The problem with creeping around the castle at night, Mike Rowland was discovering, was that one's entirely natural desire to avoid the creepy and probably dangerous deserted parts of Hogwarts, and stick to the brightly lit main corridors, was an excellent way to get caught.
He pressed his back to the wall and prayed that the statue of whoever-it-was — there had barely been time to slip behind the fat witch with nineteen warts, let along read the plaque — concealed him from view.
"I don't understand it." Professor Potter's voice floated up the corridor. "I'd swear in the Wizengamot that I've seen spells cast by that witch or wizard before."
"Could it be that the Death Eater they're using is the one whose signature you're seeing?" Professor Longbottom said, his voice getting louder at the end of the sentence. They're coming this way. Blast, blast, blast. "If that's the case, then it's probably someone you've investigated, right?"
Their footsteps were at the end of the corridor, now, and coming closer. Mike tried not to breathe. Death Eaters? But I thought they were all caught!
"Could be," Professor Potter said thoughtfully. "Worth looking into, at least. We'd be able to tell who had access to him or her. Or at least, Ron could ask Jimmy to find out." He paused, and when he spoke again his voice came from directly in front of the witch with the warts. "It's better than the alternative, which is that the curse was cast by someone who got access as a visitor."
"No chance," Professor Longbottom said, also from directly in front of the statue, which meant that two professors, both trained as Aurors, were only a few feet away from Mike's make-shift hiding place. "Visitors are observed. Anyway, how many people can there be who aren't Aurors or Death Eaters whose magic you'd recognise?"
"Not many," Professor Potter said. "None I'd think could do something like this."
"There you are, then." Professor Longbottom's voice grew quieter and Mike felt a great wave of relief as he realised they were moving away. "It's either someone you trained with, or someone you arrested. We'll go through the list again tomorrow."
Mike waited until the sounds of their footsteps faded completely away before slipping out from behind the statue. Feeling vaguely obliged to her, he paused long enough to read the plaque beneath the witch with all the warts. Felicity Fennegreek, 1412 - 1545, inventor of the self-cleaning hat.
"Thanks, Madam Fennegreek," Mike whispered, and scarpered.
He didn't encounter anyone else on his way downstairs, and within fifteen minutes was waiting for Maisie and Colin in the shadow of the standing stones.
They turned up together, hauling a luggage trunk between them, Colin doubly burdened by the lantern in his other hand. They dropped it on the grass and stood panting.
"Why didn't you just levitate it?" Mike asked.
Maisie rubbed the palm of her hand. "It's going to be hard enough to levitate it all the way back, without being tired to add to it."
"What if we can't find one?" Colin asked.
"Then we'll hide the trunk somewhere and come back another time," Maisie said.
"I think I know how to make sure one comes," Mike said. He glanced from Maisie to Colin and back again. "From what Professor Potter said. But if I tell you, it might not work."
Colin frowned. "That sounds like Dark Magic."
Maisie snorted. "No it doesn't, Colin. Nobody ever got free of the Imperius curse because they knew what it was."
It was Mike's turn to frown. "What's the Imperius curse?"
"Never mind," Maisie said shortly. "So are we going, or what?"
It was Mike and Maisie who ended up carrying the luggage trunk the rest of the way to the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, while Colin carried the lantern to light their way. It was far heavier than something that was essentially empty had a right to be and Mike was glad when Maisie decided they'd gone deep enough into the forest and he could set it down.
"Right." He took out his wand. "You'd better put the lantern out."
"Can you light it again?" Colin asked, his voice shaking a little.
"Matches," Maisie said. She raised the lantern's slide and blew the candle out. "They're a Muggle thing."
Despite it being his own suggestion to put the lantern out, Mike found himself deeply uneasy to know they were entirely dependent on a Muggle method to call back the light. The darkness in the Forbidden Forest was of an entirely different quality to the friendly nighttime black of the dormitories. That darkness wrapped a warm cocoon around the inhabitants. Night in the Forbidden Forest pressed in, like cold fingers against his skin, like hands laid over his eyes and an unknown voice whispering threats in his ear.
He'd written down everything that Professor Potter had said about Boggarts, and he'd checked his conclusions against those of the D.A.D.A books that weren't in the Restricted Section, and he was almost sure he was right, but still … despite the fact that it was his own plan, Mike could feel his heart hammering faster and faster as he counted to three hundred. As hard as he tried to count slowly and steadily, he got through the last fifty in less time than the first hundred and fifty.
Glad he was invisible in the dark, he shifted his wand to his left hand long enough to scrub his sweaty palm dry on his robe.
