Breaking the fourth wall for a moment to tell you: thank you, reader, for reading my scribbles, it really means a lot and fills me with modest pride. I hope you enjoy!


It was running late and Hogwarts' students were expected back in their dormitories soon, which meant that Otillia had to resume her prefect's rounds again to inspect if there were no students out after curfew. Technically, she was not obliged to walk the evening rounds today. However, while studying in the library, she kept going over the disappearance of the Weasley twins, replaying the events in her head, frustrating herself while she did. After having failed thus miserably at focusing on her Potions homework, Otillia volunteered to go in Padma's place to return to the dead-end corner of the fifth floor where the twins evaporated into thin air. She hoped that some extra investigation would bring her mind at ease or, more importantly, would lead her to the twins. Catching them performing some inappropriate act inside the Castle's walls was certainly at the top of her wish-list.

She enjoyed the evening rounds especially, since a solemn atmosphere always seemed to inhabit the Castle's nightly deserted hallways. Making her way to the fifth floor, she could almost hear her own thoughts reverberate against the walls. Listening attentively to her own footsteps, and lost in their hypnotic rhythm, she reached the dead-end corridor with a sense of tranquility. The space matched her feelings. It was eerily silent.

Due to the scenery of emptiness and quietude, Otillia almost envisioned the knight's armor to come alive and break the spatial silence. It did not, of course, do such a thing. Even so, she again inspected the armor closely, touching the cold iron harness with her bare hands. She giggled when poking in the eyes of its visor, amused by her earlier imagined aggressions regarding the armor.

Thereafter, she shuffled silently, afraid to make any noise, over the red carpet that warmed the floor. Yet nothing moved but her own feet.

She inspected the bricks beneath the window frame, the windowsill, and the transparent glass plates separating her from the cool outside night-air. Although she kept anticipating some magical effect to be caused by any of her movements, everything remained deadly still. That is, until a strange voice made its appearance.

"Have you lost something?"

Startled by the sudden sound of the unknown voice, Otillia turned around from the window. Caught in the act, she felt a red blush spreading over her cheeks. Facing her was Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Popington, who looked observantly but friendly at her. Immediately she shook her head.

"N– no," she managed to utter, still slightly ashamed from her discovery.

"You had not expected anyone to come here, did you? You living people really forget about the dead too soon," the smiling ghost said teasingly warmly.

"Indeed," Otillia agreed timidly, answering both his questions at once.

"Are you even allowed to be here at night?" Nearly Headless Nick asked. It seemed that he did not want to rat her out, but was, in fact, curious about her behavior.

"I'm a prefect, so yes… sir," Otillia added the 'sir' quickly before she forgot. While conversing with him, she tried to focus on the ghost's appearance. A challenge when she could, simultaneously, see the wall behind him through his translucent body.

"Ah. I see." He floated towards her looked at her closely. "You were here earlier, chasing the identical twins."

Otillia looked at him suspiciously and nodded slowly in agreement. "How did you know?"

"It's not the walls that have eyes, but we do; ghosts are quite the all-seeing beings. Walls are nothing when compared to us," he spoke proudly, but with a hint of self-mockery.

This made Otillia smile and she eased a bit in the man's presence. "I will never trust a wall again."

"Don't, before you know it, they stop catching you and you find yourself falling right through them." Otillia now chuckled out loud.

"You know, I have always wondered why a ghost like me cannot become a prefect. I have the competences," Nearly Headless Nick pondered, floating towards the knight's armor. He stood still in close opposition to the emptied iron knight, staring at its visor.

"Is it because I exist without bodily incarceration? Don't they realize that bodies are overestimated? Bodies are but helpless armors against time. Eventually, they will wear out."

The ghost floated inside the armor, imagining himself to have a material, bodily shell. Otillia did not know what to answer him and watched him indecisively. His presence, although welcome, was obstructing her from further investigating the area, causing her to feel a nervousness that often concurs with time-restraint. Nervously, she fiddled her fingers. The thought of losing a precious opportunity was bothering her.

Nearly Headless Nick must have spotted this, for stopped his knightly performance and moved to face Otillia again.

