Chapter 32: Hogwarts, A Mystery
Ariadne was never able to precisely track down the origins of the Hogwarts Halloween masquerade, but based on the popularity of masquerades in Europe in the 16th century, she guessed that the tradition dated back to around then. Histories of Hogwarts throughout the 17th and 18th century abounded with depictions of masquerade balls. Although it seemed like a curiously antiquated way to celebrate Halloween, the masquerade was still wildly popular among Hogwarts students. Aside from the wizarding community's fondness for the old and archaic—time didn't seem to move quite as fast for wizards as for Muggles—Ariadne attributed this popularity to a few important factors.
One, the masquerade differed from other Hogwarts parties in that it wasn't limited to a single house. Unlike Quidditch match or House Cup celebrations, the masquerade wasn't quite so partisan, and the unofficial "hosting house" would sneak other students into their common room, allowing for much more inter-House fraternizing than usual.
Two, that the masquerade was still, if begrudgingly, tolerated by Hogwarts staff on the grounds that it was a 400-year-old "Hogwarts tradition." The staff didn't know about the alcohol-fueled parties or the sneaking in of students from different houses, of course. As far as they were aware, the masquerade consisted of dressing in masks and costumes at Halloween dinner followed by some synchronized gliding by the ghosts. However, for that one night, they did ease the restrictions on students moving about the castle after hours.
The third reason for their continued popularity had to do with Gryffindors' proclivity for turning any kind of holiday or occasion into an opportunity for raucous debauchery. Gryffindor House had convinced the other Houses to let them host the masquerade for the past few years, and the other Houses had agreed (Slytherin, albeit reluctantly) because the Gryffindors were just that good at throwing a party. (Ariadne recalled that Ravenclaw had hosted during her second year of Hogwarts and the event was strictly historically accurate and so boring that the other Houses refused to let them host ever again.) Gryffindor parties were legend and every other Hogwarts student wanted a taste. As the Gryffindor Common Room couldn't accommodate the students of all four houses, they were selective in who they allowed to come from the other houses, and invitations were highly coveted.
Ariadne had been vaguely aware of Priya helping to create and distribute these invitations a few weeks earlier, but she had no time to give it any further thought, between keeping up with her coursework, getting into all kinds of messy situations with the Marauders, and her new…arrangement with Sirius, as she liked to think of it.
Ariadne wanted to believe that the latter was also her lowest priority and the least distracting of the many things on her plate, but she knew that wasn't quite true. Hooking up with Sirius, thinking about the last time she had hooked up with Sirius, and anticipating the next time she would hook up with Sirius occupied more of her mental space than she would like to admit. He was so much better than any of the boys she had been with before, and even though she left each of their trysts feeling satisfied in a way that no one else had been able to make her feel, it wasn't long before she craved even more.
Ariadne had thought that finally giving in to their mutual attraction would diffuse the intense tension between them, but it didn't seem to have worked. Sirius still annoyed, intrigued, occasionally impressed and frequently attracted her, and he seemed determined as ever to bring out her "Gryffindor side" through risky and ridiculous schemes, and, of course, wild parties.
"Ready for tonight?" whispered a voice in her ear, breaking her out of her reverie.
Ariadne whipped around in her lunchtime seat in the Great Hall. He may have been wearing a red-and-gold mask that covered the top half of his face, but there was no mistaking the shock of short, rumpled jet-black hair that belonged to James Potter. Ariadne discreetly glanced around for his partner-in-crime, as they were usually attached at the hip, but he was nowhere to be seen. James plopped down in the seat next to her and lifted his mask. "So where's yours, Ariadne?"
"James, the masquerade doesn't start until dinner, six hours from now."
"But you do have a mask, right?"
Ariadne sighed. "Yes, I do. It will make its appearance at the proper time."
"Good," said James, drumming his fingers on the table distractedly. "Sirius won't shut up about making sure you'll come. Needs his grand surprise to go off smoothly…"
Suddenly, Ariadne was paying much closer attention. "What surprise?"
Suddenly, James looked much more shifty. "It's nothing, Morrigan. Forget I even said that bit."
"Potter, look at me and tell me the truth," she demanded in her very best prefect voice.
James raised his hands, as if to shield himself her commanding look, but was rescued by the appearance of Sirius himself.
Ariadne didn't waste any time. "What do you have planned for tonight, Black?"
Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Why the accusatory tone, Miss Morrigan? Just a night of innocent masked revelry, in the Hogwarts tradition."
"Don't 'Miss' me. You haven't called me that in ages."
"I suppose we are on more…familiar terms than we were a few months ago," replied Sirius, arching an eyebrow suggestively. He loved to toy with her like this, making thinly veiled allusions to their private affair and stoking the heat between them, but in a public setting where they couldn't take things any further.
"So does he only call you 'Miss' in bed, now?" interjected James innocently.
