Chapter 11 – A Very Hogwarts Christmas
On Christmas morning Harry awoke to find a veritable mountain of presents at the foot of his bed. Well, he supposed it was more of a small pile, but it did feel rather like a mountain. Harry shot up from his bed and started looking through his presents. As expected, everyone in Viper group had gotten him something, so he was glad to have returned the favour and ordered each of them something, too.
It would have been rather embarrassing not to have gotten them anything at all. Harry picked up a small package wrapped, quite incongruously amidst the more magical packages at the foot of his bed, in Muggle wrapping paper. The attached note read 'from Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley' and Harry felt a pang of guilt that he wasn't back in Privet Drive with the three of them. The guilty feeling lasted only as long as he'd forgotten that Marge was there, too, which wasn't very long at all. If Harry never had to have another Christmas with Marge Dursley, that would still be too soon. He opened the parcel to find a Christmas jumper, a small book, and a new pair of pyjamas – along with a card containing a short message and a ten pound note.
Not quite the usual array of gifts, but then Harry supposed it wouldn't be easy to get them sent to Hogwarts, and Christmas wasn't really about the presents anyway. Even if they were nice.
Harry pulled on the Christmas jumper and then set the other presents aside before moving to inspect the rest of his gifts. Harry started to open the rest of his presents eagerly, stopping occasionally to take a look at the wizarding wrapping paper, which was adorned with all sorts of moving pictures of snowmen and reindeer and all the usual Christmas-themed things. Harry received the next book in the Redwand series from Theodore, and thought that he would really need to remember to owl the other boy to say thanks. He even got a book about famous Slytherins who went on to play professional Quidditch from Tracey. Harry unwrapped a gift from Ernie, which turned out to be a small unmarked box. Curious, Harry opened it up. He grinned when he saw three tickets to one of the World Cup matches during the summer. Most of his gifts ended up being rather less personalised than those, such as – seemingly the entire selection of – Honeydukes' chocolate from Pansy, or the stack of fancy parchment from Daphne, although Vince surprised him with his gift of an owl care kit, which was unusually thoughtful of the other boy.
After Harry had opened all of the presents from his friends, he found a mid-sized, squishy, parcel without any sort of nametag left over wrapped in non-descript paper. Curious, Harry ripped open the parcel to find some sort of shimmering cloth. He pulled it out of the paper to get a better look at it only to find that it turned whatever was underneath it invisible! As he rolled it out to see just how big it was, Harry realised it was a cloak, identical to many he had seen and even to one that he owned, with the sole difference being it turned things invisible.
Harry rummaged around in the pile of wrapping paper surrounding his feet to see if there had been a note included with the gift. He eventually found a scrap of parchment – unsigned – with a brief message on it.
'Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well.'
With no signature, and handwriting Harry didn't recognise, Harry had no idea who could have given him such a thing. He knew next to nothing about his parents, except that they were dead and why, with a few other bits and pieces. Harry immediately discounted his aunt having had such a fine – and obviously magical – item waiting for him. Although she'd proven able and willing to keep secrets of that nature, the Cloak had belonged to Harry's father rather than his mother, so Harry didn't think his cloak would be passed to Petunia. She probably wouldn't have written a cryptic note on parchment, either. Harry sat there for a while turning the cloak over and over in his hands, admiring how it looked – or rather, didn't look – and thinking about who could have sent it to him and why they hadn't sent a proper note along with it.
Probably not a relative of his father's, since Harry assumed he would have probably been sent to live with a wizard if he'd had a close wizarding relative, but a friend, perhaps. Not Sirius Black, of course, or the man he'd murdered, Peter Pettigrew. But Harry did assume his father had other friends even if no one had told Harry about them.
He took another look around his pile of presents, and beneath the package containing the Invisibility Cloak was a single letter in a fancy envelope. He thought it might have been sent along with the Invisibility Cloak itself, and he'd simply missed it in his excitement, so he opened it eagerly.
Harry pulled a small sheet of parchment out of the envelope and read it.
Sorry I couldn't be there. This'll have to do.
The parchment had been wrapped around a stiff card, and it said nothing more than its brief little message. Harry picked up the card to read it instead.
