As more people finished their dinner, Harry constantly heard more people come over to congratulate him about the Slytherin win. Harry sat next to Blaise and Nott, who were telling him about the highlights of the game, which he, of course, already knew. But Harry figured that if they wanted to enjoy themselves and tell him, why not?

The one person that had not come over to Harry, was Draco, but Harry didn’t mind. He shouldn’t have been looking through his personal things, anyway. When dinner was over, they all went to Common Room, and once Harry got in there, he saw tons of banners all over the room. One said, “Harry Potter Rules!” another said, “Best Seeker: Potter!” there was another that said, “Gryffindor Sucks!” and among the many was another that Harry noticed that said, “Slytherin is going to win the House Cup!” On most of the banners were large tough-looking snakes. There was one with a lion with a larger snake strangling it.

What Harry noticed more was the tons of great food all around him. It was food Harry didn’t recognize, but it looked delicious. “Here, Potter, try this! Its from the Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade,” said a bloke, who looked to be a year or two older than Harry. Harry took it and drank it. Harry could feel the warm liquid rush down his throat. It was very soothing. More people offered food, which Harry gratefully took. Nobody, especially Harry, questioned how anyone got this food, and frankly, no one cared. They were just happy to have in their presence.

After sometime, Harry realized that he had made plans to meet Ron and Hermione in the library. But how was he going to get away? If he went to the dormitory there would be no way to get to the library, but atleast he would be away from people. But that didn’t help him a bit. I’ll go to the dormitory and then later sneak into the library. No. I can’t do that. I have no idea what Hermione wanted to look for. I’ll have to apologize to Ron and Hermione for not showing up, but if I leave, the other Slytherin’s might follow me.

Harry got up from one of the couches where he sat surrounded by people, still holding an almost empty cup of Butterbeer. “Alright. I’m going to the dormitory. It’s getting late,” said Harry.

“Oh come on, Harry! You can stay up,” said Blaise.

“No, its alright. I’ll see you all in the morning. To Slytherin!” Harry gulped the last of what was in his cup and walked toward the dormitory. The people that had sat around Harry had said, “To Slytherin!” as well.

Near the opening to the stairs was Draco, who called to Harry. “Just wanted to say… good job today in the Quidditch game.”

“Thanks,” said Harry unpleasantly.

“Imasory,” said Draco, mostly to himself.

“What was that?” asked Harry.

“I said…I’m sorry. I was wrong to go through your stuff,” said Draco, through his teeth. He looked angry with himself for saying this. He held out his hand. “Truce?”

Harry was trying to hide the smirk. “How about friends?” Harry asked. Harry saw Draco’s expression change to relief.

“Yeah, sure,” said Draco with a small smile. They shook hands.

After shaking hands with Draco, Harry started walking down to the dormitory once more. He realized his left shoe was untied while he was in the middle of the stairs, and leaned against the wall, picking up his left leg to tie it.

As he was tying his shoe, the wall seemed to have disappeared, and he fell sideways. “Oh blimey!” Harry got up to see that he was in some sort of tunnel. He must have pressed a stone that opened up to this. It was a narrow tunnel made of stone. Harry noticed an unlit torch on the wall, but didn’t remember the spell for fire, so he lit his wand instead. “Lumos!”

Once his wand was lit, he made his way forward down the tunnel. I wonder where this leads? Harry knew he’d rather being searching these tunnels than in the Common Room, hearing more about what he had done in the Quidditch game.

After he went a couple feet, Harry saw that the stones that made up the wall seemed to have flown from nowhere to create the wall again. Wait! How am I going to get out again? Harry ran back to the stones that prevented him from the stairs. He shone his wand at the wall and looked at it closely. There was one large stone that stuck out. Engraved in the stone was a large “X.” Hopefully. This is the way to get back out.

Harry continue down the narrow tunnel. He went on for a while, and it seemed that he was slowly moving up. Eventually he came to a break in the path. He could continue going forward or turn to the right. Harry knew that if he wanted his way back to be easier, he better follow the easiest route. So he continued to go forward.

After about ten minutes, there was another path, but this one led to the left. Still, Harry followed the onward route. He could always come back and search the other paths later. But it wasn’t so much fun, walking down these paths alone. He would have wanted to go down the paths with Ron and Hermione, but they were Gryffindors. There was no way they could get to the opening from the stairs.

