Chapter 10 - A long story
The next day brought with it her first Herbology lesson, which was unexpectedly unimpressive, another Transfiguration lesson that saw no tangible improvements in her attempts, and finally an evening spent with Harry walking the grounds after dinner.
"Any news from Neville?" Iris asked the question that had been burning on her mind.
"Uh, I don't know. He's still not back, and McGonagall doesn't tell us anything anyway, I've never even seen her in the common room..."
Iris was clutching the Remembrall in her pocket. She had carried it with her the whole day ever since she had used it as a focus while sweeping the chimney. It still smelled of soot. She hoped Neville wouldn't notice.
She thought back to her Transfiguration lesson. She had been really tempted to attempt cheating with her light again, just like in charms. The only thing holding her back was McGonagall's ominous warning at the start of the first lesson, and the fact that most of the time when she had tried that, things had initially gone wrong. Also, she had no idea where to start there. It wasn't like there was a Form aspect or anything. Which aspects would Transfiguration use then? None of them quite seemed to fit...
She hesitantly broached the subject with Harry.
"How are your Transfiguration lessons going?"
"Uh, fine, I guess?" he shrugged. "I've got the material down, and it's already very pointy, but I can't manage the other end as well..."
Iris' spirits sank again. That... was even further than most students had managed in her class. The one subject she had been looking forward to above all else, and she had been completely unable to do it, while Harry seemed to have no problems with it whatsoever. She regretted having asked.
"What kind of magic do you think Transfiguration is?" she asked broadly, hoping for some insight.
"Uh, no idea? Why? I mean... It seems kinda a lot less structured than charms, and a lot more magical, but then also very precise in other ways. Not necessarily the wand wavy way, but you have to be very focused with your mind, if that makes any sense..."
Iris didn't think she had any problems in that department. So that couldn't be it. Yeah, she guessed she was easily distracted, and often failed to focus on boring things, but she knew she was very good when focusing on something she really wanted to do. And Transfiguration was one of the things she wanted to do above all else.
The other had been flying. And look how that had turned out.
"Vector and Flitwick explained that there are seven aspects of magic..." Iris began.
"Control, Force, Destruction, Life, Illusion, Mind and Elemental. Apparently, all spells are made up out of combinations of these. Turns out, If I make my light the color of the right aspect, I can cast the spell."
"Wait, so you figured it out? You cast a spell?"
"Yeah, Alohomora, the unlocking charm. It just uses one aspect, Control, so I coul-"
Iris was cut off, as Harry flung himself at her and pulled her into a fierce hug.
"I'm so happy for you Iris! I knew they were wrong about you!"
Iris was blushing. She had kind of forgotten to tell Harry about that, hadn't she. He had been worried sick after Madam Pomfrey had thought she might be a Squib.
"Oh yeah, and I also figured out what the other kind of magic I do is. Apparently, it's called free ritual. Oh, and it's been illegal for fifty years," she added with a shrug.
Harry's eyes widened. "A-are you sure?" he asked in a whisper.
"Yeah, pretty much. Draco gave me a book about it..."
Harry frowned. "Malfoy gave you a book about something that's illegal? Is he trying to get you in trouble?"
Iris blushed. "Uh, actually, I think he wanted to prove how dangerous it was and get me to stop..."
She continued with indignation, "It's really not, though. I don't think he even read the book all that much, it clearly says it's safe as long as you know what you're doing. And I've never had any issues, so..." she shrugged.
"I guess it's either some magical superstitious nonsense, or maybe his parents were trying to scare him by telling him exaggerated tales, since it's technically illegal and all that..."
Harry was looking unsure, so she continued. "Don't worry. I read through the whole thing, and it seems pretty straight forward. Most of the stuff I had figured out on my own anyway, it's basically just common sense."
"Well, so long as you're careful..." he began reluctantly.
Iris smiled and hugged him, effectively cutting off his worried words. Harry ruffled her hair.
"So, what have you been up to outside of class?" Iris asked, trying to change the subject.
"Uh... studying..." Harry blushed. Iris' eyebrows rose. Harry, studying voluntarily?
"Indeed? Any specific subject?"
"Uh... Defense."
Iris gave him a look. "We didn't even get any Defense homework, after, well..."
He sighed and rubbed his neck.
"I was looking up some spells. You keep getting hurt, and with everything I hear there seems to be hundreds of ways for people to hurt someone else. I just... I wanted to be ready if someone really did try to do something..."
Ah, so it was about protecting her, as always. Well, if he put it towards studying, she couldn't really find any fault with that.
"You don't have to try so hard to be a textbook big brother, Harry. Heck, we don't even know if you're older, I might even be your older sis..." she said and giggled.
Harry, of course, disregarded what she had said completely.
"I'll be fine, don't worry so much. Come on, let's get you to bed, little bro," Iris said cheekily, and started to skip towards the castle, Harry hot on her heels.
