is..." Fleamont spoke after a small pause of silence, waiting from Merlin to fill them with more details about the whole situation.

"Take a look at where your standing and make tge deduction, it won't be too hard Fleamont, I find you clever enough to realise the engravings on the stone." Merlin continued.

Fleamont turned his sight on the floor and searched with his eyes for the clue Merlin talked about. After a few seconds he spotted a small semicircle engraved on the grey stone, only a few feet away from his position. As the rest of the drawing was hidden by moss, he walked there and cleaned and scratched it clean with his shoe. Once revealed, the drawing was agitating to Fleamont. He took a few steps back and turned to Merlin, his eyes glaring with fear and confusement.

"Herpo the Foul?" He muttered.
Merlin nodded unhappily.

"Herpo the Foul?" Harry's voice broke the awkward silence between their company.
"Isn't he that nutjob who created the first basilisk?"

"Ha, a Potter who actually paid attention at school..." Fleamont said surprised.

"I have a really smart friend" Harry replied.

"Have you faced such a creature before?" Fleamont asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, and I have to tell you, it was no fun. Absolutely no fun. I'm all in for adventure and doing the right thing but I do think I should have been, I WOULD have been traumatized if I hadn't already been."

"Herpo the Foul is also the maker of the first Hucrox ever created." Merlin added.

"Really loving this guy" Harry said ironically.

"Yeah, he can be trully annoying, I know, but we have to move"

And for the first time since they passed through the mysterious portal, Harry looked around.

They were in a forest out of willows. Their emerald leaves created a curtain around them. A path was going uphill, boarded by the trees, twisting and turning as it went up.

Merlin walked towards the path and Fleamont followed him closely.

For the first time in his life Harry was hesitating. There was nothing threatening in the path, and the sun was shining at the sky, but the danger of the unknown had stuck his feet to the ground. He had journeyed before to new and most of the times dangerous places, but he always had his friends near him, supporting him. His friends gave him courage. But now, he was alone, even though accompanied, ready to step into a new adventure.

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Up ahead, Merlin and Fleamont were walking up the path. Two friends, lost in time, old ruins that history had left.

"So where are we going?" Fleamont asked curiously but calmly so it wouldn't show.

"They are looking for the curse." Merlin answered unexpressionedly.

"The curse?What curse?"

"Herpo's curse. Why do you think he made a hucrox? Besides the obvious reasons."

"So he could finish his work if anyone killed him. His followers would bring him back...Like Lird Voldemort"

"Only worse. If Herpo's curse is enacted, all Muggles will be imprisoned in an alternate world. And then wizards can take over. They wouldn't have to live in the shadows anymore. It's a good thing it's still missing one ingredient."

"So they want to bring Herpo back to life as well?"

"No. They can't. He IS trully dead."

"How would you know?"

Merlin paused. He stopped walking and kept staring at the ground. After a few second he lifted his gaze and said:

"Because it was ME who killed him."