Chapter 3

They were lurking in a darkened corridor somewhere around the fourth or fifth floor when it really hit Percy that he'd made a huge mistake. He was a prefect for goodness sakes! He should not be slinking through pitch black corridors with the likes of Oliver Wood. To make matters worse, he was completely turned around. He had no idea how to get back to the safety of Gryffindor tower without getting caught, and furthermore, he had no idea where Oliver was taking him.

Percy nearly jumped out of his skin when the clanging sound of metal on metal rang out down the darkened corridor. He wanted to beg Oliver to take him back to the common room; to tell him that he really wasn't up for this 'adventure.' But before, he got the chance, Oliver grabbed him and pinned him against the clammy stone wall. He clamped a large hand firmly over Percy's mouth, holding him fast with the other to prevent him from running.

"Weasley!…Percy, just relax, would you? Listen to me," he hissed, staring into the redhead's wide, fearful eyes. Oliver felt twin bursts of hot air on his fingers as Percy breathed rapidly through his nose. "It's a suit of armor, Percy, that's all it is, okay? Sometimes they like to whack at each other. It reminds them of their old dueling days, yeah? It's no big deal, alright?" He didn't move his hand until Percy acquiesced with a jerky nod. He watched the redhead visibly tremble for a moment before he took pity on him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Merlin's socks, Percy, you're supposed to be a bloody prefect! What's with all this terror of being out after dark? Don't you prefects have to do nighttime rounds?"

With frayed nerves, Percy gathered his courage and continued down the corridor with Oliver, grateful for the comforting hand on his shoulder. "Y-yes, but when I do rounds I'm not at risk of getting expelled!"

"You won't get expelled," Oliver said impatiently, stealing a quick glance over his shoulder. "Look, we're here already." They turned a corner and paused in front of an Arithmacy classroom. Oliver drew his wand and cast a hasty alohomora. "Come along, get in."

Suddenly the corridor wasn't looking so bad compared to the ominously silent and terrifyingly dark classroom. But not wanting to be left behind, Percy nervously slipped inside behind Oliver, the door clicking shut behind them with a note of finality. His fingers itched to grab onto the sleeve of Oliver's jumper, but he knew better than to do something like that. Instead, he followed as close behind Oliver as he reasonably could, despite his repetitive warnings of "mind my cat, will you?"

"Remind me again why you've brought your cat," Percy whispered, watching as Oliver's calico wove in and out of desk and chair legs.

"Because," Oliver said simply, kneeling down on the far side of the room, "Sprinkles is a very smart cat. Here, come look at this." Percy squatted down to watch Oliver draw a rune with his wand over a certain section of the stone wall right where it met the floor. "See how this stone here is a slightly different color from the rest?" Percy nodded. "It's a secret passageway."

Percy watched as the pale yellow figures flowing from Oliver's wand settled into the stone, shimmering like molten lava. He raised a surprised eyebrow; the rune was complex and at a much greater level of difficulty than anything they'd encountered in the OWL course. He'd clearly underestimated Oliver. It seemed the dark-haired boy had practical knowledge in areas other than Quidditch after all. Percy watched the stone vanish away, leaving behind a perfectly semi-circular entrance to a seemingly endless tunnel. The air emanating from it was cold, and as he stared down into the vast, unknown depths, he felt his stomach flip anxiously.

"W-w-what is this?" He stammered, suddenly feeling very unwell. Surely Oliver didn't expect him to crawl in there.

"A secret passageway, you dolt, haven't you been watching a thing I did?"

Percy bristled at having his intelligence called into question, though he still couldn't shake the feelings of discomfort. "I—of course I have."

"I have your brothers to thank for this," Oliver said conversationally, shimmying forward to go feet-first into the tunnel. "They showed me where to find the access points last term. They're still a shade too young to harness enough magical energy to draw the runes themselves, mind you, but in due time they'll have the power…" He looked over his shoulder at Percy, suddenly impatient. "Well? What are you waiting for? Come here, get in!"

"Huh?" The confirmation that Oliver expected him to drop into that unknown abyss slapped Percy right back into panic mode. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no. No. There is absolutely no way I am setting foot in that tunnel!"

"Wrong you are, Weasley, get over here!" Oliver reached out and snagged Percy's wrist, yanking the redhead towards him.

"Hey! Let go!" Percy tried to pull away but Oliver held him fast.

"Come on, Weasley, it'll be fun. I swear it!"

"No! Absolutely not! This is ridiculous. I demand we go back to the common room at once!" Percy pulled away much harder than he meant to. Slipping out of Oliver's grasp, he lost his balance and tumbled back into a chair which skidded across the floor with a loud, albeit brief screech.

Both boys cringed at the racket but stayed silent, listening for any sounds out of the ordinary. But while Percy was focused on the classroom door as if waiting for someone to burst through it and expel him at any moment, Oliver was closely watching his cat. Sprinkles, who'd been sitting quietly by the professor's desk, suddenly began hissing quietly.

"Now you've done it, Weasley!"

"Huh?"

"We've got company."

"And how could you possibly know that?"