To Mr Harry Potter on this happy day,
We here at Quality Quidditch Supplies are utterly thrilled to be contacting you this Christmas morning! As you may know, this year everyone in the world of flying and Quidditch has been excited to try out the brand new Firebolt broom. Alas, as it is in such high demand and its production is an artisanal process, most people will be waiting a very long time indeed to get their hands on one.
Not so for you, Mr Potter!
We here at Quality Quidditch Supplies are pleased to be able to present you with a brand new, top of the line, cutting edge Firebolt broom purchased for you as a gift on this most special Christmas Day. We look forward to seeing you in store at your earliest convenience to collect your new and truly innovative Firebolt broom.
Sincerest Christmas greetings,
Mr Aquileus Flitney, Proprietor
Harry stared down at the card, almost totally speechless. Who would have bought him a brand new Firebolt broom? It had been on the market less than a year – under six months, even – and it was made by one bloke and his apprentices in a secret workshop. Everyone knew that most of the available models had been bought up by the professional teams ahead of the World Cup that summer. While some of his friends certainly had the money to procure such an expensive gift, he doubted that any of them had the motivation to do so, and to do it anonymously, too. They hadn't sent along an actual broom, so maybe the card was some sort of joke… but then again, first years weren't allowed to have brooms at school, so maybe that was why.
Harry was vaguely aware that he had fans and well-wishers throughout wizarding Britain and Ireland. Every so often at breakfast he got a letter or parcel from one of them, so he thought that, maybe, one of them was very wealthy and very interested in Harry's ability to fly places on a broom, but somehow that didn't seem right.
"A Firebolt," Harry said again, looking down at the certificate of sale included with Mr Flitney's letter.
"Oi, Potter!" called a male voice from outside the doorway. "You decent?" Without waiting for a reply, Shafiq – the prefect, not his brother the apprentice – stuck his head through the door. Harry stuffed his new cloak between his bedsheets, certain that it was the sort of thing better kept secret. After all, if everyone knew he could become invisible, they would be watching for it.
"Come on. All of us who stayed are going to have breakfast together, and then Dumbledore arranged with the Ministry for some snow, so we're going to go skating over the lake." Shafiq paused. "You've got five minutes, then meet us in the Common Room!"
Harry rushed to get dressed and find his outer robes, then went out immediately to meet with the other Slytherins for breakfast. They made their way to the Great Hall together and on arrival, Harry decided he was glad they were doing it as a group. The Ravenclaws and the Gryffindors had no such organisation and seemed to have been eating in small groups and even some lone students, and the Great Hall looked rather depressingly empty in spite of all the festive decorations.
"It's a bit empty," said Harry. "It looks kind of ... sad, actually."
"For the Feast later there'll only be one table," said Shafiq, "but for breakfast today, it's still in Houses. S'why we eat breakfast together. The Hufflepuffs do it too. You don't have to sit with us if you've got mates in another House you want to eat with, but it's tradition…"
Harry shook his head.
"I'll sit with the rest of the House," he said. He wanted to, and he didn't have anyone else he could sit with anyway.
"Have you stayed for Christmas before?" Harry asked when the handful of Slytherins had sat down.
"My first year," said Shafiq. He shrugged. "Not last year—we went to visit my aunts in Khuzdar—but with OWLs and being a Prefect, it was better I stayed this year as well. It's not a big deal because my family doesn't do Christmas anyway."
"Really? Why not?"
Shafiq looked at Harry as if he'd grown another head.
"We're Muslim," he said eventually, and very slowly, as if speaking to a particularly stupid child – or Dudley.
"Oh, right."
Harry hadn't really thought much about what wizards believed. He hadn't honestly thought much about what Muggles believed, since his aunt and uncle had never been especially religious and rarely if ever went to church, although they did celebrate Christmas and Easter and things like that.
Having stuffed a little bit on sweets while opening his presents, Harry settled for a small and quick breakfast of toast with jam and enjoyed the ambience of breakfast with the small group of Slytherins who had stayed on for the holiday. Not much later on, when everyone had finished eating, they all went out into the grounds together to enjoy the snow Dumbledore had arranged with the Ministry.
There was a little bit of a bottleneck at the Dark Detectors, as seemingly everyone left in the castle had decided to leave at the same time, but eventually Harry emerged onto the grounds with the other Slytherins.
