Something Familiar (Mk.2).
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Something Familiar (Mk.2)
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Chapter Fourteen
"Hidden Inside"
AKA
"Hot and Sloppy"
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"Come on, Ced. Don't want to spend some more time together?" the fourth-year Hufflepuff who wasn't nearly important enough to have a name cooed.
Cedric didn't so much as slow down, despite her gentle attempt to make him stop. "It's almost midnight. We've been out way too long. What if Professor Sprout decides to do a head count?" he whispered.
A quiet snort slipped out of Nameless Hufflepuff's lips. "She'll wonder why she's missing a dozen 'puffs, assume she miscast the spell, then go back to her chambers and bottle of brandy? You know, like she always does?"
"And if she didn't have a… uh… nightcap?"
There was another snort. "Good point. Hey, while we're at it we should pick up some anti-meteor umbrellas. You know, just in case," Nameless Hufflepuff suggested. Then her amused look hardened as something occurred to her. "Wait. You're not saying I'm not worth getting in a little trouble for, are you?"
"What? No! No, of course not!" came the panicked denial. "You know it's just because I'm aiming for head boy!"
Nameless HufflCepuff's features softened. "Well, that's fine then. For a minute I was thinking you weren't interested anymore. Maybe someone like Cho was more your type."
"The Panda? You're kidding, right?"
"...panda?"
Cedric nodded. "Yeah, that's what most of the guys are calling her. You've seen her face, right? Two big, black bruises around the eyes, courtesy of the Trunk-Puncher. She tries to cover them up, but it's pretty much impossible."
"Oh, I see. The girls are calling her T-owl because of how many towels she went through scraping the poor thing off," Nameless Hufflepuff giggled. "Get it? It sounds just like towel."
"Yeah, I got that," Cedric finally paused, giving her an uncertain look. "Isn't that a little mean? I mean, I hear it took Pomfrey half an hour to pull that butter knife out of her spleen."
"I don't know about that, but someone told me Pomfrey had to put in an emergency order for more Spleen Kleen," his companion said. "And you do realize you're laughing about her getting three concussions in the space of ten seconds, right?"
"Good point. She's a huge bitch, though, so I don't really care."
"Agreed." There was a brief pause. "Hey, you ever wonder how people find this stuff out? I mean, where does the information…"
Nameless Hufflepuff's voice faded as the pair turned a corner. Soon even the last muffled bits of her words vanished entirely. For several minutes the corridor was empty and silent.
Then a small, furry mass plummeted out of the darkness up by the ceiling. The kitten landed - on her feet, of course - with a quiet thunk in the center of the hall. After pausing to listen for a moment, she decided the area was clear. There was a sudden whoosh of displaced air as she became human.
Angel stretched theatrically, twisting her body in a way that probably would have made Fred pass out as his brain suffered a perverted overload. Glancing up and down the corridor one more time, she turned her annoyed gaze to the suit of armor she had landed in front of. The thing had reacted to her sudden appearance by throwing itself to the back of its alcove. It was now standing there, pressed against the wall and releasing a faint rattling noise as it shivered in fear.
The Familiar couldn't quite stop the annoyed growl that slipped out. This was why she was normally so careful not to pass too close to the animate armor. The damn things were even worse than the portraits, because their reaction was so much more noticeable.
"Relax, dummy," she sighed. "Why would I be interested in you?"
The armor continued to shiver in in fear.
"I said stop it!" Angel hissed in annoyance, baring her teeth.
The armor instantly froze. Its faceless visor somehow conveyed an expression of extreme terror.
Angel sighed as she turned away from it.
She almost felt bad for terrorizing the poor thing, which was really kind of silly. It wasn't like the suit of armor had any actual feelings. Though it moved and reacted like a living thing, it was operating on a vague memory of what it once felt and did. It would follow whatever routines it had before and react to things like it once would have, but that was about it. It had no actual emotion or self-awareness at this point.