"Some people say Boggarts just want to be left alone, that they transform as a defence mechanism." Professor Potter is clearly about to go somewhere — he's wearing an outdoor cloak, and there's a dusting of Floo powder on his hand as if he'd been about to toss it into the fireplace when he heard Mike's knock. Still, he leans patiently against his desk and waits for Mike's next question.
"But that isn't enough to qualify a creature as Dark, is it? There are plenty of things that would prefer to be left alone."
Potter nods, smiling. "Excellent point." Mike has a sudden hot feeling in his chest and throat at the thought that Professor Potter is approving of his diligence when actually Mike is deceiving him instead. He swallows hard and forces himself to stay silent and listen. "For one thing, Boggarts are amortal, they're non-beings. Do you know what that means?"
"No."
"They aren't born, and they can be banished, but not killed. They're part of a class of creatures that are actually created by our emotions, so new ones are always coming into being."
"What emotions create a Boggart?"
"Fear," Potter says. "And it's my opinion that they take the form of what frightens of us because fear strengthens them."
Mike gripped his wand so hard it hurt his hand and thought that if fear could create a Boggart, there surely must be one lurking around nearby.
Slowly and carefully, he crept sideways until he was standing directly behind Colin and Maisie. Really sorry about this, Colin.
He reached out and grabbed Colin's shoulder.
"AaAAaaAAaaghh!" Colin's scream of pure terror split the velvet night.
With a startled cry, Maisie jumped sideways, wand up, and then started fumbling with the lantern.
Colin flung himself forward and then turned to face Mike.
"Look, I'm sorry, it's just … " Mike's voice trailed off as Maisie got the candle lit and its flickering glow showed Colin pale as milk, staring past Mike with horror stark on his face.
Mike spun. Behind him loomed an enormous spider, squat and hairy, venom dripping from its giant fangs. Oh no. Oh no.
I should have thought that there's more than one kind of creature in the Forbidden Forest that might be drawn to someone screaming.
He raised his wand. "Protego!"
"That's for magic!" Maisie said, and hurled the lantern directly at the monster.
It barely flinched, and then with a skittering of hideous multi-jointed legs, turned its attention to her. Mike saw with a queer blank dread that it was getting larger, somehow, rising up until the shrinking head was just below the tree branches — changing shape as it did so —
Oh you complete dunderhead! What kind of Defence Against the Dark Arts student are you? He levelled his wand. "Riddikulus!"
There was a cracking sound like a breaking branch and the spider was suddenly wearing tap-dancing shoes and a small red bowler hat.
"Maisie, get the trunk!" Mike shouted. The Boggart was turning back towards him now, shifting again. I can't drive it away completely, that defeats the whole point. It shrank, lost legs, resolved itself into a tall man all in black, a silver mask over his face. Death Eater. Mike's mouth was suddenly so dry his tongue felt like sandpaper in his mouth and his knees shook until they nearly knocked together. "Riddikulus," he managed to croak. Another crack echoed around the clearing and the silver mask was suddenly a novelty clown mask.
"It's open!" Maisie yelled. "Drive it this way!"
"Get on the other side and bait it!" Mike ordered. He circled around the Boggart. "Colin, get its attention!"
"I don't want its attention!"
"Colin, do as Mike says!" Maisie shouted. She jumped up and down, waving her arms. "Here! Stupid Boggart! Here! Come and get me!"
"Here!" Colin called as well, his voice thin and weak compared to Maisie's robust bellow.
The Boggart turned and Mike got behind it. "Riddikulus! Riddikulus!" Crack, and crack again, and the Boggart veered between Colin and Maisie, half spider and half formless smoke. "Riddikulus!"
With a sudden sharp movement, the Boggart dived into the safety of the dark luggage trunk.
Maisie flung the lid shut and sat on it. As the trunk rattled, Mike and Colin added their weight to hers, and all three of them sat for a moment, panting. Sweat was trickling icy down Mike's back and he wasn't entirely sure he could still feel his fingers and toes.
"This was a completely mad idea," Colin said at last. "Like, Janus Thickey ward mad. You do realise that, don't you, Maisie?"
"It worked, didn't it?" Maisie reached down to snick the trunk's fastenings closed, and gave the side a kick as the Boggart thumped against the lid.
"We could have been killed!"
"It's just a Boggart."
"It might have been a bloody vampire or something! The Forest is called the Forbidden Forest, isn't it, not the Inviting Forest or the Great Picnicking Spots Forest! Do you think there might be a reason for that?"
"Shh!" Mike hissed at them as he realised he could hear something else besides their bickering and the Boggart's sullen struggles. "Listen!"