"I told you Sprinkles is a very smart cat," said Oliver, reaching out for Percy's wrist once more. This time, Percy let himself be dragged to the opening of the tunnel, for he could already hear the distant footfalls of someone jogging down the corridor.

"They're in there, my sweet. Catch them before they get away!" The sound of Argus Filch's voice from outside the classroom door was enough to hit Percy with a fresh wave of nausea.

"Do you know how to cast a self-arresting charm?" Oliver asked hastily as he tucked Sprinkles under his arm. He was unable to keep a tremble of panic out of his voice.

"What!"

"Ah…you'd best hang on tight to me, then," was all he said before pushing them roughly into the tunnel.

The ground sloped into a steep slide beneath their bottoms and they were off, gathering tremendous speed as they hurdled down the passage. Oliver barely had enough time to point his wand over his shoulder and recast the rune to seal the stone back in place. They narrowly missed the classroom door flying open to emit a furious Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris. Meanwhile, blood was pounding in Percy's ears and terror was flooding his veins as they whipped around turn upon turn. The darkness of the tunnel made it impossible to anticipate what lay ahead.

"Oliver!" Percy shouted, his voice reverberating off the stone walls. Panicking and desperate to hold onto something solid, Percy lashed out and caught Oliver round the neck. Unfortunately, he grabbed Sprinkles' tail in the process and she yowled angrily, sinking her teeth and claws mercilessly into both boys. Soon, they were all screaming and hissing and flailing about as they slid down floor after floor after floor.

"Percy! Quit it! Arrgh, gerroff me!" They took a tight turn and somehow, Oliver ended up on his back with Percy sprawled out on top him and Sprinkles latched painfully into the leg of his jeans. With difficulty, Oliver managed to aim his wand over Percy's trembling shoulder. "Arresto momentum!"

In his pained and distracted state, the self-arresting charm was slightly bungled. Instead of emitting colorless waves of magic, something foggy-white erupted from the end of Oliver's wand. The charm managed to cut their speed in half, but it wasn't enough to prevent the pain of slamming headlong into a wall when they reached the tunnel's endpoint. Both boys grunted as they landed in a heap on the floor.

Percy lay unmoving for a few moments until he gathered the energy to cast a lumos. Staring up at a yellow H painted on the ceiling of what appeared to be a supply closet, he assumed they were somewhere in Hufflepuff territory. But he didn't have much energy to dwell on their whereabouts on account of being in so much pain.

"Are you okay?" Oliver asked weakly.

"I—I think I'm broken…" Percy managed to push himself into a sitting position as a dull pain erupted in his left hip and shoulder. Much to his chagrin, he saw Oliver cradling his cat; the question had been directed to Sprinkles, not to him.

Upon deciding that Sprinkles was indeed okay, Oliver looked around at Percy. "Alright, mate? We're almost there now."

He cast the runes to seal their end of the portal before opening the closet door a crack. Sprinkles snuck out, her belly low to the ground and her tail swishing. Percy watched the cat with a scowl. He'd always found cats decidedly weird. It was one of the reasons he and Oliver never became very good friends. Percy could never bring himself to agree that Sprinkles was as fascinating and wonderful as Oliver made her out to be.

"Where's she going?" Percy asked.

"Oh, she's just sweeping the corridor for us," Oliver said, as if that were the most normal thing ever.

Moments later, Sprinkles returned. She fixed her lamp-like eyes on Oliver and mewled softly. It must have made some sort of sense to the dark haired boy because he nodded at her and stepped out into the hallway. Percy had no choice but to follow.

"Oliver?" Percy queried after several minutes of quietly padding around the cellar.

"Hmm?"

"Mind telling me where we are going?" His sense of direction was never the best, but something told him they were heading away from the kitchens, the only room in the cellar he knew how to find.

"I've told you," Oliver said cheekily. "We're going on an adventure."

"Well yes, but where specifically?"

Oliver led them down one last corridor to a small atrium that Percy had never seen before. It was dark and gloomy but with high cathedral ceilings, higher than anything Percy had ever seen in the subterranean levels of Hogwarts. Beautiful ancient tapestries lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each depicting a famous scene from wizarding history. Percy was fascinated.

"Wowww," he breathed, his eyes widening to take them all in. There had to be at least a dozen of them, each more gorgeous and intricate than the next. He stood back a pace, craning his neck to see the artwork in its entirety. "Oliver? What is all this? What is this room?" He turned around, expecting to find the other boy right behind him, but was surprised to find him still lingering in the doorway. "Oliver?"

"Weasley, do you trust me?"

"Trust you?" Something didn't feel right about that question, and that fact that he was back to using surnames only made Percy that much more uncomfortable. "Oliver, what are you on about—!"

But he never got to finish the question, as a pair of hands came out of nowhere and wrapped around his arm. He would have screamed if it weren't for the hand that had pressed itself over his mouth. Terror flooded Percy worse than it had the moment Oliver had materialized that damned tunnel. But the worst thing, Percy noted as he was dragged kicking and struggling behind one of the tapestries, was that the whole time, his roommate Oliver Wood stood there in the doorway laughing.

And never once did he make a single move to help.

A/N: Thanks so much to those of you who've read, reviewed, and are enjoying the story. I love hearing from you. ~Lilly