my dear friends -
my apologies on not being able to post this chapter sooner. I
have been hard at work on several other projects, including my own original story, Magefire,
and a translation from middle English of A Requiem for a Dream, written by Rowena
Ravencalw and Salazar Slytherin, which will be appearing here probably in the early fall.
So I pray you forgive me for the delay in posting this next chapter, and I hope
that it will be worth the wait.
-Adiemus Evans
Chapter 6 - Speed of Light (from Avalon: A Maze of Grace)
3 A.M and you're tossing in your bed
Thoughts are turning in your head
You're hanging on, but how much longer?
Why do empty things you pour your soul into
Never fill that void in you?
Makes you wonder.
The Christmas holidays came quickly, and we all said our goodbyes and exchanged gifts on the last day of classes. The holidays passed quickly - nothing special happened at home, but I wanted to be there anyway, if only so no one would suspect that my family was other than perfect. I returned to school, and classes continued, and winter quickly turned into spring. The eight of us continued to swim in rainbow lake on the weekends and after classes; it became our private retreat from the world. We had picnics there, did our classwork there, I practiced my voice lessons there, we even accidentally fell asleep and spent the night there from time to time. We grew very close as a group. None of us was especially well-liked by the school in general. Our grades were nothing special (most of us were intelligent enough to get excellent scores, but we never bothered trying), we frequently lost points for rule-breaking, and we associated with other houses.
My best friends during that time were probably Marianne and Peter. Marianne was simply more fun to be around than anyone else I knew, and Peter held a certain attraction for me simply because he was so uncomplicated. Gullible and not especially bright, perhaps, but that made him a very straightforward and honest person. I liked that, because I'd known very few people like that before.
It was in mid-March that we found the secret room, quite by accident. James and Marianne and Remus and I were relaxing in the Gryffindor common room (we all knew where each other's common rooms were and went there frequently once we were sure everyone else was in bed). James and I had gotten into a whispered argument on herbology, so the four of us were back in a dark corner looking for an herbology book James thought he had dropped there earlier. I suppose there was something in it that would prove his point, but I never found out, because at that moment, the portrait door slid open.
We all crowded ourself back into the corner - Remus and I would be in unspeakable trouble if we were found both in Gryffindor house and up after lights out. It was not a teacher who stepped in now, however, but Lavinia Snape. She had probably heard the password mentioned by Marianne or Peter, who were never quite as discreet as they should be. She was carrying a small, ancient looking book in one hand. I couldn't read the title on the spine from my corner, but...was that blood on the cover?
Luckily, Lavinia didn't see us. She didn't waste a moment looking around. She went straight to the large painting of the Gryffindor lion and twisted a tiny rosebud on the lower-left corner of the frame. The lion looked up and said, "Password?"
Lavinia, her nervousness apparent in her voice, said "Rainbow Lake bids me enter." Marianne and I caught each other's eyes, startled. What did this have to do with our lake? The lion bowed once, got up, and strode to the side of the picture. Where he had been lying was a little trap door. Lavinia quickly grasped the handle, pulled it open, and crawled inside. She emerged only seconds later carrying her book, and also a large piece of parchment with markings all over it. She twisted the rosebud on the frame again, and the lion lay back down, hiding the trap door from view completely. In another instant, Lavinia was back out in the hallway.
I let out my breath. I hadn't realized I was holding it. Remus and I went to bed soon thereafter, but first the four of us made a pact: We wouldn't rest till we'd found out what Lavinia was up to.