An early morning chill gripped the Hogwarts grounds as Keegan Brightly made his way to the lake. His knee-high rain boots crunched as he stamped across the frozen ground.
The sun had just started to peak up from the other side of the world - it comforted the boy and almost seemed to warm him, despite the harsh February wind.
No one else seemed to be outside the castle. Keegan was fairly used to this, the complete abandon of the outdoors during the winter months. His current project had been specifically tailored to countering his urge to curl up next to a fire all winter.
As the going got rougher, the young man fished his wand out of the inside of his robes and held it up above his head.
"Lumos!" He whispered quietly after a few seconds without words. A pale blue light blinked to life on the tip of the wand, illuminating the path before him. He had been trying since he had learned his first bit of magic to perform simple spells without speaking the proper words. He knew that, if this skill could be gained, he was one step closer to attempting magic without utilizing a wand - something that would make his life much easier.
He loved plants. Looking at them, experimenting with them, reading about them, watering them and, especially, watching them grow. Much of his work with plants involved some sort of magic. If could master the ability to perform some magic without his wand, it would leave him two free hands to dig through the soil and work with.
By the time the light from his wand finally touched the first bit of water, his boots were completely covered in mud. Their bright yellow color was difficult to even see beneath the dirty black and brown smudges. He made a mental note to clean them before entering the Hufflepuff Commons.
Keegan knelt down and touched the water with the tip of his finger. It was icy - but not completely frozen all the way through. He frowned. The Shylock's he had planted would never grow if the lake wasn't going to harden completely. The small, blue flowers only grew under frozen water when left for several weeks. Then, once they were removed from the ice, they would sprout their vivid blue-and-purple petals. If you were lucky, instead of just the beautiful petals, you would also get something very special - glowing blue crystals sometimes grew right at the center of the flowering plant.
The boy pointed his beam of light into the water and saw that the Shylock seeds were still right where he had left him - magically suspended just a couple of feet beneath the surface of the water. Just deep enough that they could remain undisturbed throughout the winter, but close enough to the surface that he could keep an eye on them as they progressed. Just barely, he could make out a couple of surface cracks across the shells of a couple of seeds. They hadn't sprouted fully yet, but once the lake froze over completely it would only be a matter of days.
Keegan stood up, dusting his muddy hands against his pants and then slipping his wand back into his robe. He stood for a second and stretched - staring off across the beautiful lake. The one thing he did always love about the cold weather was the silence it brought to the school grounds. Usually, during the summer, you could hardly find a spot anywhere that wasn't within earshot of some sort of drama or gossip. The winter time was completely still and quiet, with some very rare exceptions.
As he finished yawning, the boy hard a small crackle in the grass behind him. He flinched and then whirled around, reaching for his wand. Before he could grasp it, a jagged black stone was smashed into the top of his head. As he collapsed to the ground in a whirlwind of colors, he saw that the rock was being held by an incredibly pale hand. As he tried to move his head enough to see the rest of his attacker's body, the rock came down onto his head again. This time, all Keegan saw was black.
When he awoke, Keegan had the distinct sensation of being trapped underneath something massive. Not as if it's weight was placed upon him, physically - though he didn't feel great physically, either. More that a huge, dark presence loomed over him.
Gnarled ropes bound his forearms together uncomfortably behind his back. His feet were drawn up and similarly tied. The rope felt strong, but seemed to be made of a rotted, ancient material. They were damp and covered in a dull gray moss.
He was sitting on a rock in some sort of cave. Something that seemed to be part man-made and part natural occurrence. Some of it's edges were the wild, unpredictable outlines of rough rock - solid, but clearly formed through thousands and thousands of years of movement. Others appeared to be smoothed, straighter - they looked as if they had been carved into place.
There were plenty of other man-made things, as well. A couple of small wooden chairs, crudely carved and clearly ancient. A dim but functioning lantern creaked slightly as it rocked back and forth on it's hook. Both lamp and hook looked as if they had been carved out of the same rock the rest of the cave had been, thousands of years earlier. There was no sign of what was causing the gentle rocking. No breeze flowed through from either of the gigantic, endless hallways. The cave somehow felt both claustrophobic and vast at the same time.
The boy shivered. He had barely noticed, while taking in everything around him, that he was wet. Every article of clothing was completely saturated and dripping. Wherever he was, it was not any warmer than the harsh February temperatures outside had been. He wondered if his clothing would begin freezing to his skin.
