12

A bit of plotting between them, and the five made plans to get together at an hour after ten o'clock curfew. The three Gryffindors would meet Taylor and Kelsey at the back second floor staircase to the third floor close to the tower room holding Muffin. Slipping out of her room in her Hogwarts uniform, Gabrielle started coming up from the girl's rooms downstairs to look for Chad and Troy and met them coming down to look for her. They met on the landing of their common room and started quietly sneaking out to avoid Chad's brother, but someone else discovered them. About fifteen inches tall and chattering away on the back of the sofa, William's ferret, Hector, noticed them as they tried to steal their way to the hidden entrance.

"Hector…" Chad whispered at it. "Quiet. Quiet there… You're not supposed to be down here."

"Neither are you." William sat up from the sofa after falling asleep with a book. "What are you three doing up after curfew?" He took Hector to run up his arm and lay down around his neck like a furry collar and noticed Gabrielle. "Why are you all fully dressed?"

"William," Troy looked at the others. "Look, we have something important to do. Just pretend you didn't see us."

"No…" William stood in their way to the entrance. "Three guys in Hufflepuff lost a hundred and fifty points for their house just because they wanted sneak out and go fishing before class one morning. We're already trailing behind on points, and I may not look like much, but I'll knock both you guys cold if you try getting past me."

"I can't believe this." Chad pulled his wand. "Sorry, buddy, but… I got to do this."

"No, wait!" Gabrielle stopped him and started advancing. "William…" She shined and flirted with him in front of Troy. "Look, couldn't you pretend you didn't see us just this once…" She cloyingly slipped up on him. "I mean… I'd be…" Her voice started turning seductive. "Very… appreciative…" Her brown eyes looked into his, her arms held on to his shoulders and her lips met his as Hector covered his own eyes with his furry little paws. Kissed by his secret infatuation, William grinned a bit from her touch and fell backward on to the floor with a light trace of a grin on his face.

"Oh my god…" Troy looked to Chad. "She killed Kenny… I mean, William!"

"He's scared of girls, remember?" Gabrielle reminded them. "We have got to go…" They raced over William sleeping on the floor in the hall to their hidden behind the Fat Lady painting and Hector trying to wake his adult master with tiny slaps to the face. Beyond the hall, Gabrielle, Troy and Chad hastened quietly along the hall looking out for Filtch or Snape patrolling the halls. They just barely missed two other students hiding in an adjacent hall trying to sneak back into Gryffindor House. Watching their ten footsteps heading away on his Marauder's Map, Harry Potter reacted a bit confused and looked to his best friend, Ron Weasley.

"Bloody hell…" Ron looked to Harry. "Where do you think they're going?"

"I don't know." Harry spoke with a soft voice and watched their route on the mystical house map. "But it's late, and I'm not having two adventures in one night!"

At the Great Hall with the moving staircases, the three Gryffindor First Years checked the moving staircases and took the first and best route to the second floor and headed through the hall to the staircase where Taylor and Kelsey waited for them.

"What kept you?" Taylor asked.

"William needed a kiss." Chad mused and confused them. Rolling her eyes, Gabrielle just followed Troy quietly and secretively to the third floor corridor where they passed through more cobwebs, rubbing off dust from the unkempt walls and floor. It was much darker now than the first time they accidentally landed here, but Troy knew the way and the sound ahead did not sound good. It was a good think Kelsey had a rat familiar otherwise she'd have screamed at the two that raced out in front of her, although the sight of them did take Chad aback. The sound from the tower room resembled dull thunder passing over the castle, but mildly hidden behind that noise was the sound of music. Gabrielle gasped as she pushed through next to Troy and noticed the great guard dog asleep with his three ferocious head in peaceful slumber, a modern CD player nearby emitting very slow Classical Music on continuous replay.

"This… is Muffin?" Kelsey looked at the tranquil beast, each massive head resting in its human-sized paws.