~V~
"Oy, Tracey! Wanna be part of one of those long stories?"
Iris had returned sweaty and drained from her walk and subsequent chase with Harry and decided it was the perfect time for a little excursion.
"Thought you'd never ask," came the reply. "Although I am gonna go and have a shower first..."
"Yeah, skip that. Where we're going, there won't be a need for any showers," Iris declared mysteriously. "Although you might wanna bring a change of clothes."
Harry deserved to be stinky after chasing her through half the castle, so he wasn't invited. Iris had pondered if she should ask Draco, but then realized that might be kind of weird. At least with Tracey that was no issue, they shared a dorm and a bathroom anyway. It had been awkward getting dressed on the first day, but unlike Lily, Tracey had taken it in stride, and Iris had decided not to bother after that.
Tracey looked at her exasperatedly but played along. "Fine. Where are we going?"
"That would be telling..." Iris said in a singsong voice.
She then proceeded to drag an eye-rolling Tracey out of their dorm room and down the common room. Up the grand staircase they climbed, higher and higher, until they reached the fifth floor, slightly out of breath.
"What's up here?" Tracey asked, breathing deeply. "Looks like a bunch of abandoned classrooms to me... And on the other side... Oh, guess what, it's more abandoned classrooms!"
"Come to think of it, why does Hogwarts have so many abandoned classrooms anyway?" Iris pondered.
"Remember when I told you about how the wizarding population was cut down to below a third of what it was?"
"... Oh." Iris mood had taken a sudden hit.
Sullenly, she made her way over to that one specific door. She really hoped she had remembered the correct one.
With a dramatic pose, she stepped up to it, gave Tracey a smug look, pushed the handle, stepped forward, and promptly smacked into the door. It was locked. The door handle, now a small brass fish, turned its head towards her, and asked in a low voice, "...Password?"
Bugger. She should have known that it wouldn't be that easy. At least, she thought, she must have gotten the correct door.
"Bathroom?" she tried.
The fish replied "Incorrect," and turned back into a door handle.
Iris turned around sheepishly. Tracey gave her the raised eyebrow. "Impressive."
"Shut up."
Iris turned back towards the door and narrowed her eyes. Well, it looked like it was time to try the one spell that she had gotten working so far. Maybe this time, without breaking the door, if possible.
Brandishing her obsidian wand, Iris summoned yellow light. Control. Her eyes narrowed and she shrank it down, until it was barely a glimmer. Finally, she aimed her wand right at the handle, jabbed, twisted and incanted, "Alohomora."
Nothing happened. Tracey was now slowly clapping in the background.
Iris growled, increased the brightness of the yellow light to that of a small flashlight. Once more, she jabbed, twisted, and shouted, "Alohomora!"
A yellow flash, and there was an audible clunk, as the door slowly swung open. Tracey let out a gasp. The massive bathtub—it was more of a pool really—was shimmering in the low light of already lit torches on the walls. There was no water inside it, however. Iris made her way inside behind Tracey, locked the door, and inspected the large tub. There were several faucets and handles at the side. Iris tried one, then another. After some playing around with the various types of soap bubbles, she just turned on everything to fill up the bath as fast as possible. Tracey was looking around the room in awe.
"Why would they keep something like this hidden?"
"Who knows, maybe it's Dumbledore's private bathroom."
Tracey snorted. "Imagine he'd need a lot of bathtub to fully submerge his beard."
Iris made a face. "Yikes, no thanks. I don't need any of Dumbledore's beard in my bath."
The tub filled up rather quickly, and Iris was almost toppled by Tracey who was diving headfirst into the bath-pool with a squeal. Not to be outdone, Iris quickly removed her robes and dove in, taking great care to splash Tracey's face as thoroughly as possible from the impact.
This resulted in an impromptu splash war commencing, which only ended after both girls were too exhausted to continue. Iris sighed and sank back into the bubbles, her head almost completely submerged.
From across the room came Tracey's voice. "How did you find this place anyway?"
Iris opened her mouth, then paused. Could she tell Tracey about the rituals she had been doing? She had never talked with her about that.
She decided to take the direct approach. "Tracey? Uh... what is your opinion on free ritual?"
Tracey's confused voice came back. "What's free ritual?"
Well, that answered that. She guessed it was just as well. "It's another way to do magic, turns out the other magic—I mean other than my light—that I've been doing for years, is called free ritual. It's how I made my physics book float."
Tracey's drew in a breath and almost choked on soap bubbles. "Wait, you did that? I thought that was an enchanted book! You know, that you just bought like that..."
"Uh, yeah... No, it's not. Other than with my light, the only things I've been able to do is when I use objects and... stuff... to tell magic what I need. Like I did with the fire in the common room."
"That's what that was? I was wondering how you did that, if you had that much trouble with your magic," Tracey exclaimed.
"Yeah. Well, Draco saw that and figured out what it was, and then he cornered me in the library and accused me of putting everyone in danger, because he's somehow convinced himself it's really dangerous, probably just because it's illegal..." Iris grumbled.
