Chapter Eight – Late Night Excursion
At exactly 1:11 Sirius Black's eyes opened and he sat up in his bed. Picking up James' wristwatch off the bed stand, he was happy to see that he had been almost perfect in his timing. He got out of bed and stepped over to the bed next to him and hit James really hard on the head to wake him up. James' eyes flipped open. His mouth opened, and he was about to say something, probably a cuss, but Sirius quickly covered James' mouth with his hand to silence him.
Grabbing Sirius' hand from his mouth, James flung it away. "I said wake me up, not scare the crap out of me!" whispered James furiously. "What time is it anyway?"
"1:11. Well, now it's 1:12, but when I woke up, it was 1:11."
"Well aren't you a special one," muttered the still irritated James throwing the covers off himself.
"I'm sorry James. Really, I am. It's just that you were just lying there, innocent as a little baby. It was scaring me. Come on, you know you would have done the same thing had you been in my position," Sirius pointed out.
James' long face was soon replaced with a wicked grin. He eyed the five other occupants in the room, other than himself and Sirius. "Well, no I don't think I would have done the same thing. I think I'm a little meaner than that." Sirius grinned too.
"So, what you're getting at is that maybe, before we leave for our little tour of the castle, we should be kind and show our dorm buddies who we really are. I mean, we didn't really get to introduce ourselves last night," said Sirius, a mischievous grin playing at his lips.
"Sirius Black," whispered the astonished and wide-eyed James, "I never implied such a thing! I don't know where that wicked mind of yours comes up with these things. Plus," James' evil smirk returning to him now, "we wouldn't want to do that before we left, because then they all would most likely be awake. We'd want to do that after we got back, not saying that we should or anything, or that we will..."
"Oh, of course not. So, um, how are we planning to get around without any of the teachers catching us?"
"Oh, we don't have to worry about all the teachers. Just one. Filch. Filch and his cat. Filch came to work at Hogwarts in my dad's sixth year. He was real young, like he hadn't even graduated from Hogwarts of anything. My dad says he looked like he was 15 or so. I'm thinking maybe they failed him, and old Professor Dippet had a kind heart after all. Anyway, he had this terrible white cat, which could catch anyone just as easy as he could. (My dad testifies she caught him many times.) Her name was Mrs. Norris. Unfortunately, at the beginning of my dad's seventh year, some rude and cruel person set her on fire, not giving any names, but lets just say my dad and Dolong couldn't stop laughing for ages… Anyway, a week later Filch had a new cat. A black one (probably black to morn for the other cat's flaming death) and he named it Mrs. Norris. So I'm thinking that Filch will have a cat named Mrs. Norris."
"Great analogy. And a touching story, you'd be real great at bedtime stories, but if they both are out there, and we'll probably get caught, why and how are we going to get around without being caught?" Sirius asked.
"Because I have a secret weapon one, which will penetrate even Filch and his cat's expertise in catching troublemakers. I have the ultimate devise to mischief. I own the one and only (well, I'm the only student that I know of, at least) recipe to walking around unnoticed. The key to my father's success…"
"Okay, okay, get on with it ya little prat!"
"I have a cloak of invisibility," James said grinning widely.
"You what? How did you get an invisibility cloak? What did ya do? Steal it? How… I just can't see…those things are the hardest to come by. How did you manage it?" Sirius said, his mouth hanging slightly open.
"Why yes, they are, aren't they? It's just so amazing that I would happen to own one. Don't you think? Just because I'm so intelligent…"
"James, stop being an aggravating little twit, and just get on with it already!"
"Fine, fine. My dad gave it to me. His dad gave it for him in his third year."
"Well, where did your granddad get it from?"
"How am I supposed to know? Anyway, just forget how he got it, just be glad that he passed it down the line so I got it, otherwise, I don't think that we would ever be able do half the things my dad and I have been planning since I was five!"
"Okay, but I still think it's really weird that your granddad somehow got a hold of an invisibility cloak, but…"
"But you'll drop it right? Cause if you don't, we could waste half the night arguing instead of exploring," James said.
"Yeah, yeah, okay let's just get going then, before I think of something else to say."
"Good idea," James replied throwing the cloak over Sirius and himself.
