In the Harry Potter Without Harry Potter

Chapter 396: The Abandoned Slytherin Common Room (2 in 1)

"The Slytherin House common room is in the Black Lake?"

Jon mused, he hadn't really thought about that one.

"Yes." Draco spoke more fluidly with each passing second, "My father had told me that Slytherin's previous common room used to be underground, but when Mr Headmaster ruled Britain, he eliminated the old standards for the sorting of houses. The criteria for the three Houses; Mudblood, Half-blood and Pureblood, were set before there was even an admission. So once it was established that the basement was the domain of the mud- muggle-borns, there would, of course, be no other Houses left inhabited there, and naturally the Slytherin common room was left deserted, and no one has ever gone back in there for over a decade."

Jon looked at Draco with renewed interest, wanting him to say some more secret stuff.

"So what? That common room was deserted in the Black Lake and just because of that it became a rumour in the castle?"

Draco did manage to squeak out more.

"That's not what the rumour is about, someone has spoken about how, right where the Slytherin common room used to be, some odd sound of movement could be heard faintly late at night, like something pounding on the foundations."

Jon frowned at this.

"I remember there is an extremely strict curfew policy in the castle, so who is the person who was able to hear something like that late at night?"

"Stricter policies are no real problem for purebloods to break, if a muggle-born breaks the curfew it's a death sentence, if a half-blood breaks it they would be expelled from Hogwarts Castle, a pureblood would just be asked to hand in a statement or spend a day in the confinement room."

Draco, even in front of Jon, couldn't help but feel a sense of smugness when talking about the privileges that belonged to purebloods.

"Purebloods can't be expelled, it's a rule set by Mr. Headmaster, even when there was an incident a while back about a half-blood student committing suicide, the primary perpetrator who was also a pureblood was only given a year's delay in graduation and sent home for a year of reflection."

It was true and Draco was not wrong about this, the privileges that purebloods held not only at Hogwarts Castle but even in the British magical community were obvious. Purebloods who broke magical laws, no matter how serious, were not imprisoned in Azkaban, where Dementors acted as jailers, but in a special "prison" for wizards located on British soil.

Jon said nothing about Draco's current self-satisfaction; he was still too young to think about how much privilege the purebloods had now, and how they would all have to pay it back double and triple if Voldemort should ever be defeated.

"You're getting off-topic, in that case, do you know exactly where the Slytherin common room used to be in the Black Lake?"

Hearing Jon's question, Draco reached out and pointed to the northeast.

"That common room extends from Hogwarts castle, so it must be in the direction where Hogwarts castle is located, keep going northeast from here and you should be able to find something."

Jon was true to his word and returned a pearl back to him as payment after getting useful information from Draco.

"What do you want to know this for?" Although it was clear that it was actually better not to ask, Draco couldn't resist asking after he got the pearl.

"Would you believe me if I said I am planning to dig up the roots of your gentleman, 'Mr Headmaster'?" Jon said without looking back.

His reply sent a shiver down Draco's spine, and he watched as Jon faded away with a look of horror on his face.

Only after his figure had completely disappeared did Draco dare to carefully swim out of the water plants.

But only then did he realise that he had become so entangled in the water plants that he couldn't even reach for his wand!

"Come back! Green! Mr Green! Please come back! I'll pay you with a pearl! Help me!"

However, the sound didn't travel far underwater, and with Jon long gone, he couldn't get any response to his cries.

Jon soon arrived at the northeast corner of the Black Lake.

To be honest, he didn't really have much hope for this trip, he just wanted to take the chance.

Having seen the miserable state of the merpeople, there was a great chance that the Giant Squid, which meant so much more to the whole of Hogwarts Castle, had met with misfortune as well.

Still, he continued to follow the clues Draco had given him by coming this way, Jon was just trying to give Dumbledore a little more relief when he got back.

Following the edge of the northeast corner, Jon made a quick inspection sweep, and just as he swam up to a deeply recessed rock formation, he actually did find something!

It was a huge opening, and it was clear to him that this opening had previously been a wall, only now the wall had been broken through, and the Lake had poured into the common room, turning what had been a sealed-off common room into the part of the Black Lake as well.

Jon swam through the opening and into the space that had obviously been the Slytherin common room.

There was still furniture all around that had been infested with water plants and underwater creatures, green and silver cloths still fluttered on the walls as the lake water flowed, and some broken portraits could be faintly seen on the surrounding walls of the former distinguished house representatives that had hung in the Slytherin common room.

Looking around at this motley and dilapidated scene, Jon felt an inexplicable sense of irony.

He hadn't forgotten that this had once been the place where Voldemort himself had lived for seven years, and now it was in this state, so obviously he couldn't have been unaware of it or even deliberately done it.

After a careful examination of the surroundings, Jon could clearly see some signs of what looked like a huge whip, leaving extremely deep gouges in the floor and walls.

From these signs, it was clear that, besides all else, the giant squid must have been here before!

Jon's heart perked up a little, and he proceeded deeper down, this common room wasn't the end of it, the wall directly opposite the common room had also been opened up, only this opening was clearly facing upwards, he predicted that a little further up he would be out of the water level of the Black Lake, which wasn't much deeper in this part of the lake in the first place.

As expected, he continued to swim upstream for about three or four metres before his head was blocked by an equally thick layer of ice.

Without hesitation, he immediately raised his wand in his hand and used a blasting curse underwater to explode the layer of ice.

