We approached the edge of the forest, and I could see the lights of Hogwarts Castle glowing in the distance. I didn't know what time it was. The sky had darkened everything except for the bright, sparkling snow.
Sharem stopped without a word, lowering himself so we could get down.
I stepped down and winced at the sudden pain, stiffness, and cold that rushed to my legs. All of my limbs felt frozen; I was hungry, tired and sore all over from squeezing Sharem's horse body so tightly with my body as he had run through the dark forest at a surprisingly fast pace. I couldn't wait to get back into Hogwarts' warm halls.
I had never ridden a horse before, but if it was anything like what I had just experienced, I never wanted to.
"Finally," Aileen said as she jumped down. She promptly began walking towards Hogwarts. "Let's go, Alexa. Hopefully, it's not past curfew, and we can get something to eat. I'm starving."
I began to follow, but then looked back at Sharem, who was standing still, unsure of what to do next.
"Do you have a place to go, Sharem?" I asked, my words barely understandable on my lips that had numbed in the cold air. I didn't understand how Sharem could stand to be shirtless in this weather, but he didn't even look cold.
Sharem looked troubled at my words.
"I don't know what to do," he said, sounding a bit helpless. "I need to get to my father; to tell him about my Uncle. But I know Uncle Cargem will stick by his side, expecting me to go to Father first thing now that I've escaped."
"Why does your Uncle want you so badly?" Aileen asked suspiciously. She had stopped walking towards Hogwarts when she saw I wasn't following her and now stood with her arms crossed giving Sharem a suspicious look. "What did you do?"
"I did nothing," Sharem said indignantly. "He needs me to perform a Centuarn Ritual. He-"
"Wait," Aileen interrupted him, her teeth chattering from the cold. I noticed that her complexion was even paler than usual and her lips were blue. "What is a Centuarn Ritual?"
Sharem began to answer but was interrupted again.
"We can't stand here and discuss this all night," I said. "If it's not already past curfew, it's going to be soon. We need to get back to the castle, Aileen."
"What about him?" Aileen asked, looking over at Sharem. "Where is he going to go?"
I looked at Sharem, who looked tired and worn out. I felt a pang of sympathy towards the boy centaur. He was only a child, and my natural reaction was to do everything I could to help him, to make the troubled look on his face go away.
"Can you come to the castle with us?" I asked him. "You can't possibly linger in the Forest with your Uncle looking for you. Not to mention all the other things wandering in here."
Sharem didn't answer right away, looking uncertainly at Hogwarts.
Aileen also looked confused.
"How are we supposed to sneak him into Hogwarts?" Aileen asked. "If you haven't noticed, half his body is that of a black horse, and a rather large one at that, despite the fact that the rest of him looks like a nine-year-old. He would be difficult to miss walking down the halls of Hogwarts."
"Eleven!" Sharem exclaimed, making both me and Aileen jump in surprise.
"What?" I asked in confusion, glancing at Aileen who looked equally confused.
"I'm eleven," Sharem stated, rather sheepishly. "Not nine."
"Right," Aileen said, giving sharem a look that told him she didn't believe him. "Whatever you say. Nine, eleven, the point still stands; How are we supposed to get you into the castle?"
"Well," I said thoughtfully, "Maybe we can ask Rubeus Hagrid, the gamekeeper, to hide him. We all know Hagrid loves magical creatures, and wouldn't want one of them to be harmed."
"No," Aileen said, "he might tell one of the professors about him."
Aileen was right. We didn't know Hagrid, and we couldn't be sure if he could keep such a secret.
"We'll have to find a way to sneak him into one of our dormitories," I said decisively. "The other students won't be back for two more weeks, so we don't need to worry about them finding out about him."
"Not my Slytherin dormitory," Aileen said. "If any of the Slytherins found him, they would do worse to him than his uncle. They have prejudiced views on part-humans. "Half-breeds" they call them."
Sharem looked quite upset at this comment but didn't say anything.
"Okay, so we'll need to get him in my Dormitory," I said. "We'll need to wait here until all the students and teachers are asleep, then get him in unseen." I wrapped my arm around myself shivering.
"Wait," Aileen said in sudden realization. "Boys can't enter the girls' dormitories."
"They can't?" I asked. I had never heard anything about this.
"No, they can't," she said. "I've seen some try, and it didn't end well."
"Well, we have to try," I said. "Sharem's not entirely human, so maybe he'll be able to."
"Okay," Aileen agreed with some hesitation. "I wish we could make a fire though."
"Why can't we?" I asked, rubbing my hands together to warm them.
"Someone could see the flames from the castle and come find the cause of them," Aileen said. She leaned against Sharam's horse body. "I guess we'll have to make due with the centaur's warmth."
Sharem looked a little annoyed at this but didn't complain.
I came and sat down in the snow, leaning against Sharem as well. My legs felt too weak to stand like Aileen was. Sharem was much warmer than he should be in this weather. Maybe centaurs didn't react to the cold as humans did, I thought.
We stayed like this for only a short time before every light in Hogwarts went out.