The two mischievous boys stumbled out of their tower room and tumbled down the stairs plunging into the waiting Gryffindor common room. They were surprised to see two seventh years sleeping on the couch, but were cautious not to wake them.
James tiptoeing his way to the round exit tripped on Sirius' extended foot and fell with a thud out of the protection of the invisibility cloak and onto the scarlet colored carpeted (yet extremely hard) floor of the common room.
"Sirius! No more messing around," hissed James through his teeth, rubbing his chin where he had hit the stone floor (he missed the carpet).
The still invisible Sirius was quiet for a minute but then gave away his position by his unremitting laughter. James swung at the area were the laughter seemed to be coming from and hit Sirius square in the jaw, the cloak slipping off him. As the two seventh years stirred on the couch, James once again flung the cloak over the two of them, and hushed the angry yet hysterical Sirius into silence.
As soon as the two on the couch were settled again, Sirius turned on James and hit him in the stomach. "Why'd you punch me?"
"Sorry Sirius," whispered James angrily, "I guess that I was just really annoyed at you for tripping me!"
"Well, maybe it was an accident," Sirius jeered back.
"Yeah right. It's just a normal position for you to put your leg right in front of my feet just as I am about to walk. You just needed to stretch your legs really bad, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. Why are you always so pissed about these kinds of things? I'm just messing around, just like you do."
"Well, I guess you're right, I shouldn't get mad at you just because you're an annoying, stupid little prat. You can't help it, you were raised that way."
"You making fun of the way my mum raised me, cause you better not be, seeing as how I pretty much turned out the same way as you did, meaning our mothers did that same job."
"No sir-e. It's not my mum's fault that I'm like this. It's my dad's. The only reason I'm so weird is because I'm just like him."
"Okay, enough. We really should just stop fighting. The way I see it, we can either be the best of friends, or the worst of enemies, and let me just say, I'd rather be on your side setting the pranks, then getting all your good ideas thrown in my face," Sirius admitted smiling.
"I do have some pretty good ideas huh?"
"Yup."
"In that case, we should definitely be friends. I mean, think of all the things we can do to Snape and McGonagall. I mean to know Dumbledore's office really well, how bout you?"
"Me too. Remember, we still have to see who can set McGonagall's hair on fire first the bet is still on. Five Sickles says I see her hair in flames first."
"Five Sickles!" exclaimed James. "What kind of a bet is five Sickles? No bet is any good unless it's a Galleon or higher. Tell you what, five Galleons say I set that witch's hair on fire long before you do."
A moment's pause… then, "You're on!"
"Okay, now let's go and see what we can find in the castle."
"Sounds good to me. I just hope that we can steer clear of Filch!"
The two exited through the portrait hole and walked through the hallway, trying to see if they could find their way back to the Great Hall, with no success. In little time at all they were utterly and completely lost.
"How are we supposed to find our way around here? I mean we can't even find our own common room, let alone anything else," Sirius whispered as they walked past what looked to be the library for the fifth time. "They really should make a map of this place for the first years. I mean, surely we aren't the first to be lost in here?"
"Map? That's a really good idea. We should have brought some parchment with us and then we could make a map. And we would be the only ones with a map and therefore the only ones who know every place there is to go in Hogwarts! It's brilliant!"
"Brilliant as it may be James, it's kind of too late for you to be suggesting we bring parchment with us now. You do realize that we are lost and we don't have any parchment, don't you?"
"Of course I do, but we have all night to find our way back to the common room, and then the next time we go out, we'll know the school a little better, hopefully, and we'll be able to find our way around in the dark, and I'm sure that we'll know the way to the library since we've gone past it six times," James said pointing to the large library as they passed it yet once again.
"Who cares how to get to the library?" James opened his mouth to answer, but Sirius interrupted him. "Except Lily." James was silent.
"Okay, so you have a point, but at least we know where something in the school is."
"And pitiful as it is, that something isn't our common room," muttered Sirius.
"Don't worry Sirius, we'll find it. These things just take a little time that's all."
"We never should have gone tonight. We should have waited until we knew our way around a little better."
"Don't you get it? Even though we are more or less lost…" "Definitely more," muttered Sirius. "…we know our way around better than any other first year. That puts us in the advantage. If we ever have to go to the library for studying or to get a book for a class, we'll be the first ones to find it, and the first ones to leave, and that would give us more time to explore. And since we know our way… a little… we can be late to class and blame it on not finding our way. They expect us to get lost some the first week or two."