It was like someone had drawn a beautiful picture on a pad of paper, then torn it off and taken it with them. What the people of Hogwarts saw now was just the impression on the page below.
Angel honestly wasn't sure how she felt about that.
Living castles - technically living structures, but no one actually called them that - were incredibly rare. In Khe'set Tai a person was lucky to see one in their life. Angel herself had seen more than a few, but that was more by virtue of age than anything else.
Hogwarts, had she been intact, would have been the largest and grandest living castle the Familiar had ever heard of, let alone seen. The veins burned into her walls by the magic she once possessed were incredible. They were deeper and broader than any Angel had ever seen. It boggled her mind to think about the sheer amount of power than had once surged through those stones.
Now there was barely a trickle there, flowing so slow it was almost imperceptible. Hogwarts' veins were almost empty and her heart was nearly still. The poor castle was slowly starving to death for want of magic. At this rate she'd be lucky to last another decade before her life was gone forever. Soon she'd be just another lump of stone and the suits of armor, torches and a hundred other things she'd created would be no different from those in any other building.
The loss of such a beautiful thing was enough to make Angel's heart ache. If the wizards here saw like she did, they'd be cursing themselves for the damn fools they were.
As much as it hurt, the Familiar had to admit the castle's imminent demise did make it a lot easier to move around in. In a living castle, it was hard to tell what eyes she might be looking out of. It could be from the visors of the armor, a face carved into a bit of furniture or even a stuffed raven sitting on a shelf. Once spotted, you'd have to worry about the castle relaying raising the alarm, relaying your position, or even dealing with you herself.
Thinking about the kinds of wards Hogwarts could throw up if she was at full health sent a shiver down Angel's spine. Buildings could be surprisingly creative and could turn an impressive amount of power to their purposes. Being on the grounds of a pissed-off living castle was dangerous even if you knew everything about its abilities and limitations.
Overall, though, Angel decided she was more sad than anything.
Shaking off the dark mood, the Familiar began walking down the corridor. As she went she held on hand out, lightly trailing her claws across the stone wall. Her touch left a pair of parallel gouges behind her, barely more than a millimeter deep. It would take the castle several days to heal the light wounds in her current state, but no one was likely to notice them in the meantime.
Eventually she reached her goal: a very specific door on the third floor. This particular door had, according to the gossip, been loudly announced to be off-limits at the beginning of the year. Apparently the old guy had gone so far as to warn of "imminent death" waiting behind it.
He knew nothing about children, was an idiot, or had something else in mind.
The old man had been within the halls of Hogwarts for far too long to claim ignorance. Angel knew quite well how hard learning to handle a human child was. It was one of life's most difficult lessons for sure, but not so hard that someone couldn't learn it while spending 50 years surrounded by them. He was even human, which had to make things like that easier on him than it was on her.
Option B didn't sound any more likely than the first. As much as she might dislike him, the old man was remarkably intelligent and capable. He put a fair amount of effort into hiding it behind a veil of mystique and senility, but it was an act she'd seen a few times before. The warm twinkle in his eye was really light shining off the cold edge of a razor blade.
Just watching him was enough to remind Angel of her. It was exactly the sort of thing she had loved: betrayal on a grand scale. It made her stomach turn, but also made her wonder how much of the bitch's personality the old man shared. Was he capable of the same things she had been?
Angel forced herself to shove that line of thought aside. The anger was already rising in her, just from thinking about it. It was putting her at serious risk of thinking clearly, and that was never good when being pissed-off was what pushed the haze away.
So not an idiot and not ignorant. That only left one option: the one she was least fond of.
Angel stepped forward and examined the door closely. When no immediate perils presented themselves, she edged a bit closer and began running the backs of her hands across the woods. Back and forth, up and down, she continued for almost half an hour as she traced odd patterns that eventually covered every inch of wood.
She then paused briefly before doing it all again.
She finally completed the second circuit and stepped back. Frowning at the door, she pondered the situation.
It didn't make sense.