Thick, white snow blanketed the lawns in front of the castle, covering absolutely everything in about a foot of snow, and the Forbidden Forest's sea of trees looked like something out of a Christmas fairy-tale. A thick sheet of ice covered the lake surface and several professors and a few groups of students were already gliding over the ice. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall stood near to the edge of the lake transfiguring students' shoes into skates. Harry could even spot one of the assigned Aurors for the day out on the ice, although the other one assigned to the grounds had stayed right by the doors to the Entrance Hall where it was warmer and he had company in the form of the Auror assigned to Dark Detection.
Harry took to the ice slowly at first as he'd never been skating before, but eventually gained a little more confidence in his ability to not fall over. Harry stayed well away from the Weasley twins, who were chasing the youngest Weasley around the frozen lake with enchanted snowballs. After about ten minutes or so of skating around alone, one of the second year Slytherin girls approached him.
"Erm, Potter?" she asked. "Is it okay if I call you Harry? We're building snowmen over there, and Shafiq said he'd charm them to skate with us… We just wondered if you wanted to join in." She blushed. "It's me and Horatio, and Vivienne from Hufflepuff in our year. Others might join in when we get started…" She paused. "You don't have to…"
"No, it's—thank you for asking," Harry said. "That sounds fun!"
The pale red-haired girl – whose name Harry felt increasingly bad for not knowing – smiled widely and skated off to join the others. Harry followed after her a bit more cautiously, and then joined in gathering snow from the edges of the lake for their snowmen. Harry and Horatio worked on one, and Vivienne and Justine – whose name Harry learned when Vivienne very helpfully said it soon after Justine brought Harry back – worked on the other.
After about twenty minutes of frantic activity, the four children stood back and looked at their mostly-assembled snowmen. Harry thought they looked quite good. Even though they were missing buttons and a nose – and arms, which apparently were going to be created by Shafiq's spells.
"What are we going to use for the nose?" he asked. "Does anyone have a carrot?"
"Oh!" said Justine. "I forgot! Shafiq transfigured us these for the noses!" She pulled two long, thin stones out of her pocket. "I think he gave you the buttons, Vivi."
"Horatio? Would you go get Shafiq while we put the buttons and noses on? He said to get him when we were ready for the spells…" said Vivienne. She pointed to where Shafiq was skating along with two other third years.
Horatio nodded and skated off to grab Shafiq while the others placed the stones for buttons onto the snowmen. By the time Horatio came back with Shafiq, the snowmen were ready to dance.
"Alright," said Shafiq. "Let's see if I can get these spells right!" He took his wand out of his pocket and jabbed it after muttering a spell. He cast a few more spells and then eventually the first snowman shook its top half to reveal a pair of arms, and then grew a pair of almost cartoonish snowy legs out of its lower half before skating away. "Yes!" said Shafiq. "That's an O right there!" He repeated the process with the second snowman which followed after the first.
"Thank you!" said Justine. She hugged Shafiq and then skated off after the snowman. Vivienne and Horatio followed her, and as Harry joined them, Shafiq shouted after him.
"Tap them with your wand and they should copy whatever you do!"
Harry caught up to one of the snowmen and tapped it with his wand, then skated away to see what happened. The snowman dutifully followed him, copying his every move.
"Ooh, let me try!" said Justine. She tapped the second snowman with her wand and spun around on the ice. The snowman copied her actions and she laughed. "Let's have a snowball fight!"
"Girls versus boys," said Horatio. "And we get one snowman each! Sound fair?"
Everything agreed, the four young Slytherins and their snowman allies separated and started to gather snow to make snowballs. The job went faster than Harry had thought it would, although he supposed the snowmen were rather helpful. Once they had made enough snowballs the fight started in earnest.
Every snowball Harry threw counted as two due to the snowman which copied his every move, but he found that the problem with that was that his snowman's aim was only as good as his own. The only saving grace appeared to be that Justine didn't have particularly good aim either.
Harry ducked to avoid a snowball thrown by Vivienne, and then rolled to avoid one thrown by Justine's snowman. He threw a couple more of his own – copied by his snowman – and grinned when one smacked right into Vivienne's torso.
"Good shot!" said Horatio, throwing his own, although he missed.
The four children played until they ran out of snowballs, and as they brokered a truce to make some more, Harry got hit in the back of the head with a snowball. He whirled around to see who had attacked him only to find the Weasley twins with their brother Ron trailing behind them unhappily.
