A Nexus Devil

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Hermione walked forward and placed her hand on the snake's skull. "Wow, I know you told me about it, Harry, but I can't believe you actually slew Slytherin's monster." She was genuinely impressed with her best friend.

Harry just blushed and scratched his cheek. "Well, I mean, I had to save Ginny, you know, and also the snake attacked you, Hermione. I had to make it pay too!" He declared.

Hermione, meanwhile, felt a blush form on her cheeks. 'He fought this for me!?' She thought to herself. A weird feeling formed in her chest at the thought of Harry doing that for her...

"Hey, do you guys think Slytherin left any treasure down here?" Ron called out, interrupting Harry and Hermione's angst-filled moment.

"Didn't you guys say Moldywart has been down here before? If so, he probably took it all," Jake commented, ruining Ron's mood as Luna just giggled at the depressed redhead. "Anyway, Luna, is this where we need to be, or do we have to keep going?"

Luna shook her head. "The place we're needed is deeper in, just past that," she said as she pointed to the giant statue of Slytherin's face. Jake thought that was pretty tacky and cringe.

He couldn't believe the guy actually carved a statue of himself... multiple times because there were a bunch of other mini-Slytherin faces scattered all over the chamber as well.

Luna turned to Harry one final time and just looked at him expectantly. Harry just gave a resigned sigh before he walked up to the giant face statue and hissed at it...

and nothing happened! Harry frowned and took on a pondering look for a moment before he hissed at it again. Once more, nothing happened!

Jake smirked. "What's wrong, Harry? Are you having performance issues or something?" He said jokingly as Harry and Hermione blushed at his crass comment. Ron didn't react... he didn't get the joke.

"I forgot..." Harry mumbled quietly, somewhat embarrassed.

"Wait, what?" Jake asked. "What did you forget?"

Harry's face was red. "I forgot the password, okay! It was two years ago, I was 12 and too focused on Voldemort's 16-year-old self trying to murder me to remember what the password was!" He said aloud. Everyone just stared at him.

"..."

"Well, good adventure, I guess, Luna. Don't invite me to the next one! Wish i didn't invite myself to this one!" Ron said as he turned around and headed back out of the chamber.

Hermione scoffed but decided to just follow him out. She didn't want to come in the first place anyway.

Noticing his friends leave, Harry turned to Jake and Luna with a dejected look on his face. "I'm really sorry, Jake. I just can't remember it at all!"

Jake just patted Harry on the shoulder and gave him a small smile. "Don't worry about it, Harry. I was just messing with you a bit." Jake turned to Luna. "So, on a scale of one to ten, how important is it for us to get in there?"

Luna took an unusually serious look on her face before she placed her finger on her chin, and her eyes turned somewhat cloudy.

She held that distant-looking thinking pose for about 30 seconds before her eyes became clear again, and she snapped herself out of her trance-like state. Jake watched all this in fascination.

He had obviously suspected multiple times, but that pretty much confirmed that Luna was something special!

"I'd say about a solid 8!" Luna said cheerfully!

Jake nodded at that number, while Harry just looked confused. "Alright then, hold Blaze for me, Harry," Jake said as he handed off his tiny familiar.

"We're getting in there, and you two might want to step back a bit." Jake's magic flared around him as spell circles formed in his hands...

"Boom!"

A massive explosion shook the chamber. Ron and Hermione, who had just left, ran back inside in panic, wondering what that giant explosion was? When they saw Jake standing next to the now completely destroyed giant statue of Salazar, they just deadpanned at him.

Jake gave them a friendly wave. "Hey, you two, welcome back. Guess what, the minor roadblock is cleared, and we're free to proceed."

Ron just left, gob-smacked, while Hermione put her hands on her hips and glared at Jake. "What the bloody hell, Jake? You just destroyed a priceless historical monument!"

Jake just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Oh… sorry, I guess." What was he supposed to do? According to Luna, they were in some kind of time rush here, and Harry had forgotten the damn password.

So the answer was simple: blow up the statue, and you gain entrance, as simple as that.

"I don't really see what the big deal is," Ron said. "It's just some stupid statue of Slytherin. I say the world's better off without it anyway." Ron gave Jake a thumbs up.

"Jake, we really should keep moving," Luna reminded him.

With that, the group reunited. The five of them headed into the dried mouth of the statue to see what the inside looked like.

After they made it past a slightly gross tunnel that was absolutely full of snake skins and even more animal bones, they came to a surprisingly intricate wooden door covered in Gaelic writing that Jake was surprisingly able to understand.

"Wow," Hermione said inspecting the ancient door, "this door looks absolutely ancient, and the writing on it is ancient Gaelic. Amazing! Nobody uses that language anymore.

I wonder what the writing says on here?" She pondered out loud as she gently traced her hand along the letters, not wanting to damage them.

"I hate to break it to you, Hermione," Jake said, "but the writing says, 'Private Office of Salazar Slytherin. All mudbloods need to keep out!' And that's all it says…"

Hermione just scoffed. "I know you're just messing with me, Jake. It obviously doesn't say that. A refined man like Salazar Slytherin, who helped found Hogwarts, obviously would have a deeper message left on his door than 'Mudbloods keep out!'

Hermione absolutely did not believe Jake. Unfortunately, it was the truth.

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