A/N: Woohoo! I finally finished the second chapter after a whole year! This is Bob, by the way. Happy Holidays everyone! I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as I enjoyed finishing it! Read on!
Disclaimer: I own the Harry Potter and Inkheart paraphernalia (I've always wanted to use that word) just as much as I have fifty dollars in my pocket. (That is to say, I don't.)
A loud slamming noise jolted Harry into consciousness. He sat up, forgetting where he was for a moment and almost broke his skull against the coffin lid. Of course, the lid didn't budge, so Harry shoved it off with some difficulty. It clattered on the stone floor. Harry deduced that the slamming noise was coming from the door, and went over to open it.
The moment the door opened, a large something came flying out of nowhere and hit Harry full in the face. He fell backward and hit his head on the hard stone floor.
"What the hell!?" yelled Harry, although it sounded more like, "Wud duh head!?" because his nose was broken.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Harry," a female voice said conversationally. "I'll call up Madame Pomfrey." Harry heard the rustle of paper and realized it was Bob who had spoken.
"No, no, ib's adrib. I'll jus have Hermimome fid id."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeb."
"What?" asked Bob. "I didn't quite catch that."
"I said, yeb!"
I still didn't quite catch that."
"Yeb! Oh nebermind."
"Whatever," she turned to leave. "Oh and that pomegranate is for your breakfast, okay?"
"Whab?" asked Harry, but she was already gone. He sat up and looked around, wincing in pain from his poor head, and spotted a slightly discolored pomegranate lying next to him. He shrugged.
"Well I've eaten worse things."
Harry managed to find his way onto the stage after having his nose repaired by Hermione. Immediately, a flurry of activity converged on him, the extent of it almost making him turn tail and run back out the door. But before he could do so, something leapt on him, causing him to crash into the lines for the lighting, and then the lights began to fall. Harry, realizing that what had landed on him was Duckweed, lay winded on the ground. He hardly noticed the screams until Duckweed stepped on him, trying to reach the rope so she could stop the lights.
"Hey, Bob!" Duckweed called, after grabbing the rope and stopping the fatal descent. "Did you get Elinor's actor here?"
"Almost. I got held up."
"By what?"
"Dustfinger."
"Oh, him again. Tell him that if he bothers you again, I give you my permission to turn him into a penguin."
"And since when did I need your permission?"
"True, true. Anyway, get T- whatsername over here now."
"I already am!"
There was a loud screech that made Harry shudder as he realized who it was from. Professor Trelawney was here!
Harry shrank back into the shadows to avoid detection. He didn't want to have to be called an "Object" again.
"Alright, everyone in scene two, on stage now!"
Harry, seeming to have misplaced his script, stayed where he was, as Hermione and Professor Lupin appeared onstage.
"Hey! We need the moving boxes, stage crew!" screamed Bob's voice.
"Where do you want them?!"
"Upstage left!"
Hermione and Lupin began moving the boxes from the corner of the stage to behind the four chairs set up in a square in the center of the stage. Two chairs were facing sideways and were attached like a bed.
When they were done, Lupin sat in the chair in the front and Hermione sat in the chair behind him. Lupin pretended to drive while a long chunk of Styrofoam was dragged onto the stage.
"Harry! You were supposed to have walked out with the wall and popped out at Mo and Meggie!"
"Oh! Sorry." Harry fast-walked out onto the stage and stood in front of the chairs. Lupin and Hermione got out of the "car."
"Dustfinger, what are you doing here?" said Lupin.
There was a short pause.
"Harry, it's your line!" hissed Hermione.
"Huh? Oh, I don't know what I'm supposed to say."
"Skip over the greetings and go straight to Dustfinger's monologue," Duckweed called.
"I have a monologue? Oh shit!" panicked Harry.
"You're supposed to tell me about Capricorn and how evil he is," Hermione told him unhelpfully.
Who's Capricorn?"
"Uh, just talk about V-Voldemort, but call him Capricorn."
"Doesn't that mean goat?"
"Yes, it does. Now hurry up!"
"Okay, well Vold- I mean, Goat is my archnemisis-"
"Capricorn!" hissed Hermione.
"Oh right. Um he's tried to kill me five or six times, I'm not really sure, I lost count. No one wants to say his name. They call him You-Know-Who. He's got red snake eyes, a pet snake, and his followers are called Death Eaters. His Dark Mark is a skull with a snake coming out of its mouth, and –"
"Okay, that's fine, move on to the driving scene," called Duckweed.
