Chapter 13
Albus desperately ran down the dark corridor once again, emerging into the vacant Great Hall; the food on the tables long having soured and crawling with insects. This time, however, Albus was ready for the child, and for the fire. Steeling himself against his own doubt, he stared into the smoke, the figure hovering just beyond obscurity.
"Who are you?" Albus asked, stepping forward.
"Albus." The figure responded simply.
"Who are you?" Albus repeated.
"Albus," it repeated
"What do you want?!"
Albus was shocked when he actually got a reply. The figure chuckled, and then dissipated. Albus rushed forward, but it was gone before he got there. Suddenly he felt a hand on his should that spun him around. An all black figure standing inches from him, grasping him tightly.
"Power!" it screamed into his face.
Albus shot up in his bed, screaming. The others in the room also shot up, staring at his closed curtains.
"Albus, are you okay?" Jesse called frantically. Albus heard footsteps rush over to him, and a second later his curtains were pulled back. Jesse, one of his new roommates and friend, stared at him confused. He could make out the others a few feet behind him, looking in.
"Yeah... I'm sorry. Bad dream." Albus explained, knowing from the way his shoulders hurt that it was more than that. But what? A vision? Was someone invading his dreams? He wasn't sure. It was a little disturbing that as a first year he already knew about the possibility of dream invasion; his family truly was terrible at holding hushed conversations sometimes.
It took awhile, but it wasn't long before everyone had gone back to sleep. Albus lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling of his bed, the scarlet nothing but black in the dark. He had made up his mind. He was going to write his father. If some kind of Dark Magic was at work here, his father would be able to figure it out. Careful not to wake anyone up, he slipped out of bed and threw on his robes over his pajamas. Judging from the moon close to the horizon visible in the single window, it was awhile before morning, but close enough he might not run risk of detention for being out of bed. Jogging down the stairs, he crossed the common room and pushed through the Fat Lady who turned over and snorted before falling back to snoring in her frame.
He was surprised by how dark the corridors were. He had just assumed that they were lit around the clock. They were probably dampened to deter extensive sneaking about after hours. Still, not one to fear the dark, he pressed onward. It wasn't long, however, before he found himself lost. Where am I? he rhetorically questioned mentally, squinting through the darkness for anything that looked familiar. I should have brought a lantern, he thought. Then, he heard them. Voices, faint, whispering.
Following the hushed tones and his curiosity, it wasn't long before he found the source, two men standing arguing quietly in a hallway. Upon closer inspection, he recognized one of them who stood with his back in the direction of the hidden boy. It was the headmaster, Professor Gaunt. But who was he talking to? The second was a complete stranger to Albus, standing of average height and slim, but not slender, build. His face and what little else was visible of his skin glowed pale almost as the moonlight that lit it, as if he had had long extension avoiding exposures to the sun. His long ruler-straight hair was platinum, like it had gone many years prematurely silver, and neatly sleeked back in a jeweled clip save two locks that framed his face, keeping most of his face partially shielded from view at this angle. The thing that stood out the most to Albus, however, was that he was dressed in muggle clothing; an elegant black suit with the collar of the crisp white shirt peaking over the top and from the cuffs of the immaculately ironed jacket. His eyes, which Albus did have a clear view of, amber in the light of the single lit wand between them and pointed, but not quite piercing, and at the moment holding deep irritation that bordered on displeasure as he listened to the headmaster.
"It will be delivered when I find it, now be a good dog and let your master know. If that's all, I have a school to run." Gaunt chided. Albus could tell from his voice that he too was annoyed.
"The Master doesn't need me to tell him you've failed yet again to find it. What he needs is for you to keep up your end of the bargain, or need I remind you that he was the one who got you this job in the first place." The mysterious man snapped back, his eyes lightly pinched in the edges of a scowl. "Just find it."
With this, the mysterious man spun on his heel and began marching straight towards Albus. The first year desperately looked around, hoping to find a place to hide before the man saw him. Suddenly, he felt an odd sensation, like suddenly a raw egg had been cracked over his head. The feeling seemed to flow down him, encompassing his entire body. Albus looked down, and had to stifle a gasp as he found himself missing. He looked back up, just in time to watch as the mystery man passed, unaware of the boy's presence. He watched him walk for awhile, before turning his attention back to Headmaster Gaunt, who had turned and began to make his way back in the direction of his tower, Albus assumed.
