Two mornings later, Hermione joined Harry and Percy in the common room with a new section of translation. Ron was still finishing the statement McGonagall had requested about the temple's collapse.
Percy put down his breakfast when he saw the map. Hermione had found a location rather than another title.
Hermione looked up suddenly. "I think I know where the next temple is."
Harry blinked. "What? Another one? How?"
"The account places a city beneath the Aegean," Hermione said. "Thalassaeon names the wider domain. Thalassopolis is the city within it. This section may show a route there."
Percy leaned over the map. The route began much closer to Hogwarts than he expected.
"The city was part of the original binding," Hermione said. "It may contain a record the lake temple no longer has." Percy looked at her. "Or another structure we can accidentally disturb."
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "So… we just dive into the Aegean and hope we don't wake something worse?"
"Two parts of the system have failed," Hermione said. "We do not know which routes are still usable."
Percy lowered his hands when water began gathering around his fingers. "Then we check the entrance before deciding we can get there."
At lunch, the three kept the map beneath a notebook while other students argued about a Quidditch result. Percy found himself envying the argument.
Hermione traced a line south of Crete, then back to the forest. "The city is there. The access mark is here. A boat would not reach the hidden route."
Percy looked at Harry. "Do you want to come if we can find it?"
"I want to know why it keeps showing me that city," Harry said. "I know that is not a good reason to trust it."
Hermione folded the map. "Then we look at the entrance. We still have to choose what happens after that."
McGonagall reached the table while Hermione was putting the notebook away. Percy had been hoping not to have that part of the conversation over lunch.
"Mr. Potter. Mr. Jackson. Miss Granger," she said, her voice sharp but quiet enough to stay between them. "I trust you are not planning any… extracurricular adventures?"
Harry looked at Percy. Neither found an answer that made hiding the map less obvious.
"We have your account and the copied route," McGonagall said. "The fact that another entrance has appeared does not make it suitable for another unsupervised visit."
She told them when the staff would discuss the next inspection, then returned to the front of the hall.
Hermione kept her hand on the folded map. "That was clear enough."
Percy nodded. He also kept thinking about the route continuing to change while they waited. He knew which feeling was making him want to hurry.
That night, the three left before another inspection had been agreed. Percy knew they were breaking the instruction, not finding a clever exception to it. Hedwig found them near the forest edge and settled beside Harry.
Harry looked at her, his face a mix of gratitude and sorrow. "Stay here. I'll come back."
Hedwig hooted softly, as if understanding, then took off into the sky.
Hermione led them along the path she had marked. Percy checked that its first turns matched the copied route rather than following the pull from the lake alone.
They found an opening beyond several stones cut with the same marks as the map. Cold air moved out while the water inside ran toward the city route.
A rush of ocean-scented air hit them. Percy inhaled sharply, tasting salt even here, miles from the sea.
Harry swallowed hard. "This is it."
Hermione lit her wand and compared each mark with the copy. She stopped before reading a full line aloud.
"These are instructions," she breathed. "The tunnel connects to a portal… to Thalassopolis. The city is not reachable by normal sea travel. This is how they kept it hidden."
Percy held his hand near a damp section of wall. Water moved toward it. He withdrew the hand before deciding that recognition was permission.
Hermione read aloud softly. "Once through, we cannot come back the same way. The portal only opens one direction, into the city. We must find another exit from within."
Harry looked behind them. "We could still wait. I would rather know what is calling me." He stayed while Hermione checked the route once more.
Percy nodded. "On three?"
Percy looked at each of them before approaching the opening. Nobody could claim they had not made this choice together.
Hermione took a deep breath. "One…"
He felt the current change as the entrance admitted the first step.
"Two…"
Harry touched his scar, then lowered his hand.
"Three!"
Blue light crossed the tunnel. Percy lost the feeling of the stone beneath his feet, reached for Hermione's sleeve, and found Harry holding the other side.
They landed on a ledge above coral towers. Water surrounded the city, but the space around the ledge held air. Percy counted his friends before looking toward the center.
Large statues stood along the near bridges. Some faces were too damaged to identify.
Hermione stumbled forward, eyes wide, lips parting in awe. "Thalassopolis…"
An empty throne stood at the city's center. Harry pointed toward it before Percy described the pull, confirming that it matched the dream without agreeing what that meant.