"New plan!" Harry yelled. "Attack the Weasleys!"
Harry, Justine and their snowmen set about making more snowballs while Horatio and Vivienne went on the offensive against all four of the Weasley brothers. Soon enough the lake had erupted into an all-out war on five separate fronts, as the students sorted themselves into groups and even some of the teachers became involved.
Dumbledore and McGonagall battled one another with magnificently transfigured and animated snow golems, while Flitwick led a company of Ravenclaws into battle against a mixed squad of upper year students. Harry and the younger Slytherins battled against the Weasleys until an errant punch from Dumbledore's golem smashed apart their snowmen and sent them all scurrying away.
Eventually, after several hours of fun, Dumbledore alone stood triumphant with his still animated golem, everyone else having given up or been run off the lake. By then it was near enough time for the Christmas Feast to begin, so everyone trudged back into the castle after having their shoes untransfigured to prepare.
For Harry, it was a Christmas Day like no other.
The Great Hall had been transformed over the course of the morning. The four House tables, along with the Head Table and its raised dais, had all disappeared. Instead, one absolutely massive round table sat in the middle of the Hall surrounded by various different kinds of Christmas decorations. Harry felt like the castle had already been expertly decorated for Christmas, but in the space between breakfast and the Christmas Feast, several new trees had appeared in the Great Hall, each one festooned with twinkling fairies. Wreaths of living plant and flower adorned the backs of the chairs, and the very middle of the grand table had a centrepiece which Harry thought must have been a depiction of Hogsmeade village at Christmastime. Soft music played from nowhere Harry could recognise, just loud enough to be heard but not so loud that it dominated. He didn't recognise most of the songs, but they sounded festive enough and the content was mostly wintry and Christmassy, so he didn't miss the more usual tunes and carols of Muggle Christmas.
By the time the Slytherins made it to the Feast, the teachers in attendance were already sat spaced out around the table, and students from the other Houses entered the Hall in small groups. Not all of the teachers and members of staff were present – most of the adjunct professors and many of the apprentices were nowhere to be seen, and hadn't been all day. At their own homes, Harry assumed.
Apprentice-Shafiq was there, though, sat next to his brother, but Harry didn't see Miss Evergloam or Miss Root anywhere. The Divination Professor, ordinarily ensconced within her tower chambers, sat between her apprentice on one side and an unhappy-looking Professor McGonagall on the other.
Fortunately, the teachers were sat in little clusters rather than spaced evenly throughout the table, so there were spots of relative isolation from the prying eyes and ears of teaching staff. Harry had a little more trouble than most at finding a place to sit since he wanted to avoid both Professors Snape and Quirrell, and he eventually sat down as far away from Professor Quirrell as was possible at the table – which unfortunately placed him somewhat nearer to Professor Sprout than he would have liked. As the table slowly filled up, Harry realised that he'd made a poor choice indeed – safe though he was from Quirrell and Snape, the Weasleys, last to arrive at the table, took the seats immediately adjacent to Harry.
The eldest Weasley, one of the Gryffindor prefects whose name Harry had never bothered learning through lack of interaction, sat between the twins, one of whom pushed Ron into the empty seat next to Harry.
"Sorry," mumbled Ron.
Harry shrugged. Weasley – even four Weasleys – was better than having to sit next to Professor Quirrell. Especially on Christmas Day.
Evidently whoever had placed the table in the Hall knew exactly how many people were going to attend, since Dumbledore stood up after the Weasleys filled the last spot to say a little speech.
"Happy Christmas to us all, and to us all, a happy Christmas!" said Dumbledore. "And with that, no more needs to be said, so indeed—I shall say no more than: tuck in!"
Dumbledore sat back down in his chair and immediately after a sumptuous feast appeared on the table. Mounds of roast potatoes, carrots and parsnips; platters of chipolatas; tureens filled with peas and different kinds of soup, and vast pitchers of gravy sat amongst huge roasted and stuffed turkeys, with the occasional platter of roast pork and even what looked like a goose. It truly was a feast unlike any Harry had ever seen. It surpassed even the unfortunately short Hallowe'en Feast in October, and the Welcoming Feast in September, and not even sitting next to Weasley could dampen Harry's good feeling.
