Chapter Eleven – A Night-Time Stroll

Snow fell on the Hogwarts grounds rather early that year. As November progressed into December, the trees around the castle stood barren and lifeless, and the greying grass of the lawns and courtyards was covered by a fresh layer of white. The monochrome depressing look of the castle grounds reflected onto the cold, harsh surface of the lake beside it.

Inside the castle, however, things could not be more different. A warm and colourful environment as usual, Hogwarts had always been impressive with its holiday decorations. Floating glass baubles, wreaths, Christmas trees, and the occasional Menorah filled the corridors and classrooms of the castle; the most impressive of which were the traditional Twelve Christmas Trees that stood tall in the Great Hall. A general buzz of excited conversation was often heard as the students discussed their plans for the upcoming Christmas holidays.

Riya couldn't wait much longer for the relief of the coming holidays. The past couple months had been a living nightmare for her. Tom was still ignoring her, the entire house of Hufflepuff appeared to equally hate her, and – to add to her misery – her teachers seemed to have collectively decided to pile on as much work as possible before the holidays.

Their last Friday at Hogwarts came as a blessing. Riya sat quietly in her last Transfiguration class for the term, picturing her family's traditional venture to Camden Market the week before Christmas. She was also planning on visiting Molly in Cotswolds for a few days and maybe – should the weather permit it – go to Diagon Alley with her for a day.

'There is an irrefutable delicacy in the transfiguration of an owl into opera glasses,' lectured Professor Montgomery. 'As you know, the Strigiforma spell can have disastrous results should you get it wrong. We must all remember Prodigeous Lathos, the poor lad who accidentally turned his owl into a snow leopard that promptly bit off his nose.'

Riya looked at her own chubby owl, it napped lazily in its perch. Somehow, she doubted that – even if it did turn into a vicious leopard – it would hardly bother biting her. Her teacher, on the other hand… Well, ever since they ran into him on that day in September, Professor Montgomery didn't seem himself. For one, he kept randomly appearing everywhere they went in the castle, almost as if watching their every move closely. Another odd behaviour he displayed lately was the fact that he looked rather clouded and unresponsive. He gave his lectures in a somewhat robotic manner which did not suit him at all. Something was definitely bothering him, occupying his otherwise brilliantly sharp mind.

'So,' he continued, 'remember the movements that we practised and consider the flesh and feather to glass and metal equation we've discussed. For our next class, four weeks from now, I would like you to write me a two-foot-long essay on the potential hazards of living animal transformations. I would also expect you to practise the wand movements and incantation as we will be attempting the charm again in that same class. Have a good break everyone.'

The students got up from their seats and walked to the back of the class and into the corridor. Molly joined Riya on her way to lunch.

'I'm telling you; he keeps shooting creepy looks at me,' she told her friend.

'He was never like this, maybe there's something on his mind,' answered Riya.

'Maybe he's trying to hide something, more like… But he seemed perfectly fine until this year, really up until that Hogsmeade weekend. This could be connected to all the weird stuff that's been happening…'

'Hey, can we maybe drop this subject?' asked Riya in exasperation. 'I'm tired of having the same conversations over and over again… Yes, Montgomery is acting weird, yes it might all be connected. We already told your uncle Harry everything we know, he's dealing with it, so can we please – '

'Okay, I'm dropping it' said Molly, slightly annoyed. 'I know you're having a tough time Ri; I just wish you could see past that Tom git…'

The girls kept walking in silence to the Great Hall. It has been over a month since Harry Potter, Molly's uncle by marriage, had interviewed them. He came to the school the day after Albus was hospitalised and, once he had finished chewing out his son for being so criminally irresponsible, he came over to the Gryffindor common room and asked Molly to recount her version of events (since she had seen Albus being carried out of the forest by Hagrid's giant half-brother). It was then that the girls had told him all they had witnessed that Saturday afternoon in September. He had listened intently as they recounted Tom's odd behaviour and Montgomery's suspicious actions. These facts seemed to have confirmed a few of the famous Auror's suspicions.

And yet, it had been a month since, and there were no arrests and no actions taken. Everything appeared to have gone back to normal…

Riya and Molly sat down at their usual spots at the Gryffindor table. As Riya helped herself for a portion of mashed potatoes and green beans, Molly picked up a Daily Prophet edition that was left on the table. She took a swig of pumpkin juice… and promptly spit it out.

'Look!' she cried. Molly turned her paper over to Riya. A broad-shouldered, young wizard with a closely trimmed beard was smiling at her from the front page of the paper.

