Thanks a ton for the great reviews! they all made my day, I'm so glad you guys like the story, and that you think I'm a good writer, that's the best compliment anyone could give me :) but anyways since you got 40 reviews here's chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen: Tripping and Stumbling
Once inside the Shrieking Shack, Jane pulled back her hood and unraveled the scarf so that it hung loosely by her sides. She watched from the front window of the house as Malfoy's lanky legs carried him, none too gracefully down the hill.
It was in this moment that Jane felt like a traitor, standing there wearing a Slytherin scarf, waiting for her Slytherin friend, basically chumming around with some of her only friends' arch rival. At the same time, however, Jane felt like she couldn't possibly imagine herself having fun anywhere else or with anyone else, almost like she belonged with Slytherin. These conflicting thoughts troubled Jane greatly but she had no further time to dwell on them as Draco bounded through the door, his knees soaking wet from tripping on a snow bank.
"What the bloody hell was that about little Miss Adventure?" Draco shouted as he knocked the snow off his pant legs.
"Nothing," Jane laughed, "I just wanted to have a look, I am a Gryffindor after all."
Draco rolled his eyes, "Yeah well you're a Gryffindor with a death wish, clearly."
"What, is ickle Draco scared of the little bitty ghosties?" Jane teased in a high pitched voice.
"I am not scared, alright? I just don't want to have to try and keep you safe in this death trap of a house," He replied, trying to seem tough.
"Oi, what makes you think I can't take care of myself? Or that you can?" Jane said, slightly annoyed, "From the way you stumbled down that hill, I'd say you're the one who needs looking after."
"Be that as it may, why in the name of Merlin's beard did you drag me down here in the first place?" Draco asked, clearly just as annoyed as Jane.
"I just thought it would be fun, if you want to go by all means go, but I'd like to stay," she replied forcefully.
"Alright fine, but just be careful, this hellhole is probably older than Dumbledore," he worried.
"Hey! Come here and look at this!" Jane called to Draco, as she wandered into the dilapidated sitting room.
"What is it?" Draco called from the kitchen.
"Someone carved something into the wall," she replied.
Draco walked up behind Jane and stared at the wall in front of them, "J + L" was crudely carved into the wall and around it was a lopsided heart. Next to it were several more that said things like, "S.B. was here," or "Wormtail smells," or "Mr. and Mrs. Prongs together forever."
"I wonder who they were," Jane mused.
"Probably Hogwarts kids who came down here to mess around," Malfoy replied, "I wonder if Mr. and Mrs. Prongs stayed together."
"I hope they did," she said dreamily, as she ran her fingers over the lumpy heart and down to the inscription about Wormtail, "Poor Wormtail," she joked.
"Wanna put our names up there?" he asked eagerly.
"Definitely," Jane smiled, "Do you have anything sharp?"
Malfoy was already walking back to the kitchen, he soon emerged with a small rusty pocket-knife, "This was in one of the draws," he said as he started to dig the knife into the wall.
"I'm going to go look around, and don't worry, I'll be careful mom," Jane could hear Draco snickering as she walked up the stairs to the next level.
The second floor of the Shrieking Shack was a rickety hallway, the gray, yellowed paint was chipping and wallpaper was peeling off in places. The floorboards were scuffed and dirty, in some places there wasn't even a floor, and Jane could see straight down to the ground level.
Jane peeked behind each door as she made her way through the hall, most of them were empty save the odd chair, then she got to the last door, right next to the washroom, which was rusty and the floor was missing most of the tiles. In the last bedroom the was an old four poster bed with decaying curtains hanging around it, the sheets were dusty and moth eaten.
In the opposite corner there was a nasty old couch with holes and bit of stuffing and springs hanging out of it. Next to the couch was an ancient wooden wardrobe, Jane opened it slowly and screamed as a bat flew out and startled her.
She put her hand on her chest and felt her heart pounding as she heard Malfoy running up the stairs, he flung the door open and saw Jane standing by the open wardrobe.
"What happened?" he asked as he walked up to her and grabbed her face on either side with one hand, "Are you alright?" he questioned, not waiting for an answer to his first question, he turned her face left and then right, so he could see her cheeks.
"Let go of me, you fool," Jane said as she smacked his hand away, "I'm fine, there was a bat in the cupboard and it startled me, that's all, I'm perfectly fine."