Once the coast was clear, Albus looked back down at his body, wondering what was going on and how to undo it, but before he could even began to panic, the effect began to wear off. He looked around to see if he could spot the cause of his sudden affliction, but saw no one. Could they be under the same effect? Albus wondered to himself, before starting down the hall once more. He wasn't going to stick around to find out, but he did whisper a tiny 'thanks' to the air just in case it his unknown benefactor was a real person, not some strange castle magic, and still around.
It was only a couple more minutes before Albus arrived in the Owlry. Setting down a roll of parchment, he quickly grabbed his quill and began to write.
Dad
How are you? School has been a blast. I've learned so much already, and I'm excited to learn more. I'm just writing because I've been having strange dreams lately. Always the same, about the night of the Sorting Ceremony. I'm probably overreacting to it, but I just feel like there is more. I figured if anyone would know, it'd be you.
Also, something weird. As I came to the owlry to send this, I saw the Headmaster. He was meeting with someone, I don't know who, but it felt odd.
Anyway, I'll wait for your reply. How is Mum? I miss you guys.
Albus
That should about cover it, Albus told himself, folding the letter and sealing it with a stick of wax he heated in one of the handful of candles kept around for just that purpose should a hurried sender appear without a prepared envelope. After fixing it to the leg of his owl, Albus watched as it flew off, before turning and leaving the tower, his mind focused on the secret conversation he witnessed as he headed back to Gryffindor Tower.
"You have to be kidding me!" James cried out, wanting to die. "This isn't fair! Absolutely not!"
"I'm sorry, James" Professor Longbottom repeated. "But it can't be helped. There have been complaints, and I think the best course of action would be simply for Albus move into your room."
"They complained about me?" Albus asked, fighting back tears he felt threatening.
"Shut up, Albus." James snapped. "This is ridiculous, he's a first year, he can't bunk with third years."
"I hardly see the problem, the organization of the years is primarily on the idea those who enter the same year might find it easier to acclimate with those who are also new and they might discuss things like homework and classes with. We are, however, relocating Norris Aberdeen and Anthony Poliwosk. Your cousin Fred has said he doesn't mind staying right where he is with you and a Mr.," Longbottom paused to consult a parchment, "Daray has kindly offered to change rooms to yours to allow Mr. Aberdeen to take his bed. Once again, I'm sorry, but it's for the best," Neville said.
Albus felt a tear finally slide down his cheek as he watched the Professor, whom he had known almost as an uncle for as long as he could remember, climb out of the portrait. He felt his brother's arm rest on his shoulder.
"Come on, Al. Let's go get your stuff" James said with uncharacteristic resign. "I'll help you move it."
"Already took care of it." Akuji announced, jumping down the last two steps to the boys dorms. "I overheard Longbottom talking to you guys about it, decided I'd go get your stuff. Oh, and I put the fear of god into those little ass hats!" She added. "You're too good for them Al. Now come on, I've got something to show you. I told Crevan to meet us on the third floor."
Albus wiped away his tears, as he followed Akuji out of the common room and down the stairs. It didn't take them long to reach the third floor landing. Crevan was waiting for them, leaning against the wall.
"Was there something you wanted, Kemmler?" Crevan asked, observing the three of them as they approached.
"I want you to stop calling me that, before I jinx you so hard you permanently have bat wings for ears to go with that pretty face. Now shut up and follow me." Akuji said, pushing her way through the door. The three boys followed her.
"You guys are gonna love this" James said, knowingly, as they followed the ecstatic nearly-bouncing girl. Finally, they came to a second door in the back of the room.
"And, this, gentlemen, is the door to the greatest room in the entire castle," Akuji announced, gloating. She pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
Albus followed Crevan and James through, and found himself... in an empty room, completely boring, and devoid of anything interesting save dust and an open hatch in the floor.
