~Chapter Fourteen- Cari's Discovery~
Now at about the time Lindsey had fallen at the feet of the Potions master, Cari had also made her way down to the dungeon. It was a part she had never been, and in her intent search for the cat that apparently meant so much to Lindsey she had not been paying too much attention to where she was going.
There! She had seen a bit of tail or… something, disappear just round there! She was sure of it… at least she thought she was.
She followed that bit of something anyway, but when she rounded the corner, nothing was there. Then she saw it again, disappearing behind a statue. She followed it there, but was perplexed to discover the cat, or whatever it was, to be gone.
How could it be gone? she thought irritably. I know I saw it come back here, and I didn't see it go out. She began poking around the walls and statue; she had read that there were ever so many secret ways and passages hidden in the halls of Hogwarts.
"Oh Lindsey, if I don't find that cat of yours I'm gonna kill you!" she muttered angrily, thrusting her shoulder into the back of the statue. Her breath was taken from her suddenly as the statue moved quite easily.
Cari gasped and looked down curiously to see a staircase going down, black as pitch. In the all encompassing darkness she couldn't decipher how far down it went. She looked around for a moment nervously. It was completely against her nature to go down there and yet… something was calling her. Taking a deep breath she began to descend the cold stone stairs warily.
They went down for quite awhile, until Cari could no longer see the block of light from the bottom of the statue. Then, all of a sudden, they stopped, and she was on a semi-concealed landing, looking down on an open room with a fire going in its center.
It was an old room, and frightfully cold. Obviously it hadn't been used in a good many years by the amount of dust covering the floor, and the cobwebs hanging creepily down from the ceiling, floating strangely in the heat waves from the fire.
Then Cari saw seven figures, standing in a circle around the fire. She couldn't see who they were; their faces were completely covered by the black hoods of their cloaks. They were clearly chanting something, and Cari had the sudden feral urge to get out of there. She turned to go, then stopped.
One of them was laughing.
It was a high-pitched, mirthless laugh, and sent chills to Cari's very bones. She turned to see who was making that horrible, horrible sound, and saw one of the hooded figures, the tallest one, drawing back his hood. The other cloaked figures began to laugh as well, and Cari could take no more. She began to run up the stairs as fast as she possibly could. Then she suddenly slipped in the dust that coated everything and stopped dead in the awful silence that followed.
"What was that?" a voice hissed. Although it did not sound entirely the same, Cari could tell it was the tall figure who had been laughing. Cari's heart was beating so fast and so hard she was sure that if it did not burst right then and there that they would surely hear it echoing through the chamber.
"I heard nothing," another voice answered. This one seemed familiar too, but for the life of her Cari could not place it.
And she was not going to wait there to try. Swiftly, but more carefully and silently, she ascended up the stairs and replaced the statue. She cringed as if in pain at the dreadful screeching it made, wondering how it did not seem so before.
As soon as the statue was replaced she took off sprinting as fast as her legs would allow.
Sorry Lindsey, she thought breathlessly, but there's no way I'm staying to look for your cat! And with that she sprinted hard all the way back to the Ravenclaw commonroom.
At about the time that Cari reached the portrait of the knight, having barely enough breath to utter the password, Snape was intervening in the riotous catfight. And so it was that Cari got back before Lindsey.
Did she run into Filch on her mad dash back? She didn't know. Of course she didn't run into Norris, but had Filch seen her, or called out, she didn't know. All she could remember was blind fear as she flew back to Ravenclaw Tower.
As she got past the knight and reached the commonroom she saw that Lindsey was not there. She groaned inwardly, but knew she had suspected it would be so. The fire had died down, and since she was suddenly shivering uncontrollably, she poked it back into life and sat down on an armchair, curling into a fetal position and resting her chin on her knees, waiting for the return of Lindsey.
* * *
When Lindsey finally got up to the seventh floor through the secret passageway, it was nigh on about one o' clock in the morning. She was breathing hard, having run the whole way after she thought of Cari, and breathlessly told the knight the password.
"Students running all over the school at this time of night," he muttered as he swung aside to let Lindsey by. "Why, I've never seen it!"
"Sorry Sir Andrew," Lindsey whispered apologetically as she passed his frame and went into the commonroom.
As soon as she walked in she was relieved to see Cari seated in an armchair by the fire. Then her brow furrowed at the condition of her friend: huddling and breathing quickly her skin was almost as tallow as her own, and a thin sheen of sweat shone over her face in the firelight.
"What happened to you?" she asked in a concerned whisper, coming to sit by her incapacitated companion.
"You found Duffer? That's good…" Cari murmured. "I'm fine," she added assuredly at the concerned look in her friend's eyes.
"Well? What happened?" Lindsey asked, only slightly placated.
Cari stared into the fire. She wasn't sure she wanted to tell her; if she told her that would mean dwelling on it, and then it would mean it was true. Cari had calmed down very much, and her mind was much more rational now, but she did still look a sight. Finally she shut her eyes and drew in a resolute breath.
"All right," she said with effort. "I'll tell you."
And so she told Lindsey everything, about the statue, the stairwell, the fire, the cloaked figures, and the laughter.
"I'm positive I recognized one of the voices…" Cari said, staring into the fire thoughtfully. "But I simply can't place who."
"Did you see the face of the one who laughed? You said he pulled back his hood…" Lindsey said.
She sighed and closed her eyes to rub them exhaustedly.
"I couldn't get a very good look at them because I was too busy running for my life," she said tiredly, getting up to head to the dormitories.
Upon getting upstairs, Cari groaned and plopped down hard on her bed, throwing the covers over her head. Lindsey sat on her own bed to apply the healing potion.
"What's that?"
Lindsey turned at the sound. Cari had her bed curtains parted and was laying on her side watching her, blankets up to her chin.
"It's uh, healing potion," Lindsey replied, holding up the bottle. Cari frowned. After adding the potion liberally to her own stinging cuts and bites, she wrapped them in a new pair of knee socks the Greens had given her for school.
"How exactly did you find Duffer, Lindsey?" she asked suspiciously. "And where?"
"Well… in the dungeons, actually…"
"Did anyone see you?"
"Yes… Professor Snape was really the one who got Duffer… He was in a fight with Mrs. Norris, you see, and he got them out. I tried first and he gave me this healing potion."
"So… you didn't get in trouble?" Cari asked hopefully.
"I never said that…"
Cari groaned. "What?"
"Well… I kind of… lost ten points. And I have detention all next week," Lindsey answered rather embarrassedly. Cari was too tired to even respond and simply rolled over noisily in bed.
Sighing, she too then plopped heavily onto her bed, pulling the covers up all the way. It had been a long day.
"G' night Cari," she said softly. Cari mumbled sleepily something that sounded vaguely reminiscent of "good-night". Lindsey rolled over and drifted quickly into another restless siesta.