Harry Potter : In the shadow of divinity26.19%

Chapter - 22 : Breaking Traditions part - 3

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(P).(A).(T).(R).(E).(O).(N)

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Harry, who Blaise was quickly beginning to learn was a magnet for trouble, had been running from the mischievous poltergeist, Peeves, and his spitball projectiles when he'd ducked into the corridor they'd been warned they were forbidden to enter at the very start of the year and found himself face to face to face to face with the massive, three headed hell hound.

Blaise and the others had been understandably unimpressed; the troll had been one thing, it had been an accident and no one had been hurt, but there was no way the headmaster didn't know the Cerberus was being kept in the castle, he'd warned the students not to wander into its residence at the very beginning of term after all. Honestly, it was only a matter of time before a student stumbled upon it, Harry was lucky his encounter had ended in disaster.

Of course, the green eyed Slytherin didn't see it that way, as a matter of fact, he wanted to go back. He claimed the Cerberus had been guarding something, a trap door from the looks of it. Wouldn't it be exciting to find out what was being hidden beneath the Cerberus?

Blaise had most emphatically told him that it would not, in fact be fun, it would be the exact opposite of fun; Ron, Draco, Hermione, and Neville had agreed with him immediately. Harry gave in easily enough, but Blaise promised himself he'd keep an eye on his housemate anyway; he was the slipperiest of sorts. It was no wonder they got on so well.

To Neville's undying relief, Harry dropped all matters regarding the Cerberus and the trapdoor and didn't bring it up again. Though his gaze did take on a particularly dangerous glint every now and then, most notably when they were close to where he knew the creature was hidden. The thought of intentionally returning to where the Cerberus resided just to find out if there really was a trap door, and if there was, what lay beneath it, didn't exactly sound like a good time to Neville. However, he hadn't wanted to be the one to go against Harry, he'd never had so many friends at once, or really any friends for that matter, and he hadn't wanted to muck it all up by being a coward. Fortunately, Blaise had no such problem and had managed to dissuade Harry with an admirable quickness and, for a time, things were good.

The first term ended and Neville returned home to visit his Gran and a few of his other relatives; they'd been overjoyed both by his placement in Gryffindor and because he'd found himself a nice collection of friends, of which Harry Potter himself was a part of. Gran was a bit hesitant about him associating with a Malfoy, but Neville managed to convince her that he was different from his father in every way that mattered. He wasn't crazy enough to call himself Malfoy's friend, but they could be considered associates at best and he liked to think that, between himself, Ron, and Hermione, Malfoy found him the least intolerable. He often found himself mediating the arguments between those three when Harry wasn't around and Blaise couldn't be bothered.

The second term started off fairly quiet, outside of a few confrontations with one of the older Slytherin's, things were calm. But then, of course, Harry had to go and make friends with the half giant groundskeeper, Hagrid, who had a particularly unhealthy love for creatures with sharp teeth and razor talons and was, unfortunately, a bit lacking in the common sense department. The man had thought it would be a good idea to attempt to raise a dragon in his tiny cabin on the outskirts of the castle's grounds, his tiny wooden cabin to be exact. Harry and Ron had teamed up on that one to convince Hagrid that the dragon would be happier living on a reserve with other dragons like him. It'd taken a fair bit of time to persuade him, but eventually he gave in and the six of them had risked a lifetime's worth of detention to smuggle the dragon off of the grounds and too one of Ron's older brothers.

With all of the commotion surrounding Norbert the baby dragon as well as the quickly approaching end of term exams, Hermione, Draco, Blaise, Ron, and Neville himself had almost forgot all about the Cerberus. But of course, Harry hadn't.

If he was being entirely honest, Neville would have to lay the blame of reigniting Harry's interest in the Cerberus on Hagrid. In the half giant's desperate attempt to persuade him and his friends that he was perfectly capable of caring for Norbert, he confided that he'd been the one to raise the Cerberus, Fluffy was its name. One just needed to know how to calm it; which was with music apparently.

The moment the words were out of Hagrid's mouth, Harry's eyes took on that gleam they'd all fairly quickly learned to associate with trouble.

"No, Potter," Malfoy said immediately.

"What do you mean, 'No, Potter?'" Harry protested. "All I was going to say was that that was an interesting piece of information that I have absolutely no use for."

Neville, Draco, Hermione, Neville, and Blaise exchanged exasperated glances whilst silently coming to an agreement that they wouldn't leave Harry alone for a single moment.

But then came exams in which they all found themselves too distracted ensuring they passed to keep a close eye on Harry. And that was, of course, when he gave them the slip.

Harry had only meant to check in on the Cerberus, maybe play him a bit of a tune to see if what Hagrid had said was really true, but when he found out that he'd been right all along, there really was a trapdoor beneath the Cerberus, he couldn't help but take a quick peek.

That quick peek ended up taking him through a labyrinth full of an assortment of booby traps and tricks. After fighting off an overgrown patch of weeds who seemed to struggle with the concept of personal space, hunting down one specific key in a flock of winged keys, acting as quite literal pawn in an oversized, homicidal chess set, slipping past an ugly, smelly creature that could only be a troll, and figuring out a riddle that allowed him to walk through a wall of black flames, he found himself in a cavernous chamber, empty save for the enormous golden mirror standing in its center.