"A broom closet. So exciting." Crevan commented dully, walking over to the hatch and peering inside. "Complete with a doorway to he... Ah!"
Whatever remained of his commentary ended in exclamation as a certain someone sprang forward, cheerfully shoving him two-handed, complete with one foot half pulled up in the air behind her like a mental ballerina with a the smile to match, into the empty dark below. She then turned to Albus. "Come on!" was all she said, before jumping in herself.
Albus looked up at his brother, who just nodded towards the hole in the floor where a trailing 'weeeeeeee!" spiraled away in the black. Looking back to it, Albus felt a mild turn in his stomach, but having learned a thing or two about a certain someone since meeting her, decided to throw caution to the wind and ran over, jumping down with a prayer to anyone that this was at least as well thought out as most of his new crazy friend's schemes seemed to be. He fell for what felt like an eternity into the blackness, before landing in what looked to be a sparkly pink cloud. Akuji grabbed his hand and pulled him out onto the hard stone floor. Behind her, an un-amused Crevan stood waiting, covered in a fine layer of the glittering colored stuff.
"You wouldn't believe what was down here when I found the place." Akuji tossed out, positively beaming. Albus heard what sounded like James landing behind him and turned, almost tempted to smile just as much when he saw his perfectly 'I am on my way to being a man' brother now coated too in the fairy power. Albus had no idea what it was, other than obviously something to break their fall, it didn't seem the kind of stuff Akuji might go for automatically, but the younger boy recalled what she had whispered to him two days previous when explaining something, "Because it's hilarious, duh." James covered in cotton candy pink sparkles certainly seemed to fit such a bill.
"Come on then!" Akuji dragged them onward after they had all dusted themselves off (despite her reassurances to the other boys it would quickly evaporate and pointedly waiting to show them the waste of time and energy they spent) through several empty rooms and one more strewn with chunk bits and scattered boulders that looked vaguely familiar but Albus couldn't put his finger on, before finally pushing through one last empty door frame. Barely had they stepped through before a 'whoosh' sounded loud and hungrily behind them.
Turning, Albus gasped to see a veil of purple flame filling the doorway behind him. Spinning back to face his brother and Akuji questioningly, he felt a crush of despair to behold a matching scene of a barrier of flames in a doorway ahead of them, only this black. Something about purple and black flames tickled the back of his memory, and now that he thought about it, so too a trap door on the third floor.
Yet before he could panic further, Akuji assumed a dramatic pose with a finger thrown out. "BURN FUCKARS!"
Albus blinked as the unnatural black tongues faded down and went out. Hardly daring, he risked a peak over his shoulder and saw the same had happened to the purple fire. Having not even broken her stride – posing, pointing and commanding, all while still walking – Akuji carried on marching right through the door in precise time as the last flicker faded away, James right on her heels, leaving the remaining two to gawp after her before scrambling to keep up.
On the other side Akuji stood, eyes sparkling under amused raised eyebrow, as they scurried to where she waited, blocking the view further in. When they were just thinking about stopping to not walk into her, she backed away again and sideways with a hand flourish, revealing a large chamber beyond. Albus followed Crevan through, and immediately looked around.
At first it didn't seem much, but as they descended the stone steps a new sight filled their view.
The chamber they had reached started no more than ten feet above the top of the stairs, but quickly dropped easily four to five times that as the stairs descended down to a ledge that ran around the edge of the room where burning braziers were strewn amongst rows of columns on either side. At the edge of the pillars another, shorter, set of steps ran around the center of the room in descending ovals, until a wide flat area at the bottom was reached.
Here furnishings and other items scattered around. Broken pieces of what looked like a giant stone chess set stood propped like time-eroded statues strewn around the walls, a table containing a small pile of keys, the remains of a mirror long since shattered stood at the far back, where large assorted cushions had been dropped haphazardly about on top of several rugs pushed up around it. A few muggle luxuries displayed quite prominent, including what Albus was pretty sure was a game center, even though he had never owned one himself, and, biggest surprise of all, two computers.