For a moment longer, that clueless look remained in Sirius' eyes, but then his face lightened up. "I get it now. If we can just find our way around a little better, then tomorrow we can be late to our first class and just say, 'Sorry, we got lost' and they wont get mad. There wont be a thing they can do about it, even if they suspect that we really were out exploring the castle, because there would have been others who were late as well, and if they punish us and not them, it would look unfair to the other students, and they don't really want to look unfair. So, do you think they have some spare parchment in the library that we can use to map our way back to the common room?"
"Probably do, but I'm not planning on going back to the common room yet. We have to find out as much as we can, so that tomorrow we don't really get lost instead of only pretending to. Let's find our way back to the common room, and then see if we can find our way to the transfiguration corridor. That's our first class, I think."
And so the boys entered the library and probed the front desk until in the bottom left drawer they found what they were looking for. There, neatly folded and stacked was a pile of clean parchments. Sirius grabbed one and James began searching for a quill and ink. It was quickly found in the top middle drawer.
After James labeled a little black dot close to the middle of the parchment 'Library' he walked out into the hall and began marking where there where portraits and suits of armor. Soon enough, he had every detail within sight marked on the piece of paper on the library hallway.
"Which way do you want to go? Left or right?" James asked.
Sirius turned and looked both ways as if he were crossing the street, and then answered, "Left." So with parchment in hand they walked left and continued scripting every distinct things so they would be able to tell exactly where they were at all times, and what to expect.
Soon they grew tired of writing where all the portraits where and what they were, and so they just did some of the more important traits. They soon reached more doorways and they opened them and drew what was in them as well.
At 3:00 they finally found the Great Hall. "Oh fantastic. We know how to get to the Great Hall from the Library, but we still don't know where our common room is," Sirius muttered.
And the tour sustained, with still no success of finding their common room. They did manage to find quiet a few secret passages though. There were a few obvious ones behind suits of armor that led from room to room; there were a few doors that were locked and couldn't be opened by the alohomora spell - but Sirius and James managed to get to passwords out of them by tickling them just right – and turned out to just be really fancy bathrooms with swimming pool sized bathtubs; there were some trapdoors hidden under the rugs, but most of them didn't lead anywhere but to a library or an empty corridor; one was hidden behind a portrait of a llama by a haystack that only opened if you tapped the bottom right corner three times with the back of your wand, while standing on one foot hopping up and down singing, "I'm a little teapot"; the portrait would then, and only then, swing open (revealing a small corridor that ended up leading back to the library.) Let's just assume that Sirius and his twisted mind was the one who figured out how to open that particular passageway.
But the most rewarding secret passage they found completely on accident. It was close to 4:00 and they were both equally worn out. As they were grudgingly walking down the twenty-third staircase they had come across, Sirius – who was a stride ahead of James – began to sink into the step at an alarming rate.
James pulled Sirius out of it quickly enough, but then his dark eyes light up. "What do you think would happen if you were to sink all the way through the stair?"
Sirius looked suspiciously at the stair, and then shrugged. "There's only one way to find out."
"How right you are," said James, right as he mercilessly pushed Sirius onto the sinking step, and backed out of his reach. "We all have to make sacrifices." Sirius scarcely had time to think –if he ever does think- before he was up to his waist and still sinking. All the time he was sinking, he tried to pull himself out (unsuccessfully) and kept saying things like, "I can't believe you did this" or "Is this some brutal joke of yours?" or "Cruelty to dumb animals is illegal you know." Before he knew it, he was out of comments and up to his neck with one of his arms glued to his side.
Glaring up at the spot where he imagined James was, he hissed, "What a superb friend you are." Okay – obviously not completely out of comments, but he was up to his neck, and sinking still.
"I can't believe I just did that," answered James' voice coming several feet to the right of where Sirius had been glaring. "I showed my barbarian side and all," James said grinning, but was a little less sure of him. "Oh man! I'm starting to go soft after all. Look Sirius, I still want to know if it goes anywhere. So, I'll grab your hand, and then you keep going down. If there is something cool down there, then let go and I'll follow you. If you want to come back up, then don't let you, and I will pull you back up." Sirius glared up skeptically at the grinning James. "It's either you trust me, or you stay there and keep sinking, and if there is a bottomless pit under the step, I can't pull you up in time, and then you will fall and fall until you hit the bottom of the bottomless pit. And then you'll be dead. And the people of China, they'll find you, and use your legs- which were broken off in the fall- to dig your grave."
