Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
The Misplaced Potter
Chapter 14
In which there is an unexpected encounter
"The library is closing now," Ted Marston, a sixth year Ravenclaw who was that evening's library assistant, said as he came around the shelf.
Chris, Henry, and Hermione were sitting at a table littered with scrolls and books. Upon his return, Henry quickly found that Bess' description as to his workload to be an apt one. As is with any education the foundation of current lessons is the mastery of previous ones. Thus, Henry found himself in the unenviable position of trying to learn the material that his teachers were going through everyday in class while spending his evenings with his fellow Hufflepuffs and Chris and Hermione catching up on what he had missed.
'Thanks, Ted," Hermione said to the library aide.
Henry groaned. "I'm beginning to think that I missed more than five weeks."
Ted chuckled. "I know what you mean. I missed two weeks during my third year and it felt as if I was behind for the rest of that term. Just be glad that this didn't happen during your OWL year. You would have thought that you were doomed. You three have a happy Christmas."
"Happy Christmas, Ted," Chris and Hermione replied as they stood and began stuffing books into his bag.
"Merry Christmas, Ted," a yawning Henry said while he collected his things.
"Yank," Chris teased.
"At least the teachers won't be throwing anything new at me over the break. I think that I might just about be about even by the time classes resume if I work hard over Christmas." Henry said zipping his backpack closed.
The cousins and Hermione quickly cleared the table leaving only the reference books neatly stacked on a corner. After one last look around and under the table for anything that might have rolled away, they left the library.
"I want to thank you guys," Henry said. "You've been a life saver for me."
"No, Henry, I have lent you a helping hand is all," Hermione said. "You are the life saver. Besides it is helping me to review everything."
"I guess your parents will be glad to see you tomorrow," Henry said. "It must have given them a good scare when they learned about the troll."
"Ah, ya daft lad," Hermione replied in a dead on imitation of the MacNarney sisters' accent. "Ya dinna think I was fool enough to tell me ma and pa, do ya?"
"So the word troll will not come out of your mouth when you meet my parents tomorrow," she continued in her own voice. "WILL it?"
"To be safe I think that I'll avoid all words beginning with 'T' tomorrow," Henry replied.
"They wouldn't believe it anyway," Chris said. "If it wasn't for Henry being in the hospital, I'm sure that my parents could not have."
"There is no need in taking risks if you don't have to," Hermione replied. "So please avoid the subject tomorrow and anytime you're around my parents for the next thirty years."
They paused as they came to a staircase.
"Alas the parting," Chris said expansively. "Hermione and I ascend to the height of the clouds while you must trudge down to the bowels of the earth."
"Control your envy. I know that you suffer in Gryffindor's rickety, drafty tower while I live in warmth and comfort in Hufflepuff's oversized hobbit-hole," Henry replied in like manner.
"Hobbit-hole," Hermione laughed. "You know, when you think about it the Hufflepuffs are very hobbit like. Most of you are short, stocky, diligent people who enjoy their simple pleasures and comforts and who don't give a damn about what the rest of the world thinks about them."
"If that be the case than good night, Frodo," Chris said. "We'll see you at breakfast before we headto the train."
"Good night, Aragorn," Henry yawned. "Sleep well, Arwen."
Hermione and Chris walked up the stairs while Henry headed down the hallway for a staircase that would take him to his dormitory. The one he found however decided to swing into another position before Henry had taken five steps.
"That is the forbidden wing, you idiot," Henry grumbled but the staircase did not listen.
He started back up the steps when the other end dropped down also but not to the second floor. The stairs merely stopped in midair some forty feet above the stone floor of the main foyer.
'Talk about the last step being a doozy," Henry quipped in disgust.
Grumbling to himself, Henry climbed up to the third floor. Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat was sitting there with her golden eyes gleaming. Every student learned rapidly that where she was, Mr. Filch would soon be.
"Wonderful," Henry said as he took to his heels in hopes of finding a more cooperative set of stairs "Just bloody wonderful."
Henry rounded a corner to find himself at the beginning of a very dimly lit corridor.
"Where is the miscreant, Mrs. Norris?" Henry heard the caretaker said.
Turning back what have put him in plain view so Henry ran as silently as he could down the dark corridor. After twenty yards, he stopped in surprise. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and more. Looking slowly around him, he could clearly see everything in the passageway.
"It's like having the eyes of an owl," he thought in wonder.
Henry heard Mr. Filch coming toward the corner so he resumed running down the corridor. Henry was thankful that his boots had been ruined otherwise he would have been wearing them and his footfalls would be echoing down the hall to Mr. Filch's sharp ears. Henry's good fortune, however, ended as abruptly as the passageway.
"A dead end," Henry said to himself in irritation.
"Who's down there?" Mr. Filch cried out.
"Like I gonna answer," Henry thought as he rapidly looked around him for a way to escape.