Despite feeling tired, cold, weak and hungry, I jumped to my feet as the last light went out.
"The lights are all out, let's go," I said in explanation as Aileen blinked sleepily in confusion at me. She had closed her eyes and must've started to fall asleep.
She got up, and we all walked towards the castle.
"I'll go ahead and keep an eye out for anyone coming," Aileen said as we reached the castle doors. "Don't come until I motion for you too." She opened the doors, and I felt the warmth of the castle immediately.
"If I do this," Aileen said, making a shooing motion with her hand, "it means hide because someone's coming."
"Okay," I whispered. Aileen went ahead of us and checked to make sure the way was clear. She motioned for us to follow and we quietly followed her as she led us in the direction of the Gryffindor Common Room.
My heart was racing, and I found myself letting out sighs of relief I hadn't realized I'd been holding every time Aileen confirmed it was safe to go.
As we snuck about, I could understand why "The Four Troublemakers," - as Aileen had labeled the group of Gryffindor pranksters, loved to sneak around, breaking the rules and pulling pranks. It was exhilarating, in a strange way. I wondered if that was just because of my Gryffindor personality and if Aileen felt the same way.
Our luck didn't last long though.
Aileen poked her head around a corner and then quickly stepped back and made the shooing motion at us, running quietly back to us.
I tugged Sharem behind a giant statue to our right.
Aileen joined us behind the statue quietly.
"We can't go this way," she whispered, "Argus Filch and his demon kitten are just around that corner."
"We'll have to go through the secret passageway by that purple chair," I said.
Aileen and I had discovered the passageway on one of our explorations. It was one of the few passageways I knew of, and it led to any of the Common Rooms, depending on what direction you went once inside. But it took longer going that way.
One of my favorite ways to pass the time here at Hogwarts was to explore; I found Hogwarts quite fascinating, and it was so huge that I never ran out of new places to explore.
I usually wandered Hogwarts alone or with Aileen, and a few times I had explored with Frank Longbottom. We hadn't discovered many secret passageways, but I knew of more passageways than most students did at Hogwarts.
Just then, Argus Filch voice was heard loudly down the hall.
"I hear STUDENTS OUT OF BED!"
I didn't know how he had heard us when we had been whispering. But he was Filch.
We all looked around in panic, looking for a place to hide.
Suddenly the statue's hand we were hiding behind lit up. It glowed a vibrant red color. I was about to point this out to Aileen and Sharem when I noticed that I only saw the fingertips of the statue's hand glow out of my left eye. The damaged one. My other eye could only see the bricks.
Without pausing to ponder over this, I touched the statue's fingertips with my own. It just seemed like the right thing to do.
The statue moved one of its legs aside, revealing an opening in between its legs. I heard Aileen gasp in surprise. Cobwebs were surrounding the opening, but I didn't care at the moment.
I pushed Aileen into the passageway, and stepped in behind her, pulling Sharem along. No sooner had we all gotten in then the statue's leg stepped back into its place, and everything was pitch black where we stood.
We all remained silent as we heard Filch run past the statue proclaiming there were students out of bed.
"How did you know there was a passageway here?" Aileen whispered.
"I didn't know," I replied truthfully. I didn't want to tell them that my damaged eye had seen the hand glowing red.
"Let's go," Aileen said after a moment, casting the Wand-Lighting Charm and stepping forward. Before she got three steps, she quickly stopped in her tracks, brushed cobwebs off her face. She had walked right into a giant cobweb.
I chuckled lightly, pointing my wand at Aileen, who was clawing at her face and neck in a vain attempt to get the sticky webs off her. I cast the Scouring Charm, and the webs instantly vanished.
"Thanks," she said. She then pointed her wand to the nearby webs and cast the Scourging Charm on them. The webs disappeared, and she continued forward. "Come on."
We walked down the dark passageway, our wands lighting the path. I felt glad I wasn't claustrophobic, as the passageway was very narrow, much narrower than usual. It had lots of twists and turns, and at every dark corner, my heart beat picked up at the thought of something right behind the dark corner, waiting to get us.
After walking for a while, we came to a spot that split into two different directions.
"Which way do we go?" Sharem asked, looking left and right in confusion.
"Let's go this way," Aileen said, walking to the left.
After only a few moments, we came to a dead end.
"Well," I said in disappointment, "let's go back and go down the other passageway. I hope it get's us closer to the Gryffindor Common room, I'm exhausted."
"Yeah, me too," Aileen agreed, yawning.
We went back and went the other direction.
The other path also led to a dead end, and I began to feel a bit desperate.
"We can't go back!" I exclaimed in frustration, worry evident in my voice.
As soon as I said this, I noticed something I hadn't before. Three of the bricks on the wall glowed a dim red color. Just like with the statue, I could only see the bricks glow out of my left eye.
"Wait," I said. I had a theory, and I wanted to test it. "Let me try something," I said, walking over to the three bricks and touching them lightly with my palm as I had none with the statue.
Nothing happened.