He piled his plate full with just a little bit of everything, and a generous helping of gravy, and set about eating.
"Pass the potatoes, please, Mr Potter!" asked Professor Sprout. "There's a good lad."
Harry passed the portly professor the nearest bowl full of roast potatoes and grabbed a couple more for himself; with Weasley on one side and Sprout on the other, Harry didn't fancy his chances of seconds otherwise. He grabbed a bit more of the goose, too, which was just as fatty as his aunt Petunia complained about, but Harry felt like that was the point.
When the time came to pull crackers, Harry pulled one with Professor Sprout first, and nearly jumped out of his skin when a proper wizards' chess set popped out of the cracker along with a full-sized witch's hat. Professor Sprout insisted that Harry take the chess set, and that he wore the hat, so soon after her found himself wearing a hat far too big for his head.
Somewhat awkwardly, Weasley's elder brothers had left him out of the fun, so he sat next to Harry with an unpulled cracker between them and a glum look on his face. Deciding to be the better man, Harry picked up the cracker and offered it to him.
"Cracker?"
Weasley shrugged, and pulled the cracker with him. It exploded with a loud crack and let out a cloud of blue smoke. In the aftermath sat an entirely too big, luminous green top hat and a Grow-Your-Own Warts Kit, which Harry immediately pushed over to Weasley.
"Aww, ickle Ronnie's got a friend!" sniggered the Weasley twin closest to Ron.
"Only took him all year!" said the one on the other side of Head Boy Weasley.
"Fred! George!" admonished Head Boy Weasley. "Leave him alone, it's Christmas for Merlin's sake."
"Of course!" said one.
"Anything for Perfect Prefect Percy!" said the other.
"No, no, my dear brother! Anything for our Humongous Head Boy Brother!" said the first of the twins.
"Sorry," mumbled Ron. "They're always like this."
Before Harry could tell him not to worry about it, the teacher next to Professor Sprout spilled a bottle of dark orange liquid all over the table.
"Oops!" she said. "Little bit too much sherry, I think…" She pulled out her wand to deal with the spill, but before she could complete the spell, Professor Sprout stopped her.
"Let me, Septima."
Professor Sprout vanished the mess and moved the bottle away from the other professor.
Harry laughed.
"That reminds me of my—well, Dudley's—Aunt Marge," he said with a grin. "She always spills something and blames it on her dog."
"Mum sometimes has too much wine and does the same," offered Ron.
With the ice broken, Harry and Ron managed to keep up a conversation that was only a little bit awkward and lasted until the food vanished, only to be replaced with an equal amount of dessert items. Harry grabbed some ice cream and a piece of Christmas cake, almost – but not quite – too full to be tempted to eat dessert. There was always some room for afters on Christmas Day. Soon after the appearance – and disappearance into the waiting bellies of staff and students – of dessert, lunch ended. The students returned to their Common Rooms and the teachers went wherever it was that teachers went when not attending to their duties – Harry made a note to try to find out using his new cloak.
Harry spent the next few hours in the Common Room with the rest of the Slytherins playing cards, board games, and even the occasional round of Gobstones. Later on, around when it was ordinarily time for dinner, platters of various kinds of sandwiches filled with leftover turkey, pork, and goose, along with other bits and pieces from the Christmas lunch, appeared on some of the tables. Harry picked at them on and off, having filled up more than enough at the lunch. He did manage to grab some gateau that he hadn't felt like eating at the Feast, and that was enough for the rest of the night.
When it got late enough that he would usually go to sleep, even though most of the House was still up having a little Christmas party, Harry slunk away to have a nap. Later he planned on exploring some of the more forbidden areas of the castle, and he wanted to be wide awake in case he found something really interesting.
When Harry tiptoed through the Slytherin Common Room later that night almost everyone was in bed, except for a pair of fifth years sat by a fireplace drinking and smoking pipes that sent out clouds of purple smoke. He made sure to be extra careful until he got past them, then slipped out the door when one of them went into a coughing fit from the pipe.
Once outside in the dungeon corridor Harry considered where to go next. Professor Quirrell had implied there was more to the old history department than Harry had yet to explore, and while he did find the idea interesting, he didn't want to risk meeting the weird professor there at such a late hour – and Harry had no idea what sorts of things Quirrell liked to do with his spare time. What if they included 'haunting disused school rooms'?