They fell silent. Mike strained every sense he had. For an instant he had the eerie sensation that he had left his body, or grown larger than his body: that his awareness extended beyond flesh-and-blood Mike Rowland and could listen as easily to the voices at the fringe of the Forbidden Forest as to his friends beside him —
"I'm sure it came from down there, like."
"We'll split up. I'll take the Centaur's territory. Hagrid, look down towards the Murky Hollow."
"Me for the edge of the lake, then."
With a jolt, Mike was only himself again. "It's Hagrid! Hagrid and the Headmistress and someone else!"
Maisie jumped up. "Quick! You two lift the trunk, I'll find the lantern."
"I suppose those locks will hold, won't they?" Colin asked.
"One way to find out." Mike stood up slowly, and after a moment Colin rose as well.
The trunk shook and rattled, but the lid stayed closed.
"Absolutely mad," Colin muttered, taking out his wand. "Absolutely bloody mad."
"Ready?" Mike pointed his own wand. "One, two three —"
"Wingardium Leviosa!" they chorused together.
One end of the trunk lifted a few inches from the leaf litter on the forest floor. The other shot up to head-height, so the trunk was almost standing on one end. The Boggart inside gave a series of furious rattles and thumps, making clear what it thought of this state of affairs. Hastily Mike lowered his end of the trunk until it was more level.
Maisie was making scraping noises with something in her hands and muttering furiously to herself.
"Come on!" Colin said, hopping from foot-to-foot in an agony of impatience. "If the Headmistress catches us here, we'll be expelled!"
"The matches are wet," Maisie said tightly. "I dropped them when —" Another scraping noise and a tiny flare of light. The next moment the lantern was glowing again. "There. Come on, you two!"
Although Mike had been convinced on their way in that they'd wandered far into the darkest depths of the Forbidden Forest, it was only a few minutes before Maisie's lantern showed the trees around them thinning. Still, it was a long few minutes, what with trying to avoid tree-roots and sudden holes while keeping the trunk floating more-or-less level. Several times Maisie stopped, and they all held their breath and listened for the sound of a teacher about to discover them. Once they even heard someone crashing around in the distance, and Hagrid's booming voice calling for his dog Fang.
By the time they scrambled back up the hill towards the castle, Mike was doing almost all the work of keeping the trunk aloft. Although Colin was doing his best to help his wand hand was trembling with exhaustion and his end of the trunk kept dipping down to drag on the ground. Neither of them had realised that lifting and carrying something so heavy by magic could be as wearying as carrying it by hand, although in a different way.
Mike gritted his teeth against the ache spreading from the back of his head down his spine and lifted Colin's side as well. You can do it, you can do it … one hundred more steps, that's ten times ten. One, two, three …you can do it, you can do it … ninety more, eighty nine more …
Finally they were inside the castle. Maisie paused. "We can —"
"Don't — stop," Mike panted. "Can't — lift it — again."
She nodded, and led the way down the corridor to the stairs that led to the dungeon. Manoeuvring the trunk down the spiral staircase took an agony of concentration and twice Mike would have tripped over his own feet, all his attention on easing the trunk around another corner, if Maisie hadn't grabbed his arm in time. Then there was a long, agonising creep through the dungeons until the reached the alcove near the Potions classroom that Maisie had selected as the right location to release the Boggart.
With relief, Mike floated the Boggart-trunk into the darkest corner of the alcove and lowered it to the ground, and then slumped to his knees, sweat stinging his eyes as he struggled to get his breath.
"That was amazing, Mike," Maisie said. "I bet there's no-one else in our year, or second or third either, who could have got it all that way."
"We've got to get back to bed before we get caught!" Colin whispered.
Maisie nodded. "No good it all getting ruined now."
"That's not what I meant!" Colin hissed at her as he and Maisie took Mike by the arms and heaved him to his feet.
So tired that he couldn't even care about being caught and expelled, Mike let them steer him, stumbling between them, to the Ravenclaw dormitories.
"What is always coming but never arrives?" the door-knocker asked.
Relieved that he'd already worked it out earlier in the day and didn't have to cudgel his brain, Mike mumbled, "Tomorrow."
The door opened and he staggered through, across the common room, and up the stairs to his dormitory, where he fell face down on the bed and went instantly to sleep.
.
.
.
A/N: The information on Boggarts that Harry tells Mike is from the wiki; the idea that they can be attracted and trapped is entirely my own.
Mike's ability to briefly hear further than normal is a subconscious use of the Supersensory Charm — which he no doubt picked up from his older sister.