As we ran through the hallways, I wondered how it had all gone wrong.
Apparently the entry to the restricted section wasn't protected at all; instead each and every one of the books were individually charmed to sound an alarm when they were opened. That seemed a little like overkill, but maybe magic didn't have a terrible cost other than the time it took to ward each and every book.
The Wizard-hours that would have taken weren't something I was qualified to estimate. Apparently they thought it was important, which made it even more important that I get into the restricted section. What were they trying to hide? How useful were the books in the restricted section?
Obviously I wasn't going to be able to find out until I was able to deal with the protective spells on the books or until I could convince a teacher that I deserved a pass. That second option didn't seem like it was a thing that was going to happen.
Where in the hell did he get an invisibility cape? We were both running underneath the cape, but it wasn't exactly meant for running, and I was sure that our feet were showing sometimes. Worse, I kept worrying that one of us was going to trip over the thing.
He'd already been in the library when I'd gotten there, and I'd detected him first with my bugs and then with my spell. It hadn't given me his exact location, but it had been close enough for me to sneak up on him.
I'd figured that one of the teachers wouldn't have needed an excuse to be invisible; if they were it was because they were doing something underhanded. Yet stabbing Travers, or worse, Snape wouldn't do me any favors.
Putting exploratory bugs out on him had shown that not only was he too small to be a professor (and too large to be Flitwick.) I'd been about to tackle him when he'd opened one of the books.
That was when everything went to hell.
If Hogwarts wasn't under increased security precautions, it would have been relatively easy to get away. But that wasn't the case now. Dumbledore had put in more security precautions than I'd thought.
"He's here!" I heard one of the paintings scream.
We were running through the hall under the invisible cloak. That had the unfortunate effect of leaving our footsteps audible, even if they were less visible than I'd thought.
Grabbing Potter, I used my bugs to open a passage up ahead. This one was purposefully out of sight of any portraits. Pulling him inside, the door shut behind us, just as the animated suits of armor came moving quickly down the hallway.
We were both quiet, even though the dust in the hall made up both want to sneeze.
Grabbing Potter's sleeve, I pulled him into the darkness. If we were too close to the hallway, one of the professors would reveal us using the human revealing spell. I'd studied the spell extensively, and I knew just how far we had to go to be undetected.
Unfortunately, that didn't take us any closer to the dungeons or the Gryffindor tower. It took us into the bowels of the castle.
The castle had been built in a time when muggles still periodically liked to purge the Wizarding population, so these secret passages were part of the castles defenses. However, some of the secret passages had been forgotten in the thousand years since that time.
There had been several passages that I'd hoped to explore over the holidays, some of which I still hadn't figured out how to open. This one required moving a torch sconce, but I'd seen other passages that required a code word, and I suspected that those were lost to time. Figuring that out might take someone with Dumbledore levels of skill.
This was one of them. It had taken me forever to figure out how to open the door, and I hadn't gotten a chance to explore, because I especially was under close observation by the staff and by the other students. That was partially because I'd been the victim of an assassination attempt once already, and also, I suspected because they were afraid of what I was going to do.
Even now I was using bugs to create a commotion in the hallways. It was only a matter of time before they thought to do a head check, and then the jig would be up. I had bugs knocking over swords on those few suits of armor that weren't animated, and doing other things that would look as though invisible feet would be making their way further into the castle.
Pushing deeper and deeper into the passage, we finally got far enough that the spell wouldn't reveal up. We were far enough into the tunnel that it was pitch black.
The place was filled with spiders, and spider webs, which meant that I had a good picture of the area around us. It was obviously old from the growths of spiders, and it was possible that the spiders here might be good to start growing a swarm.
At home I'd been somewhat limited in what I could do with my spiders because some of them would eat each other whenever I left my range of control. Here, though I was hardly ever far enough away for that to be a problem. I'd have to figure out something to do with them during the summer; I'd already caused a Bevy of Boggarts to infest the school. Some of these spiders were poisonous.
"We need to get back to our rooms," I said quietly. "And soon. I don't know where this goes."
"I thought you were the girl who knows everything," he muttered.
"Where'd you get the cape?" I asked. Having him reflect on my seer abilities was the last thing I needed. No one needed to know what my limitations were, because that would mean they'd figure out where my blind spots were. The fact that my friends had been able to surprise me for Christmas was horrifying enough.