Lupin sat back down in the front chair, Hermione sat in the one behind him, and Harry sat on the combined chairs after a hint from Hermione.
"Harry, pretend to be sleeping," called Bob.
Harry delicately lay down on the double chair. It wasn't long enough so his legs hung off the other end. Hermione's chair looked mildly rickety, and Lupin looked uncomfortable in a chair that looked fit for a kindergartener.
They waited.
And they waited some more.
Harry started getting a cramp in his back and Lupin was slowly slipping down in his chair. Hermione was the only one who was still sitting up straight.
Lupin began to snore. Harry's cramp was so painful it brought tears to his eyes when he moved. Hermione sat back in her chair. With a loud crash the chair collapsed, waking up Lupin, leaving Hermione in a pile of broken chair legs and other rubble, and causing Harry to start upright and fall off his chairs, writhing with pain.
"Alright, we'll need a new chair. In the meantime, skip to where Dustfinger, Meggie and Mo meet Elinor. Where is Sybil?" called Duckweed.
"Coming!" came the slightly harassed voice of Professor Trelawney. She came floating onto the stage.
At first, Harry couldn't even tell that it was her because she had none of her usual gauzy shawls and was missing her "insect glasses". Due to the latter fact, she immediately crashed into the foam wall causing it and her to fall to the ground.
"Why was the wall still there?" Duckweed called. "You should have switched it with the door by now!"
"Sorry."
"Sybil, open the door and say your lines."
"What door?" breezed Professor Trelawney.
"The one in front of your face!" screamed Duckweed.
"Oh, there's a door there?" Professor Trelawney walked forward and slammed into the door, which thankfully opened.
"Hello… Oh such a tragic aura! I must see your palm, read your tealeaves…I know who you are! Harry Potter! I'm surprised you're not dead yet!"
She walked forward… and fell off the stage. A terrible earsplitting screech nearly broke the eardrums of everyone in the vicinity. Bob took out her notebook and wrote something down. A second later, Madame Pomfrey appeared out of a small whirling vortex.
Duckweed appeared on the stage, dismissed everyone, and disappeared off into some dark corner. Harry followed Hermione as she walked backstage. She turned into a small dark passage.
"Where are you going?" asked Harry.
"I think this leads to the back of the theater. I thought that it would be better to get to know this place," Hermione replied.
They wandered down the passageway in pitch-black darkness. Both Harry and Hermione had left their wands in their rooms, more like cupboards, so they couldn't light their way. Suddenly, Harry slammed into something soft, which let out a loud squeak.
"Who's there?" asked a female voice. It wasn't Hermione.
"Harry. Who are you?"
"Meggie. Where are you?"
"Ouch! That was my foot!" came Hermione's voice.
"Who are you?" asked Meggie.
"Hermione. Do you know where this leads?"
"Yeah. It leads to the lighting tower. I was just going to go get Farid down from it."
"Oh. I guess we'll go with you."
They continued to walk, holding onto the walls to keep going in the right direction, stubbing their toes along the way.
Finally a faint light appeared and they could see each other as dark blobs against a slightly brighter background. After five more minutes, the light grew brighter and they could see a twisting metal staircase just ahead. They hastened forward and began the loud, clanging climb. Meggie opened the door ahead and bounded into the small room. A boy about Harry's age was fiddling with the multitude of buttons and switches in front of him. When Meggie came into the room, he looked up.
"Meggie! Have you come to rescue me?"
"Yup!" she replied. "Oh don't let that door close!" she called to Harry and Hermione, who had just walked into the room. Harry's fast Quidditch reflexes helped him to grab the fast closing door.
"Why can't we let the door close?" asked Hermione.
"Well, it locks from the outside automatically, so you can only open it from the outside. That's why Farid was stuck here."
"Oh, glad I caught it then," remarked Harry.
"So, Farid, do you want to go exploring with me, and these two?" Meggie offered.
"Sure! I'd love to," Farid replied.
They made their way back down the stairs, and started back through the dark passage.
"Hold on," Farid called. "There's got to be a light for this place. I can see a light bulb on the ceiling. I'll be right back. I'm going to try to find the switch in the lighting tower."
"Wait, I'll come with you to hold the door," Meggie said.
They disappeared down the corridor. Soon Harry and Hermione could hear their feet on the metal steps. With unspoken consent, they followed the two friends.