"Hold on, free ritual is illegal?" Tracey emerged from the bubbles in front of her with a wide-eyed expression.
"Yeah, well so is crossing the street on a red light. The book he gave me was very clear that it's perfectly safe if you know what you're doing." The book had also warned that some missteps could have grave consequences, whatever that meant, but she figured Tracey was better off not knowing that little tidbit.
~V~
"So... you went to the hospital wing... to sweep the chimney there? And that's supposed to help how?" Tracey was looking at her like she was a bit insane.
"Hey, it makes sense!" Iris said indignantly, and splashed water at Tracey half-heartedly. "Chimney sweeps are lucky. I did it in the hospital wing to give him luck for his surgery, and I even took the Remembrall with me to make sure it was focused on Neville."
"When are you getting to the part where you found this place?" Tracey giggled.
"Oh, right. Well, after I was done, I tried to make my way back to my room to clean up, since I was, you know, pretty much covered in it. But on the way the creepy caretaker found me and almost gave me detention, but then he collapsed for some reason, and called in this weird creature that teleported me here and disappeared without a word."
Tracey goggled. "Okay, somehow that feels like you left out something important there..."
"Nope, that's pretty much what happened," Iris said with a wide grin.
Tracey tried to facepalm, causing her to splash water into her nose and enter a coughing fit, much to Iris' amusement.
~V~
Iris and Tracey had kind of lost track of time. When they finally called it quits and were at last all dried and dressed, Tracey checked her watch and realized that it was half an hour past curfew.
When they were about to venture out into the corridor, Tracey reluctantly asked, "What if we get caught?"
Iris shrugged. "Better get caught out there than in here I guess."
Tracey snorted. "Ya really don't give a toss about rules, do ya?"
"Hey, I care about rules... As long as they make sense," Iris replied sagely.
"I can get behind that," Tracey said with a chuckle.
Out the door and down the dark corridor they went. Since the torches had been extinguished, Iris called upon her trusty light and snuck ahead. Every corner they checked if anything was amiss. So far, they had been lucky. At last, they found the staircase and descended. One floor, then another.
Suddenly, there was a noise from down the corridor, through the slightly ajar double doors. It sounded like something grinding, scratching. Something was going on over there. Which left Iris in a bind. Investigate, or head for their common room? She weighed her options, then pushed open the doors further and took a step towards the ominous noise, Tracey reluctantly following. They heard a loud thump, then more scratching. Finally, they arrived at the end of the corridor. There was a single wooden door. It was definitely the source of the noise.
Iris reached her hand out for the handle, when Tracey spoke up.
"Hold on! I know where we are, this is the third floor!"
Iris froze. It was, wasn't it. That meant that this allegedly contained the most painful death that the headmaster had promised them. Iris really should turn around. But a small, but very vocal part of her, for some reason, really wanted to open the door and take a look inside. She reached out, felt the handle, pressed down and click. Locked.
"Are you insane?!" came a whispered screech from Tracey. "Let's get out of here!"
Iris relented and nodded. They slowly made their way back down the hallway, when suddenly they heard steps, and a door creak. It was the door behind them. Someone was just coming out of the forbidden corridor. Iris grabbed Tracey's arm and yanked. She dragged the girl into a small alcove between two stone statues along the corridor and cut off her light. Iris pressed herself into the stone, trying to become one with the shadow, hoping against hope that whoever it was wouldn't spot them in the dark.
The door creaked again, and footsteps got closer. Both girls held their breath. Then, a torch flared to life at the end of the corridor. Damn. Iris pressed herself further into the shadows, dragging Tracey with her. She had really messed up. If they were spotted now, there would be nowhere to run. A second torch lit up in flames, this time closer. The shadows shrank further, providing a fleeting, almost pitiful amount of cover. Iris flattened herself as much as possible, willing the shadows to be big enough to cover them with all her might, and to her surprise, they responded.
A third torch came alive, but instead of banishing the shadows further, the darkness was fighting back. Shadow started creeping from the edges, appearing larger with every second. Iris had no idea what she was doing, but it was working. She could hear the footsteps coming closer and closer still, she could see the edges of long purple robes sweep into her vision, whoever it was absently muttering to themselves. With all her might, she willed the shadows to be big enough to cover them completely.
The shadows embraced them, warding off the light, creating impossible shades of black, as the statues cast shadows that they shouldn't. Further and further they slipped, finally out of sight, as the purple robes swept past them, and didn't stop. Iris let out a breath of relief, and turned to look into the terrified face of Tracey, who mouthed, 'What the f-'
Too late, Iris realized that something had gone horribly wrong. The shadows quivered, then gave way. Iris gasped and frantically reached out, trying to catch herself from falling, but the stone simply slipped through her fingers like molasses. Even Tracey's touch escaped her grasp, as they fell down, down, down into the darkness.