Further down the wall, he spied a heavy door with an old-fashioned wooden latch bar. The bar refused to budge when Henry tried it. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Mr. Filch was moving slowing down the corridor. He had found himself a torch, which he kept thrusting behind the statutes and columns to ensure that his quarry was not hiding.
"Okay, Henry John, think," he thought to himself. "We studied a charm to open doors. What was it? Heaven's door. Heaven is paradise. America's paradise is Hawaii. Hawaii…Aloha. Alohomora!"
Henry pulled his wand from his robes and pointed it at the door.
"Alohomora," He whispered as loudly as he dared.
The latch lifted. Henry swiftly pushed the door open anddarted inside. The room, which he found himself in, was a small windowless chamber with a high ceiling and a giant three-headed dog. The dog, startled out of sleep, was slow to react. Henry, pumped with adrenaline already, was not. His mind scarcely registered the trapdoor in the floor before he flung it open and dove through just faster then the snarling dog's snapping teeth.
Henry expected steps but instead found himself falling down a large shaft. He mentally prepared for a hard landing but something at the base of the shaft cushioned the impact. Henry instinctively rolled forward. As soon as his feet felt a stone floor, he ran several steps then leaped to a wall clutching his wand to his pounding chest.
Henry had no idea how far he had fallen but he knew that it had been a goodly ways. He took several slow deep breaths and waited for his heart to leave his throat as he cautiously gazed around him trying to spot anything familiar. He was in a narrow cobweb filled passageway but the dust on the floor had several footprints in it so Henry knew that somebody, some bodies he corrected himself as he noticed the differing sizes of the prints had been here recently.
Curiously, Henry looked back up the passageway to see what had cushioned his fall so effectively.
"Devil's Snare," he gasped in surprise. "Henry John, you are one lucky so and so."
Holding his wand before him, Henry warily walked down the darkened corridor. His ears strained but they caught no sound other then his own breathing. The corridor was devoid of any objects. There were no niches in the walls and nothing hung from the ceiling other then spider webs.
After but a few yards, the corridor ended in a much cluttered antechamber. Several barrels and wooden boxes were stacked about. Four brooms leaned against a long table. A broken chair rested on three legs in a corner. There was a door in the wall opposite the passageway.
Henry looked up. The ceiling was far above him.
"Probably ends at the third floor," he thought. "By that dog's room."
Henry tried the knob but found that the door locked. The alohomora charm did not affect the lock at all. Frustrated, he sat down on a box to plan his next step. The truth of the matter was now that his fear wasdispelling Henry was getting angry.
"All I wanted to do was to take a nicehot shower andcrawl into a nice warmbed," Henry thought as his irritation increased. "What is with this friggin' castle that it won't even allow me to do that without a hassle?"
Henry's eyes fell on the brooms.
"It's obvious that no one sweeps down," he thought walking over to them.
"Up!" he barked.
A broomstick leaped into Henry's open hand. Madam Hooch, the flying instructor, had been surprised how readily that Henry took to riding a broomstick and had told Henry so.
"Let's see how much I have learned about flying," Henry said.
He walked down the corridor to the edge of the shaft. A few ambitious tentacles snaked toward Henry as he came to the devil's snare. He mounted the broom and took a deep breath.
"Alright, kick it," he said as he leaned as far forward on the stick as he could. Henry rocketed upwards and blasted thought the still open trapdoor causing all three heads of the dog to yelp as it scooted backwards. He executed a midair loop and dove toward the exit, which he had left ajar.
He spotted a lantern ahead halfway down the corridor.
"You told me to get you if any student was wandering around at night," Henry heard Mr. Filch say in the glow of the lamp.
"Quite right," said Professor Snape whom Henry could now see clearly. "What's that sound?"
Henry shot between both men just over their heads sending them diving to the floor. A loud metallic clanging told Henry that one of them had crashed into a suit of armor but he did not look back. He flew over the railing and dove for the ground floor alarming some house elves and a ghost. Turning the broom Henry sped for the stairwell that led to his room.
He landed before the large tapestry of a rural scene that was the entryway to the Hufflepuff dormitory.
"I haven't seen anyone ride a broom in the castle for nearly ten years," the Fat Friar said lightly as he floated over to Henry. "Is there anything that you wish to confess, my son."
"Have you ever felt like the castle was out to get you?" Henry asked as he hopped off the broom.
The ghost laughed merrily. "Life is ever an adventure at Hogwarts. The unexpected can be exasperating at times but it adds a zest to the days and I can assure you that there is no malevolence in the spirit of the castle."
"Exasperating sums up the last half an hour neatly," Henry said. He then yawned widely surprising himself. He thought that he would be keyed up to fall asleep readily.
"Go to bed, Henry," the friar ordered kindly. "And have a Happy Christmas."
"Merry, I mean, Happy Christmas to you," Henry said to the departing ghost.
Henry watched the ghost float away then turned to the wall hanging.
"Winter wheat," he said.
The doors of the tapestry barn opened. Broom in hand; Henry ducked into the Hufflepuff dormitory, finally.