Harry and Hermione approached the bottom of the stairs. Suddenly, all of the lights went out. Harry could hear faint cries of complaint coming from the stage where the set was being built. A few seconds passed and then disco lights began to flash on the distant stage. Distant screams could be heard in response to the blinding light. After a quick succession of Christmas colors, blinding spotlights, and a purple rose, the regular lights finally came back on. After a few seconds, a blaring foghorn rang through the theater. Harry had to wonder at what Farid was doing because he had thought for sure that he was in the lighting tower, not the sound booth.
Finally, after what felt like an hour of blinding light and pitch darkness, with loud sounds mixed in, a few naked light bulbs turned on over the hallway.
"Stop! We've got light!" Harry called up to Meggie.
Meggie said something to Farid and they both came back down the stairs.
"Let's go!" Meggie called enthusiastically.
The four teenagers disappeared into the corridor. Well, they didn't really disappear, seeing as the hallway was arrow straight, but you know what I mean, right? Anyway…
Harry Hermione, Meggie, and Farid were in the middle of the passage when all of the light bulbs blew out at once. They were instantly plunged into pitch darkness, which they found quite odd because the hallway was arrow straight and not super long, so they should at least be able to see the lights from the stage.
"Something's fishy."
"Definitely."
"We should be able to see the backstage lights from here."
"But we can't."
"Yes."
"I suppose we had better keep going."
"I guess so."
"Gwaaah!"
"Harry? Harry, was that you? Harry?"
"Harry, where – yeek!"
"Meggie? Are you all right? Meg – whoa!"
"Farid? Harry? Meggie? Where are – oh!"
Harry felt three people fall on top of him, one after another. Someone was grinding his head into the floor, someone else's hair was in his mouth, and a really sharp elbow was jabbing into his chest. The other three weren't much better off.
After determining that it was Meggie's hair in his mouth, Hermione's hand on his head, and Farid's elbow in his stomach, Harry twisted just enough so that Farid's elbow slipped off his chest and slammed on the floor.
"Ouch! What did you do that for?"
Harry, engrossed in the process of getting Meggie's hair out of his mouth, didn't answer. Hermione was finally able to roll off the pile and sit up, allowing Meggie to shift enough so that her hair wasn't in Harry's face anymore. Farid managed to untangle himself and get to his feet. He then helped Meggie up, finally allowing Harry to stand, after gulping the precious air that had been a distant dream just moments before.
"What just happened?" Meggie asked.
"I think we fell into some sort of secret passageway. Although I don't see the door we came through," replied Hermione.
"We came from that direction. Look! There's a slight crack. This must be where the door is. Though I don't think we can open it," said Harry.
"Well, there's only one way to go," Farid announced, pointing down the narrow passage. "We did want to go exploring, right?"
"Yeah. At least the light is on."
The four teenagers turned the corner and really did disappear into the passage this time.
The pink and blue tiled floor was a bit odd, but other than that, the hallway was pretty normal looking. The only problem was that it didn't seem to have an end, and was way too twisty for a normal hallway. The four turned yet another corner… and immediately the floor was wood and the wallpaper was tie-dye. Completely normal, right? There were a bunch of doors all over the place, with one door at the very end that looked like it might lead into another hallway. They decided that they would try some of the doors before moving on.
Meggie was first one to open a door. Behind it was a room whose walls, ceiling, and floor were made up of doors.
"Wow, this is really cool!"
"Yeah! Although I wouldn't walk on the doors –"
"Waugh! Help!"
"Geez, I said not to walk on the doors! Here, grab my hand."
"Thanks."
Hermione pulled Meggie back onto the doorframe. Farid was halfway over to them, but stopped moving when Meggie was safe. Harry, who was the closest to the hallway, went back and tried another door. It was locked.
"It's locked?" asked Hermione, coming out of the room of doors.
"Yeah," replied Harry
"Aww man! Now I'm really curious," said Farid.
Harry turned to the next door. The second he opened it, he was sucked into the room beyond. His lightning fast Quidditch reflexes came to the rescue again, and Harry was able to grab hold of the doorframe before he was totally sucked away. However, the pull was too strong for him to pull himself out again, and Farid, Hermione, and Meggie needed to help. Harry managed to catch the door with his foot and Meggie grabbed the doorknob and slammed it shut once Harry was out of the way.