"You'd love him when he's awake!" Troy added.

"Troy…" Gabrielle looked through the opening of the exposed trapdoor. All she could see was darkness in the lower tower. "We're too late! Sharpay got through ahead of us."

"I'll go after her." Troy stood up to the mission. "I know her. Maybe I can talk her into giving it up."

"Dude, what about the traps that are supposed to be en route?" Chad stopped him. "You can't do it alone."

"Guys…" Taylor looked at the CD player. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but… when the light goes on, doesn't that mean the battery is going out?" There wasn't any music playing anymore. One set of eyes opened on Muffin and then the other set and they all turned to dinner in the form of five students in front of them. There was suddenly a lot of screaming echoing as Taylor and Chad pushed each other out of the way of the guard-dog giant jaws. Troy pushed Gabrielle into the hole and pulled Kelsey down with him just short of being mangled dog foot. Muffin's deafening roars and barking echoed through the room and bounced off the wood ceiling. The closets immediate way from the brutal behemoth was through the trap door, and that was just barely big enough for one person at a time, but not the giant jaws of a descendant of Cerberus of Tartarus. Deep in the hole, Troy landed on his back next to Kelsey and heard Muffin's deafening roars and furious snapping teeth some height above. It was a good height they had fallen, and he was right. Gabrielle it up the end of her wand as did Kelsey with her own. The inside walls were smooth and covered in moss. What doors or windows into here had been sealed off from the outside and where floors once rested were the empty support holes meant for floor beams. Under them at the ground level was a thick layer of grass, weeds, mulch and vines that had grown up through the holes in the foundation.

"Is this it?" Chad felt Taylor holding on to him. He looked back at her and liked her embrace, but she got disgusted and pushed him off of her.

"Maybe there's a secret tunnel…" Troy held his wand aloft with light at its end. "Let's look for an exit."

"Troy!" Gabrielle felt a wine creeping around her leg under her skirt and another at her waist. Kelsey was swatting at three coiling around her waist and abdomen. Their movement alerted the creeping vines in the grass. Troy felt them around his legs coming up over his body, and Chad started swatting and breaking the leafy tentacle-like vines creeping around him. Kelsey was all but covered in a vine twisted cocoon. Trying to free herself, Gabrielle reached the Troy to save her as Chad freaked out screaming from squeezing his body. Only Taylor relaxed from what was happening.

"Don't fight them!" She called out several times. "Don't fight them!"

"I never ate spinach as a kid, and this is my reward!!!" Troy tried to save Gabrielle.

"They're African Strangling Vines!" Taylor revealed. "They attack only what attacks them. Show them you mean no harm to them and they won't hurt you." She took a deep breath as she was pulled through the grass and moss to vanish underfoot. Troy and Gabrielle looked at each other. Kelsey was covered up as she went limp and took her last breath as she went down.

"Eaten by a salad." Chad tensed his body stiff. "I hate vegetables." Trembling but immobile, Gabrielle closed her eyes as she was swallowed up by the grass, Troy getting pulled down a few seconds after her. Chad was last as the fine hairs on the vines continued to taste him and became disillusioned with him as if it no longer wanted him. The African American Alaskan with the big hair was being pulled down lower and lower into thicker and thicker weeds and mulch. It seemed to get much more dense then he felt nothing. Four feet through, he felt empty space and felt an open funnel of loose grass and seeds raining over him as he fell into the basement and was caught in a slippery tunnel of stone worn smooth by water and time. If it wasn't pitch black, it'd be like the fun slides at the Goonies Amusement Park near Seattle. He finally slid into a subterranean chamber closed off from the Hogwarts catacombs; knocking Troy and Taylor down like pins in a bowling game.

"Ow!!" Taylor hurt as she stood up again. Everyone else had slammed into her for getting sucked through first.

"Thanks, buddy." Troy helped Chad up and checked on Gabrielle.