Sighing, she glanced out the nearest window. The waxing moon, still only a bit more than half full, was still high in the sky. It meant she still had a while to wait a few days for the light of a full moon, which was annoying, but it also meant there was plenty of night left.
Sighing, she stepped up to the third-floor door and raised her hands again. This time, however, she carefully pressed her fingertips against the old wood.
The door is important. You need the door. Don't cut the door. The door is important. Focus on the door. Don't cut the door.
Angel's fingertips slid across the door as she repeated the silent litany over and over. Her nails scraped across the wood as she moved, not so much as scratching it.
This time it took her over two hours to finish. Finally she stepped back, breathing a sigh of relief.
Keeping her claws from cutting was like hanging from a cliff. It was easy enough at first, but the effort required increased rapidly as she carried on. Soon it took every bit of focus she had (which, admittedly, wasn't much) and any distraction would ruin it.
Thank Stone the thing they called 'the Bond' kept her from harming her charge. It was the first time in her life she'd run across something that could deliberately make something safe from her claws. Usually it seemed more or less random, though it was at least partly based on how much she liked something.
There was an unbelievably pure ring as the cutting edge of a nail flicked against her bell.
Damn it, she was already getting distracted.
Focus!
Just as Angel was getting back into the right mindset, a new distraction presented itself. The thin vines that made up one of her top's many straps twisted and writhed. The movement intensified as it moved upward, running across her collarbone in a way that was clearly intended to provoke a reaction. Soft flower petals tickled at the side of her neck and earlobe as it moved over her shoulder. It made one last effort as it ran down her spine, then gave one of her lower cheeks a very inappropriate squeeze.
Angel stood there with a bored look on her face through it all. She'd learned long ago that the worst thing you could do to someone pulling this kind of crap was to not acknowledge it.
Finally a pale arm burst out from the strip of leaves running down her back. It flailed around for a moment before its hand found her shoulder and wrapped around it. A moment later the process was repeated on the other side. Finally the arms flexed and heaved as Orchid yanked herself out of the other Familiar's back like a swimmer leaving a pool.
"Hello Orchid," Angel greeted. The hint of annoyance in her voice was obvious enough that even a Familiar with very little social experience could catch it.. "I've told you to let me know when I'm wearing you, haven't I?."
Orchid shifted to wrap her arms around her friend's neck. It was an odd position, like she was standing behind the other Familiar, burying her face against Angel's neck. The only problem with the picture was that she was completely lacking in a lower half.
Mad? Orchid asked uncertainly.
There was a brief pause, then Angel's face returned to a much more typical cheerful and slightly dazed expression.
"'course I'm not mad, silly! Who's mad to see a Pretty Flower?" Angel reassured her friend, even as she silently berated her for the interruption. "But you need to be the good Flower, an' that means doing the things we agreed on. 'kay?"
The alura une immediately nodded without lifting her head from Angel's neck. Despite how quickly her friend had hidden it, the Familiar had gotten a good taste of her anger. It was so cold it felt like it would burn her right down to the stalk. Angel usually tasted so good that she'd been completely unprepared for it. It was something akin to taking a big bite of a sweet fruit, only to discover it was rotten to the core beneath the flawless skin.
She unconsciously licked her lips in a futile attempt to rid herself of the lingering flavor. It would probably be a good idea to pay a little more attention to the rules in the future. If it felt that unpleasant from the outside, she could only imagine what it was like on the inside.
The thought had a distinctly odd feel to it. Being a supernatural predator and a maneater at that, she didn't have a whole lot of experience with empathy. The whole situation made her feel odd and a bit uncomfortable, so she decided to change the subject.
What?
"I'm lookin' at a door, silly!" Angel answered.
There was a pause as Orchid waited for more information. After a long moment, when if finally became obvious none was forthcoming, she asked, Why?
"'cuz it's interesting," Angel groaned, rolling her eyes. "Why else would I look at it?"