'What?' asked Riya.

'It's him, that bloke we saw the day of our Hogsmeade visit. It's that Erasmus van-something guy, I'm sure of it.'

'So?'

'So?! What was he doing here? Why was he wandering around the castle that same day everything and everyone started being weird?'

'You don't think he had something to do with all of this?'

'I mean, it is a pretty odd coincidence, isn't it? And listen to this – ' Molly turned the paper back to face her and began to read: '"…known for inventing the Amarous charm and defeating the most dangerous dark wizard since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – " I really wish they would just call him Voldemort, he's been dead for almost twenty years, " – Mortedigne, along with the terrible Japanese dark wizard, Shinohakobite, Erasmus van Helmont has recently been hailed as one of the greatest wizards of the twenty-first century." Call me mental, but you don't just defeat two crazy powerful dark wizards on your own without practising some serious dark magic yourself.'

'Give me that,' said Riya as she pulled the paper out of her friend's hands. She scanned over the article before reading another paragraph out loud: '"His recent miraculous invention, the Nuntillud – a simple magical device that allows its users to communicate with each other instantly – has caught the attention of many prominent figures in the wizarding world. The company Magicae Modern, founded by van Helmont, has recently signed a lucrative deal with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Call me mental, but if he's signing "lucrative" deals with your uncle he might not be committing major crimes around Hogwarts.'

'But wouldn't that be the perfect cover? If he pretends to be chummy with Law Enforcement, he can easily slip under the radar! Even uncle Harry has been fooled before.'

'I don't know about this Mol… You're really reading into things that aren't necessarily – well – things.'

'Whatever…'

'Anyway,' Riya kept on, in an attempt to change the subject, 'which shift did you get for night patrols?'

The prefects at Hogwarts had the unfortunate responsibility of patrolling the corridors to ensure that other students were not breaking curfew. Usually, they would only patrol the corridors until midnight, but the night before everyone left for the holidays was particularly prone to mischief. This meant that the prefects of every house had to take shifts throughout the night.

'I got nine o'clock to eleven,' replied Molly. 'They partnered me with O'Reilly, that dim-witted – '

'At least you didn't get partnered with your ex…' Riya cut her off.

'Right, Merlin's nightgown that's awful that they put you with Nowak… We can switch you know…'

'And prove that I'm uncomfortable spending time with this git? I'd rather not give him the satisfaction.'

'What period did you get?'

'One o'clock to three…'

Molly made a disgusted face.

'I just wish there were more prefects to go around,' said Riya miserably. 'Maybe then we wouldn't be so stressed… And I wouldn't have to spend two hours of my night with Nasty Nowak.'

Molly chuckled. 'There're already more prefects than there used to be, you know. My dad says that in his time there were only two from each house: a boy and a girl. McGonagall changed it to four because there are almost twice as many students now.'

Riya smiled. She remembered how pleased Molly's father had been in the summer before their fifth year, when the girls had gotten their prefect badges. Pompous Percy, as many had dubbed him, was the Head of the Department of Magical Transportation. Pretentious, arrogant, and stiff-necked – though not unkind – Percy Weasley had considered prefect-hood one of the highest honours that can be bestowed upon a student at Hogwarts (second only to Head-Boy-hood).

Once the girls finished their lunch at the Great Hall, Molly suggested they walk back to the common room to relax a little.

'Oof I'm so full,' exclaimed Molly. 'I might just go for a cheeky nap before – ' *THUMP*

A giant snowball hit her square in the face as they walked out of the Great Hall. Riya threw back her head laughing at her friend before receiving the snowball's twin full in her mouth. Choking and coughing, Riya – through her tearing eyes – could see Molly chasing her cousins James and Fred, along with their mate Ton, out into the snow-clad grounds.

'Oh, you're done now! You better run fast you little bastards, once I catch you, you're gonna get fu – ' *THOMP* Another snowball hit her in the face.

'YUCK that's horrible! You're our cousin Mol!' called Fred.

Riya followed her friend out of the castle – laughing harder than she had laughed for the past two months – as Molly raised her wand and conjured a few dozen snowballs of her own.

'Help! We're being attacked by a rogue prefect!' yelled James as he dodged a shower of fresh snow that was thrown at him.

'Shut up, you started it!' called Molly.

Riya joined the snowball fight with another small ensemble of enchanted balls. The boys were less experienced in magic than Molly and Riya, but they made up for it by sheer numbers and swiftness. They battled fiercely through the grounds, throwing snow of various shapes and sizes at each other.

