Disclaimer: Since I only have one sporadic reader, I'm assuming none of you think I'm J.K. Rowling. Good.
Author's Notes: Well, no notes, just a chapter. Wheee.
Chapter 4: Ravenclaw House
"Judy!" Ginny quickly knelt down beside her friend and shook her shoulders lightly in an attempt to wake her up. Snape stared down at them and prepared to take Judy to the infirmary, post haste. Luckily for Judy, he didn't have a chance to.
Judy's eyes flew open as Ginny shook her and she shot up as if out of a horrible nightmare. She bolted up and looked around the room frantically for the boy she'd seen just before she passed out. She paused when she realized he'd gone and felt the dull ache of the bump she'd gotten from passing out onto the stone floor.
"Judy, what happened?" Ginny stared at her and looked around at the half cleaned room. Judy just stared at Ginny for a moment and then looked back at the door. She couldn't very well tell Ginny that she'd just had a daytime hallucination of her worst nightmare. Judy stood up slowly and put her hand to her head.
"Nothing," She said shakily. "I just slipped and hit my head." Judy finished in a low voice and Ginny looked at her with concern. Professor Snape, yet again, didn't buy it but he had was preoccupied with thoughts of that strange gust and eerie presence he sensed.
"Are you alright?" Ginny asked and Judy looked at her concerned expression. Ginny was one of those kind people, she'd only met her a few hours earlier and Ginny acted like they'd known each other for years. Judy just smiled.
"Well, I should probably change." Judy looked down at her bleach stained and sopping wet robes.
"Yeah, come on." Ginny helped lead Judy out of the classroom leaving a very suspicious Professor Snape behind.
The two girls walked down the scarcely populated halls of Hogwarts to the Ravenclaw house entrance. Judy had to physically stop Ginny in front of the portrait, but that was understandable after all Ginny was a Gryffindor.
"Now then, you look a mess." The tall thin woman in the portrait looked down at Judy and Ginny. She had a thin sort of bone structure, even in her face, making her look quite tall. She had long black hair that had been braided back and a pair of small square and blue tinted reading glasses. The woman was sitting amidst a pile of books and scrolls with a small window painted behind her. "Just give me the password and I'll let you right up." She said lightly and closed the painted book she'd been reading.
"Alright—." Judy looked up at the portrait and then was cut off.
"Wait a moment." The woman peered down at Ginny for a moment. "She's no Ravenclaw." The woman adjusted her glasses and Ginny smiled weakly.
"No, she's a Gryffindor." Judy said simply and the woman looked back at her.
"Oh, well I trust I won't regret letting her in then?"
"Not at all." Judy smiled just as Ginny had been.
"Oh, continue then." The portrait woman watched the two girls and waited for the password.
"Ethereal Theorem." Judy said in an exaggerated stuffy voice and the portrait woman laughed. Ginny watched the portrait along with Judy. Ginny expected the portrait to swing open and let them in just as the one to the Gryffindor tower did, but a few moments passed and nothing happened. The portrait woman furrowed her brow and looked off to her left.
"Geoffrey James Esquire!" She shouted and the pictures next to her all looked at the suit of armor just a few steps away. The armor let out a sort of snorting noise like one does when suddenly awoken from a deep sleep and leaned forward. "Let them in at once!" The woman commanded and the armor stumbled off its pedestal and over to the portrait.
"That's the third time he's fallen asleep when I've tried to come in." Judy commented to Ginny who was watching the spectacle with fascination. Judy took a few steps back and pulled Ginny back with her. The armor stepped in front of them and struck the ground three times with the lance it was holding. Something under the floor clicked loudly and the armor went back to its pedestal.
"What's going on?" Ginny asked as a rush of cool air poured through the cracks in the stone floor below them (well not through the cracks, per say, more the gaps between one stone and the next).
"Why the door's opening. Doesn't the Gryffindor entrance work the same way?" Judy looked over at Ginny who shook her head. Judy blinked and looked back down at the floor.
"Our painting just swings open." Ginny watched the ground.
The air stopped flowing out of the floor and, in a very similar way as the brick wall entrance to Diagon Alley, the stones on the floor started to 'fold' outward. They lifted and shifted until finally they'd formed a sort of covered entrance that blocked the iron staircase under the floor. When the bricks finished their motion and aligned there was a clicking noise and a sky blue light started to glow from the hidden lights in the 'ceiling.' (Which was ironically the bottom of the floor).
"There we go, watch your steps." The portrait lady said and both Judy and Ginny walked down the stairs.
Judy started walking down the steps and was quickly followed by Ginny. The staircase wasn't very long; it only went down enough to easily clear the piping beneath the floors. It ended leaving the two girls in a short hallway whose walls were made of the same plain stone that fashioned the floors of Hogwarts and had a single mahogany door at the end.