Orchid finally lifted her head to give her friend an annoyed look though narrowed eyes. With a faint twitch of her will, she tightened the vines around Angel's lower cheeks menacingly. The faint squeeze was meant to be a clear warning what would happen if the redhead continued being difficult.
Why? she demanded one last time.
The feline Familiar got the message loud and clear. Not really feeling like engaging in a game of perverted wrestling, she answered, "Someone's playing the games, Pretty Flower. They put lots of stuffs on it."
Orchid looked up at the door, studied the distinctly stuffless surface, the looked back down. Technically she had an answer to her question, but it was obviously bullshit. Did that mean she could follow through on her threat?
As if reading her mind, Angel quickly continued, "It's stuffs pretty flowers can't see. There's' magics, like the weaving with strings."
The alura une regarded the door dubiously again.
"Would I lie to you?" Angel asked softly.
Orchid actually shivered. She quickly shook her head.
"'mmmm. Sorry Pretty Flower. I was thinking of lots of the bad stuff tonight. Guess it made me not feel good," Angel apologized. She reached up to brush her knuckles across the spirit's cheek. "Forgive me?"
The spirit shugged noncommittally,but pressed her cheek against the hand.
"The magics make the door hard to open, but not too hard. Lotsa alarms and stuffs to slow people down, but nothing to do the hurting. Gotta fascination ward, too," Angel explained. "Makesa thing hard to forget once you see it. Weird, huh?"
Orchid only considered for a moment before coming to a conclusion. It was, after all, something she was very familiar with. Studying the door with more interest, she declared, Trap.
"And a trap means you're trying to trap a something. It's a big trap, too, so must be a big something. Big traps mean big bait, too."
It had to be big bait for a trap set up somewhere like this. After all, there was really only one kind of prey they could be hunting for here…
If she wanted to get through the door without alerting anyone, she'd only be able to work at night. It would take days, maybe even weeks, and there was a chance someone would notice the damage to the wards before she was finished. The quicker and easier way would be to use her claws, but that came with its on set of problems. While they'd go through the wood like it was tissue paper, they'd also set off every ward on it. She probably wouldn't get four steps inside before someone came running.
Angel exhaled slowly and let her shoulders slump a bit.
Coming to this world had definitely opened up some old wounds, not the least of which was the feeling of having no on left to rely on. It was the whole reason she regretted getting involved with people in the first place. For the longest time she'd felt no pain from the lack of it, but had changed once she'd accepted others as part of her world. Now there was so much to do and no one to count on.
A faint shifting of weight caused Angel to quickly correct her balance. Looking up, Angel discovered Orchid pushing herself up and forward, bending awkwardly to study the other Familiar's face from a more direct angle. For some reason she had grown legs to do it, instead of changing her structure, and was practically kneeling on the redhead's shoulder. The vines connecting her feet to Angel's top were probably the only thing to keep her from pitching off.
Okay? the alura une asked. There was a faint tinge of actual concern in the hallucination that came as a bit of a surprise.
Angel paused for a moment, then gave her a warm smile. "I'm okay, Pretty Flower. The door's getting all boring now, so let's go play in the forest. 'kay?"
Orchid nodded absently. It was more of a reflexive agreement than anything. Her friend's question hadn't really registered beyond the fact that it was a question. Her head was still reeling from the flavor the other Familiar's emotions had briefly acquired. It was by far the sweetest thing she'd ever tasted, even better than the ecstasy her victims felt as they died.
"'kay! I wanna try to catch the long mousie things with six legs again! They're fast!" Angel declared happily, turning toward the window across the way. "Hang on, Silly Flower! Here we go~!"
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"Eitha."
Despite having not physical presence, the spell made the wand recoil like a muggle shotgun. The butt of the wooden rod slammed itself into the heel of Harry's hard enough to make his eyes water. He could feel the shock of it clear up to his shoulder, and actually had to shift his stance to absorb it without toppling.
Thirty meters away, a large chunk of tree became an equally large cloud of ballistic splinters.