"Is ickle Janie afwaid of the wittle battys?" Malfoy asked, mocking the way she spoke to him earlier.
"Wow, that was hilarious, I think I might need to sit down, my sides hurt from laughing so much, "Jane replied with an impeccable dead-pan expression.
"I'm only joking," he smiled, "So did you find anything good up here?"
"I was about to look in the wardrobe but other than that no, there's barely anything in any of the rooms," Jane said.
Draco flopped down onto the couch next to the cupboard, causing millions of tiny dust motes to fly around the room. Jane stepped in front of the wardrobe, cautiously, should there be more bats lurking about. There were no more bats, much to Jane's relief; instead there were a bunch of old clothes, but not normal clothes, Jane reached in and pulled out a frilly, outdated black dress covered in ribbons.
She held it against herself and turned to Draco, "Vhat do you sink dawwling?" she drawled in a Russian accent.
Draco laughed as she twirled in front of him, "Simply marvelous my dear, simply marvelous!" he said in a snobby, exaggerated voice.
Jane slid her head through the space in the hanger so the dress hung down in front of her, "Vhy sank you, gawwgus," she winked at Malfoy as he got off the couch and stood in front of her.
He bowed low and offered Jane his hand, "Shall we dance?"
Without answering Jane took his hand and they spun around the room, with dramatic twirls and dips, until Jane tripped on a loose floorboard and stumbled into Draco, almost knocking him over. Draco caught his balance and held her upper arms and she could feel his body heat through the old black dress, they were so close she could have counted his blonde eyelashes.
"Oh sorry," she mumbled as she stepped away and took the coat hanger off her neck and hung the dress back up. As she put the dress back she noticed something burgundy in the back of the closet, she reached forward and pulled out a gray knit sweater with a Gryffindor patch and the signature red strip on the bottom.
"Look," she said, holding it out to Draco, "I bet this belonged to one of the people whose names were written downstairs."
"Wouldn't surprise me, you Gryffindors sure would think this is a cool hangout," he smirked and nudged her arm playfully.
"Oh that reminds me, what did you write?" she asked.
"I'll show you before we leave, now does this write off have an attic?" he asked, showing interest in the house for the first time.
"Let's find out," Jane smiled, "I think I saw a trap door in the ceiling out in the hall."
The pair walked out into the hall and sure enough, a small rusty ring was hanging from the ceiling, Draco barely had to jump to get a grip on it. He pulled it and a staircase folded down from the trap door, it was creaky and the wood was the same shad of scuffed, dirty brown as the floor.
"Ladies first," Draco said, gesturing towards the stairs.
"Scaredy-cat," Jane said under her breath as she climbed up the stairs ahead of him.
The attack was completely full of all kinds of things, chairs, mattresses, bed frames, a bird cage, a doll house, a desk, and enough toys to open a daycare with.
"Whoever lived here must have been a pack rat," Malfoy said flicking the leaf of a fake plant to his left.
"Yeah, it kind of reminds me of the Room of Requirement," Jane said without thinking.
"The what?" he asked with confusion on his face.
"Oh, you've never been, it's this room in the castle, I first found it when I was nine; you see, it only appears for people who truly need it. I had stolen some bezoars from Snape and Dumbledore was getting suspicious; I was wandering the castle looking for a place to hide it and then this room appeared. It was full of all kinds of things, kind of like this except like ten times bigger, because of all the things students have hidden there over the years." Jane had wandered away from Malfoy as she told this story and sat down at an old piano and was pressing random keys.
"When you were nine?" Malfoy asked incredulously.
"Yeah, I know exactly where it is, I should show you sometime," she said absentmindedly.
"You were at Hogwarts when you were nine?" he asked again.
"Yeah, you just asked me–" Jane realized what she had said, "I mean, I read a story about it when I was nine, or uh my mom did, yeah my mom told me about it when I was nine."
Jane refused to turn around because she could feel Draco standing directly behind her, "Uhm, I have to go to the washroom, be back in a second," she said cheerily and before Malfoy could protest or even move she ran out of the attic. In her hurry to leave the room she tripped on the stairs from the attic and instead of the hard landing she expected, she fell right through the floor at the bottom of the stairs and down to the next floor, emitting a blood-curdling shriek as she fell.
Please review, I love hearing what you all think :) and aren't you all excited to see what happens, what with the falling through houses and accidental secret spilling, I'm excited to even write it :D