'You know what? I think it's time to add some more fire – I mean snow – power to this!' called Ton.

'You mean initiate protocol Fluffy Falconet?' retorted James as he dived behind a bush.

'Let's do this!' yelled Fred.

'GO TEAM MISCHEIVIOUS MEDDLERS!' shouted the boys.

'You guys are so cringe – oh shi – ' called Riya before spotting the massive snow cannon that the boys had raised out of the ground. The girls had to dive out of the way of a fresh flurry of snow that was shot at them from the boys' cannon.

Fifteen minutes later, Riya and Molly strode back into the warm castle. Cold, wet, and defeated, they pointed their wands at themselves and performed a Hot Air Charm to dry off their robes.

'I can't believe we just got schooled by your nitwit third-year cousins and their chunky mate,' laughed Riya.

'They're far from nitwits if you ask me. That was some impressive magic right there,' said Molly in spite of herself.

The rest of Riya's day was spent lounging at the Gryffindor common room. The girls sat at their favourite table by the window and watched James and his mates down below turning their snow-filled-ferocity at Rose and her group of friends.

After going back down again for dinner and a stop for a quick shower, Molly had to go to her patrol duties. Riya decided to try and sleep as much as she could before going on her own nightmarish patrol.

At 00:45 Riya woke to her alarm bell – and quickly silenced it as to not wake the other girls in her dormitory. Molly was already snoring in the bed right next to hers. She climbed out of her four-poster silently and got dressed.

Jacob Nowak, her ex-boyfriend, was waiting by the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room.

'Ready?' he asked.

Riya nodded unenthusiastically at him.

The two proceeded silently out of the portrait hole and onto the Fat Lady's Corridor on the seventh floor. They walked through the hallways soundlessly for a few minutes before Jacob broke the silence.

'You know,' he said cautiously, 'I never meant to –'

'Save it,' Riya cut him off.

'Look Riya, I agree, I was an idiot, but that's not who I am anymore. I'm done being a boy. I'm a man now and – ' he paused as Riya snorted.

'You had three days to come up with something good to say to me and you chose to go with "I'm a mAn nOw RiYa"? Pathetic.'

'And what do you call what that Hufflepuff bloke did to you exactly?' he asked back spitefully. 'I told you to watch your back with this guy, he doesn't seem very stable now, does he?'

'Whatever Jacob, it's none of your business who I'm involved with,' she replied.

'Oh, but it is my business. I still care about you Riya. And those Hufflepuffs are not as harmless as they seem, even if they are as stupid.'

'Give me a break, Tom is so much more intelligent than you'll ever be.'

'See and you're still defending him! After everything he's done to you! How sick is that?'

'Jacob, if you're going to keep pestering me, I would rather just patrol alone thank you very much. I don't need you and your obsessions making this night-time stroll any more annoying than it already is.'

'Whatever Riya, I said what I had to say.'

They kept walking through the dark halls of the castle in silence. Everything looked much eerier now, quieter, and more mysterious. Though the holiday decorations had lent it a cheerful look during the day, at night-time the floating glass baubles and wreaths added to the castle's spooky atmosphere.

Riya and Jacob found themselves on the ground floor of the castle at around 2:00. Riya was now thoroughly bored and miserable. Jacob kept shooting anxious looks at her as if trying to gather the courage to speak up again.

'Do you reckon we should go down to the kitchens?' he asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence.

'Nah, I don't think James, Fred, and Ton would be raiding the kitchens at this hour. Even they have to sleep sometimes…'

'Yeah, but maybe we could get something. I'm feeling kinda hungry.'

'Typical…'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Nothing. Let's go up again, through here.'

Riya led him behind a pair of tapestries and up through a narrow staircase with a suit of armour at its top. Riya hopped right over the infamous trick step of that stairway, but Jacob stepped right onto it and got his foot stuck inside.

'Merlin's hat you're thick,' said Riya exasperatedly through Jacob slurry of curses. 'We go through here every day; how can you not remember to skip this one?'

'I wasn't paying attention, you're too distracting. Can you help me now, please?' he replied.

Riya giggled. 'Stop wiggling, you're making it worse. Here,' she grabbed his leg and pulled him out.

'Thanks… Hey Riya look, I'm sorry if I was pushy and annoying just now. I just don't really know how to act around you, you know? Maybe I'm still a bit of a stupid child that – '

'Shhhh!'

'What? What now – '

'No Jacob be quiet. I heard something.'