Harry studied the tree critically, then turned his gaze toward the tree he had actually been aiming at. Roughly a dozen of the wooden bastards stood between the two. The lance of kinetic energy had also impacted about halfway up the trunk. Overall, the spell was almost absurdly off-target.
Oh, and there was also the minor fact that the prank spell had just blown a fucking tree in half.
Not only could he not control where the spell hit, Harry couldn't even throttle the amount of magic the wand was sucking out of him. He felt a bit lightheaded and his right arm was feeling leaden and oddly heavy. He felt like he could sleep for a week straight and he'd only managed to fire off five spells.
Not only was the wand not listening to him, it felt like the thing was actively resisting every time he tried to cast with it. When it finally did deign to do something, it did so suddenly enough that it caught him by surprise. He could swear there was almost a sense of malicious glee as it wrenched the magic out of him and slammed it together into an absurdly overcharged shoving hex.
So far firing off spells at the Forbidden Forest hadn't accomplished much, aside from destroying a few trees. While disrupting whatever vile plots they were hatching was a worthy endeavor of its own, it wasn't exactly what he was aiming for. The few spells he could manage each night had done nothing to improve his ability to control the Ash wand.
It was really starting to piss him off.
"Okay, you know what? You wanna destroy some trees?" Harry growled, glaring at the length of Ash. "Let's destroy some trees."
The wand's resistance to his magic eased up just the tiniest bit. If it were a person, Harry would say it was waiting and watching with a wary curiosity.
Harry took that as a good sign, or at least a lack of a bad sign. Shoving his magic into the wand as hard as he could, he shoved it forward, gave it a twist and roared, "EITHA!"
There was a shrill, joyous cry as the spell exploded out from the wand. The force of it shoved Harry backward half a meter. He barely managed to keep his balance by leaning forward into the impact of it. That couldn't do much about the shock that travelled up his arm, though, or the burning pain it caused in his wrist, elbow and shoulder.
The shoving spell tore up the turf as it hurtled toward the forest. When it hit the first tree, a section of trunk taller than Harry simply ceased to exist. The second fared a bit better, but only because you could actually see the tiny bits of wood. The third was just torn to shreds and the fourth acted like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. It was only when it hit the fifth tree that the spell's power was spent, merely snapping it at the base instead of annihilating it.
Harry barely managed to register the destruction he'd wrought before the massive wave of vertigo swept through him. The ground rushed up to greet him with an eagerness he definitely didn't approve of. He hit it at exactly the same time a massive spear of pain hit his brain. The two combined cause a pool of rainbow-colored liquid to mysteriously appear in front of him.
"I'm never eating Skittles again," Harry grumbled.
Wincing, he unsteadily clambered to his feet. A good, solid shake of his robes dislodged most of sticks and crud that had adhered itself to his robes. It also made his head spin, sent a new jab of pain through his skull and dislodged his birch wand from its pocket. It landed in the rainbow puddle with a faint plop and quickly vanished beneath the surface.
Harry briefly considered leaving the damn thing there, but there was a couple of problems with that. Abandoning his Birch wand here would be like putting up a poster telling everyone and their mother who was responsible for the destruction that had been happening over the past week. It would also leave him with only his Ash wand, which was next to useless. As fun as launching the Charms classroom into orbit with a levitation charm, it probably wasn't the best long-term plan.
Grimacing, he reached into the puddle and fished around. He tried very hard not to think about what he was plunging his hand into, nor how he even vomited enough to create a pool so large and deep in the first place. After what seemed like a very long time, he finally found it. Flicking it off, he carefully wiped it across the grass (Take that, you grassholes!) to get the last of the rainbow juice off.
His one consolation was that no one had been around to witness the whole, disgusting event.
Speaking of people watching, it would probably be best to beat feet before someone showed up. Someone was sure to be curious about the massive crash that accompanied the destruction. Even at Hogwarts, someone was bound to come around to investigate, right?
