Chapter 78: Night Exploration
Chapter 78: Night Exploration
At midnight, everyone in the dormitory had gone to bed.
Fred quietly pulled back his covers and climbed out of bed. He tiptoed over to George's bed, gave him a gentle nudge, and shushed him.
George slowly got up, put his robe back on, grabbed his wand, and stealthily left the room, with Fred quietly closing the door behind them.
The pair climbed up the spiral staircase and entered the Gryffindor common room.
The room was empty, and the fire in the fireplace had burned out. However, instead of leaving right away, they sat down in a couple of armchairs.
Fred pulled out a piece of old parchment from his robe's pocket and tapped it gently with his wand, saying, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
"Me too," George muttered, immediately bringing his lit wand closer to illuminate the Marauder's Map.
Once the map of the castle appeared, Fred spread it out on the table, and they began searching for Filch, the detestable caretaker. He was resting in a bedroom next to the caretaker's office on the first floor, while his cat, Mrs. Norris, was patrolling the fifth floor.
Peeves, the mischievous poltergeist, was in the History of Magic classroom on the second floor, and Dumbledore was pacing in his office.
"What about Percy?" George asked softly.
Fred pointed upstairs, "He's asleep."
"Okay, let's begin our night exploration!" Fred and George high-fived and put away the map as they prepared to set off.
However, as they were about to crawl through the portrait passage, they were spotted by the Fat Lady: "Where are you two off to at this hour?"
"Night exploration, ma'am," Fred replied with a grin.
The Fat Lady was taken aback; she never expected anyone to be so brazen about their nocturnal adventures.
"Hurry up!" George, who was behind Fred, gave him a nudge, and they quickly disappeared around the corner of the corridor.
Standing in the dark and quiet corridor, the Weasley twins felt their excitement rising. With the Marauder's Map in hand, the entire Hogwarts Castle would be open to them.
As for Filch, he would never catch them.
"Albert is definitely going to regret not joining us for this," Fred said happily after checking Filch's location again.
"I think Albert will only come along once he learns the Disguise Spell," George said, his voice full of suppressed excitement. "But it's our first time using the map on our own, and it feels great."
In truth, the twins weren't too keen on sharing the secret of the Marauder's Map with too many people.
"Once we figure out all the secret passages in the castle, we'll definitely give them a scare," Fred said gleefully.
During the day, they couldn't openly explore some of the passages, but at night, with no one around, they had fewer worries and more freedom to do as they pleased.
Fred, holding the map, led the way down the corridor, which was pitch-black and eerie. With each turn, their hearts pounded with excitement.
This was thrilling! "Stop!" Fred quickly extinguished his wand and shushed George, who was behind him.
"What is it?"
"It's Nearly Headless Nick."
They waited for about thirty seconds, and under George's cover, Fred relit his wand to check on Nearly Headless Nick's location.
"He's gone!" Fred exclaimed.
The two crept down the stairs and stopped in front of a statue of an armored knight on the seventh floor.
On the map, a dot marked "Fred" was tapping its wand on the helmet of the knight, and next to it appeared the spell, "Alohomora."
The twins looked at each other, puzzled by "Alohomora."
"Let me try, Alohomora," George said. He extinguished the light and tapped the helmet of the stone-knight statue with his wand.
The statue of the knight suddenly bent down, its opened visor widening as if a person were bending over and opening their mouth wide. The entrance was large enough for a slightly thin person to enter.
Fred checked the map to ensure no one was around before quickly stepping inside, with George close behind.
This was a narrow passage, dusty and filled with cobwebs.
"I'd say no one has been down this way in a long time," Fred said as he used his wand to clear the cobwebs in front of them. Their progress was slow as the passage sloped downward. At the exit, they found a door—a stone door. As they passed through, they found their way blocked by a wooden door.
"Where are we?" George asked.
"Fourth floor. I remember this place. Sometimes, when you go through some of these doors, there's an unopenable stone door behind them."
"I'd say this is a one-way passage," George said as he pushed the stone door.
Some of the doors in Hogwarts weren't real doors at all but merely solid walls that looked like doors. Now it seemed that these were also doors and secret passageways. However, they could only be passed through from the other side and not directly entered from this side.
George carefully left the wooden door ajar. As he raised his wand, a nearby painting, the occupant of which was wearing a sleeping cap, complained sleepily, "Watch it, you two! Some of us are trying to sleep."
"Oh, sorry!" George immediately lowered his wand and whispered to Fred, "Let's get out of here."
"This way, I know there's another passage here!" Fred quickly led the way, stopping at a vase on the landing of the third-floor staircase.
George stepped forward and tapped the vase twice with his wand, "Turn left, turn right."
The vase made a slight grinding noise, and a black dot appeared in a landscape painting hanging on the adjacent wall. The dot gradually expanded, soon revealing a door. George went over, grasped the doorknob, and gently pushed. The original frame opened, revealing a hidden entrance.
As they stepped through, they discovered it was a passage leading outside the castle, with the exit on the path to the boathouse. The entrance was concealed by overgrown grass, and more importantly, no one could have guessed that there was a secret passage here.
After the twins emerged, the mountain wall gradually returned to its original state.
"Who would've known there was an entrance here?" Fred knocked on the rocky mountain wall. It was hard to imagine that there was a door here.
"How are we going to get back in? Don't tell me we're going to spend the night out here," George said, hugging himself as he shivered in the night breeze.
"Let me see." Fred glanced at the map, and sure enough, it still instructed them on how to open the entrance.
"Knock on the protruding stone three times?" he muttered to himself as he searched for the stone described on the map. "Alohomora."
Suddenly, the stone wall changed, and a hidden stone door appeared before them, slowly opening.
They quickly slipped inside, the night breeze a little chilly. George almost caught a cold, and on their way back, he kept sneezing.
"Are you alright?" Fred asked.
"I think I caught a bit of a chill," George said, rubbing his nose.
"Let's call it a night. We have classes tomorrow," Fred said, stifling a yawn.
George agreed.
(End of Chapter)
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