THC

Ravenclaw, Potions

Themed: [Discovery] - the act of finding something that had not been known before; learning something new.

Prompt: (object) canoe

WC: 1128/3000

Hermione Granger was in her first year at Hogwarts when she came across the gigantic pool that had somehow been hidden in the depths of the castle for who knows how long.

She had been trying to run from her classmates; they had threatened to beat her up for telling on them. Hermione had had no choice. There were at least five of them, and she couldn't take them all on at the same time. If it had been one or two bullies, she could have used the hexes she'd learnt from the library books.

So instead of allowing the confrontation to happen, Hermione tucked tail and ran. Shame swallowed her whole at the thought of everyone finding out that she wasn't a true Gryffindor, and she sniffled as she tried to bury herself deeper inside the alcove.

Something crackled behind her, and she whirled around just in time to find the stone wall splitting into two. All thoughts of the bullies vanished into thin air. She cried out and stumbled back. The crack deepened, split the wall, and left a giant gaping hole behind.

It was like a mini earthquake—except it had only affected that one wall.

Hermione held her breath and stared at the wall, her heart pounding. Her hands trembled as she pulled out her wand and nearly dropped it to the ground. She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes widening with fear when the voices of her bullies grew louder.

"Where is she? Find her! I want to hex that Mudblood's tongue," Malfoy barked.

Hermione whimpered at the venom in his tone and crept back to the crack in the wall.

"She must be around here somewhere," Weasley grumbled, the sound of his worn shoes approaching the alcove. "She can't have disappeared, right?"

Of course not. You can't Apparate inside the castle. It's in Hogwarts: A History.

Hermione held her tongue though. It was her big mouth that had got her into trouble with her peers in the first place. She had accidentally snitched on them to Professor McGonagall, who had a no-nonsense attitude towards mischief-makers like Malfoy, Weasley, and Potter.

Now they were out for her blood.

Their footsteps echoed over the mosaic tiles, charging closer…and closer…

Again, Hermione had no choice.

Clutching her wand in between her fingers and praying that she would survive whatever was about to happen, she stumbled towards the deep gouge and stepped inside.

When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, Hermione gasped and dropped her wand with a soft clatter. It rolled away, but she did not pick it up.

Inside the hole in the wall was a single narrow path that led straight up towards a gigantic pool. No, wait, it was a river. Or was it a lake? As Hermione stared at it, the image continued to distort from a pool to a river to a lake and then back to a pool. But for some reason, the water remained absolutely still. Silence reigned supreme in the dark cave-like structure even when the images of the surroundings shifted.

The only source of light was a bright candle hovering over a long object up in the distance that Hermione couldn't make out. She crouched and patted the ground, looking for her wand. Her hands slipped off the track, and her heart leapt to her throat at feeling absolutely nothing underneath. Once her fingers wrapped around the thin handle, she stood up, plucked up her courage, and took one step onto the rocky path.

Behind her, something thudded, and Hermione's heart plummeted when she whirled around to find the crack in the wall rapidly disappearing. It closed with an ominous thud, sealing her inside the cave for good.

Panic rose in Hermione's chest at the thought of dying in there without no one aware of her location. She rushed towards the wall and clawed it, yelling for someone to save her, but to no avail.

The wall remained quiet with its stony silence.

Her nose prickled with the onslaught of tears welling up in her eyes, and her throat constricted. She licked her dry lips and tried to stop herself from trembling like a leaf.

She was a witch, and she would get through this. She would.

Hermione repeated the mantra as she sent spell after spell at the wall, but nothing happened. It remained still. Unbroken. Unshattered.

"Okay, just calm down. The castle won't hurt you. Professor Dumbledore won't keep anything dangerous in the castle—there are students around." Her words rang like a gong in the empty and silent cave. It was eerie, the way her words echoed in her ears, reverberating through the space as if she had screamed the words instead of whispering them to herself.

Taking deep breaths, Hermione turned back to the winding path that sloped up towards the strange body of water. Her shoes crunched on the rocks as she sidled down the road, wand at the ready. She peered over the side of the path, wondering what would happen if she fell into the darkness below, but decided not to test any half-baked theories.

When the candle finally came into view, Hermione stopped and stared. The light from the candle was so bright that it pricked her eyes, but it was what was underneath that held her attention.

She had only seen them in books and movies, but she recognised the object. A one-person canoe, with two oars leaning against the side, was tied to a boulder the size of a bicycle.

What was the canoe for? Apart from paddling through the water. But why? What was its purpose? Why was there a canoe and a body of water inside the castle? And this wasn't just inside the castle—it was hidden inside an alcove inside the castle.

She had so many questions but no answers. And Hermione was nothing if not solution-driven.

She made her decision and stepped forward.

The olive-brown canoe wobbled as Hermione pushed it onto the water and climbed inside, but it remained afloat. Ripples emerged in the still water beneath the canoe, trailing away to the middle of the pool.

Glancing at the oars, she hesitated. She didn't know how to row—and neither did she know any spell that might help her. Still, she wasn't a quitter. She reached down to pick up the oars.

Surprise filled her when the oars rose and flew to either side of the canoe; they attached themselves to the canoe and began to rotate.

Hermione glanced at the shore as it crept further and further away.

What was going to happen to her? Where would the canoe take her? What if what awaited her was more dangerous than being enclosed within the cave?

Hermione was soon going to find out.