…
Regardless, Harry turned and started hoofing it back towards the castle, just on the off chance someone chose to give a shit.
Several minutes passed with nothing more interesting than the grass bending in the breeze happening.
Eventually there was a stirring in the shadow of a small boulder. A dark figure eased his way out of the darkness, emerging from a pool of shadows that definitely seemed a bit too small to conceal a person.
The figure strolled over to the edge of the Forbidden Forrest's boundary, stopping just to the side of the devastation Harry had wrought. Sharp eyes peered out from beneath his raised hood, studying the damage with great interest. His gaze swept across the pile of splintered wood and churned dirt and came to a rest on a tree just to the left of the damaged area. In particular, his eyes fixed on the glowing rune carved into its trunk.
"Goddamn," he said quietly. The cloth covering his face didn't quite muffle the comment.
The first-year probably had no idea how close he'd come to causing a huge problem. The trees serving as posts for the ward fence surrounding the forest would shrug off any normal spell, but 'normal' definitely didn't apply here. Something packing that much force would have damaged it at best and completely destroyed it at worst. Either one would have left a seriously weakened section of boundary.
The observer tucked his hands back into his hoodie's pockets and studied the damage a bit longer. It was absolutely absurd to do all of that with a simple Eitha. It would have to be overcharged to an absurd degree. Recklessly dumping so much magic into a spell wasn't easy to do on purpose. It should be totally beyond a first-year, barring a few unlikely circumstances.
His lips curled into a faint smile as he took one last look at the gouged earth. "Found you," he whispered as he turned and started walking back towards the castle.
The others weren't going to believe this...
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Parts of Hogwarts had been sealed off for as long as any living person could remember. It was a fact that was pretty hard to miss, considering the castle went to no effort to hid it. Over the years she had simply removed doors and redirected corridors, sometimes even just throwing a wall across one, as she began to die piece by piece. This had lead to strange arrangements of halls, paths that doubled or tripled back on themselves, and more than one corridor ending in a blank wall.
The closed off portions of the castle, for most intents and purposes, no longer existed. There was no way to access them from within the castle, nor were there any exterior doors leading in. Even the windows just showed random, open areas of the castle if you peered in from the outside.
Very few people knew exactly why these areas were closed off. The natural assumption was that, with the castle's population so low, there was simply no point in maintaining them. It was a fairly reasonable conclusion to come to and even managed to nail the root cause. Despite being reasonably accurate, there was one point this theory was off the mark.
It wasn't that Howarts wouldn't maintain the halls. It was that she couldn't.
In a normal castle, not having enough manpower to take care of everything meant meals were late and the halls get kind of dirty. In a castle that had massive amounts of magic running through her for well over a millenia, it was another matter entirely. Without Hogwarts carefully managing every aspect of the spells that had grown naturally within her, things could get a bit… messy.
"Oh, hey, look. Another hallway," George groaned, rubbing his temples. "Man, I'm so glad we found one. Now I only need three more to finish the set!"
It was a corridor like any other in Hogwarts, with a dark stone floor and a red carpet running down the middle. Torches were set at even intervals, lighting the large tapestries that hung there. There was also a trio of suits of armor, one at each end and the third in the middle.
For all its similarities, though, there were several very noticeable differences. The carpet was threadbare and grimy. The tapestries were just as dirty and worn, fraying at the edges and were even clearly moth-eaten in places. The flames of the torches were low and flickering, casting crazed shadows across the darkened hall. One had even gone out completely. As for the armor, it sat perfectly still like a suit of armor should. There was no subtly shifting of weight, nor did they turn their heads to watch the students pass.
"I regret to inform you that your labors were amiss. This is not a new corridor at all," King said regretfully.
The third-year was walking without much regard for where he was going, instead staring intently at the glass cube he held aloft. Ten centimeters on a side, the faces and edges were completely unadorned. The inside was quite a bit more interesting, as it sported a collection of carved lines and boxes. The low light caught them as he turned the object, turning them into threads of gold and drops of amber.