"Well, that was fun." Chad looked around. Many of them lost their wands in the fall. Kelsey found her glasses and Gabrielle's wand near the drain for the trickle of water from the chute. Once Gabrielle had her wand lit, her friends' wands appeared too scattered near the hole from the chute. They seemed to be in an old storage room with another sealed opening with the bricks from the other side and an opening to her left. It was an archway carved from solid rock descending even deeper under the castle.

"Hey…" Troy stopped her. "I'll go first this time." He wanted to be her hero.

"Does anyone hear crickets?" Kelsey tried adjusting her hair. Drifting behind Troy through the archway, Gabrielle and her friends descended down to another level into a vast chamber with monoliths extending straight up to the foundation above them. It resembled an underground version of Stonehenge, the square columns holding up other monoliths with the domed ceiling over an altar at the center. Upon entering, the entry way closed up behind them, a large section of wall rolling aside and trapping them in as enchanted torches in an outer circle beyond the monoliths burst into flame to light the room. They were descending into the oldest most ancient part of the castle. Chad and Gabrielle turned round looking at the fading frescoes on the walls. Not far from a broom leaing against the wall, Chad noticed an ancient wood door not yet lost to the elements. He tried unlocking it with a spell, but it seemed spell proof. At the altar, Kelsey picked up and read bottles and grimy glass cases.

"I wonder what we do next?" Taylor whirled round noticing loose tiles on the floor. "Maybe… replacing the right tiles in the fresco opens the door." She started studying the fading design.

"I found something." Kelsey called Gabrielle over to the altar. "Almost all of these are unlabeled, but this one says, "Drink Me" and this one says, "Eat Me." Maybe its like "Alice In Wonderland," and we have to drink from the…"

"No!" Troy stopped her from taking the sip. "I'm not risking you bringing one of William's crazy dreams to life Wonderland-style. Let's not do anything until…"

"I found the crickets." Chad was looking straight up. "But they're really butterflies…" He pointed to the center of the ceiling where several dozen small creatures clung to the ceiling. They looked like keys with large wings; some of them were large and good in size. Others seemed long and lengthy. Most of them looked alike.

"One of them probably unlocks the door." Taylor realized.

"That one!!!" Kelsey noticed one that seemed smaller and older than the rest. Clinging to the ceiling above amidst the menageries of gold, silver, bronze and copper keys was one dark key out of steel. There didn't seem to be another one just like it.

"Gabrielle…" Troy took the broom aside and brought it over to her. "Your turn…"

"No, Troy, you do it."

"Come on…" He resisted her. "You're the best broom flier among us. You can catch that key easily!"

"No…" Gabrielle resisted. "Troy, this is your moment." She looked at him grinning. "You get it."

"Give me the broom, I'll get it!" Chad offered.

"I'll get it." Troy looked at him and exhaled deeply. "It can't be that hard." He kicked off and launched to the air as the keys launched and swarmed to elude him. There was suddenly a lot more of them pouring from cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling. That little black key vanished in the confusion. Where there was possibly just barely two hundred flying metal keys, there was multiple hundreds from modern house keys, old rushed car keys with dangling clickers, old iron keys and shining novelty keys, and they were swarming. It looked like every key ever lost by anyone on the planet, and they all swarmed Troy in the air as he flew and dodged them and the obstacles in the chamber. Kelsey dived for cover under the altar, and Gabrielle and Taylor huddled at the door as Troy shot past them chasing the same iron key from before. Swaying and swatting at the keys nearly hitting him, Chad used one of the monoliths to shield himself.

"This is not easy!!!" Troy raced past Chad. Holding on to the broom with his left hand, Troy reached out with his left hand trying to catch the key dodging in and out through his fingers. When it again tried to slip through, he clenched his fingers tight, and the other keys grew upset to see one of their own taken captive.

"Get them through!!!" Troy sailed past after tossing the key to Chad.

"What about you?!"

