Chapter 34. Neville Is a Bit Despairing
"First-years, please note that the woods on the school grounds are strictly out of bounds to students."
"Some of our older students would do well to remember this, too."
After dinner, Dumbledore rose and went over a few points of caution to everyone.
As he spoke, his gaze moved between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff and unerringly found Duncan, Fred, and George.
It was as if those two sentences were said especially for the three of them.
"Lastly, I must tell you that anyone who does not wish to suffer an accident and die a painful death should stay out of the corridor on the right-hand side of the fourth floor."
When Dumbledore finished speaking, he raised his wand, ready to have the students sing the school song and then go back to the dormitories for a rest.
"Professor Dumbledore!" a student at the Gryffindor table shouted.
Dumbledore paused and turned his eyes toward the direction the voice had come from.
"Where's Harry Potter?" the student went on. "Didn't the papers say he would be coming to Hogwarts this year?"
His words were like a lit fuse, and barrels full of questions exploded one after another as people asked in quick succession.
"Yeah, why didn't he come to the start-of-term feast?"
"Professor, has Harry Potter had an accident?"
"I heard that the incident on the train was someone trying to stop Harry Potter from coming to school..."
"Professor Dumbledore, is it as they say?"
"Quiet, quiet."
Dumbledore moved his wand to his throat, and his voice suddenly boomed, drowning out the hubbub in the Great Hall and gradually quieting the students.
"What happened on the train was just an accident and had nothing to do with Harry Potter.
He is perfectly safe right now — he just might arrive at the school a little late."
"It's time for bed now.
Everyone, off you go to the dormitories."
Dumbledore smiled, not wishing to explain further.
"First-years, over here, please!"
At the end of the Hufflepuff table, a tall boy stood up.
He raised a hand high and did his best to make his voice louder.
"I'll take you to the Hufflepuff common room!"
"He's a Hufflepuff Prefect.
His name is Gabriel Truman," said Hannah, who was walking beside Duncan.
Duncan nodded and, together with Neville, followed the new students to the small open space in front of Gabriel.
"Is everyone here?"
Gabriel's eyes swept over the crowd and he did a rough head count.
"Please follow me."
They left the Great Hall and headed down the stairs, the torches set in the walls lighting their way.
"Duncan, what do you think happened to Harry Potter?" Neville asked in a curious whisper.
He had been an eyewitness to the incident in the carriage and knew it had been an accident, not aimed at Harry Potter.
But where had Harry Potter gone?
According to what those upper-years said, no student had ever missed the start-of-term feast in previous years.
Hannah also couldn't help pricking up her ears, wanting to see if she could hear some interesting gossip from Duncan.
"I don't know, either."
Duncan shrugged.
Although a little curious, he didn't pay it much mind.
With Dumbledore around, he certainly wouldn't let Harry Potter, that key figure for the future, come to harm.
And even if something truly had happened, it wouldn't be his concern.
If the sky fell, the tall ones would naturally hold it up.
He just didn't know whether Harry Potter's sudden disappearance had anything to do with his own arrival.
Neville blinked.
"Aren't you curious?"
"Curious, sure," Duncan said, a little perfunctory.
Neville opened his mouth to say more, but Duncan patted him on the shoulder and cut him off.
"Our common room is almost here, Neville.
Rather than worrying about Harry Potter, you'd better spend a bit more energy remembering how to get into the common room.
Otherwise, if you can't get in and end up stuck at the door, that'll be trouble," Duncan said with a laugh.
Thinking of his awful memory, Neville's expression immediately grew serious, and he narrowed his eyes, focusing on the way ahead.
Gabriel halted with the first-years at the far end of a corridor facing a number of large barrels, then waved for everyone to be quiet.
Pointing at the barrels set into the wall at the side, he said, "The entrance to the Hufflepuff common room is here."
"If you want to get in, you must knock the bottom of the second barrel in the second row of that stack of big barrels to the rhythm of 'Helga Hufflepuff'.
Before you knock, be sure to think it through..." Gabriel warned loudly.
"What if we get it wrong?
What happens?"
A new student, hearing the severity in Gabriel's voice, couldn't help asking curiously.
"Get it wrong..."
Gabriel's eyes rolled, and he said with a smile, "Why don't you come up and try it?"
"Will it be dangerous?"
The student's expression held a hint of fear.
"Of course not," Gabriel shook his head.
"The school doesn't have devices that harm students.
Well?
Want to give it a go?"
"Go on, go on — there's no danger anyway."
The other students urged him on, harbouring the mindset of "let the fellow traveller die rather than me."
"All right then..."
The student let out a breath, walked up to the barrels, and raised his hand to give them a random flurry of knocks.
A sly glint flashed in Gabriel's eyes, and he quietly took two steps back.
"This fellow's a bit naughty..."
Duncan thought to himself, changing his stereotyped impression of the Hufflepuff lot as honest and guileless.
He unobtrusively tugged Neville's arm, and the two of them moved back a bit.
Seeing this, Hannah cleverly matched their steps.
Bang, bang echoed through the corridor.
The student who had been knocking lowered his hand.
Seeing that nothing happened, he let out a sigh of relief, turned back with a confident smile on his face, and said, "Seems like there's nothing..."
He hadn't finished speaking when the wooden lid of a barrel to the side suddenly shook a few times and then — bang — several planks popped off onto the floor.
A pitch-dark, sour-smelling liquid sprayed out.
With cries and exclamations rising, the students standing in front — whether they had knocked the barrels or not — became drenched to the skin in the blink of an eye.
Only Gabriel and a handful standing at the back — Duncan, Neville, Hannah, and the rest — were completely unscathed.
"What is this?"
Several students touched the liquid on their faces, flapped their clothes, and complained in utter disgust.
"Don't worry, it's only a bit of vinegar," Gabriel said with a smile.
"Now you know what happens if you get it wrong, right?"
His wand twitched, and he cleared the stains from the floor and from everyone's bodies.
Then he went on, "Of all the houses, only our entrance has a repelling device.
But as long as you pay a little attention, you'll be fine.
At least up to now, I've never seen anyone doused by the barrels' vinegar more than three times."
"Duncan, d-do you still remember how he said to open the barrels?" Neville asked, on the verge of tears.
He could almost see his own future — a chubby boy soaked in vinegar all day long.
Why did Hufflepuff's founder put such a prankish little mechanism at the entrance?
Is it still in time to transfer houses now?
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