"Is this the Ravenclaw common room?" Ginny looked at the bleak stone walls and the two torches lit with blue flames that were mounted on either end of the hall.
"Oh heck no!" Judy guffawed. "This is still the entryway!" Ginny stared and wondered why everything was so, detached. "The common room is just through there." Judy motioned to the door and walked down the short hall.
"Oh." Ginny skipped after her and Judy opened the wooden door.
The room behind the door was definitely a dream for those who are academically inclined. The room was a large circle with two doors placed across from each other (one to the left, one to the right) with pair of iron spiral staircases that went straight up to the student's rooms. The walls were barely visable considering how many wooden bookcases stocked near to bursting were placed around the room. There were a few tables with papers and more books on them—their owners must have gone to dinner and simply left them there for later. At first, Ginny couldn't tell where the lighting in the room was coming from then she noticed the large Ravenclaw crest on the highest part of the wall across from them. It was a stained glass window, and despite its dark colorings it let in quite a bit of light.
"Wow." Ginny walked into the room and onto the dark red rug that covered most of the floor. "Hermione would love it here." She leaned over one of the tables and looked at all the piles of homework and extra credit.
"Yeah, it is kind of cool." Judy said happily and walked up to one of the two staircases. "But the rooms are really something." She smiled as Ginny scrambled around the table to follow her up the stairs and see the student rooms. The two climbed up the spiral staircase, unfortunately these went far higher than Ginny had expected. By the time they'd reached the top (also known as the ceiling, seeing as the stairs led to the rooms up above them) they were up almost twenty feet.
"This is what I love." Judy helped Ginny off the staircase and looked up at the room. The walls were constructed almost solely out of windows, save the back wall which was stone. The room was a crescent shape and the windows went up from the floor and curved up to touch the castle wall high above. The glass was only marred by the black iron bindings placed between them and the tinted nature that the glass seemed to have. There were the same four-posted beds as the Gryffindor house had, only their sheets and adornments were all either black or dark blue (in keeping with house colors). There were numerous doors that led into the castle wall; Judy explained that these were bathrooms and the like.
"This is gorgeous." Ginny leaned on the glass and looked out over the lake and landscape outside.
"Yup," Judy agreed as she went to the drawers next to her bed and pulled out some cleaner, drier clothes. "The only down side is that the Owl's are kept right above us." Judy pointed up at the room that extended out of the stone walls about twenty feet up above theirs. "The owls are constantly hooting or flying back and forth." Judy grumbled and slipped into one of the bathrooms to switch into another set of her clean, beaten up old robes.
'Judy!' The voice yelled and threw Judy off balance as the sharp message pulsed through her mind. She stumbled back into the sink and knocked a few items onto the floor with a clatter. 'Mordred, he's awoken!'
"I know…" Judy sputtered quietly and as comforted slightly by the fact that Ginny surely couldn't hear them through the heavy wooden bathroom door. "I've seen him."
'What are you going to do?' The voice sounded urgent and afraid in Judy's mind.
"What I should have when you regained power." Judy said quietly as she spread the robes she'd pulled out of her drawer on the floor. Rolled up in the tangled mess of cloth was a small plastic orange bottle with a childproof lid, it was dull in color and appeared quite old.
'The pills. Are you sure?'
"Would you rather let Rosewater happen again?" Judy asked flatly and snatched up the small bottle. She twisted off the top and plucked out a pair of the reasonably sized purple pills. She quickly popped the pills into her mouth and swallowed them dry. Judy sealed up the bottle again and changed her clothes swiftly, and then rolled the bottle up in her dirtied robes before leaving the bathroom with them.
"There, now! I feel much better." Judy walked out of the bathroom and tossed her rolled up dirty robes onto her bed.
"Well then, we should be getting to dinner. Everyone will wonder where we've been at." Ginny said and smiled.
Both Ginny and Judy laughed and the two headed down for dinner. As they left the Ravenclaw dorm, the portrait swore Ginny to secrecy concerning the dorm and warned Judy about telling people in other houses. Both Judy and Ginny said what they had to appease the lady in the portrait and went off for dinner. When they got to the hall their entrance was hardly noticed, that was until Judy sat down with the Ravenclaws and a cheer went up from the table concerning the Quidditch match earlier that morning.
Judy didn't eat very much at dinner, mainly because she was troubled and horrified about Mordred but the fact that everyone wanted to know everything she knew about Quidditch and any advise she could give didn't help her eat more. Judy tried desperately to recall exactly what happened when she glanced up at the teacher's table and caught a glimpse of Snape. He'd managed to get his hair back to normal, thank Merlin, and he was staring straight at her.