Harry decided to go look at the Restricted Section of the library first. He felt as if it wouldn't be restricted if there wasn't anything interesting there. Soft light from dimly lit candles was all Harry had to light his way, since he didn't dare risk using a spell in case it alerted teachers – or Filch's apparently omnipresent cat – to his whereabouts.
He tiptoed through the castle, avoiding ghosts and chatty portraits as best he could, and saw not a single living soul on his way to the library. It felt strange walking through an almost completely silent Hogwarts, with no students or teachers to fill the dark hallways. The only sounds were from the portraits as they snored and snoozed and in some cases, chortled at the sorts of things portraits said to one another when no one was around.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when two ghosts floated through the wall next to him. Thankfully, they didn't notice his gasp of surprise because they seemed to be carrying on some sort of heated discussion.
"I said it was a bad idea to walk the battlements, but did he listen? No! Of course he didn't! And now he's dead."
"Yes, yes, you've said," said the other ghost in reply. "But you didn't do anything about it, did you?"
"Now, see here, you spineless son of a limp-wanded wastrel! If I've said it once, I've said it—"
"A thousand times, yes, yes, we all know! But it doesn't change anything, does it? The Anti-Reformationists will be through to the Hall by the morrow, and we're stuck where we are. That damned Jinx—well, it'll be the death of us. We'll have to try brooms."
"Now who's an idiot? We can't bloody well…"
The ghosts stopped halfway down the hallway to continue their argument. Harry paused to watch them; they seemed to be caught up in replaying whatever argument they'd had before they died. It hinged on the best way to escape a siege of the castle. Judging by the two men's current existences as ghosts, Harry thought they probably hadn't managed it.
When the two ghosts moved on, Harry continued his journey into the Restricted Section of the library. Once inside, he headed straight for the Restricted Section. He scanned the shelves with his eyes but avoided reaching for any which looked or felt strange, all too aware of the rumours passed on by upper year students of books that burned out your eyes, ate your memories, or screamed when you opened them.
He wanted something interesting, not a trip to the Hospital Wing, after all. It would have been an easier task if he knew more about how the library organised its restricted texts, but eventually he found a section devoted to obscure and sometimes dangerous texts on potions and adjacent topics. One book appeared to be bound in human skin, which he left on the shelf, but its companion seemed much less disgusting.
Harry read the title along its worn spine.
"On the Alchemical Pursuit," Harry murmured. He remembered something about alchemy, some bit of trivia – but what? Wasn't Dumbledore an alchemist? Harry thought. He pulled it from the shelf carefully.
Harry leafed through the book, scanning the pages for interesting spells or recipes, but found nothing. Instead it looked like a rather more dry series of essays about the various parts of what the author called the "Grand Works of Philosophy", from the creation of a so-called Philosopher's Stone to the brewing of a Universal Panacea and everything in between. Disappointed, Harry slid the book back into its position on the shelf and looked for something else. Alchemy could wait until he took it as a subject, he supposed.
The section on potions didn't contain much of anything that Harry found interesting at all. He found one book full of ancient fertility potions, and another whose words moved on the pages like spindly little caterpillars, but nothing he could flick through and think about trying out himself. It was probably for the best – while he was passable at Potions, Harry thought that he likely did lack the skill and experience to make anything from a Restricted Section book.
Harry moved away from the stacks he had been looking through and into a section where the titles seemed more like they pertained to spells and other things. He pulled a book on cutting charms from the shelf to have a look through. It contained several spells that Harry would have expected to find in the book – a charm to cut hair, and another to cut root vegetables and the theoretical basis behind them – but it didn't seem as if it fit into the Restricted Section at all.
"'On Cutting the Liminal Barriers'," read Harry. He continued reading and realised the book delved into topics Harry had no concept of, which he had never heard discussed let alone understood. Esoteric things, the sorts of stuff some of the professors alluded to but refused to elaborate on until later years of study. He put the book back and reluctantly left the library, certain that he was too early in his studies to get much use from the Restricted Section, as unfortunate as that was.
Harry wandered through the castle aimlessly until he got too tired to continue, seeing no one save for a few ghosts. He made his way back to his dormitory and fell asleep almost as soon as he fell into bed.
