Chapter 79
Harry ducked into a secret passage behind a tapestry of a Dutch witch singing to a puffskein which connected to a secret door behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy. Carefully slipping out, he joined the throng of Ravenclaws that were heading towards the Great Hall. Looking around, he found Michael and Terry, and pushed through a few seventh year boys to them.
"Hey Harry! Where were you today? I didn't even see you in class," asked Michael, noticing him.
"Up in the Astronomy tower." Harry replied.
"Detention? I didn't think Professor Sinistra even gave detentions!" Terry asked incredulously.
Harry shrugged. He didn't like lying to his friends. But it was personal. Besides, it wouldn't be a lie if he let them draw their own conclusions would it?
Ping!
You're lying by inaction, so try not to be delusional. Skill leveled up!
Lying, Lv- 5 (30%)
This is your ability to lie to people, the higher the level the better the lie and less chance of discovery!
25% chance of success, less based on how extreme the lie is.
Harry's left eye twitched. The game was becoming a bit too sassy for his taste.
He waved the window away. They had reached the doors of the Great Hall and the prefect pushed the giant double doors open and let them all in.
The delicious smell of baking pumpkin wafted through to nose. A thousand live bats fluttered from the walls and ceiling while a thousand more swooped over the tables in low black clouds, making the candles in the pumpkins stutter. The feast appeared suddenly on the golden plates, as it had at the start-of-term banquet.
They took their seats at their regular spots and they oohed and aahed at the clever decorations. Some of the older students had even decided to wear costumes. Fred and George Weasley were at the Gryffindor table, having put on glasses, painted their hair black and drawn a lightning bolt on their forehead. They shot Harry a pair of wide grins and thumbs up, at which Harry couldn't help but chuckle.
As Harry looked around at his housemates eating and having fun, he smiled disbelievingly. He wasn't feeling down at all. He was having a good time! Maybe Halloween wasn't so bad after all.
In retrospect, he would've decided that he definitely shouldn't have jinxed it. Being fate's premium spitoon, no Luck stat was going to be able to help him.
The doors to the Great Hall slammed open with a bang, and in came Quirrell, sprinting into the hall yelling, his turban askew and terror on his face.
"TROLL! TROLL IN THE DUNGEON!"
"Is it too much to ask for a quiet day?" Harry muttered angrily.
Everyone stared as Quirrell reached Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the head table, and gasped out, "Troll…in the dungeons…thought…thought you ought to know."
He then sank to the floor in a dead faint.
There was an uproar. It took several ear shatteringly loud purple firecrackers exploding from the end of Dumbledore's wand to bring silence to the horde of screaming students.
Harry was frowning. Why would Quirrell be afraid of a troll? Unless…
Harry's frown turned into an intense glower as he slammed his hand onto the table, causing the Ravenclaw sitting opposite of him to slip off his seat with a yelp.
'Of course!' he thought, 'All the teachers would probably go after the troll and that's what he wants. He is probably going to try to use this as a distraction to get the stone!'
"Prefects," Dumbledore instructed, oblivious to Harry's epiphany, "lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately! Slytherins! Follow the Hufflepuff house to their dormitory."
The Ravenclaw prefect was in his element.
"Follow me! Stick together, first years! No need to fear if you follow my orders! Stay close behind me. Make way, first years coming through! Excuse me, I'm a prefect! No I haven't seen your baboon! Move!"
As soon as they moved out of the Great Hall, Harry ducked behind one of the doors and whispered 'ID Create.'
As soon as he was in his little pocket dimension, he quickly ran up the moving stairs and onto the third floor corridor, where he hid himself behind a large stone griffin a small distance from the corridor entrance where Fluffy was hidden and broke out of the ID.
After a couple of minutes, a figure appeared around the corridor and started walking towards the door that contained Fluffy. It wasn't the turbaned Quirrell though. It was Snape. He promptly checked in on the door, presumably to check if the trapdoor was still closed or not, and started to wait for something.
One more minute passed, and another figure appeared at the end of the corridor.
Harry gritted his teeth as he realized that it was Quirrell this time, and from the way his body tensed up, he wasn't too happy to see Snape. He walked up to the dour faced man and they started talking. He could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation.
Snape's angry voice reached his ears. "What the headmaster is guarding is none of your business Quirinus! Stay out of it or you'll regret it."
Harry looked at his watch, and his eyes widened.
Snape would handle Quirrell. There wouldn't be any stealing happening tonight. Harry had to get back to the tower now. The prefects would notice him missing soon enough. He created an ID and took off running towards the first floor, where a secret passageway was located that led straight to the Ravenclaw tower.
Reaching the first floor, he broke out of the ID and was about to push the right brick to open the passageway, when suddenly he heard voices around the corner.
He stilled. The professors were in the dungeon, and everyone else should be in bed, so who was this? Treading lightly, he shimmied along the wall, trying to stay in the shadows and quietly listened to what was being said,
"But do you have any idea where she is Ron!" a young boy's voice said. It was a student! And Ron Weasley was involved somehow.
"I told you Dean! I can't remember!" Ron's voice replied.
He was tempted to just leave, but this was too dangerous-they were out with a troll around! Harry sighed and finally decided to try and get them to go back to their common room.
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