An aching, dizzying buzz entered Keegan's mind and soon it was all he could concentrate on. His shivering grew less intense as his focus drifted away from the temperature and more to the piercing, blinding pain behind his eyes. He could not move his hands to check, but he knew his head was likely badly cut open. He thought he could feel the remnants of fresh blood drying into his platinum blonde hair.
Steps echoed from somewhere behind him, but Keegan had no way to turn and investigate. As the pain in his head reached new extremes and his eyes began to cross, he realized that he likely would be unable to see even if he were facing the proper direction. He tried to slump forward from his position to the floor, but was unable to shift his weight enough. It felt as though his arm restraints were tied to the wall behind him.
"Stop moving." A bent, angry voice spoke from the unknown with authority. A second later, someone grabbed him by the hair from behind. His head was pulled back until he was staring through the white hot pain into the ceiling above him.
Keegan stared into the darkness above him, his jaw locked and teeth grinding to keep from crying out. He was beginning to feel dizzy. Suddenly, a pale face moved forward, so close that it blocked out most the cave around them. What looked like a bearded skeleton was standing over him, staring. He almost screamed before he realized that it was only a man - a very skinny man.
The man stared down at him with crystal blue eyes, so light that they almost appeared solid white for a second. He had an unkempt black beard that was speckled all over with hints of grey. The right side of his face had a long, thick scar across it, as if some sort of thick border was marked across a map.
"It was just a little bump on the head. Barely a scratch." The man began tapping a wand against Keegan's forehead, as if it were a drum stick. The boy wriggled and tried to pull his head from the man's grasp, but his hair was caught firmly. He grit his teeth and shifted them against each other roughly.
The wound on his head began to grow extremely warm. The pain did not stop, but it somehow felt to him like something was moving across the cut. It felt almost as if the skin was rearranging itself. The wound began to sting as if it were being hit by an increasingly strong breeze. The spread apart pieces of broken skin seemed to be lacing themselves back together.
"You're healing me." As soon as the boy said the words, his pain level dropped dramatically. He felt a tickle as whatever blood had dried to his face grew wet again and began to crawl back up his face.
"Of course I am. I can't bring you to Grindelwald all scuffed up and damaged. He'd kill me. Hell, he'd do worse." The men's breath was hot and smelled awful - like everything inside him was decaying and being expelled from his mouth with every word. He stepped back and looked Keegan over, seeming to size up his head repair, a thoughtful hand stroking his beard.
Even with his head put back together properly, the situation was overwhelming to the boy. He recognized the name, but did not knew where from. It did not seem to stir particularly positive connotations in his mind - but nothing specific. Certainly nothing that had anything to do with him.
"What are you talking about? Who are you? Where are we?" Keegan didn't know what, precisely, was going on. He did know that he wanted to be as far away from the man in front of him and the place they stood as he possibly could get.
The man laughed - a quick, painful-sounding bark. He slipped his wand back into the tattered brown robes he wore and withdrew a small wooden smoking pipe. He puffed it a couple of times - it seemed to light up on it's own - and exhaled. The smoke had a thick, sweet aroma to it. Keegan had never been fond of the smell of smoke, but this seemed a little more pleasant than most.
"Too many questions out of you, boy. Probably best if I let the big man answer most of those. How 'bout you just sit back and enjoy the fact that I fixed that big ol' hole in your head, would you?" The bearded man leaned forward and tapped Keegan on the skull, hard, right where the wound had been. The boy flinched but no wave of pain washed over him. It stun just like a quick knock to the head would hurt anywhere else. He was healed.
"I've got a few other things to do. You wont go anywhere, will you? Oh that's right, you're tied up." The man took another long puff from his pipe and turned away from his prisoner, "Besides, there ain't too many places to go down here."
"Down here?" Keegan suddenly wanted his captor to stay with him, more than anything. He did not like the idea of being alone again, wherever they were. He could not feel has wand anywhere, and the thought of being restrained in the dim, wet cave with no way to defend himself did not sound promising. He didn't like the bearded man at all, but he was better than something mysterious crawling out of the dark.
"Down here! It's been decades since anyone has been here at all. Most of those that knew about it are dead. Yes, you're down here all right," The man slipped his pipe back into his robes and turned back towards the young boy, wiping a grimy blackened hand his across right eye as he did. He smiled brightly - a toothless, terrible smile that revealed a mouth full of rot. He seemed very excited to continue.
"Under the Black Lake!"
And with that, the bearded skeleton man marched off into the darkness.