"We have traversed this area seven…" King paused and squinted at the cube, turning it. "Forgive me, eight times this night."
"Wonderful…"
Behind him, Fred giggled and sang out, "Brother, oh brother, where art thou? The… Wait, where art thou? Actually, where art I?"
"I really, really wonder that myself, Fred. Wherever it is, it's obviously not the same place as rest of us," George sighed.
"Well, that's kind of hard to say for sure when we don't know where art thou or I," Fred reasoned. Nodding decisively, he returned to his improvised song. "Brother, or brother, 'tis time to come home. The moon's light wanes, and the bullfrogs grow weary."
Shaking his head, George groaned, "Seriously Fred, either shut up or say something that makes sense!"
Stopping in his tracks, Fred stomped one foot in irritation. That and his angry huff were enough to make both his brother and King stop and turn around. Glaring at George, he snapped, "Excuse me!? I'll have you know I'm making perfect sense!"
Not breaking his indignant glare, Fred set his feet and shoved each hand into a pocket. He held the pose for several seconds to build suspense. Then, with a dramatic flourish, he withdrew a pair of bullfrogs from the depths of his robes. The amphibians gave George and King disinterested looks as they dangled from his hands.
"Okay, what the hell?"
"They're weary, aren't you guys?" Fred asked, holding them up to show them off.
The frogs glanced at each other, then turned their uncaring eyes back to the other wizards. They both released a weary croak.
The hall was silent for a long moment as all involved parties simply took the situation in.
"I must admit, they certainly do seem quite worn-out," King offered.
"Not helping," George growled in reply.
King shrugged. "I am simply stating a fact. I am not an expert in amphibian affairs, but they do seem to be suffering from a great deal of fatigue."
"Okay. Fine. The frogs are tired. I get it. Now could we please focus on something that matters like, y'know, getting the hell out of here?" George demanded.
Fred shrugged and stuffed the bullfrogs back into his pockets. "Fine. Sorry guys. I had know idea my brother was such a filthy frogist bastard. We'll get you some rest when we get-"
The front of Fred's trousers moved visibly.
"Damn it, I told them not to invite friends without telling me. One sec," Fred said with a frown. Setting his stance a bit wider, he shoved both arms into his trousers almost up to the elbow. After fishing around for a moment, his face lit up with a victorious smile. In one smooth motion he withdrew both arms and held the culprit aloft. "Aha! I got you, you wiggly… little… frog?"`
Fred stared at the small creature dangling from his hand, it slowly dawning on him that it wasn't a frog of any kind.
The beast stared back at him with beady black eyes as its long body swung back and forth. Even in the low light it was obvious it wasn't an amphibian at all, given the sleek blue fur that covered it. Its six limbs, abnormally long and ending in red feet, flexed in anticipation.
"Oh bugger," Fred muttered.
The creature's eyes lit up with a red glow as it twisted out of his grip. Whirling around his arm, it launched itself at his face so quickly it was little more than a blur. The impact produced a solid thunk and launched the hapless wizard almost two meters before he hit the floor. He then started thrashing around yelping in pain as the angry animal blurred around his body, sending drops of blood and scraps of cloth in every direction.
George watch passively, then asked, "So, should we ask him why he had a turbo-weasel in his pants?"
"No," King replied decisively. "No we shall not. Not ever. In fact, I would suggest that we just act like it never happened."
George gave King a confused look and said, "Like what happened?"
"Exactly."
"So, as I was saying before nothing at all happened, this sucks. Like, big time," George complained. "It's like every sequence we marked is broken. Whey the hell did everything move around so much?"
Frowning, King turned his attention back to the glass cube. "It does appear that this area is becoming less stable at an increasing rate. It would not be an issue if we could mark a sufficient portion of the alternate locations, but considering we don't even know how many there are…"
"It makes that stupid thing useless," George finished.
King's response was a deep, depressed sigh.
