Author's Note: If you all are wondering why I changed the first chapter, I did it to honor a wish of a friend of mine. See, this story was not my idea; it was her idea. My friend had given the idea to me and when she told me that that she got it from my other friend, I felt bad. So I talked to her, begged her forgiveness, and bribed her to let me keep this story. She, bless her mercifulness, agreed, on the condition that I let her edit it the way she likes it. I had given her the chappie I orgionally posted and she...uuumm...made a few changes. So I complied and changed it to her design. And this is the product of it. I hope you enjoy. Please R&R!! Happy reading!!!

Chapter 1: A Curious Little Object

"Hey Harry! Check this out!"

Harry looked up from his parchment which he was hurriedly scribbling on, because it was breakfast time and Harry was, last minute of course, working on a particularly hard Potions essay which was due next period. He had already gotten a lecture from Hermione about how imperative it was to do homework on time, but Harry just shot her such an irritated look she just stopped talking and left for potions.

Needless to say, he was not in the best of moods. But, Harry looked up all the same and cracked into an easy smile. Ron, in an attempt to cheer Harry up, had shoved a hefty amount of hash browns in his mouth. His cheeks looked reminiscent of a squirrel with nuts in its mouth.

"Dis eez kewl!" Ron said thickly through the tater tots. "Feefteen ash brawns eez a ricord fir me! Let'z see eef I can feet more!!" He grabbed another handful of hash browns to attempt to fit them in his already bulging cheeks, when he and Harry heard a familiar drawl behind him.

"You know, Weasel, put it back any farther and you might be able to fill the empty space in your head." Ron turned mid-stuff and Harry cocked his head to the side so he could see Malfoy better. "I don't see why Potty isn't following your example; he has a pretty big space in his head too." Harry could feel his flush with anger as he reached down to pull his wand out of his pocket.

"Boot yoo knew what, Mafoy," said Ron, smirking. "Thees theengs cin be yused as semthung else." "Such as what, Weasel?" sneered Malfoy. "Thees!" cried Ron. He inhaled sharply through his nose and, with all the force he could muster, he spit all twenty hash browns out of his mouth, pelting Draco dead in the face with them. Sneering, Malfoy wiped his face of the spit and rudely said, "You'll get what's coming to you Weasel." The blonde turned and stalked away, fruitlessly trying to get rid of the spit and potato bits caught in his hair.

After Malfoy stalked away, the look Harry gave Ron was reminiscent of what a large mouth bass looked like out of water. Ron just calmly loaded more hash browns on to his plate before he looked up at Harry.

"What?" Ron said with an air of innocence. As Harry continued to stare at him, Ron finally cracked into an impish grin. "Did you honestly think that I could pass up a chance like that?"

Harry regained his senses and shook his head. He slid another look at Malfoy swatting head, then back at Ron's wicked grin. He mirrored it, and both boys began to laugh hysterically until tears welled up into their eyes.

--------------------------------------After Potions----------------------------------------

"Slimy git", Ron muttered as he and Harry left the dank dungeons. "He had no right to take away twenty points and give me a zero for the day. Just because my stupid potion was forest green and not lime green!"

"Well", said a matter a fact voice behind them. "If you had just stirred the potion clockwise twice and counterclockwise five times for ten minutes instead of..."

"Hermione, can't you just quit it with the 'I told you so' until later?" Ron asked testily.

Hermione simply shrugged. "Fine." She and Harry watched Ron sulk off ahead. She leaned closer to Harry and whispered, "I hate to say this, but, in a way, Malfoy was right; Ron did get what was coming to him. But only in a sense!" She added defensively as Harry gave her a sharp look.

Hermione and Harry heard a loud yell of pain. They both looked up just to see Ron trip over a stone that was sticking out of the bottom of right side wall and fall flat on his stomach. They both ran over to see if Ron was all right. By the time they both reached him, he was already up from the floor and was grumbling obscenities at the offending rock. A few first years that were still around in the hall stopped and gave him peculiar looks. Ron yelled at them to go and do something with their wands that caused Hermione to say her trademark "Ron!"

"I'm fine, thanks for asking", Ron muttered before he gave the sticking out rock a sharp kick with his left foot. But instead of the rock just remaining in its given spot in the wall, it became loose and partially popped out of its place in the wall.