"And this, boys, is what I call my LOVEABLE, CUDDABLE, MY LITTLE PONY POWER PUFFY GIRL CLUB HOUSE OF AWESOMENESS!." Akuji said, gleefully. "No one but us knows about this place, and boy have I pimped this pad. T.V., Surround sound, I even managed, through much hard work and a few stolen books from the restricted section, to smuggle in some illicit equipment your still dismally depressing-to-the-point-of-tears government still puckers sourly at, to poke an insulated line through the barrier around this place enough to get a barely decent but still better than nothing-internet connection, but... it's home"
Albus looked around at everything, amazed. How she had managed to gather all this stuff, he would never understand.
"So, what do you guys want to do first?" Akuji asked, a mischievous grin on her face.
"You named this place…" Crevan had to stop and actually seemed to grimace in pain, "My Little…" He scrunched his mouth trying to force the rest of the words out. Akuji smiled impishly and waggled her eyebrows at Albus.
"You named it that on purpose didn't you." Crevan stopped making faces and tilted his head to where James had hoped down towards a computer, a face of his own pulled puckishly in grimace.
"Of course." Crevan rolled his eyes and unfolded his arms as he watched the practically glowing girl bounce off down the steps herself.
The two newcomers took their time following so they could look around, their height still halfway up the main staircase gave them a bird's eye view of everything. In spite of the wonders to see, though, another thought occurred to the younger.
"Crevan," he asked softly, "why did you offer to change your rooms?"
The elder didn't even bother to glance at him, merely shrugging. "I know you guys and you are slightly more entertaining than the utter incompetents I had been placed with."
"You know what? Screw it. Let's just start from the front and work our way through." Akuji interrupted as she came springing back up the stairs, cutting off anything further Crevan might have added to his explanation, leaving Albus to have to be content with it. Still, the younger boy found it not hard to quickly dismiss any disappointment. For it was what Akuji showed them next that confirmed his suspicions.
"So, how did you find this place?" Crevan wondered curiously as they filed back through the room of door flames, this time the fires staying contentedly dormant.
"Last year, when I came, James and Fred told me the story their parents told me about their first year. About how the infamous Harry Potter, Ronald Weasely, and Hermione Granger stopped the big bad scawey dark lord Snake Face from getting a hunk of magic rock from that mirror you see in the back of the room back there."
"The Sorcerer's Stone," Albus gasped
"Correcti-mono." Akuji raised her wand and waved. Instantly light filled the large room, illuminating the hunks of rock Albus thought looked like he might know what they were, but hadn't had time and a clear view to put his finger on it. Now revealed were the black and white checkered floor and broken hunk of stone that had once upon a time, many years before, been a grand chess set of life-size proportions. Almost in awe, he walked amongst the ruins, taking in the surreal conditions, until finally he came to a still-standing statue, the king, white of stone, complete except for a certain missing item atop his head.
"Yeah, we figured we'd keep the better pieces 'cause they looked pretty cool, and cleaned away most of the rest to one side." Akuji waved to the far edges of the board, where broken pawns and cracked horses lay, remaining parts of eerily recognizable legs still stuck to the latter.
"Wasn't there supposed to be a Devil's Snare at the front under the trap door? What happened to Fluffy? The flying keys? How…"
"Ok, slow down." Akuji interrupted patiently. "To answer most of that – the teachers, after the destruction of the Stone, removed their spells and enchantments in the event any other adventurous students got it in their heads to try exploring and ended up down here. Although that wasn't exactly pointless, but still mundane, since stories still circulate that the third floor corridor should be avoided on count of a most painful death." She smirked just a little unpleasantly. "From what I've managed to help James get out of Hagrid is that they don't really have any use for this part of the castle and therefore no reason to worry about it, so the teachers have never particularly bothered going out of their way to correct this assumption. Kids not getting curious and possibly getting trapped down here where no one would know for days is a good thing, as far as they are concerned."
"But what was that pink cloud stuff under the trapdoor? And why Here? And why pink?"