"Hey man, buck up!" George said cheerfully, slapping him on the back. He immediately jerked away and started to shake his hand, as if that would shake the stinging sensation off. "I think you did great job! It's not the most useful, but how many people can say they've even tried to map a non-eck… non-ick... uh…"
"An exotic non-euclidean space," King finished morosely. "A particularly nasty one."
George nodded sagely. "Nasty for sure. What hall you came in from matters just as much as what hall you leave by. What kind of sane person would even try to map that? Your have to be stark, raving mad!"
"Do you really believe that questioning one's sanity is the ideal way to cheer them up?" King asked with another sigh. This one was exasperated rather than depressed. "Sometimes I have no idea what goes on in your head.
At that particular moment, the thought going through George's head was, Phase One: initial distraction complete. Initiating Phase Two: derail that train like a Goo-infested express!
Twisting to stretch his back, a movement accompanied by a series of sickening pops, George loudly groaned, "But man, this place sucks. We were just getting a handle on it and it all changes. Why the hell did everything move around so much?"
King pursed his lips as he surveyed the corridor. The gloomy look that he had been sporting vanished. In its place was a look of quiet contemplation as he considered the question.
Damn I'm good, George thought with a faint smile.
King, oblivious to George's smug satisfaction, finally said, "If you look closely, it is quite obvious this corridor is in worse condition than the last time we were here. The others were as well."
The state of the hallway had noticed in George's mind, but in a perifrial sort of way. His subconscious have seen it as important enough to bother his conscious mind with, so it didn't even register.
The subconscious mind is a bit of a dick. It lies to it's counterpart, the conscious mind, telling it that it was calling the shots. The whole while it's lurking in the background, pulling the strings.
"Now that you mention it, the torches aren't torching very well," George observed. "They're lower than they were before. I think we went by one that was out back there."
King nodded in agreement. "We did. Now consider: if that is happening to the torches, what do you think is happening to the spacial manipulation enchantments in this area?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Y'know, when you put it like that, it sounds like being in here is pretty dangerous," George said.
King gave him a bland look. "A cloud of carnivorous moths nearly devoured your brother's eyes last year. You are just now concluding that your obsession may be endangering us?"
"Hey, don't look at me, man. I'm not the nutjob that brought a shitload of dangerous stuff into the school," George protested, holding his hands out defensively. "It's the sicko that did that you should be pissed at."
"Actually, it is quite likely that your sicko does not exist. Hogwarts once housed many research facilities, among other things. Who knows what manner of things were lost here when the area began to decay. Whatever they once were, it is likely that spending centuries bathed in the entropic magic released by a multitude of collapsing spells had changed them."
George shrugged. "Whatever. There's probably some cool stuff in here, and nothing's killed is yet. Let's just peel that weasel - the one that we have no idea where it came from - off Fred and… oh shit."
King sighed as he turned. "Really George, must you be so constantly vulgar? There are a great many words you could-"
The walking engine of destruction, bane of all things breakable and unstoppable Goo-slayer, stopped short as his brain registered what his eyes were seeing.
The corridor behind them was totally devoid of Freds.
"Oh," King said. "Shit."
=A=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=A=
Author's Note
=A=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=A=
So, as you may have noticed, I was true to my word and didn't' abandon this story. For reasons that are still elude me, I have been unable to write for almost a fucking year. I'm hoping that problem has been resolved now.
This chapter is probably riddled with an embarrassing amount of errors. It's exactly the kind of "hot off the press shit" tells you not to post. Sorry about that, but it's been so long that I was hotter to get it up than a 70-year-old guy with his first bottle of Viagra. As such, this may be subject to some heavy revision later.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to throw up new chapters semi-regularly. I'm not making any promises.
This chapter is a little shorter than I intended it to be. There was actually going to be another scene at the end, but I'm still debating if I want to throw it in.
If you read Classic, you probably have a pretty good idea who was watching Harry. If not, don't worry about it. I'll get there eventually.