"Okay, never open the second door on the left," Hermione panted. No one else had enough breath to reply.
Once Harry had gotten over the shock, he sat up from his sprawled position on the floor, straightened out his clothes, and stood up.
"Well, that was an experience. I'm not sure I want to try any more doors, to tell you the truth."
"Aww, come on Harry! Don't spoil the fun," Farid joked.
"I never said that you couldn't open any doors. Meggie and I already have. You and Hermione need to try some."
"Alright. Come on Hermy!"
"Hermy!? Gosh, you sound like Grawp."
"Who's that?"
"Never mind. I'll try this door."
"Then I'll try this one."
Farid and Hermione opened their doors simultaneously. Farid's opened into what looked like and empty warehouse.
"How boring," said Farid.
Hermione's door opened onto the stage. However, if you think that they could go back that way, then you are sorely mistaken. Her door opened fifty feet above the stage. They could hear hammering and the sound of power tools, but Hermione closed the door before much else could be observed. She immediately sat down with her head between her legs.
"You're afraid of heights, aren't you?" questioned Harry. Hermione nodded.
"Well, I guess we should get going. "I'm a little tired."
"Alright, let's go back to our coffins!"
The four teenagers walked down the hallway to the door on the far end. Harry opened it and they all went inside.
What lay beyond the door was not another hallway, but a plain circular room. In the center was a stone pedestal. On top of the pedestal was a rather wilted flower. Sitting next to the pot was a small folded piece of paper, like a dinner card. On it was the word "yo."
Harry looked at the flowerpot, and then turned back to his friends. They stared back. When Harry looked back at the flowerpot, the card next to it seemed to have grown longer. It now said, "how are you."
"Okay, that's just weird," said Meggie.
"There might be a person behind the pedestal, switching the cards," suggested Harry.
"Or it could be a wizard like me and Harry," replied Hermione.
"Okay! Show yourself! Who did that?" Farid called out.
They looked back at the card. It said, "I did."
"What in hell?!" yelled Harry.
"hell is very hot." The card, flowerpot, or whatever it was, obviously wanted to join the conversation.
"Um, sure," said Farid.
"You're actually going to start a conversation with that thing?" Meggie asked.
"Why not?" Farid asked. "It looks kind of lonely."
"That's true. I guess we could keep the thing company."
"thank you."
"You're welcome."
"Well I think it's silly to talk to a flower pot. It's an inanimate object for one thing," stated Hermione.
"my name is cgflower. i'm sorry you don't like me. i am lonely though."
"Well, I'll keep you company for a while," said Meggie's maternal side.
"I just want to know how that works! How does it respond to our conversation? How do the words change?" Harry exclaimed. "I know! Everyone, let's stare at the card as we talk and see if it will change."
They all agreed. When they turned back to the card, it told them not to stare because it was embarrassing. However, they ignored the plea and continued to observe the card. Not having anything to say the room was silent. The intensity of the group's desire to see how the card worked kept each person's eyes open for a full two minutes. Finally though, the need to blink overpowered their desire and they all blinked at once. When they opened their eyes, the card was different.
"am i really that beautiful. my inner begonia is flattered."
Harry, Hermione, Meggie, and Farid collectively sighed.
"Terrible grammar," stated Hermione.
"Who, me?" Harry asked.
"No! The flower pot or whatever it is."
"Oh."
"i'm sorry."
"You don't have to apologize! Hermione is just being mean," Meggie told the flowerpot. Farid, ignoring this exchange, had walked up to the flowerpot.
"Hey, look at this!" he called.
"What?" Harry asked as he walked over. Hermione and Meggie were too busy arguing to pay attention.
"There's a faint 'CG' on the pot. Looks like it was done with a crayon. It's nearly rubbed off."
"That must be where it's name came from."
"Oh yeah, cgflower, right?"
"Yup."
"I think we spent too much time here. Let's go back," Hermione said in an annoyed voice. She had obviously lost the argument, that fact strengthened by the satisfied smirk on Meggie's face.
"Alright."
The four teenagers turned and opened the door. Harry was the last one out. Before he left, he glanced back towards the pot.
"bye. come back soon," said the card.
Harry closed the door behind him and joined the other three in the hallway. They stared at the doors with a question in their eyes.
"Which way is out?"
A/N: I can't believe that this thing was almost eleven pages on my computer! It's the longest chapter I've ever written! Anyway, review please! (Dustfinger will play with the flames.)