Though her companion hadn't noticed, Riya had distinctly heard a loud crack and thud from the floor above them. She sped upwards, past the suit of armour and onto the second-floor corridor.

It was quiet and empty.

Jacob appeared shortly behind her. 'What did you hear?' he asked.

'I heard a sound, like a loud crash and thump, sort of like if someone got cursed around here or something…' she replied.

'I don't see anything.'

'Maybe they covered their tracks… Come on.'

Riya sped along the corridor, checking around her to see if there were any signs of a struggle. She stopped next to a couple suits of armour and listened for any other suspicious noises. A light, low, and hushed sound of breathing came from somewhere ahead of them.

'Can you hear that?' she asked Jacob. He nodded at her. They paced carefully ahead towards the source of the sound.

'Here,' Jacob pointed at a nearby suit of armour. He walked up to it, lifted its visor, and looked inside. 'Oh my god,' he whispered.

Riya ran toward him, but he signalled her to stop and look around them. Jacob quickly took apart the armour and pulled out a small creature, with spindly arms and legs, and an oversized head and eyes. A house-elf.

This particular house-elf was old. He had a bulbous, snout-like nose, bloodshot eyes, many folds of skin, and white hair growing out of his bat-like ears. The elf was unconscious but definitely alive.

'Stunned most likely,' stated Jacob. 'But who would do that and then stuff him in a suit of armour like that?'

'Do you think he was following someone?' asked Riya.

'I don't know. He doesn't seem familiar. I've been to the kitchens a few times and I've never seen this old bloke… He must've come from outside – HEY!'

Riya turned around just in time to see a jet of red light hit Jacob's chest, rendering him unconscious. A tall, hooded figure stood at the end of the corridor with its wand held threateningly.

'NO!' screamed Riya. She lifted her wand and sent a stunning spell of her own at the figure. It blocked it with ease and countered with a Leg-Locker Curse.

Whoever they were, they were fast, insanely fast. Riya tried all she could – duelling the hooded person fiercely – but alas, one of the dark figure's Full Body-Bind Curse hit her square in her face. Riya's arms and legs snapped together, and she fell down, stiff as a board.

The figure approached Riya, Jacob, and the poor elf. She tried to struggle against the curse but – try as she might – her body didn't seem to respond to her commands. Horrifyingly, she was still very much aware of what was happening. The hooded individual lifted their wand and the three silent companions sprung up into the air, floating like some ghastly marionette show. Riya managed to get a better look at her captor now, it was undoubtedly a man, but she couldn't see his face.

The hooded man turned around and began walking. Please just leave us here, thought Riya desperately. To her horror, with a flick of his wand the man made them all follow him silently in the air. He led them through another corridor and turned a corner, then another corridor and another corner. Before long Riya found herself floating towards the infamous second-floor girls' lavatory.

Moaning Myrtle's Bathroom, she thought. Perhaps this guy doesn't know about Myrtle, and she would scream and raise the alarm. Her hopes died as they entered the lavatory and Myrtle was nowhere to be seen.

Riya had never been inside this bathroom. She had been warned ahead of time – on her very first day at Hogwarts in fact – not to set foot inside it. Myrtle's notorious wails and whines kept any sane person at Hogwarts away from this place. It was gloomy and gross in here. Under a large, cracked, and spotted mirror were a row of chipped sinks. The wooden doors to the stalls were flaking and scratched, and one of them was dangling off its hinges. It was completely dark as the candles had burned out in their holders.

The man stopped and stood in front of one of the sinks. Riya had no clue what he was doing until he began to speak. It wasn't English though. The noise the man made resembled more of a hissing sound, similar to that of a snake. To Riya's shock, the tap in front of the man glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin. The sink itself descended into the ground below and revealed a large pipe, wide enough for a man to slide into.

Tears flooded Riya's eyes now as realisation hit her. She was being dragged into the Chamber of Secrets. It was all real. The Lost Child had been biding his time and now, that elf, Jacob, and Riya were going to be his first victims…

The man proceeded to lower himself into the pipe and let go. The trio floated behind him into the pipe. They rushed down a dark, slimy slide. Riya could see other, smaller pipes branching off theirs. The dark shaft curved and swerved deeper and deeper below the school. Riya was now choking on her tears. As the pipe levelled out, she could hear the man landing with a thud on the wet floor of a dark stone tunnel. His captives came out right behind him.

They then sped forward, along the tunnel and through – what appeared to be – a cleared path in the rubble of a caved-in portion of it. It bent again and again and, just as Riya thought it might go on forever, the tunnel ended. A solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, gleaming emeralds appeared ahead.