The next night Harry was determined to avoid the library altogether and instead try to look for something more interesting. He had an idea that there could be secret passages near one of the interior castle courtyards, so had decided to go there and only explore them if they looked as if they connected with another part of the castle, rather than serve as a point of egress from the grounds. As he crept through the cellars near to where the kitchens were meant to be, he stopped when he heard low voices in a stilted conversation.
Ghosts again? he wondered.
Harry moved forward slowly, aware that he could make noise even if no one could see him, and he saw two teachers stood next to a big painting of fruit in a bowl. Harry squinted to see them better in the dim light. One of them wore a turban, so had to be Professor Quirrell, and the other carried two empty bottles and swayed a little as she stood. Harry recognised the other as the batty Divination Professor, the professor who never usually attended meals although had been present at the Christmas Feast that afternoon in the company of her apprentice.
"P-p-perhaps you've had a l-little bit t-too much to drink tonight, Sybill?" said Quirrell. He gestured to the empty bottles Trelawney carried. "Shall I walk you back to your quarters?"
"It's just a little bit of wine, my dear," said Trelawney. "No need for any fuss…"
"I am merely thinking of you," said Quirrell. "I thought that p-perhaps you had Seen something unsettling, or maybe a memory of prophecy…"
"When one sees with the Inner Eye, as I do, sometimes it is imperative to seek relief of a certain kind," said Trelawney. "It is a burden all Seers must bear."
"As you say, Sybill." Quirrell paused. "Tell me, what have you Seen recently? I-if that is not t-too impertinent a thing to a-ask."
Trelawney fiddled with her glasses and stood a little straighter.
"A great many things, dear boy," she said. "Too many things. A Seer must never reveal all that she Sees, lest she alter the course of history… but I have seen little good to speak of. Omens and ill portents…"
"Truly?" said Quirrell. "S-such as?"
"Death, my boy," said Trelawney. "Death and pain around every corner… A Grim."
"Whose death? N-not mine, I hope! Ha-ha," said Quirrell with his strange little laugh.
"I have not looked," said Trelawney, although she peered a little closer at the Defence professor. "Now, if you'll excuse me…" Trelawney tickled the pear sat amongst the fruit in the painting and it moved aside to reveal the entrance a room. She left Quirrell standing outside the door muttering to himself with his hand on his wand.
Harry held his breath and waited the minute it took for the strange professor to go about his own business, then raced away from the kitchens as fast as his caution allowed him. It really was just his luck to get held up by two of Hogwarts's strangest teachers, Harry thought as he wandered through the cellar level.
Harry crept through the cellars as quiet as he could and made his way to the main stair from the cellars to the Entrance Hall, but stopped when he saw Quirrell lurking in the shadows half-way up the stairs. Harry waited to see what Quirrell would do, but left once he realised that Quirrell was simply lingering on the staircase for his own reasons.
Even though Harry wanted to pass him by to search the courtyards for secret passages, he turned back to look for an alternative route up from the bowels of the castle. Passing by Quirrell felt too great a risk to Harry, even with his Invisibility Cloak on.
Wary of Trelawney coming out of the kitchens – although she was probably a bit too drunk to notice an invisible boy – Harry avoided the cellar corridor with the painting of fruit which concealed the doors to the kitchen in favour of dropping down towards the dungeons once again. Harry thought there was another staircase leading up to the cellars and, eventually, the upper levels of the castle that didn't take him past the grand stair.
Harry passed through the corridor leading to the Slytherin Common Room and then followed it to its end where it split into two passages, one leading downwards and the other veering left but remaining on the same level. Harry had never seen the passage leading below before, and he'd walked to the end of that particular corridor several times before as it was a shortcut up to the cellars. Curious where it went, Harry took the stairs downwards.
Harry reached the bottom of the stone steps and realised he'd entered an ancient, near enough abandoned, part of the castle. The upper levels of the dungeons had enchanted torches and lamps sat in wall sconces, although in some parts they were sparse and the light was dim.
This lower level had nothing of the sort, not so much as a lone candle to keep away the darkness. Harry didn't think there was anyone around to see him so he lit the end of his wand so he could see where he was going.