"Look what you did, Ron!" Hermione said in a disapproving tone. "Ron, just because you didn't watch what you were doing, doesn't mean you can blame the wall and kick it to pieces."

"Well, Hermione, for your information I didn't know that this wall, that has withstood countless of magical attacks over thousands of years, could simply come apart by me kicking it." Ron shot back.

"Well, if you could just learn to control your temper-"

"Well, if you could just learn to mind your bloody business-"

They continued to bicker back and forth in their usual manner, and Harry just quietly watched from the side. "Why can't they just get a room and duke it out once and for all?" Harry thought amusedly "Watching Hermione wrestling Ron would be something not all that probable" The mental image of Hermione wrestling brought a small smile to his face. He began to look around and see how many people were watching Ron and Hermione make a spectacle of themselves, when something suddenly caught his eye.

A ray of sun, coming from the window on the opposite wall, shown on the spot where the stone had come out. There, just behind it, was something that slightly glimmered in the sun's ray.

Harry looked around again. Besides himself and the two "fantastic fighters", everyone was gone, most likely eating lunch down in the Great Hall. Harry leaned over and, very carefully, pried the stone from the wall further. He still didn't have a very clear view of what the object could be, so he lay flat on the floor and put his a face only a few inches from the space in the wall.

Another ray of sun came and shone on the floor, letting Harry catch another glimmer and an outline of what looked like to be a ball. Very slowly, he reached his right hand in to grab the object and his fingers curled around the thing. He shivered from the iciness of the thing as he pulled it from the crevice. He had expected it to be a light in his hands, but it weighed like it was a sphere of marble. He stood up, brushed himself off, and raised the item in the sunlight.

"This is a curious little object," Harry thought to himself. He had never seen a piece like this before. It was an orb, as he had guessed, but it was inlaid with minute designs of gold, much like a rememberall. But, unlike a rememberall, inside the glass ball, the entire space was filled with the color of dark blue. The entrancing thing about it was the way that the inside seemed to go on for infinity, as if it was a world with in itself.

Harry turned to tell Ron and Hermione what he found and heard Ron tell Hermione "at least I'm not as boring as a flobberworm."

Hermione was about to respond angrily, but Harry interrupted just in time. "Hey, look what I found behind the stone."

He raised the globe shaped thing in front of Ron and Hermione's faces. The rage melted away from their faces and it was replaced with a look of entrancement.

"Blimey," Ron muttered as he cocked his head side to side looking at it. "I have never seen anything like it."

"Neither have I," Hermione murmured softly as she leaned in closer. She gave sharp gasp. "Look!" She said as she pointed at the orb. Harry and Ron followed her pointed finger and saw that there indeed was white smoke coming from the center of the glass ball. It seemed like it was coming from far off in the distance. As the three of them sat and watched the white haze come closer, Harry saw that they seemed to be forming something. Almost like...

"Words." Hermione stated quietly. "It looks like they're forming words."

And indeed they did. The billows formed miniscule words. Harry squinted but he couldn't really make out what they said. "What does it say, Hermione?"

"Let's see," she said in her same hushed tone. She leaned closer and, peering into the sphere, read aloud:

Reader of this message mark me well

I have a secret that I cannot tell.

But through riddles you'll see

What you thought could not be

And my words will be clear as a bell.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron questioned, but Hermione shushed him. "There's more coming up!" She continued:

I will take four passengers to a new world

And for you, new adventure will unfurl

For this place where you'll go

Is a place you don't know

But it's as precious as a pearl.

After I reveal this, discard me not

For if you do, you cast a lot

Take a path through that gate

And you seal your fate

To be forever from home and rot.

Hermione's last words seemed to echo around the hallway as the trio stood in silence. They watched as the white billows faded back into the center of the sphere.

"Well, this makes absolutely no sense," Hermione said crisply, breaking the revered silence.

"Of course it makes sense." Ron countered. "It clearly states that it can take four people to a different place that we don't know about. Wherever it takes those four people they have to make sure that they don't lose it otherwise they can't go home. Blimey, Hermione. And people say that you're the smart one."

"I understand that!" Hermione snapped back, stung by Ron's last comment. "What makes absolutely any sense is why we discovered this now. We've been up and down this corridor countless of times, but I have never seen the stone stick out like that or any part these walls coming off or there being anything behind these stones." She sniffed snootily. "If you ask me, someone probably put it there for a joke."