"I am interrupting you," he stated in a way that was simultaneously an invitation to elaborate.

"I–" Otillia stuttered, before closing her mouth again. She was unsure what she could and could not entrust the ghost with. As if reading her mind, Nick was quick to ease her up.

"Please, do not fear. I'm not trying to monitor you. When I saw you examine this area, I only thought that… maybe I could be of help."

Pensive, Otillia looked at the ghost, a thought slowly shaping inside her mind. Maybe the ghost could be of service.

"You said you saw me looking for two identical redheads earlier today."

"If looking consists of frantically flowing through the corridors, then indeed I did."

Otillia felt heat arising in her face at the thought of her previous behavior, but she suppressed any feelings of shame regarding.

"It is them I am looking for. It is them I lost."

She looked around the area, expecting that her mentioning the Weasleys would cause them to suddenly pop up and ridicule her present engagement with the ghost. The twins' unpredictable and impulsive behavior was sure making her paranoic. Even if they weren't even nearby, or especially then, they still worked on her nerves.

"I thought I was closing in on them. But when I reached this dead-end, they had disappeared."

Nearly Headless Nick floated slowly back and forth, occupied by his own thoughts. Promptly, he stalked his movements. "And now you want to find them again!" He clapped his transparent hands soundlessly.

"Well, no not exactly. They already resurfaced during dinner in the Great Hall. Rather, I want to find out how they disappeared."

The ghost stroked his mustache thoughtfully, a smile starting to appear on his lips. "Being a master of appearance and disappearance, I think I can help."

"This place has a lot of history, did you know that?" He asked her while he slid past her, avoiding her securely to not bump into her. Otillia appreciated the gesture and tried to suppress the smile caused by the irony of the act. He would have gone right through her, she wouldn't have felt a thing.

"This place?" She asked surprised.

"Certainly. This armor right here was Sir James Douglas's, also called 'the Black Douglas' by the English and 'Good Sir James' by his Scottish peers. Now, if you ever get to meet him, I'd advise you to not call him by the former name. Brings up bad memories and he's got quite a temper… for a dead man. It has been a long time since he honored us with his company here. Fascinating man, truly fascinating."

With the added information, the knight's armor seemed to have adopted new qualities. Maybe her expectance of its coming alive had not been so strange after all.

"And the window here, I remember quite well, was shattered to pieces when Tom Riddle was rejected as replacement of Galatea Merrythought as Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor. It was not the only window that broke that day though…" Nearly Headless Nick stared out of the window, darkening his memory by this grim recollection.

"Afin," he shied away from the window and moved to an inconspicuous section of the bricked wall. "This is where the magic happens."

For a second, Otillia got the feeling that the ghost was mocking her. But the sincerity he had been showing obliterated her suspicion immediately. Even so, the pair of them was now staring at a pair of incredibly unremarkable bricks and she was seriously doubting the value of them doing so.

Was he going to introduce every frigging stone?

"I don't see anything?"

"You have not learned a lot in the six years that you got to roam this Castle if you still take phenomena at a superficial level."

Otillia looked at him surprised. Nick was right. He had proven himself to be very quick for a ghost. Although admittedly, the only ghost she had ever had a long conversation with that could serve as point of reference was Professor Binns of her History of Magic class. And besides an apparent love for historical tales, the two diverged in extremes when it came to the telling of them.

"Let me rephrase: what are we looking at?" She excused herself with a taint of humor.

The ghost turned his head excitedly wildly, almost flipping it off his neck, swiftly holding it in place with his left hand. "A secret passage."

Otillia's eyes widened. When accepting the ghost's help, she had not expected his aid to bear fruits this quickly. Knowing she was onto something, an exciting anticipation spread through her body. He could have told her earlier, though. He knew what she had been looking for. The suspension, still, was worthwhile. Even ghosts, or maybe ghosts in particular, needed someone they could tell their ageless tales to.

She took a step closer to inspect the section of the wall Nick had indicated, but she could not spot any peculiarity or indication of some secret concealment. Questioningly, she again looked at the ghost.