"It was a gift," he said.
"Out of the fireworks?" I asked. If that was the case, I was going to open mine as soon as I got back into my room. I suspected not, though. I'd been watching what people were getting, to see if anything was good enough for me to ignore the use of the things as a distraction.
It had mostly been cheap crap, although there had been some nice chess sets and other items. There hadn't been anything that I'd needed.
He shook his head. "I got a note... said it belonged to my father. Don't know who sent it."
"It was probably Dumbledore," I said. "This is exactly the kind of thing he'd do...give a kid an invisibility cloak when I've been attacked by invisible people. That was always going to end well."
"It worked out all right," he said sullenly.
At least he'd had the sense not to try to follow me around, although it was possible that had been the next thing on his agenda. Boys at this age weren't the brightest of creatures, and he was a Gryffindor, which meant he was predisposed to jumping in before he looked.
"Why were you in the restricted book section?" I asked. "
"I'd gotten an invisibility cloak," he said. "What else was I going to do with it? It wasn't like I could bother Ron or Neville with it, and the girls' stairs work even if you are invisible."
"Tried that one out did you?" I asked dryly.
"Ron says the girls get better bathrooms than we do!" he protested. "With bubbles and...pink...and magic mirrors."
I would have stared at him, but I couldn't see anything. I compensated by letting some of the bugs out of my fanny pack, spreading them out and letting some settle on Potter.
"Only some of that is true," I said. "And you still shouldn't be trying."
"Well, you shouldn't... " he began, and then he stepped back. His foot slipped and he grabbed my shirt to try to right himself. The ground crumbled underneath us, and suddenly we were both sliding downward.
Potter screamed, but I managed to remain silent, although it wasn't for a lack of trying.
Was it a trap of some kind, or simply the result of a thousand years of neglect? I barely had time to think about it before I crashed into Potter's back.
I'd thought that the darkness before was bad, but this was a blackness the like of which I couldn't remember, darker than Grue's power...I couldn't see my own hands. I pushed myself away from Potter. It was shocking how scrawny he still was, even after all this time.
Reaching for my wand to cast a light spell, I froze as I felt the surface we had landed on. It was soft, yet careful examination showed that it felt like there were scales. It was some sort of a skin, which no longer had its original occupant.
There were only two kinds of things that shed their skins like this, and if it were one type, I'd have sensed and been able to control it.
It was then that I could feel something like a strange, hot wind blowing over us. It smelled rank, like rotting meat and rancid blood.
"There's something in here with us," Potter said.
I felt it was rather stupid of him to say anything; whatever was in here with us had doubtlessly already heard the sound of us crashing though the roof. Why give away our position if he didn't have to?
There were hardly any bugs in the chamber we were in; it was almost as though all the bugs that had once been here had vacated out of self preservation, or they'd been killed.
From my fanny pack, bugs began to scatter throughout the chamber. It took a moment, but eventually I began to get a sense of the chamber we were in. It was massive, but the thing that we were hearing, feeling, was right in front of us. My bugs encountered scales.
Spreading out, they began to get a sense of the size of the thing. It was huge; about the length of a Semi trailer, maybe a little longer. It was taller than me, and as far as I could tell, it seemed like it was the shape of a giant snake.
I froze. Either the thing could see us, in which case it would be attracted by movement, or it could hear us. It was close enough that even given its size, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to duck out of the way in time, and Potter would be dead for sure.
Desperately, I sent my bugs further and further afield, looking for an exit. Until I knew where we were going to go, moving was just likely to attract the attention of the thing.
Still, staying here wasn't an option. Sooner or later, the thing was going to get curious, and a lot of animals explored by taking a nip out of things. At the size of it, a nip would cut either one of us in two, or worse, it would just swallow us whole.
Bugs who got near its fangs died almost instantly, in agony. I grimaced, glad there was no one to see. The thing was poisonous.
How to tell Potter that we needed to leave without alerting the creature? If it was one of the Undersiders, I might be able to use my bugs somehow, but Potter didn't know anything.
"I think we should get out of here," I murmured in Potter's ear. I spoke almost inaudibly, but I heard the sound of movement nevertheless.
There was a monstrous sound of scales sliding on stone, and the breath on our faces got hotter.
I grabbed Potter's robes tightly and prepared to dodge to the side. Alone I probably could have done it; an animal that size probably wasn't all that fast unless it was enhanced by magic. However, given the closeness of the thing and the fact that I'd be pulling Potter along behind me, I was afraid that I wasn't going to be fast enough.