The man whispered the same hiss he had muttered in the bathroom above. The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight.

Her face now dry, stunned by not only the curse but with shock and fear, Riya was led into a long, dimly lit chamber, its ceiling supported by towering stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents. At the other end of the chamber stood a colossal statue of an old, bearded man. At its feet laid a large – perhaps fifty feet long – skeleton of a hideous snake, with fangs as big as daggers. Riya noticed a small fire lit by one of the statue's legs. Three dark figures sat around it in silence as Riya was made to float through the air towards them.

'Took you a while,' said a man, one of the three surrounding the small flame. Riya now noticed they were two men and a woman. 'Ah but I see you brought us guests, haven't you?' he said as he noticed Riya and the others. He was very large, had small dull eyes, long muscular arms, and a thick beard.

The hooded man grunted at him.

'Look at that,' said the other man behind him. He had a pallid, doughy face and tiny eyes. 'Two students and, well, is that the elf you've been mentioning? Bloody hell it's old… You'd think Potter could afford a better one than that.'

The woman, a stocky, sloping-shouldered, evil-looking thing, got up from her chair. She could have been the man's sister. She walked over and examined Riya. 'Isn't that the lass who stopped you at Hogsmeade?' she asked the large man.

'Oh yeah,' he answered dumbly, 'that is her. Look where snooping around got you eh?' he teased.

'Never mind that now,' exclaimed the woman. She seemed to be the brains of the operation – which wasn't saying much. 'What can you tell us?' she asked the hooded man.

For the first time, their captor spoke. 'Potter and Longbottom suspect me for sure, but they've got nothing. I stunned the elf Potter sent after me.' His voice sounded shockingly familiar to Riya.

'And what about the Child? Any progress?'

'Not really. I delivered our message to the Child. No response as usual.'

Riya was thoroughly confused now. She had been sure the hooded man had been the Lost Child. Otherwise, how could he have spoken in Parseltongue?

'The boss's not gonna be happy,' said the doughy-faced man. 'We promised them we get the Child on our side and we're not delivering… And Potter's getting closer.'

'Well, it was your idea to kill off Madley,' replied the woman venomously. 'Now it's only a matter of time before he's on to us – '

'Okay, but we don't want anyone else to find out what we're trying to do right? And my memory charms aren't perfect,' he countered. 'And besides, Potter still thinks we're dead, doesn't he? So we're good.'

'Until he figures out we're not dead. Anyhow,' she now turned to the hooded man, 'what about… you know… you found them, right? all of them?'

'Yes. Sealed in that cave by the sea. They're hungry, famished really. They would be extremely cooperative,' he replied.

'Good, good. So you know what to do, give it a couple more weeks and if the Child doesn't cooperate – well – set our dear friends free.'

The two men at her side began to laugh. What the hell were they talking about?

'I still think we should tell the boss what we know,' said the large man.

'And risk whoever it is just tossing us aside and talking to the Child themselves? I think not,' answered the stocky woman. 'We don't know who they are, and we can't trust them. We want the Heir to the Dark Lord to be fully committed to our cause, so I say screw the "boss" and – '

'They had good ideas so far,' he muttered dully. 'We wouldn't have thought about hiding down here if it wasn't for them. And we wouldn't have known the password to get in here either – '

'We're still working with them. We're just hiding a few tiny bits of information as insurance, is all. Once the Child decides to cooperate, we'll see where to go from there.'

Before the large man could reply again, the hooded figure spoke. 'Pardon me, if that is everything, I think I should leave now. Don't want to stay down here too long. That wailing ghost will be back in her stall soon and it would be inconvenient if she sees me.'

'Yeah, you're right,' agreed the woman.

'What d'you reckon I should do with them?' asked the hooded man while motioning at the floating trio. Riya's heart began to pound frantically.

'Reckon we should kill'em,' said the large man.

'No, you idiot!' croaked the stocky woman. 'Even this stupid school would notice if two bloody students just vanish one night, not to mention Potter would know for sure if his elf dies. No, just modify their memories and put them back where you found them.'

'Right on,' said the doughy-faced man. He moved forward but was stopped by the woman.

'Not you. They're gonna remember everything in a week if you cast it. Let him do it,' she pointed at the hooded man.

The man lowered them to his level and turned around. He moved closer to Riya, so close that she could now see his face.

Riya let out a silent gasp in horror; it was HIM.

'Obliviate!'