"You need to trail a pattern, like this." With a very specific pattern of a cascaded square, Nearly Headless Nick traced the plastered mortar between the bricks with his immaterial index finger.

"As you can see, it, sadly, doesn't work for me. One needs fingers of flesh and blood to cause the contact needed."

Otillia stepped even closer, eager to try the ghost's suggestion. "May I?"

"Please." He moved sidewards to give her access to the space he had indicated.

"And remember," Nick demonstrated the pattern again with his fingers in the air. Otillia nodded once to state her understanding.

She lowered to her knees and positioned herself in front of the magical section of the wall. Her fingers traced the crispy, rough brickwork along the pattern the ghost had trailed. While she was hesitant in believing the intelligence Nick had provided, the second her fingers closed the circuit, the bricks started to dance apart, piling up and sliding away backwards into nothingness.

"Woah," Otillia breathed while the wall was making place for a secret passage.

She peered her head in slightly to spot where the bricks had gone, but they seemed to have vanished completely.

"Come on, on you go," Nearly Headless Nick cheered her on.

Otillia, still on her knees, turned her head towards him, almost expecting him to come along.

"Here, our paths diverge. This is your quest," Nick said with an ironically high air, his hands shooing her good-naturedly with his hands to go on.

She smiled at the ghost and mouthed "thank you" before she went into the dark hole.

As soon as her feet glided inside the small, badly lit space that resembled a vestibule, the wall behind her took on its solid manifestation again. Otillia lifted herself up and brushed her knees clean. Narrowing her eyelids, she looked around, trying to get accustomed to the darkness. The vestibule evolved into another, more brightly lit space that contrasted sharply with the gloomy atmosphere of the antechamber. To enter the room where the light was coming from, she had to go around the corner of the vestibule right-angled. She could not hold back the grin curving her lips in a curved bow. She had found the secret cave of that redhaired ferret.

Timidly, she moved forwards until almost half her body had curved into the next room.

Immediately, she gasped.

The large space that had opened to her looked like a very ancient classroom and it smelled like primeval parchment. Inside, torches burned on all sides of the walls, wooden desks were paired with wooden chairs, the floor was covered by an effete red carpet, and a large chalk board flaunted as a tabula rasa. But these things had not startled her.

In the middle of the room, Fred Weasley stood, casually leaning back against one of the desks, wearing only his white blouse, tie hanging loosely around his neck, and the black slacks belonging to Hogwarts' obligatory school uniform.

He was not alone.

In between his legs, spread sideways, a female figure rested her body against him. Judging from the girl's posterior – raven hair, Gryffindor attire – it was Angelina Johnson. Though 'resting' might not have been the proper word to use here.

Feet fixated to the ground, Otillia watched how Fred's fingers glided through Angelina's hair, pulling her head softly top the side. His other hand was interlocked with the girl's, hovering at hip length. Gently, his thumb stroked her dark velvet skin.

Don't look, just close your eyes, step away.

Fred planted a kiss on Angelina's temple.

What are you doing?!

Angelina buried her face in his neck.

You blooming idiot.

Fred's eyes locked with hers.

Fuck.

She expected him to halt his movements and to at least burst into malicious laughter. Instead, the corners of his mouth climbed upwards. A sly smirk playing on his lips, his fingers went on gently stroking Angelina's hair. His other hand freed itself from Angelina's hold and traced the side of her body.

Up – Otillia's eyes followed the movement of Fred's fingers hypnotized – and down.

Up – Fred's hand found its way under the fabric of Angelina's clothing – and down.

When he squeezed in the bare flesh of her side, Angelina whimpered.

"How does it feel?" He wispered sensually in the girl's ear, his brown eyes drilled into Otillia's intensely. Nails clawed over Angelina's bum, her hip, and to her back, stroking her backbone forcefully, intending to leave behind a scratch. Angelina moaned a reply, causing him to grab her hair with his left hand more tightly. Audibly and shakily, Otillia breathed in once, her heart beating so loudly in her throat, she almost expected her skin to rupture.