"But what if someone didn't?" Ron countered excitedly. "What if that was really always there, with this thing always behind and we just didn't notice it?"

"Because," Hermione replied patiently, "Someone else would've found it before us. Teachers and headmasters have searched this place for all kinds of things. If it was always there, why didn't any of them find it before we did?"

Ron looked like he wanted to argue against that point, but found that he couldn't. Hermione's theory was a lot more plausible than his. "I still think it's real", he mumbled.

Hermione sighed and shook her head. "Well, whatever it is, we should just get rid of it." Ron opened his mouth to protest, but Hermione cut him off. "I mean, we should give this to someone who knows what this might be. Like Dumbledore." Ron shut his mouth and nodded in agreement, as well as Harry.

"Hey, Ron? Can you take this from me?" Harry asked. "It's starting to get really heavy."

"Sure." Ron replied, and he reached for it with his left hand. Harry held it out for him, but when Ron tried to take it, he took Harry with him. Confused, Ron gripped the orb tighter and pulled again, but all that did was jerk Harry again. The ball wouldn't move an inch.

"C'mon, Harry." Ron said, slightly agitated. "Let go already..."

"I'm not grabbing it, Ron..." Harry replied, equally annoyed.

"Well, maybe we need to pull together..."

"Right. On three...One...two...three!"

They jerked at the same time, causing a different result; Harry and Ron's arms were now very sore from the sharp tug, but the orb still hadn't moved from Harry's hand. Not only that, Ron's left hand was also stuck to the glass ball.

"Maybe somebody put glue on this," Ron said, rubbing his shoulder.

"Yeah, but I didn't see anything on it..."

"Maybe they put some kind of invisible spell on the glue..."

"Oh, you two are being ridiculous!" Hermione cried agitatedly. She marched between Ron and Harry and grabbed the ball with her left hand and yanked sharply. This caused all three of them to fall over in a heap, with Ron sprawled, on his back, on top or Hermione.

"Ouch! Ron, get off my leg!" Hermione yelled.

"That's what you get for yanking and not warning us!" Ron shouted back. His response was a sharp elbow in the ribs.

"Ow! Stop that!"

"Well, then, get off me!"

"Alright! Maybe if I twist to the right like this..."

"Ow! Now you're pulling my arm out of my socket!" Harry called.

"Alright! What if I just..."

Ron turned to his left and ended up lying face down between Harry and Hermione and on top of the ball.

"That better be the orb I'm feeling!" Hermione cried shrilly.

"Relax! It's just..."

"Well, well. You three seem to be in a bit of a bind." Said a gentle voice behind them.

Ron looked up, Harry and Hermione craned their necks against the floor to see none other than Albus Dumbledore, looking down at them and looking extremely amused.

"What if I tried this?" He replied, with a twinkle of laughter in his eye. He took out his wand and, with a swish and flick of his wrist, he raised the trio off the floor and set their feet on the ground.

"Thank you, professor," Harry mumbled, rather sheepishly.

"Yes, thank you." Hermione and Ron muttered, just as awkwardly.

Dumbledore did a graceful little bow towards them. "Glad to be of service! Now, is there anything else that you three might need from me?"

"Actually, professor, there is something," Harry said. With difficulty, all three lifted the orb for Dumbledore to see. All three of them explained how they found it and what had happened after wards, as Dumbldore carefully listened.

"And now," Hermione concluded, "We can't get our hands off this thing, whatever it may be."

Dumbledore nodded with understanding as he leaned in to look at the orb more carefully. He looked into it and seemed to be thinking very hard. He seemed to have finally reached a conclusion, because he straightened up and said, in a very matter of fact tone, "Well, there seems to be only one solution."

"What's that, professor?" Ron asked curiously.

Dumbledore gave a small smile. "Why, to let this little object take us to the place it speaks of."

Before the three teens had time drop their jaws in shock and protest, Dumbledore reached his left hand out and grasped the orb firmly. Immediately, the room began to fade into blackness and Harry felt the familiar tug above his navel, much like when he touched a portkey. Flailing belly first, the four people were thrown into the orb and watched the world around them go black.