In fact, when Jon climbed out of the water, he was already in serious breach of the rules of the second task. As soon as a competing champion went ashore, he could not go into the water a second time, as Matthew had read out in front of everyone before the competition began.

But Jon obviously didn't care about that, not to mention the fact that no one would know if he went ashore a hundred times in this shithole, and even if they found out, he would just be given a ranking on the spot, and he wouldn't necessarily be second to last in terms of total points.

After coming out from underwater, Jon could see that this would be the area that belonged to the former Slytherin dormitory.

The reason why he didn't say it was a particular room was that the surrounding walls had been broken through, the floor was littered with debris and pieces of broken beds, tables and chairs, and the space was so huge that only the ceiling was still present above.

But the ceilings of the original Slytherin student dormitories were not very low, they were four or five metres high, so even though the space was huge it did not feel oppressive.

As Jon removed the bubble spell from his body and breathed in the cold, damp air, he went over the pile of rubble in front of him and then saw a shocking sight.

A giant squid lay spread out on the hard, cold ground, a circle of light green ancient runes shining with a faint silver light beneath it.

But it was only when you stepped into the runes and looked closely that you could see that the light green colour was not the runes themselves, but the blood that was slowly dripping from the squid's body!

Jon looked at the giant squid and held his breath, noticing that its tentacles still showed some signs of movement, which meant that even though it was on its last legs, it was not dead yet.

Without any pause, he then pulled out a feather from his body and started summoning Fawkes over.

Soon golden light appeared around him, Fawkes, as ever reliable, did not linger after he appeared and took the giant squid straight away with him.

Jon, on the other hand, didn't leave right away, he stared at these ancient runes on the floor and examined them carefully for a while.

He had studied the basics of ancient runes when he had pretended to be interested in it in front of Sir Stoker at sea, and later in the year, he had been able to see and listen to Dumbledore explain the principles whenever Hermione had copied some ancient runes out of the castle.

So even though he was still a half-baked scholar when it came to ancient runes, he was still a half-baked scholar who had been exposed to the high end of the board and was no longer dumbfounded by what looked like ghostwriting to ordinary people.

After some careful scrutiny, he could at least tell that these ancient runes had not been inscribed here for a long time, probably only within the last year, which meant that the giant squid had been drained of its blood for almost half a year in total.

But it hadn't been in the Black Lake before, so the odds of it being here in captivity for the past decade or so are high.

Jon looked around again and saw some broken chains scattered on the floor, as well as signs of an obvious blow to the ceiling directly above where the giant squid had been before.

As Dumbledore had predicted, when he had first taken over Hogwarts Castle, Voldemort had discovered the unusual nature of the squid, and although he had made no precautions against the Black Lake itself, he had simply imprisoned the giant squid, the root of the problem, to be used when needed.

And now the various arrangements he had made in the castle were clearly laid out in front of Dumbledore and his men's faces.

The ancient runes used to sap the 'will' of the castle itself in the Chamber of Secrets, the runes in the Headmaster's Office which intended to imbue his own 'will' in the castle, and the runes in this room which had been transfused with the blood of a giant squid, the meaning of which was for the moment unknown.

Three places, all key to Voldemort's setup, and he seemed to have a lot of preparation for gaining absolute control of the castle, but now it was as if he didn't care about each one of them.

As Jon was examining the runes, he suddenly realised that as the giant squid was taken away, the runes themselves were not only not fading, they were becoming brighter and brighter!

Without any hesitation, he turned around and rushed towards the water of the black lake, using a new bubble spell on himself as he ran.

Then he leapt down from the blasted ice and dived back into the lake!

And just less than a minute after he entered the water, the ancient runes had become blindingly bright.

The curved symbols swam and spread across the ground as if they had come to life, and eventually, the dark green lines bulged from the ground, one by one, turning into living things and rushing straight into the water!

In less than three minutes, all the space in that area was crowded with these rune snakes, and they seemed to be able to spawn from those ancient runes endlessly, appearing and jumping into the lake over and over again.

After leaving the confines of the Slytherin common room, Jon kept swimming forward, sensing that something was wrong and even suspecting that the ancient runes under the lake itself were only a trap.

Yet even though he was swimming fast enough, he was still no match for the snakes that were like lightning in the water.

Jon knew he wouldn't be able to escape, he had to find out how much trouble they could cause him.

He kept moving forward, but turned with his wand in both hands and aimed at the swarm of snakes that looked like hornets!

"Sectumsempra!"

The cold water was instantly cut by invisible sharp slashes, the resistance of the lake water reduced the power of Invisible swords, but it was still better than using a blasting curse underwater.

In the blink of an eye, the snakes at the front of the pack were silently split in two, but the blade didn't stop there, splitting the whole pack along the middle, as if a chunk of chocolate had been neatly sliced up!

But none of the snakes that had been cut in half showed any signs of death, instead, they split in two, spewing dark green liquid from the breaks and growing back to their original size, making the whole group even more massive!

As Jon turned back to cast the curse, some of the snakes began to approach Jon, and when they were still a metre or so away, they exploded, creating a violent impact underwater.

Luckily, Jon had always maintained the shield charm on his body and did not suffer any damage as a result, but the bubble body charm, which was used to keep him breathing underwater, was destroyed as a result.

It took away Jon's ability to breathe underwater, and there was no way he could re-cast it here.

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