"That's right," his husky voice filled the room, traveling from the depth of his throat into Otillia's ear-shells, where it circled as a persistent echo. "I'm going to detonate you."

Instantly, Otillia's abdomen burst, spreading a tingling feeling from her stomach to her ribs and breasts. Startled by the prompt feeling of arousal caused by his promise of explosion - one that instigated a creeping outpouring of pins and needles inside her -, she quickly, bewildered, stepped backwards in an attempt to escape the scene, the boy, and her newly acquired sensations.

She could, however, not back down further because her the wings of her shoulders en the heels of her feet had touched the dead end wall of the vestibule. She was absolutely not supposed to be standing here, watching him, feeling like this. Yet, she could not, did not, seem to be able to move. Trapped, her eyes lingered on the redhead, shifting from his lips, back to his darkened and lustful brown pools, unable to choose where to focus on.

The eyes scrutinizing her wrinkled slightly and betrayed their amusement at watched her failed attempt to get out. The small part of her brain that was still functioning normally tried to remind Otillia to feel ashamed. To realize that the boy opposite her was in total control and was fully disclosing his intentions to play with her.

Weak thoughts tried to push her hostility against him into awareness. But her bodily sensations were quick to suppress any logical thoughts.

For a moment, Fred closed his eyes, inhaling Angelina's smell deeply and purposefully loudly, trailing his nose over her skin. "Hmmm."

Otillia's breathing became more rapid and she pressed her molars together forcefully to keep herself from making any noise. Standing petrified against the wall, she could spot a grin form against the bared skin of Angelina's neck. Her stare followed the outline of his grinning lips closely, never ever having studied his lips in a welcome manner.

Then, unexpectedly, he bit in the curve connecting Angelina's shoulder to her neck, causing Angelina to exclaim her hurt pleasurefully. Trying to keep herself from squeaking while watching the redhead's carnal behavior, Otillia bit hard in her underlip, unconsciously mimicking the pleasureful pain Fred was delivering to Angelina. In her captivated daze, she forgot that she was only a voyeur to Fred's titillations, and her body became a proxy for the girl he was holding so tightly. All her senses heightened, her unmoved body received his remote caresses eagerly. Synchronized thus, the distance between their bodies only added to her feelings of nearness: he was so close, she could almost touch him.

Almost.

Her lips started to tingle, but Otillia knew no longer if it was from her biting or from lust. She raised her finger to her lips unthoughtfully to trace the tingling sensations there.

If only his lips would–

Stop.

Stop stop stop stop stop.

Miraculously, a switch flicked and Otillia's lustful, misty gaze cleared, allowing her sensible vision to return. It had taken all her unconscious willpower to break the boy's spell.

Get out.

What on earth was she thinking fantasizing about Fred Weasley's lips.

Never.

As quickly as her mind had switched from haze to clarity, her feet regained their mobility. And before she had even registered doing so, she teared herself away from scene, rushing back into the vestibule. She had been so engrossed in the affair that it felt like she was leaving her shadow behind, occupying the now vacated place she had just moments ago, fixatedly, filled with her body. Longing for the prolongation of touch.

In panic, she smashed her hands against the wall, feeling for an opening. Her frantic physical movements symbolized her mental despair. Attempting to shut out and shut up the persisting visuals of Fred's face, her knuckles scraped the bricked wall's rough sandy surface. After some unsuccessful, desperate tries, she suddenly remembered the pattern Nearly Headless Nick head demonstrated. Hastily, her fingers scraped over the stony wall, trying to find any grooves between the bricks. Filled with fright and expecting the Weasley boy to turn up behind her any minute, she aimlessly started to trace the pattern along the ridges. To her surprise, it worked.

Thank, thank, thank goodness.

The wall opened the outside world up to Otillia again and, kneeling, she rushed outside, stumbling over her knees and feet, bruising her epidermis in the process. She heard the wall fold itself into its static posture and only then managed to look up. Panting, her eyes yet again met Nearly Headless Nick, who had been looking at the riddled window, but upon noticing her stumbled arrival, he returned her gaze partly confused and partly inquisitive.

"Dear, you look like you've just seen a ghost."