Lily Potter and the Shadows' Misfortune

Chapter Forty-Three

       

                Knowing that she had to be fearless to lead her friends, Lily walked over to the trapdoor first and nodded everyone's way, "I'm going down. Don't follow me until I say so."

                "Lily," Hugo said, his voice serious.

"If something bad happens to me on the way down, I don't want it to happen to all of us," she said. "I'll go down first, and I'll shout when I reach the bottom."

                "You can't go down there by yourself," Rudy said. "Someone has to go with you just in case something happens."

                "I'll go," Hugo said. "Cousins for life."

                "That's kind of how it works," Lily said, shaking her head at her cousin before sighing. "Okay. Hugo and I will go down the ladder together first. We'll shout up to you all once we get to the bottom."

                With that, Lily took to the rope ladder, carefully moving down it, rung by rung as the tunnel got darker and darker. There was no telling how far she was from the bottom, so she did not want to chance falling to her imminent doom. Two minutes later, Lily's foot touched solid ground. She and Hugo had finally reached the bottom of the ladder.

                "Lumos!" Lily said, turning behind her to illuminate the rest of the underground tunnel.

                "WE'RE HERE!" Hugo yelled up to the faint dot of light at the top of the ladder, from which they had just descended.

                Lily ignored the shouting conversation Hugo was having with Eli and surveyed the area. A thin tunnel, lined with unlit lanterns, and supported by fairly new wooden beams was dug out of the earth. Wherever the mystery would lead, Lily knew that they'd get their answers at the end of that tunnel.

                "They're coming down now," Hugo said, interrupting Lily's surveillance.

                "How in the Wizarding World is Rudy going to get down that thing?" Lily asked, looking up at the unsteady ladder.

                "RUDY! HOW ARE YOU GETTING DOWN?" Hugo yelled up.

                Lily rolled her eyes in the darkness. Of course he hadn't thought to ask that very important question.

                "VERY SLOWLY!" he yelled back down the tunnel.

                "DON'T GET YORUSELF MORE HURT!" Lily yelled, her hands around her mouth amplifying her words.

                "I WON'T!"

                And by some miracle, Rudy's ankle wasn't any worse by the time he made it to the bottom of the ladder with the rest of the group.

                "Is everyone okay?" Lily asked once the final person had reached the ground. When nobody answered, she continued, "Okay. That's good. We're going to go through this tunnel now. It'll be a pretty tight squeeze, but we have to see where it leads. I suggest that you all get your wands at the ready. I don't know where this is going to lead."

"Lumos!" someone behind Lily said, lighting their wand.

                The others followed, and soon, armed with their wands, the nine slowly slid through the dark, dank tunnel.

                "Why does this tunnel have to be so low?" Hugo asked, his voice whiney.

                Though she was thankful for her short height, Lily couldn't help but feel some pity for both Hugo and Eli as they had to stoop to get through the tunnel.