INTERLUDE
Back In The Chamber
Harry awoke to find himself in a stone room with pictures lining the walls. He stared, nonplussed, for a moment before his memories of the place returned. But – how had he gotten here? Last he knew, he'd been in the Common Room after seeing Mary Sue off to Benel's. He sighed in frustration as he remembered the picture that had fallen from her purse, and rose.
What were these pictures, after all? He could remember leaning forward to look at one before, but then he'd blacked out and woken up in the Common Room with Ron and Hermione. Was he having a series of hallucinations? Was he really, at this moment, sitting in the Charms class as Flitwick demonstrated Magnifying Charms?
Any moment he expected his name to be called sharply, for the room to come back into focus, but nothing happened. He remained in a small stone dungeon sort of room, with hundreds of pictures along the walls.
Deciding there was nothing else to do, he went to inspect the pictures once more. This time the one he scrutinized seemed to be a wavering, blurred sketch of six people in black robes – it looked as though it were three boys and three girls. They were doing something, but he could not tell what. He leaned closer and closer, until the tip of his nose touched the picture.
The dungeon chamber began to whirl around him, and he knew nothing more.