"I'll be right behind you." Troy felt the angry enchanted pieces of metal pelting him. Chad rushed to unlock the door, pushing against it with his shoulder to get it open. Taylor, Kelsey and Gabrielle rushed through the dark hall behind it as Chad looked back. Troy was beginning his lost approach, he dived down hard pushing down on the broom, the keys right behind him and upon skirting across the floor, he flew straight at the door, jumping off at the last second through the door as Chad slammed it shut, several keys bouncing off the other side or getting stuck into the wood.

"That was close."

"A little…" Troy pulled one last key out of his shirt. "Too close." He and Chad rushed to meet with the girls in another bottom tower chamber. There was endless space above them hading somewhere up to the castle. The center of the room was a round pipe organ with old cracked and discolored keys from an old sailing ship that had wrecked on the cast two hundred years before, its pipes instead of going straight up were going into the floor. The walls were sheathed with the boards of that ship with portholes, shells, cannon holes and seashells imbedded throughout.

"Holy Jack Sparrow!!!" Troy looked at the sight. Another set of torches had alighted to reveal another underground room with yet another secret spell to figure out how to go further into the castle. Kelsey tried to loosen one shell, and Gabrielle tried looking through the portholes for another room, but all she saw were the castle's original walls.

"Well," Chad looked to Taylor. "What do we do?"

"Don't ask me." Taylor was still guessing. "I still though the last one was the frescoes." Kelsey checked to see if the organ still played. She played a B-Flat from the proper key.

"I think I got it." She spoke. "These aren't just ship boards." She gestured over the walls. "They're laid out like musical stanzas. Every hole and object in the path is another note! We start where the boards begin where we entered." She came around the organ and her friends, standing as she played out the musical pattern of the shipboards before her. It sounded like an old sea shanty. The air being pumped into the floor in the right order and sequence triggered another result. Gabrielle and Taylor watched Kelsey playing the keys. Troy felt the floor tremble a bit… and then it moved!

Barely completely the full tune going around the room, Kelsey was coming back up on the other side of the entry way as the floor slid clockwise and lower, following the grooves in the tower as it lowered. Chad was the only one to manage staying on his two feet and just barely as he balanced his weight. Troy held on to Gabrielle, and both Taylor and Kelsey hugged the floor as Chad struggled to stay erect. Like a giant coin pivoting on a massive pivot point, the floor sank lower and lower slowly and gradually, leaving the organ left high up above them until it finally lurched into place and locked in five floors beneath where it now rested.

"Bottom floor… Ladies lingerie…" Chad quipped as if he was the elevator operator of a large convenience store. Troy started laughing, and Gabrielle tried to hide a laugh. Taylor was not amused. She helped Kelsey up as the torches in a room exploded alight to illuminate the way again. A bit overwhelmed by that encounter, Kelsey adjusted her glasses as Chad followed behind her. Once again, Troy showed the way to defend the others. There was a gust of wind pouring through from somewhere; he could feel the breeze, but he could not see where it was coming from. The floor was a steel grate where just barely a foot underneath they could see water pouring through over a cave floor. The room was carved directly out of rock by magic and used to store clay pots containing old forgotten supplies. At the center was what looked like an old baptismal. Constructed out of rock with a sink at the top, the higher structure was made out of metal with two metal rings on top. Troy stepped up to look into the concentric rings, but they were empty. Chad opened one of the pots looking for the Crystal Key, but all he found was soft loose soil preserved from several years before his birth.

"It's dirt." He told the others. "Maybe the Crystal Key is buried in it."

"Or one of the others…" Gabrielle noticed pots sitting on the floor and laying like cordwood in concrete shelves. She looked over the baptismal. "If it was, I wonder this would be here for."

"It's got words on it…" Kelsey saw lettering. "Quartos elemental uno sebla…"

"That doesn't sound like a spell." Chad commented.

"It's not…" Taylor stood from checking out the words. "It's Latin. It means: Let the elements lead the way."