Soft light fell from the tip of his wand and lit the way ahead like a thin torch, and Harry took a look around. The fat stones forming the dungeon's floor were covered in thick layers of dust which spiralled into the stale air as Harry disturbed it, and there were large cracks running through many of the stones along the walls. Some of the stones had runes carved into them, but it was difficult to see given the gloom, and Harry couldn't read runes anyway. The construction seemed rougher, less polished, than any other part of the castle Harry had visited, more primitive.
Harry kept walking along the corridor until he reached a fork, and took the left-hand passage. If possible, the passage was dustier than the previous one, with more cracks in the stones along its walls. Harry followed the passage until it terminated suddenly in a dead end at a section of completely innocuous wall.
"Well, that's boring," Harry muttered. He glanced around for signs of something, since there would surely have to be a reason for there to be a corridor which went nowhere. Harry checked the stones around the corridor wall, pushing against them gently with his free hand, although nothing happened other than Harry getting dusty hands.
Harry checked along the bases of the walls next, and noticed a small crack where dozens of spiders were passing through all in a massive column, all attempting to leave the dead-end corridor.
So it does go somewhere, Harry thought, even if it's just for spiders...
Harry tapped some of the stones at random, hoping for something to happen like with Diagon Alley, but nothing did. He even attempted the same trick on some of the stones with runes carved into them, but nothing happened.
While Harry was trying out his wand against various different runes in a series of different patterns, a voice sounded from behind him and caused him to jump near right out of his skin.
"It is a good thing that it is I who has found you tonight, Mr Potter, and not someone else, I should think," said the voice. Harry turned to see Dumbledore stood right behind him clad in bright purple robes with little stars on them which glowed in the dark.
Harry didn't know how Dumbledore knew it was him stood there, but as he'd been caught out, pulled the hood of the Invisibility Cloak from his head.
"Er, Professor! Sorry, I was just—erm, I was just—" Harry said, fumbling his way through an excuse.
"Skulking about in the dark looking for secrets, as teenagers are wont to do," said Dumbledore, quite cheerfully. "Ordinarily such things would be of little concern—some, perhaps, to some of your other teachers although I must confess, not to me—but given the circumstances this year, perhaps a mite unwise for you in particular. Do you not agree?"
"I, er—well, when you put it that way," Harry said. "I thought I should be alright because I'm invisible, you know, but..."
"It was the wand which gave you away, I'm afraid," said Dumbledore. "Walk with me," he said, and then turned on his heel and strode away at a brisk pace. Harry followed.
"It may surprise you to learn that Hogwarts was not the first structure to be built on this location," Dumbledore said, his tone conversational, as they walked away. "This part of the castle is a hold-over from a most ancient time, a time long before the Founders thought to build a school, and I must confess its purpose is unknown even to me. The runes along the walls—perhaps you noticed them—give some clues, but the true function, if there ever was one, is lost to the mists of time."
"I thought maybe there was something," Harry said, "but I don't know much about runes at all."
"Ah, well, I would not expect you to," said Dumbledore. "But it is an interesting thing to think on, nevertheless. I merely wished to bring to your attention that some parts of the castle are unpredictable even to those of us who have spent a lifetime walking these halls. This structure in particular is chaotic, and rarely remains accessible for long. I should not wish for you to become trapped down here, you must understand, the threat from Sirius Black notwithstanding."
Harry swallowed. He'd never considered he could become trapped inside the corridor.
"I hadn't even thought of that, Professor. I'll make sure next time... Er, what I mean is, I definitely won't go exploring strange hallways again," Harry said.
"I shan't presume to think that you will refrain from ever exploring hidden places, Harry," Dumbledore said, "but I will ask that you restrict your nocturnal activities to more well-populated parts of the castle. Will you do this?"
"I—of course, Professor. I'm sorry."
"I believe that you are, Harry," Dumbledore said. "Now, run along—and back to bed, if you please. It is rather late and I should not like you to be late for breakfast!"
By then they'd reached the staircase leading back up to the uppermost dungeon layer, and Dumbledore waited at the bottom for Harry to ascend it. As Harry climbed the stairs, Dumbledore remained at the bottom, and stayed there even when Harry reached the top and pulled the hood of Cloak up over his head. Whatever business Dumbledore had in the ancient part of the castle, Harry wouldn't find out that evening.
Instead, Harry returned to the Common Room and tried to put the whole place out of his mind. Although Harry did resume his nocturnal wanderings the next night, the staircase leading to that passage was gone.