Stone groaned beneath the ledge. A large eye opened on the far wall, and Percy felt water pressure reach them across the intervening space.
Harry staggered backward, clutching his forehead as his scar flared with searing pain.
Something had recognized their arrival.
The eye widened. A bridge moved against its fastening, and Percy caught Hermione before she stepped onto a section beginning to separate.
Hermione dropped to one knee. Words came from her mouth before she could explain them. Harry tried to reach her, then stopped with his hand against his scar.
Percy held the water nearest the ledge away from his friends. That worked until the pull from the throne made moving toward it seem like the obvious next part.
"Percy, don't!" Hermione's voice cracked, but he barely heard it.
The offer had no speaker he could see. Take the throne. Claim the power. Bind what was below.
Images of armed figures appeared with it. Percy could not tell whether they had ever existed or whether the room had built them from what would persuade him.
A voice boomed through the chamber, not in words but in feeling, vibrating in his bones: You dare to wake me, half-blood? You seek to bind me again?
He stepped forward, tried to answer, and coughed water instead.
Harry crawled forward on hands and knees, finally forcing out a shout. "Percy! Stop! We don't even know what that throne will do!"
Hermione stood again and spoke the language from the temple. She was following part of the pattern, but her trembling hands showed how much of the work she could not yet control.
Percy turned enough to see her. A person trying to keep Harry safe mattered more than the pictures telling him what a ruler ought to do.
Dark shapes reached from the opening below the eye. They crossed the water faster than ordinary limbs could have moved.
Hermione drew light between the first shape and Harry. She repeated only the portion that held it back.
Harry used spells to knock the reaching shapes away from her. They returned quickly enough that he had to stop expecting a single strike to finish the work.
At the throne's steps, Percy felt the promise of control grow stronger. He had not been offered an explanation of what accepting it would open.
He looked at the empty seat instead of the images above it.
Percy stopped. He turned to see Hermione collapse again, nearly smothered by a tentacle. Harry lunged forward, hacking at it with a flaming blue charm, barely keeping it at bay.
The throne was part of the mechanism. Sitting might claim it, but the room had supplied no reason to believe that claim would close the route rather than complete it.
Percy put his palms on the armrests without sitting. He drove water against the reaching shapes, keeping the force away from Hermione's position.
Her light steadied around Harry. The lines held together when Percy stopped pushing across their edge.
The eye recoiled. Percy reduced the current nearest his friends and sent the remaining force toward the opening, where it had somewhere to go besides through them.
Hermione directed her joined lines into that flow. Harry held the next reaching shape clear until the two movements struck the eye together.
The pressure stopped for a moment. Percy did not mistake the pause for the end.
The eye broke into dark fragments that lost their shape in the water. The reaching limbs fell away, leaving a damaged wall and room enough to breathe.
Percy sat down before his legs failed. His arms hurt, and he could no longer hold another current without thinking about the cost.
Hermione collapsed beside Harry, her wand falling from limp fingers. Harry fell forward onto his hands, breathing hard, his scar still pulsing but no longer bleeding.
They rested only until Hermione could pick up her wand. The city had stopped pressing toward them, but no one had established that the larger binding was repaired.
"This opening has closed," Hermione said. "That is all I can tell you now."
Harry nodded. "The dream showed more places. I do not want to follow another one without help."
Percy used the throne only to support himself while standing. "We go back with what we saw. We do not turn the next clue into another solitary rescue."
Hermione kept one unfamiliar term in her notes: the Deep Choir. She left the translation unfinished and searched for the return mark instead.
Harry found the mark beside a narrow channel leading away from the throne. "Here. It does not use the entrance we came through."
Percy checked the direction of the water. The route led toward an opening, and that was more useful than another promise about who he was.
While they gathered their supplies, Percy saw a hooded figure beyond the coral towers.
Before he could call out, the figure vanished into the dark water.
He told the others where it had stood. They kept to the visible return route instead of following it into the city.
To Be Continued...
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These daily uploads are to make up for the missed uploads due to holiday and my bribery to you guys to send a powerstone or smth.
Seriously, it doesn't take that long. Please for the love of god I need to know if someone reads these little afterwords taht i make. If you do read this, just comment with a funny little gif on here :)
Byeeeee ;)
also I have a p*treon now :) it's
p*treon.com/Reader004 (remove the star)