"Pretty similar choices, I think. Trust you, you'll end up killing me; don't trust you, have some Chinaman digging my grave with my broken off legs. Trust you, Chinaman. Trust you, Chinaman. I've always wondered what China would be like, is it fall there too, or is it spring or something?" said Sirius thoughtfully.
"Just shut up and give me your hand." James extended a hand from beneath the cloak and thrust it into Sirius' own, damp one.
"James? If you end up killing me here tonight, I'll never speak to you again."
"Okay. Sounds far enough to me," James said keeping a straight face.
Sirius continued to sink lower and lower until all that was showing were his fingertips. Sirius' grip on James' hand loosened and then let go altogether.
James held his breath for a minute and then stepped onto the sinking step. Once he was up to his waist, he felt a hand begin to pull on the end of his robe. "Oh how I hope that is Sirius," James half whispered half whimpered under his breathe. The pulling on his robe continued and grew stronger.
Finally James sank through the step and fell on a soft, feathery chair. There standing on the back of the chair was a grinning Sirius, holding a piece of James' robe, which had ripped from being pulled so hard. "Isn't this place great?" he asked waving his hand at the room behind him and throwing the piece of James' robe at the wall where it then bounced nicely into a trash bin.
James looked around and saw that the large round room they were in was comfortably furnished with squishy bright colored chairs, a fireplace, games, a small kitchen, as well as three high poster beds. On the back wall was a seven-foot oak door with a large brass handle.
"Let's see what's in there," suggested James.
"Alright," said Sirius as he stood up and began walking towards it. He opened it a crack and his jaw dropped.
"What is it?" James said rushing over to the door where Sirius was standing open mouthed. James pushed the door open the rest of the way and peered into the room as well. "Oh wow." His jaw dropped. He swallowed hard and rubbed his hands together. "Paradise, here I come."
At exactly 1:11 Sirius Black's eyes opened and he sat up in his bed. Picking up James' wristwatch off the bed stand, he was happy to see that he had been almost perfect in his timing. He got out of bed and stepped over to the bed next to him and hit James really hard on the head to wake him up. James' eyes flipped open. His mouth opened, and he was about to say something, probably a cuss, but Sirius quickly covered James' mouth with his hand to silence him.
Grabbing Sirius' hand from his mouth, James flung it away. "I said wake me up, not scare the crap out of me!" whispered James furiously. "What time is it anyway?"
"1:11. Well, now it's 1:12, but when I woke up, it was 1:11."
"Well aren't you a special one," muttered the still irritated James throwing the covers off himself.
"I'm sorry James. Really, I am. It's just that you were just lying there, innocent as a little baby. It was scaring me. Come on, you know you would have done the same thing had you been in my position," Sirius pointed out.
James' long face was soon replaced with a wicked grin. He eyed the five other occupants in the room, other than himself and Sirius. "Well, no I don't think I would have done the same thing. I think I'm a little meaner than that." Sirius grinned too.
"So, what you're getting at is that maybe, before we leave for our little tour of the castle, we should be kind and show our dorm buddies who we really are. I mean, we didn't really get to introduce ourselves last night," said Sirius, a mischievous grin playing at his lips.
"Sirius Black," whispered the astonished and wide-eyed James, "I never implied such a thing! I don't know where that wicked mind of yours comes up with these things. Plus," James' evil smirk returning to him now, "we wouldn't want to do that before we left, because then they all would most likely be awake. We'd want to do that after we got back, not saying that we should or anything, or that we will..."
"Oh, of course not. So, um, how are we planning to get around without any of the teachers catching us?"