Harry thought of telling Draco, but then he saw a set of stairs a ways forward and forgot about it. He walked toward them and quickly went up them, anxious as to what he would find at the top of them. When he did manage to get to the top, completely out of breath, he found an old door. It was completely covered in spider webs. Harry was reluctant to open the handle, but did so anyway.

Harry was completely surprised when he opened the door to find… an empty room. What did he expect? Thereto be tons of gold or treasures of some sort. The room was also covered in spider webs, and was completely bare. It was a small, square room. Harry raised his wand higher to see if there was anything in the room.

In the corner of his eye, something shone in the light. But Harry couldn’t find what it had been. The room was completely empty. There was no metal for light to shine off of. But then he saw it again.

From the door, he walked to the closest corner on the right side. He bent down and saw a golden coin that looked like a galleon, but there was no writing on it. Once Harry picked it up, words formed on the surface. “Moenia Permeo,” said Harry, as he read it aloud.

The spider web-filled walls vanished around him to a room filled with old cardboard boxes piled on top of each other. He put the coin in his robes.

Harry read some of the boxes as he made his way toward the door: “Eldridge Lee,” “Dilys Derwent,” “Gwendolyn Hurst,” “Rawlins Gray,” “Evarerd Proudfoot,” “Phineas Nigellus,” and “Armando Dippet.” Harry wondered whose names these were, but then wondered no more as he heard voices on the other side of the door.

Harry put his ear against the door and listened carefully. “Severus, I saw what happened. You do not have to tell me again,” Harry heard Dumbledore say.

“But you’re not listening to what I’m saying! It was Quirrel! I heard him; I saw him! He was standing next to me at the Quidditch game!” said Snape; he was somewhat out of breath.

“Severus, I am listening to what you are saying. There is no reason for Quirinus to do such a thing,” said Dumbledore, his voice never raising.

“Then, do you have an explanation for why Potter’s broom tried to throw him off?” asked Snape, still angered. Harry was listening to every word that was said.

“Sadly, no,” said Dumbledore.

“Only dark magic could have done that to Potters’ broom. You know that. No student could have managed that. So, clearly, if it wasn’t a student, it had to have been another professor!” said Snape. It was Snape, not another professor! Don’t listen to him! Harry wanted to run into the room, and tell that to Dumbledore. But he thought better of it.

“No professor of mine would have tried to kill Harry, Severus. That I know!” said Dumbledore. It was clear in his voice that he was now beginning to get annoyed by Snape.

“If you’re not going to listen to me, then I’ll handle this myself!” Snape shouted. Harry heard him leave the room quickly, slamming the door. Once Snape had left, Harry heard Dumbledore exhale loudly. He turned back to the boxes behind him.

He know knew what the names of the boxes were; they were the names of the old Headmasters and Headmistresses. Harry looked at the boxes, the name “Phineas Nigellus” interested him the most, and so he looked inside. Harry saw that there was a plaque on top, and picked it up. He used his sleeve to wipe away the layers of dust. It said, “Phineas Nigellus Black.” The last name Black held no meaning to Harry; so he placed it on the floor, so that it would be easier to see what was in the cardboard box.

There were several books, that Harry took no interest in. There were some sheets of old parchment; there was no writing on it.

He continued to look in the box. At the bottom of the box, Harry saw, what was a small golden box. There was a large ruby on the top in the center, surrounded by small pearls. He picked it up realizing that he couldn’t open it because he needed a key. Harry looked to where the key had to be put in the box; the key must be very small and narrow. He put the box on the floor. Harry searched the cardboard box, but found no key.

Harry finally decided to put everything back. As he was putting the books away, the golden box still upon the floor, Harry accidentally knocked over another box with his foot. When it fell to the floor, something inside it made of glass, shattered. Harry knew that Dumbledore had heard, so he grabbed the golden box and put it in his pocket before running to the back wall, and hiding behind the tallest piling of boxes.

“Nox,” said Harry, silently extinguishing the light of his wand.

No sooner had Harry put out the light of his wand, did Dumbledore open the door to the small room. Light from Dumbledore’s office flooded into the room.

“Hmm…” said Dumbledore. Harry heard him move farther into the room. Dumbledore went to the box Harry had knocked over. He picked it up and opened it. “Repairo!” After fixing what had been broken, he then went to the box that Harry had (Stupid! Stupid!) clumsily forgotten to close before hiding. Dumbledore gracefully walked over to it and folded back the sides, so that it was closed again. He walked out, gently closing the door behind him.