Hogwarts a History – Mazes and Monsters year 2 remix
Chapter 07 – The halls have halls

The grinding of stone against stone went on inordinately long. They all began to wonder if this was some sort of trick or trap, not a door at all but some manner of deception. That would have been so Slytherin.

Such thoughts were discarded when the wall at last moved, folding into the adjoining stone and revealing a long hall, illuminated in a strange rose-colored light.

"Huh. Well, that's disappointing," said Ron.

"I know what you mean," said Seamus. "After all that build up, I was expecting a bit—more."

"I was hoping for a pie," said Luna.

"Pie?" Filene wondered while the others groaned.

"To come flying out of the hole," she explained, "and hit someone in the face."

"Why would a pie do that?"

"Classic comedy."

"Oooooh… I don't get it."

Luna shrugged, "It's an acquired taste."

"Pie?"

"Oh, for the love of Merlin!" Su Li exclaimed. "Let's just go before she corrupts the centaur any further."

Filene glanced over her shoulder as she trotted after the others. "Are you corrupting me?" she asked with guileless innocence.

Luna pondered. "Well—I am a bad influence."

There was no argument over this assertion, which could have been taken as a general agreement. Ron was certainly nodding in an agreeable fashion as they all ambled down the hall under the gentle light of crystal glow.

"Kinda odd, isn't it. The crystals I mean," said Neville. "Why leave that other hall dark but light this one?"

"Maybe he didn't have enough to do both," suggested Seamus, an answer that satisfied no one, not even the one who gave it.

"Let's just get out of here before anything jumps out and tries to kill us," said Harry.

The hall stretched, on and on with no apparent end. The longer they walked the more Harry's sense of unease grew. And those innocuous looking crystals were starting to bug him.

"Everyone stop!" he commanded, bringing their little troupe to a sudden halt.

"What's wrong Harry?" Ron asked.

What was wrong? "It feels like we haven't even moved."

"What are you talking about?" said Lavender crossly, still annoyed from her earlier swatting. "We've been walking for like, five minutes."

Yet the section of hall they stood in was identical to the one where they'd entered. Daring to look back, he saw the door closed and the way 'back' looking exactly the same as the way forward.

The others noticed as well.

"Another illusion you think?" said Su Li.

"But where?" said Padma. "What's the illusion? What's it cast on?"

No one had an answer.

"It's a shame Hogwarts doesn't teach illusion magic," the Indian twin with the blue tie opined.

"Or not," said Dean. "Can you imagine how people would abuse that sort of magic."

"I can," said Ron, earning a weak chuckle from the group.

"Harry, you're being silly," said Lavender, hands firmly on hips. "See, just watch me. Here I go, walking. See me walking?"

He did see her walking, and the klaxons in his brain began screaming.

It wasn't anything he could see, not exactly. It was more like his brain was trying to convince him his eyes were seeing it but doing such a poor job he just couldn't believe it.

"See!" she called back, her voice an unnaturally hollow echo he was not the only one to notice.

"Okay, that can't be right," said Parvati.

"You heard it too?" said Seamus, plucking one ear in disbelief of his own lying senses.

"Lavender! Come back!" Harry shouted. And when his words didn't seem to register correctly, he screamed it with his hands.

The group watched Lavender start walking toward them, and walk, and walk, then she began to jog, then run, then sprint, but it was no good. However fast she ran, there was always more space to cover, the distance never shrank.

"Lav! Lav I'm coming!" Parvati cried.

The others seemed to have similar ideas but none at exactly the same moment. Harry tried to stop them, bit it all happed so fast and that wasn't even the worst of it.

His head exploded as his propaganda department developed seven new branches who all went off in competing directions, leaving his poor brain fighting to construct a cohesive narrative to explain the physical impossibilities he was witnessing.

For example, perpendicular spaces did not occupy the same space without touching, nor did parallel spaces coil around each other like amorous snakes, yet that's exactly what he was seeing.

It felt like someone had replaced his glasses with a kaleidoscope. Only by averting his befuddled eyes did he find Luna and Filene right where he'd left them, still occupying the same plane as he.

"Luna—are you—seeing this?" he groaned through the strain of eyes that felt too big for his skull.

Luna nodded. "It's not an illusion," she said, eyes as wide open as ever. "It's a spacial distortion. We're in a magically created space."

"But why, I mean, the others, how…" he struggled to be coherent.

"Might be unstable," she said with a shrug, "or maybe it was designed to do this. Separate people into coinciding but separate space."

"Kay. Let's pretend I understood that. How do we stop it? How do we get everyone back in the same space?"

"Rewrite the laws of physics," she offered after a moment's ponder. "Barring that, you'd need to find whatever's powering it, just to start."

"Great! How do I…" he stopped, glaring at the glowing crystal on the wall.

No. Couldn't be that obvious. And yet…

"Luna, you wouldn't have a hammer in your bag by any chance?"

"Sorry Harry, no hammer," she said. "The walls are all stone. I didn't feel I'd need one."

Flawless logic, sort of, "Then why did you have the big wrench I used earlier?"

"You mean this," she said, producing the item in question. "Well, there's lots of pipes around. You never know."

She wasn't wrong, technically anyway. "Thank you."

The wrench was heavy in his hands as he hefted it over his head, nearly lost his balance, then leaned slightly to the left and lined up his swing.

Luna saw what he was doing, processed the probabilities, "Oh Harry, you shouldn't ought to," but he did. "Oh bother."