Akuji had to laugh. "Well actually, when we first started down here we had to levitate each other down, just in case there was still an overgrown jungle of nasty vines hanging around that had mutated over the years being left alone down here. After that it was a matter of finding a permanent spell we could use as a solution to the accessibility problem. We could have conjured a stairs, but that would be no fun. So I found a landing enchantment we could set up, but also it has a reversible quality that makes you rise upward when you want to. Even better, it had to be made with fairy dust and most notably, as you've seen, comes out pink." She looked ready to begin laughing again. "Do you know the satisfaction of every time coming down here, James's face getting covered in that stuff?"
Ok, Albus had to admit that was pretty funny. The memory of his brother's twisted sour grimace, looking like he'd been bedazzled; yes, that was worth it. He had no problem with the color, the powder had worn off in seconds after all, he could live with it.
"So you have your entertainment center in there, what's this out here?"
"Ah," Akuji got that knowing smile to Crevan's question, like she had been waiting for it. "This out here, where once again nobody annoying can disturb us, ahem," she glanced significantly Albus's way for a moment, "is where I practice and try to keep your other two numbskulls in shape as well."
Walking behind a row of still intact taller statues, she did something that caused a mild scraping sound and reappeared around the pieces, hauling behind her what looked to be a long iron chest. The chest looked heavy and far bigger than Akuji, but somehow she managed to drag the large thing over the smooth marble surface with only marginal lack of ease, like she had been doing it a long time and built the muscle for it. Which explained a few things.
With a happy exhale, she dropped the end she had been holding at their feet. The boom ominously echoing off the mostly empty space. With a smile and a flourish, she lifted the lid up and revealed the inside.
Attached to the inside of the lid, an assortment of knives and swords met the boy's expectant gaze; down in the bottom, long staffs and assorted gloves and other items Albus had never seen but could guess the purpose of lay jumbled together. Akuji picked two pairs of gloves and some large pillow-looking device with handles attached at one side and threw these to the boys before closing the trunk.
"What's this?" Crevan asked dubiously, although it sounded like the question was not aimed at the nature of the items.
"I told you," Akuji said with a heave of breath and sat down on the heavy box, "after Albus's little spat the other day I can't always be there to keep him out of trouble, so I'm doing the next best thing."
Teaching him to fight. After fixing his face, Akuji unhesitantly, without asking, dragged all four boys off with her to a patch of quieter ground where they would be less likely disturbed and proceeded to show him a beginner's move on how to start on sidestepping an opponent. From there on, every evening after homework, she would call him together with Fred and James who she had been teaching the better part of the previous year, to spar. Mostly, she said, because this way she could hopefully get some practice in to keep up her training while incarcerated here. Crevan, who it turned out had training of his own, began tentatively joining them, intrigued at the idea of a sparring partner.
This was short-lived, as by Wednesday night their second week Louis found them and delivered a sound lecture on Akuji's irresponsibility for such a notion, almost removing five points from Gryffindor for the action. The latter did not happen as Akuji quickly pointed out it could not count as fighting since it was not physically harming each other intentionally and they weren't even being vigorous about it. Louis had to comply, but gave a stern warning that the next time he caught them there would be more serious consequences.
Albus had wondered just how Louis did not know, if Akuji had been teaching the other two boys for a year already. Here was his answer.
"Down here?"
"Why not?" Akuji shrugged. "We originally started here. I was going to just bring you guys down but James and Fred were a little more hesitant if you could be trusted not to rat on us." She notably glanced at Albus.
Al felt a surge in his chest. He never thought being friends with Louis might be some cause of discrimination by his own brother, but he would also never spill about this. He liked Louis a lot, but his new friend had done more for him in the short time he'd known her than he could ever imagine a person outside his family doing on such short notice. Plus she was right, they hadn't been hurting anything and Akuji seemed to definitely know what she was doing, for what little he knew about fighting.
"So long as no one's getting hurt, I'm not saying anything." He protested.
"Atta-boy." Akuji grinned and stood. "Shall we?"
"Wait!" Albus found the words bursting out of his mouth. Maybe it was because these two had done so much for him or maybe it was the need to share a responding secret, one he hadn't been able to tell anyone but his father about yet and to which he'd had no reply on that, Albus found himself saying, "I have something to tell you too."