"What way?" Troy didn't get it. "To the key?" Gabrielle started mumbling under breath thinking to herself. She headed to check the earthen pots.

"The mystical elements…" Kelsey revealed. "Earth, air, fire and water. We put them in the right order and it will open the next door."

"But what's the right order?" Chad looked round to them.

"Taylor…" Gabrielle thought she had an idea based on a trick her foster brother had showed her. "There's something in this soil, but I can't figure it out." She pulled out large handfuls. "What does that smell like?" Taylor came over and sniffed it.

"That's… that's…" She tried remembering. "Brimstone… you know, sulfur."

"That's what I thought!" Gabrielle proved she had a brain and collected much of the soil into one of the lids and raced up to the baptismal. "Troy, would you help me?" She handed the soil for him to hold as she climbed up on to it. "Kelsey, get me some water out of the floor?"

"Okay."

"Gabrielle," Troy lightly chuckled as he watched his favorite girl take the sulfur-laced soil and spread it around inside the lowest of the two round tiers on top. Kelsey lifted up part of the floor and filled another empty pot with water. "What are you doing?"

"Earth, air, fire and water…" Gabrielle took the water from Kelsey as Troy supported her and poured it into the higher circle. She then used her wand to light the sulfur on fire. "Sulfur is the earth…" She explained. "You light it, and it turns into fire, the next element. The fire heats water, the third element which then boils into steam or the fourth element, air." She dropped down to the steel grate again off the fountain. The sulfurous soil burned brightly illuminating the room, bringing the water to boil as the steam from the water condensed on top and started dripping down. Down in the baptismal, the sink started collecting the dripping water, but it must have been enchanted. The few drops welled into much more water than was turning to steam. As all the water started dripping down, the sink grew heavy… dipping down inside the structure and filling up with even more water from deep under the lake. As the sink lowered, a counterweight was released and another door slowly began sliding open. Gabrielle started grinning at what she had done, and Troy hugged her... Chad cheered as the girls applauded their luck.

"Add more water on top…" Gabrielle was getting too sure of herself. "We don't want it closing before it…" She hurried forward ahead of Troy and triggered another counterweight. Stepping from the grate into a tunnel, her foot pressed down a loose tile. Where one stone door rolled aside, another one started lowering to replace it. Troy started rushing to pull her out, but Chad was closer. He tried to stop the door by catching it and pushing it up, placing his shoulder underneath to stop it, but it was too heavy…. Way too heavy.

"Gabrielle!!!" He tried saving her. "Get out… get out of there!!!" He was getting crushed as he tried saving her.

"There's not enough room!" The brunette sorceress screamed. Chad was taking up too much space under it. Troy started pushing up against it trying to stop it and get his wand out to use against it, but Kelsey and Taylor had their wands out. The two of them tried unsealing it; both of them enchanting, "Wingardium Leviosa…" together in and out of sync, but the stone was either too heavy for their level of mastery or it was spell proof. Driven to his knees trying to keep from losing Gabrielle, Chad felt his back being snapped in two. His best friend or his favorite girl, Troy let go of the door and pulled Chad out from under the stone slab crashing done. It was the only way. Gabrielle might have been lost to them, but at least both she and Chad were alive. Troy hugged Chad like his brother; Chad hugged him back sorry for his loss. Kelsey gasped in shock at what happened. Behind her, the closing door had opened another one. They looked at it and back to the opening they had just lost.

"If that's the right door…" Tears streamed down Kelsey's face. "Where did we just lose Gabrielle?"

"Guys!" Troy stood holding his head upset. "We can't leave her in there. We have got to get her out!"

"Wait…" Taylor picked up a few leaves in the other doorway. "These are from the African Strangler. This has got to be the shortcut back to the third floor…"

"Then that means…" Chad looked back distraught. "Gabrielle is stuck facing Sharpay on her own!"