"Oh, we don't have to worry about all the teachers. Just one. Filch. Filch and his cat. Filch came to work at Hogwarts in my dad's sixth year. He was real young, like he hadn't even graduated from Hogwarts of anything. My dad says he looked like he was 15 or so. I'm thinking maybe they failed him, and old Professor Dippet had a kind heart after all. Anyway, he had this terrible white cat, which could catch anyone just as easy as he could. (My dad testifies she caught him many times.) Her name was Mrs. Norris. Unfortunately, at the beginning of my dad's seventh year, some rude and cruel person set her on fire, not giving any names, but lets just say my dad and Dolong couldn't stop laughing for ages… Anyway, a week later Filch had a new cat. A black one (probably black to morn for the other cat's flaming death) and he named it Mrs. Norris. So I'm thinking that Filch will have a cat named Mrs. Norris."
"Great analogy. And a touching story, you'd be real great at bedtime stories, but if they both are out there, and we'll probably get caught, why and how are we going to get around without being caught?" Sirius asked.
"Because I have a secret weapon one, which will penetrate even Filch and his cat's expertise in catching troublemakers. I have the ultimate devise to mischief. I own the one and only (well, I'm the only student that I know of, at least) recipe to walking around unnoticed. The key to my father's success…"
"Okay, okay, get on with it ya little prat!"
"I have a cloak of invisibility," James said grinning widely.
"You what? How did you get an invisibility cloak? What did ya do? Steal it? How… I just can't see…those things are the hardest to come by. How did you manage it?" Sirius said, his mouth hanging slightly open.
"Why yes, they are, aren't they? It's just so amazing that I would happen to own one. Don't you think? Just because I'm so intelligent…"
"James, stop being an aggravating little twit, and just get on with it already!"
"Fine, fine. My dad gave it to me. His dad gave it for him in his third year."
"Well, where did your granddad get it from?"
"How am I supposed to know? Anyway, just forget how he got it, just be glad that he passed it down the line so I got it, otherwise, I don't think that we would ever be able do half the things my dad and I have been planning since I was five!"
"Okay, but I still think it's really weird that your granddad somehow got a hold of an invisibility cloak, but…"
"But you'll drop it right? Cause if you don't, we could waste half the night arguing instead of exploring," James said.
"Yeah, yeah, okay let's just get going then, before I think of something else to say."
"Good idea," James replied throwing the cloak over Sirius and himself.
The two mischievous boys stumbled out of their tower room and tumbled down the stairs plunging into the waiting Gryffindor common room. They were surprised to see two seventh years sleeping on the couch, but were cautious not to wake them.
James tiptoeing his way to the round exit tripped on Sirius' extended foot and fell with a thud out of the protection of the invisibility cloak and onto the scarlet colored carpeted (yet extremely hard) floor of the common room.
"Sirius! No more messing around," hissed James through his teeth, rubbing his chin where he had hit the stone floor (he missed the carpet).
The still invisible Sirius was quiet for a minute but then gave away his position by his unremitting laughter. James swung at the area were the laughter seemed to be coming from and hit Sirius square in the jaw, the cloak slipping off him. As the two seventh years stirred on the couch, James once again flung the cloak over the two of them, and hushed the angry yet hysterical Sirius into silence.
As soon as the two on the couch were settled again, Sirius turned on James and hit him in the stomach. "Why'd you punch me?"
"Sorry Sirius," whispered James angrily, "I guess that I was just really annoyed at you for tripping me!"
"Well, maybe it was an accident," Sirius jeered back.
"Yeah right. It's just a normal position for you to put your leg right in front of my feet just as I am about to walk. You just needed to stretch your legs really bad, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. Why are you always so pissed about these kinds of things? I'm just messing around, just like you do."
"Well, I guess you're right, I shouldn't get mad at you just because you're an annoying, stupid little prat. You can't help it, you were raised that way."
"You making fun of the way my mum raised me, cause you better not be, seeing as how I pretty much turned out the same way as you did, meaning our mothers did that same job."
"No sir-e. It's not my mum's fault that I'm like this. It's my dad's. The only reason I'm so weird is because I'm just like him."
"Okay, enough. We really should just stop fighting. The way I see it, we can either be the best of friends, or the worst of enemies, and let me just say, I'd rather be on your side setting the pranks, then getting all your good ideas thrown in my face," Sirius admitted smiling.
"I do have some pretty good ideas huh?"
"Yup."
"In that case, we should definitely be friends. I mean, think of all the things we can do to Snape and McGonagall. I mean to know Dumbledore's office really well, how bout you?"