I heard a monstrous hissing sound. There was a hissing and rasping reply from beside me. It was Potter.
"He says he's hungry," Potter said.
Potter spoke snake? That wasn't a talent I'd heard about, but I was just learning about magic. It was useful now, but only if Potter kept his wits about him. How could you bluff a snake?
"Tell it we aren't food. It's not time for it to wake up yet," I said quietly. The last thing I wanted to do was to antagonize it. Obviously the snake could hear, because it was speaking to Potter, unless his speech was working on a magical level.
He hissed and spit beside me, and for the next minute, there was a conversation between them that I didn't understand. I didn't like it, and I considered my options.
My darkness powder likely wouldn't work on a snake; they were reputed to have the ability to sense things in the dark with their tongues. Also, it was already dark; we'd be more hindered than it would. The marbles wouldn't work on a thing with no legs.
The Christmas fireworks might, depending on how good its hearing was. Despite its ability to hear Potter, it was possible that it was deaf. I had a vague recollection that snakes couldn't hear. They didn't have visible ears anyway, so even if it could hear, the crackers might do nothing but antagonize it.
I sent my bugs out farther and father, seeing a way out. I found a sudden breeze to the east, and I tugged on Potter's shirt.
"If I make a light, is that going to set him off?" I asked.
"He says that if we look in his eyes it will kill us," Potter said. He sounded fascinated instead of scared.
"Isn't that lovely," I muttered. Trust Hogwarts to have a monster in the caverns underneath it with poison fangs and the ability to kill by sight. It would explain why there were no bugs, assuming that there was light down here sometimes. It was possible that enough sunlight got in from the entrance that I was sensing to make a difference.
Or maybe there were magical torches that lit when the thing wanted them to.
"I think it's lonely," he said, after another conversation with it.
"It's poisonous," I said. "And it can kill us by looking at it. That means that even if it's friendly it could kill us without meaning to. Also, it's fifty feet long, which means it could roll over on us."
"How do you know that?" he asked.
"How do you think?" I asked. It wasn't really answering his question, but by letting him come up with his own answer, I wouldn't have to come up with my own. "I know the way out."
"It wants us to come back," Potter said.
"Tell it we will," I said.
Lying to a fifty foot snake wasn't a problem. Dying because of one was. Ultimately, I was going to have Potter say whatever he had to in order to get both of us to safety.
He spoke, and a moment later said, "He'll let us leave."
I felt a sudden sense of relief. I'd been afraid that I was going to end up getting Potter killed, and that was likely to end up bad for me. Getting out on my own would have been difficult but possible, but with Potter would have been almost impossible.
Now we had a chance. With luck, I might even be able to pin Filch's murder on the thing. Wizards didn't tend to question very well, and if there was an obvious explanation, they'd be likely to go for it.
"Good," I said. I pulled him along as quickly as I could.
He stumbled along behind me, but I moved without a misstep. A carpet of bugs were moving before me, giving me a mental sketch of the room by feel.
"Do you hear that?" Potter asked. For the first time he sounded worried.
He was hearing the sounds of the bugs from my fanny pack moving in the darkness. He hadn't been scared around the snake, but now he was scared?
"It's nothing," I said shortly. I kept pulling him behind me, and he stumbled along.
There was an opening up ahead. It felt like it was blocked by brambles.
"Don't look behind us," I said.
The monster wasn't within sight; I had bugs behind us checking. However, the ones on the floor had already moved ahead through the brambles, exploring the forest outside.
"Lumos," I said with my wand out.
Although I'd intentionally left the light dim, we both blinked and struggled to adjust our vision. The bramble in front of us was thick and impenetrable.
"Do you have your wand?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said.
"Make a light," I said. He did so, and I began using my wand to cut away at the bottom left corner of the branches. It required several spells, and even so I didn't cut more than a small opening; the last thing we needed was to encourage the thing back behind us to go out and explore in the daylight.
The opening I'd made was small enough that the only reasons we could squeeze our way through was because we were both tiny and scrawny. Even so, I felt it rip away at my robes.
As we stepped out into the outside, I could see the moon up in the sky. We were in the middle of a forest, and the trees looked like trees I'd seen before.
We were in the middle of the Forbidden Forest.