Seeing the door to the forbidden corridor half-open, Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been certain they couldn't possibly wait for Allen, believing they were already too late. Allen's sudden appearance was a huge relief, his magical competence a quiet guarantee of success.
Harry and the others exchanged determined glances and pushed the heavy wooden door open fully.
The door groaned in protest, and an immediate, low, angry bark echoed in their ears. Even though Fluffy, the massive three-headed dog, was magically asleep, all three of its colossal noses were twitching wildly, sniffing the air directly in their direction.
"What is that lying at its feet?" Hermione whispered, her eyes wide.
"Looks like a harp," Ron replied, equally quiet. "Snape must have left it here."
"It wasn't Professor Snape," Allen thought to himself. But he knew if he revealed the truth about Quirrell now, they would erupt in screams and endless questions, which would be a catastrophic waste of time. They would inevitably learn the real identity of the culprit soon enough.
Allen smoothly extended his wand, gently tapping the harp near Fluffy's massive paws, casting a quiet charm to ensure the enchanting music continued to flow. Allen then took the lead, stepping carefully toward the center trapdoor. As he approached the three gigantic, drooling heads, he could smell the dog's warm, pungent, musky scent.
Allen lifted the heavy hatch and peered inside. It was a black void, utterly impenetrable to the light. Harry, Ron, and Hermione crowded around him, peering into the abyss.
"There are no stairs here. How are we supposed to get down?" Ron's voice was laced with unconcealed fear as he stared at the incomprehensible opening.
"I think we'll just have to jump," Harry whispered, trying to sound braver than he felt.
"Jump? Seriously? Who wants to be the first one down?" Ron nervously stammered. "I have no idea how deep this hole actually is."
While they were still locked in this anxious debate, Allen simply adjusted his robes, placed one hand on the edge of the hole for balance, and jumped down without a word of warning or hesitation.
Cold, damp air whistled loudly past Allen's ears. He fell, fell, fell—and then BAM! Allen landed on something strangely soft, accompanied by a muffled, squishy thud. He quickly scrambled to his feet, feeling around in the oppressive darkness. Although his eyes hadn't yet adjusted to the gloom, he knew immediately he was sitting squarely on a thick mass of Devil's Snare.
"Soft landing! You can jump now!" Allen yelled up into the hole, which now looked like a minuscule patch of distant light, barely the size of a postage stamp.
Harry was the next to jump, landing a moment later. Ron followed closely, landing awkwardly on all fours.
"What in the blazes is this stuff?" Ron asked the instant he regained his breath.
"I don't know, Ron, it feels like some kind of tough plant material," Harry replied. "It must have been put here deliberately to break our fall. Come on, Hermione!" Harry called up the shaft.
"Don't move! Not an inch! This is Devil's Snare," Allen urgently warned Harry and Ron, who were both trying to stand up like he had. Allen, having already managed to creep off the main pile, was crouched safely on the stone floor, watching their predicament.
Harry and Ron instantly froze at Allen's command, but it was too late. Before they knew it, their legs were tangled in the long, whip-like vines.
"Hermione, it's Devil's Snare! Be extremely careful when you jump!" Hermione had just landed when she heard this terrifying warning and instinctively tried to leap forward toward the damp stone wall.
Despite her incredibly fast reflexes, the moment her feet touched the floor, the Devil's Snare shot out like an aggressive snake and wrapped tightly around her ankles. Luckily, Hermione managed to twist free before the vines could secure a firm grasp.
Hermione stood safely on the side, still visibly shaken, her brilliant mind already frantically working to recall the plant's properties while Harry and Ron looked hopefully at Allen.
"Devil's Snare… what did Professor Sprout tell us? She said it prefers dark, damp places, and it hates..."
Before Hermione could complete her thought, her gaze snapped to Allen's. They nodded in perfect, silent communication. They clasped their wands together, a subtle ritual Allen had taught her, and waved them in unison while shouting the incantation: "Lumos Solem!" A brilliant, concentrated jet of fire, resembling a blue bellflower, erupted from the tips of their wands.
Within seconds, Harry and Ron felt the vines retracting violently, their constricting grip loosening as they recoiled from the light and the sudden, intense warmth. The plants writhed and twitched, automatically releasing the vines that had wrapped around them, and finally, they were free.
"I'm so incredibly glad you showed up, Allen!" Harry exclaimed, looking at Allen with profound relief and gratitude.
"Hermione was thinking the exact same thing," Ron added, dusting himself off.
"No big deal. If you two had paid attention in Herbology, you'd have remembered it too. But I'll admit, Hermione's spellcasting was brilliant; she definitely deserves credit for the Lumos Solem," Allen said with a casual shrug, his tendency to subtly promote the value of intellectual effort surfacing again.
"Ahem, this way." Allen caught himself just before slipping into full 'Know-It-All' mode and pointed down a narrow stone corridor. It was the only viable path.
Beyond the sound of their own footsteps, they could clearly hear the persistent, slow drip-drip-drip of water running down the cold stone walls. In the deep silence of the passageway, the sound was particularly eerie.
"Can you hear anything else?" Ron whispered nervously.
They all paused, listening intently. There was a faint rustling and a metallic jingle coming from somewhere ahead.
"Could it be a ghost?" Ron speculated, clutching his wand tighter.
"I don't think so. It sounds more like a lot of wings flapping," Hermione replied, trying to categorize the unusual noise.
"There's a light up ahead. I see things moving," Harry observed, pointing to the end of the dark corridor.
As they reached the end, a brightly lit room with a high, vaulted ceiling appeared before them. Countless tiny, winged objects, glittering like colourful jewels, fluttered wildly about the room. Opposite them was a heavy, bolted wooden door.
"It's the keys," Allen answered Ron's unspoken question softly, and was the first to step into the vast room.
"Keys?" Ron stared blankly at the chaotic swarm of floating objects.
"They're winged keys, Ron. That must be..." Before Harry could complete his sentence, he was interrupted by an excited cry. It was Hermione: "Look, Allen!"
Allen had already moved safely to a corner of the room, swiftly locating and picking up a trio of hovering broomsticks—one for Harry, one for Ron, and one for Hermione—and quickly mounting the fourth for himself.
He grinned mischievously, thinking, "I'm appropriating all the teaching materials Dumbledore designed specifically for Harry. I wonder what face he'll pull when he realizes it?" With that playful thought, Allen turned back to the center of the room.
"I see it. We have to find the correct key to unlock that door," Harry deduced, his focus returning.
"But there are hundreds of them! It'll be impossible to spot the right one in all this chaos!" Hermione lacked the natural affinity for flight and looked up anxiously at the dense swarm of keys filling the air.
Meanwhile, Ron examined the locked doorknob carefully. "We're looking for an old-fashioned, large-sized key; probably silver, and it should look exactly like the keyhole."
Immediately after this crucial observation, each of them grabbed a broomstick. They pushed off the floor with their feet and soared into the air, launching themselves into the dense array of fluttering keys.
They frantically snatched and grabbed at the shimmering metal, but the magical keys were simply too fast and too numerous to be easily caught.