Rose Chalice Chapter One
by Moste Piratical Ursh
The crumbling stone was limey beneath my fingers. Huge blocks of solid stone made the passage down which I walked, yet I could barely have fitted a finger nail into their un-mortared joints had I cared to try. They had a strange luminescence and many layers of stone could be seen, in varying shades of rust and rose, eddies swirling in one direction or the other on each. I touched wand tip to hair and muttered and incantation. A tiny string of bobbing stars rose from the willowy width and tumbled upwards, weaving into my hair and shining marsh light green. The passage reflected the increased light until it looked like a breaking dawn through green mullioned windows.
How I had come to be here, I didn't quite know.
The shelf stretches upwards darkly, so that I am in a forest where large bookcase boles support a canopy of stone and magic ceiling. I am alone.
A book catches my eye from the rest and I pull it carefully away from the others.
It is a thick volume, covered in something dark. Inlaid in the fibrous covering is an intricate network of silver tracings, entwining curling and spilling out with flourishes in the shape of lettering. Like a silvery weed the pattern covers the entire book.
It is enigmatically titled Magicks. Tiny dark stones, some no larger than my wand tip, none bigger than my little finger nail, catch the musty light that filters into the library. I watch as they shimmer and form words behind the pattern; shapes, faces, flowers and symbols.
Yet even to open it, I hastily stow it in my bag and leave the restricted section, following the sound of Ron's voice echoing on about Quidditch from the far end of the library.
The walls were taking on a chalky pink tint, enhanced by the glow that they themselves produced.
Goosebumps lined my flesh and I felt the fine hairs of my arms and neck stand up as I descended deeper and deeper. This was lower than the school, lower, even, than the chamber of secrets which Harry had entered in his second year. I wondered how far the passage lead and whether or not it continued in a straight line to the centre of the earth.
Eventually, I came to a large arch. Carved from the walls of the passage, it receded rather than protruded. A trick of the light down here meant that I couldn't see any further than perhaps an arms breadth from my face.
Beyond the arch everything lay in twilight pink, the shadowy dusk, impenetrable. I paused. Then, holding my wand aloft-
"revelatio!" my wand tip flared faintly red in the darkness. I wondered that my magic could become so weak down here. The archway remains dark but a muscle twitches ominously in the back of my neck leaving an ache.
I pass through it. And gasp in amazement.
A small chamber filled with sunlight which is streaming through mullioned windows high up in the walls. In front of me tiny particles of dust eddy around in downward spirals. It looks like it's snowing glitter here.
In the centre of the room is a bed. It is carved from the same stone as the walls of this room, faintly pink and glowing. Its highest points merge seamlessly into the ceiling and its feet grow from the floor. I wonder how this room had been bored from the solid rock foundations of the school and why.
I look down at the wall beneath my finger tips. The same soft rose-glowing stone has been carved, in panel sections, so that large rectangles lining the room at waist height protrude slightly. On these a tiny, repetitive motif.
I look in astonishment at the tiny Gryffindor beasts entwined with the serpent of Slytherin...
Gryffindor and Slytherins secret chamber...?