"Me too. Remember, we still have to see who can set McGonagall's hair on fire first the bet is still on. Five Sickles says I see her hair in flames first."
"Five Sickles!" exclaimed James. "What kind of a bet is five Sickles? No bet is any good unless it's a Galleon or higher. Tell you what, five Galleons say I set that witch's hair on fire long before you do."
A moment's pause… then, "You're on!"
"Okay, now let's go and see what we can find in the castle."
"Sounds good to me. I just hope that we can steer clear of Filch!"
The two exited through the portrait hole and walked through the hallway, trying to see if they could find their way back to the Great Hall, with no success. In little time at all they were utterly and completely lost.
"How are we supposed to find our way around here? I mean we can't even find our own common room, let alone anything else," Sirius whispered as they walked past what looked to be the library for the fifth time. "They really should make a map of this place for the first years. I mean, surely we aren't the first to be lost in here?"
"Map? That's a really good idea. We should have brought some parchment with us and then we could make a map. And we would be the only ones with a map and therefore the only ones who know every place there is to go in Hogwarts! It's brilliant!"
"Brilliant as it may be James, it's kind of too late for you to be suggesting we bring parchment with us now. You do realize that we are lost and we don't have any parchment, don't you?"
"Of course I do, but we have all night to find our way back to the common room, and then the next time we go out, we'll know the school a little better, hopefully, and we'll be able to find our way around in the dark, and I'm sure that we'll know the way to the library since we've gone past it six times," James said pointing to the large library as they passed it yet once again.
"Who cares how to get to the library?" James opened his mouth to answer, but Sirius interrupted him. "Except Lily." James was silent.
"Okay, so you have a point, but at least we know where something in the school is."
"And pitiful as it is, that something isn't our common room," muttered Sirius.
"Don't worry Sirius, we'll find it. These things just take a little time that's all."
"We never should have gone tonight. We should have waited until we knew our way around a little better."
"Don't you get it? Even though we are more or less lost…" "Definitely more," muttered Sirius. "…we know our way around better than any other first year. That puts us in the advantage. If we ever have to go to the library for studying or to get a book for a class, we'll be the first ones to find it, and the first ones to leave, and that would give us more time to explore. And since we know our way… a little… we can be late to class and blame it on not finding our way. They expect us to get lost some the first week or two."
For a moment longer, that clueless look remained in Sirius' eyes, but then his face lightened up. "I get it now. If we can just find our way around a little better, then tomorrow we can be late to our first class and just say, 'Sorry, we got lost' and they wont get mad. There wont be a thing they can do about it, even if they suspect that we really were out exploring the castle, because there would have been others who were late as well, and if they punish us and not them, it would look unfair to the other students, and they don't really want to look unfair. So, do you think they have some spare parchment in the library that we can use to map our way back to the common room?"
"Probably do, but I'm not planning on going back to the common room yet. We have to find out as much as we can, so that tomorrow we don't really get lost instead of only pretending to. Let's find our way back to the common room, and then see if we can find our way to the transfiguration corridor. That's our first class, I think."
And so the boys entered the library and probed the front desk until in the bottom left drawer they found what they were looking for. There, neatly folded and stacked was a pile of clean parchments. Sirius grabbed one and James began searching for a quill and ink. It was quickly found in the top middle drawer.
After James labeled a little black dot close to the middle of the parchment 'Library' he walked out into the hall and began marking where there where portraits and suits of armor. Soon enough, he had every detail within sight marked on the piece of paper on the library hallway.
"Which way do you want to go? Left or right?" James asked.
Sirius turned and looked both ways as if he were crossing the street, and then answered, "Left." So with parchment in hand they walked left and continued scripting every distinct things so they would be able to tell exactly where they were at all times, and what to expect.
Soon they grew tired of writing where all the portraits where and what they were, and so they just did some of the more important traits. They soon reached more doorways and they opened them and drew what was in them as well.
At 3:00 they finally found the Great Hall. "Oh fantastic. We know how to get to the Great Hall from the Library, but we still don't know where our common room is," Sirius muttered.