"What are you doing?" Sharem asked in confusion.
I ignored his question pushed on the bricks harder. The brick wall suddenly crumbled away.
We all stepped back, staring at the opening. Even though I had suspected it would work, I was still surprised.
After a second, I stepped forward and looked down. There was a long, spiral staircase that led down as far as my eyes could see.
"How did you know how to do that?" Aileen asked in surprise, pointing her lit wand down to brighten the dark staircase.
"I-I read about it in a book. Sometimes you can reveal hidden openings by pushing on them," I lied.
Aileen didn't know that my left eye could see any differently than my right one, and I wasn't ready to let her know. It would only make me more of a freak in her eyes, and I didn't want to see her look at me how so many others had.
"I'll go first," Aileen said, cautiously stepping on the first step.
Sharem went next. He was very slow and hesitant at first, but once he saw that he was able to walk down the steps with his four legs by leaning his body close to the railing to balance himself, he picked up his pace.
I followed them down. The stairs went round, and round and I was beginning to feel a bit dizzy by the time we finally reached the bottom.
"It looks like a small dungeon," I said as we reached the bottom. "Look, there's a barred door over there."
There were medieval-looking sconces mounted on the walls, and I pointed my wand at them, casting a Fire-Making Spell.
I walked over to the barred door in the small room we had entered.
"It's unlocked," I said, pushing it open and stepped into a larger room.
"Nobody's been on here for ages," Aileen said, stepped in behind me. I lit the sconces in the room and looked around.
There were dust and cobwebs everywhere. The only items to be seen were a round table, four chairs, and an old-looking rug. We could find no other doors or passageways that went anywhere else.
"We'll have to go back and try going the other way," Aileen said. "Maybe there's a secret room behind that other dead end too," She looked around the room. "What's the point of this room anyway?" Aileen asked curiously. "It's got a barred door. What do you suppose they used it for?"
"I don't know," I replied, looking around. "But I have an idea. We don't need to go back that other way, Aileen. We don't know if that other passageway even leads out, and Filch is probably gone by now. And if he's not, we'll just get a detention for being out of bed."
Aileen gave me a confused look, not understanding. She glanced at Sharem.
"We can't risk Sharem being caught though," she said.
"Sharem can stay here. Nobody knows about this room, and he'll be safe here."
"Right," Aileen said, having understood my idea. "And it would be easier for me and Alexa to sneak back alone. No offense Sharem, but you're quite noticeable, with the whole horse body and everything."
"Okay," Sharem agreed.
I took both of my gloves from my pockets and transfigured them into two fuzzy blankets. I handed them to Sharem.
"What's this for?" he asked curiously, taking the blankets I offered.
"It's a bed," I replied "I can't transfigure it into an actual bed, so you'll have to make due with just the blankets. Sorry," I apologized.
"It will get dark once the fire goes out in those things," Sharem said, glancing at the lit sconces.
I saw a flicker of fear in his eyes as he said this, and I supposed he must be scared of the dark. It didn't make any sense though, considering he lived in a dark forest.
"The sconces on the walls will remain lit unless we use a counterspell to put out the fire in them," Aileen said reassuringly. I think she must've seen the fear on his face as well.
Sharem looked relieved at this.
"We'll be back tomorrow," I said. "With food and stuff."
"Okay," he said, placing the blankets on the floor and curling up on them. "Tomorrow I can tell you everything. Hopefully, I can figure out the next course of action by tomorrow."
"Bye, Sharem," Aileen said as she opened the barred door and started to walk towards the stairs.
"Goodnight," I said as I began to follow Aileen.
I looked back at Sharem as I left. He had curled up on the blanket and was watching us leave. I didn't want to leave Sharem all alone down here, but we had no other option. Smiling at him, I closed the door behind me.
We made our way back up the stairs and back to the beginning of the passageway. We quickly figured out that pushing the statue's leg made him move it.
Filch was nowhere in sight, and Aileen and I said our goodbyes as we went our separate ways.
I had no trouble getting back my dormitory. The portrait of the Fat Lady had eyed me suspiciously but hadn't commented on why I was out of bed. She, like most of the students, avoided speaking to me.
As soon as I fell into my bed, I was fast asleep. I didn't even bother to take off my boots.
I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
It was quite hard making this one only be 3,000 words; I had to cut out quite a few words. BTW, these darkened notes at the bottom don't count towards the 3,000 words, as they aren't the actual story. You guys don't even need to read them! :)
In case anyone cares to know why I want each chapter to be 2-3,000 word, and have only 10 chapters in this story, here's why: If I make 'First Year' be too long, I'll never reach 'Seventh Year.' Or it'll take forever.
I want to write Years 1-7.
I'm writing this fanfiction to improve my writing by gaining practice. And because I LOVE Harry Potter fanfiction, especially The Maruaders Era; Although, 'First Year' unfortunately doesn't have many scenes with The Marauders in them.
I might have to make 'First Year' be 15-20 chapters though, I can't see myself fitting the rest of the story into only 3 chapters.