Ariadne ignored him and responded to Sirius instead. "Precisely. So why the formality if you don't have something planned that, as a prefect, I'm not going to like?"
"I didn't realize we were switching roles between friend-to-friend and prefect-to-lowly-Gryffindor," said Sirius, affecting offense. (On her other side, Ariadne heard James mutter "prefect roleplay…kinky" and cackle quietly to himself.)
"You started it by calling me 'Miss Morrigan.'"
"So who am I talking to now? Ariadne the prefect or Ariadne the Marauder?"
Ariadne bit her lip. The question unnerved her more than she liked to admit, striking at the heart of the problem of her falling in with the Marauders. Did becoming friends with Sirius, James and Remus and being a Gryffindor prefect inherently conflict with each other?
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm one person, not some two-faced Janus," answered Ariadne somewhat brusquely, now riffling through History of Magic notes.
"Are you quite sure?" murmured Sirius in her ear, now leaning close on the pretense of picking up a sheet of her notes on the witch burnings of the 17th century. "Because I highly doubt that Ariadne the prefect would have done what we did yesterday evening in a secret castle location that I know you still haven't disclosed to McGonagall."
And just like that, Ariadne was distracted by their sexual tension again. Maybe this wasn't entirely her fault, after all.
Refusing to turn her head towards him, which would have put their faces in quite close proximity, Ariadne shuffled her notes together and responded, "The room doesn't pose a safety concern to the castle since one would have to stumble upon it by accident in a time of need, which is extremely unlikely."
"And yet, we somehow found it."
"Again, that was a fluke. The odds that someone else would also find the room just by being in the right place at the right time are astronomically low."
"So we were just incredibly lucky?"
"In more ways than you know, Black," Ariadne answered in a low voice, chancing a glance at Sirius's deep, intense gaze. His eyes were so dark brown as to be almost black, yet they could light up with an an indescribable spark when they were clashing. Or flirting. Ariadne couldn't really tell the difference any more. "But otherwise, yes. It was pure, random chance that we found the room."
Sirius tilted his head, allowing some of the fringes of his dark hair to fall into his face. "I can't dispute your first point. But the fact that you and I, of all people, were the ones to discover this secret room at that exact moment in time…it just seems too, I don't know, providential to be coincidence."
"What are you getting at?" asked Ariadne, direct as usual.
"I mean, you're probably the only person in the entire castle who could have put the pieces together to identify the room as the room of requirement alluded to throughout accounts of Hogwarts history."
"That is most likely true," said Ariadne indifferently, interpreting Sirius's comments as fact rather than flattery.
"And the books that were on the table…it's almost as if the room wanted you to figure out what it was."
"The room responds to the needs of its users. I wanted to find out what it was, so the room provided the tools I needed."
"I'm just saying, Ariadne, it feels like the castle has a plan for us."
Ariadne paused in her ordering of her history notes to consider this point. "So you subscribe to the sentient castle theory?"
Sirius waved his hand dismissively at her jargon. "I just don't think it's a coincidence that two of the brightest and most loyal students Hogwarts has ever seen were the ones to stumble upon this room."
"What do you mean by 'loyal'?" asked Ariadne suspiciously.
"To the castle. To magical education, to our houses…to Hogwarts itself. You can't deny that you've probably researched the history of this school more thoroughly than anyone except the Pince. And I have committed to plumbing its mysteries using more…practical and hands-on methods. I honestly thought I knew every secret passage and hidden broom closet in this castle from the Astronomy tower to the deepest dungeon before we fell into that room."
Ariadne was still silent, so Sirius prompted her for an answer. "Well, Morrigan? Aren't you going to tell me that my head is inflated and I'm full of bollocks?"
"Your head is definitely inflated," she answered finally. "There's no way we're the only students to have ever discovered the room in all of Hogwarts history. It's more likely that students stumble on it once, in their time of need, and then don't realize they can access the room again, and can't prove its existence to anyone."
She paused. "But the sentient castle theory is intriguing. Many magical historians and scholars who have studied Hogwarts believe that the sum of its bricks and mortar add up to more than just a building. That there is some kind of magical consciousness or agency that animates the castle. I mean, just thinking about the amount of enchanted dynamic elements within it—hundreds of moving, talking portraits, staircases that change location, walls embedded with layers upon layers of spells…" Ariadne trailed off, deep in thought.
"So you agree with me," said Sirius, folding his arms with satisfaction.
"I didn't say that. I just said the theory was interesting," replied Ariadne briskly, now back to her notes.
Sirius sighed. "I'm never going to be able to tear you away from your beloved theory, am I?"
Ariadne nearly smiled. "I'll see you tonight in the Common Room, then?"
Sirius he straightened up in his seat and his eyes regained their sparkle. "9 o'clock in the evening. Don't be late, Miss Morrigan."
A/N: Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the Halloween masquerade adventures! They're just going to be coming out closer to Christmas than to Halloween…heh. More shenanigans to follow!