And the tour sustained, with still no success of finding their common room. They did manage to find quiet a few secret passages though. There were a few obvious ones behind suits of armor that led from room to room; there were a few doors that were locked and couldn't be opened by the alohomora spell - but Sirius and James managed to get to passwords out of them by tickling them just right – and turned out to just be really fancy bathrooms with swimming pool sized bathtubs; there were some trapdoors hidden under the rugs, but most of them didn't lead anywhere but to a library or an empty corridor; one was hidden behind a portrait of a llama by a haystack that only opened if you tapped the bottom right corner three times with the back of your wand, while standing on one foot hopping up and down singing, "I'm a little teapot"; the portrait would then, and only then, swing open (revealing a small corridor that ended up leading back to the library.) Let's just assume that Sirius and his twisted mind was the one who figured out how to open that particular passageway.
But the most rewarding secret passage they found completely on accident. It was close to 4:00 and they were both equally worn out. As they were grudgingly walking down the twenty-third staircase they had come across, Sirius – who was a stride ahead of James – began to sink into the step at an alarming rate.
James pulled Sirius out of it quickly enough, but then his dark eyes light up. "What do you think would happen if you were to sink all the way through the stair?"
Sirius looked suspiciously at the stair, and then shrugged. "There's only one way to find out."
"How right you are," said James, right as he mercilessly pushed Sirius onto the sinking step, and backed out of his reach. "We all have to make sacrifices." Sirius scarcely had time to think –if he ever does think- before he was up to his waist and still sinking. All the time he was sinking, he tried to pull himself out (unsuccessfully) and kept saying things like, "I can't believe you did this" or "Is this some brutal joke of yours?" or "Cruelty to dumb animals is illegal you know." Before he knew it, he was out of comments and up to his neck with one of his arms glued to his side.
Glaring up at the spot where he imagined James was, he hissed, "What a superb friend you are." Okay – obviously not completely out of comments, but he was up to his neck, and sinking still.
"I can't believe I just did that," answered James' voice coming several feet to the right of where Sirius had been glaring. "I showed my barbarian side and all," James said grinning, but was a little less sure of him. "Oh man! I'm starting to go soft after all. Look Sirius, I still want to know if it goes anywhere. So, I'll grab your hand, and then you keep going down. If there is something cool down there, then let go and I'll follow you. If you want to come back up, then don't let you, and I will pull you back up." Sirius glared up skeptically at the grinning James. "It's either you trust me, or you stay there and keep sinking, and if there is a bottomless pit under the step, I can't pull you up in time, and then you will fall and fall until you hit the bottom of the bottomless pit. And then you'll be dead. And the people of China, they'll find you, and use your legs- which were broken off in the fall- to dig your grave."
"Pretty similar choices, I think. Trust you, you'll end up killing me; don't trust you, have some Chinaman digging my grave with my broken off legs. Trust you, Chinaman. Trust you, Chinaman. I've always wondered what China would be like, is it fall there too, or is it spring or something?" said Sirius thoughtfully.
"Just shut up and give me your hand." James extended a hand from beneath the cloak and thrust it into Sirius' own, damp one.
"James? If you end up killing me here tonight, I'll never speak to you again."
"Okay. Sounds far enough to me," James said keeping a straight face.
Sirius continued to sink lower and lower until all that was showing were his fingertips. Sirius' grip on James' hand loosened and then let go altogether.
James held his breath for a minute and then stepped onto the sinking step. Once he was up to his waist, he felt a hand begin to pull on the end of his robe. "Oh how I hope that is Sirius," James half whispered half whimpered under his breathe. The pulling on his robe continued and grew stronger.
Finally James sank through the step and fell on a soft, feathery chair. There standing on the back of the chair was a grinning Sirius, holding a piece of James' robe, which had ripped from being pulled so hard. "Isn't this place great?" he asked waving his hand at the room behind him and throwing the piece of James' robe at the wall where it then bounced nicely into a trash bin.
James looked around and saw that the large round room they were in was comfortably furnished with squishy bright colored chairs, a fireplace, games, a small kitchen, as well as three high poster beds. On the back wall was a seven-foot oak door with a large brass handle.
"Let's see what's in there," suggested James.
"Alright," said Sirius as he stood up and began walking towards it. He opened it a crack and his jaw dropped.
"What is it?" James said rushing over to the door where Sirius was standing open mouthed. James pushed the door open the rest of the way and peered into the room as well. "Oh wow." His jaw dropped. He swallowed hard and rubbed his hands together. "Paradise, here I come."
