Iris watched the train slowly roll into the platform which was decorated by several signs confirming this to indeed be the destination she had been trying to reach.
She quickly packed up her book, wolfed down the last sandwich she had bought, and shouldered her backpack once more.
Aside from the few things that the creepy shopkeeper had told her, Iris knew basically nothing about this town. All she had heard was that there was apparently a magical community here, and that there was one particular bar or something that could grant her entrance to the sort-of black market that was supposedly part of it.
Strangely enough, looking on the Internet for information had somehow resulted in more questions than answers.
At least one of them she could answer for herself now; since as far as she could see, Bielefeld did, in fact, exist.
But also, as she kept looking, there were no obvious signs of any magical civilization anywhere. Rows and rows of large and cleanly painted buildings, not a single brick wall in sight. Parking garages, parking lots... Mc Donald's, some store chain called Aldi West, that same clothing store she had visited in Köln, and...
Iris froze, then turned back. A boy had just come out of the regular boring old supermarket she had just passed; the boy himself looking just as regular and boring. Muggle clothes, muggle backpack, baseball cap, except... He was carrying a broom. And definitely not the cleaning kind.
It looked pretty damn different to the ones they had in Britain. For one, it wasn't made of wood. The handle was metallic, a silvery color engraved with lines leading all the way down the shaft, shaped into a neat comfy shape, the top of the handle coated in rubber like the handlebar on a bike, and at the end... Well, it was definitely broom-shaped, but she had no idea what the metallic thing at the end was. But it was moving. Also, he was carrying that thing in plain view of all the Muggles, yet nobody seemed to pay him any attention?
Thoroughly intrigued, she changed course and entered the store labeled Aldi West. The door slid open and revealed a store that looked for all intents and purposes like a regular supermarket. Had she been mistaken?
A building about half the size of the Great Hall, by far not as tall, and filled with rows upon rows of metallic wireframe crates and shelves containing all kinds of things. There were some people all about the store, but they looked just as regular as the boy had.
Iris turned towards the first shelf on the right next to her and inspected the signs. No. She was in the right place. Because the price tag wasn't listed in Euros.
Einwegzauberstab
2G 16S
Dauertiefpreis
Galleons and... Sickles? At least that's what she hoped. Upon further inspection, she noticed something else. It hadn't been immediately obvious. Usually, she'd just see directly whether objects would be pretty or not, and could just tell if they were magical instinctually. In this case, she had gotten foiled, quite literally, by the fact that every single product was wrapped in plastic or cardboard packaging, even if it was entirely unnecessary.
Iris shot a glance around the semi-empty store, then carefully reached out and peeled open one of the long blue cardboard boxes at the top. Out tumbled what was most definitely a wand. Except it looked as if someone had taken the textbook definition of what a wand was supposed to be, and had done just that and nothing else. No decorations, no intricate designs, just a stick of wood and a black handle, and a small sheet of paper containing an onslaught of tiny printed words in German.
Was this a wand shop? Well... Not really? She looked to the next shelf where entirely different things sat. Carefully, she put the wand back in the box and continued exploring.
A row of metallic cans was labeled with Florfliegen (eingelegt). Next to it, another row with Bubortublereiter.
Oh... were those potions ingredients? Why the hell didn't they sell them like this in Britain? This seemed so much more convenient!
...Yes. Yes, they were, if the row of copper cauldrons in the metallic box across from it was any indication.
Kupferkessel (unbeschichtet)
4G 16S
What was it with all these prices just being one Sickle below the next full Galleon? Did they really think people were that stupid? Although, admittedly, it was pretty goddamn cheap. At least, compared to the shop in Diagon Alley.
Iris turned towards the next shelf and goggled.
DIN A4 Pergament (100 Stk.)
1G 16S 27K
Okay, now it was getting ridiculous. Were they somehow trying to be smart by not going all the way to 28 Knuts?
Also, this was somehow twice as expensive as the parchment in Britain. But then, right next to it, they had the same thing, except using regular old paper, which was only 5 Sickles 26 Knuts.
Wandering aimlessly, Iris found a shelf containing three different types of Brooms, one looking pretty regular, one looking a bit more stylish, and then the metallic one that she had seen the kid from before buy. She found a shelf containing all kinds of magical contraptions, the uses of which she couldn't even begin to guess at from their German names, another shelf containing snacks and sweets of all kinds, including actual Chocolate Frogs—but somehow none of the other sweets she knew from Britain—and another shelf containing what looked like a smaller and sleeker version of the Wizarding Wireless.
Unsure what or even if she should buy anything, Iris made her way towards the cashier by the entrance, and stopped in front of a small shelf right next to it containing a small assortment of German literature. There was a stack of what looked like a newspaper, branded with a bright red logo bearing the name Portrait. Next to that, a thick and heavy book with the title Gelber Grimoire.
Iris flipped through either. The first one seemed to be making an effort to imitate all the worst qualities of the Prophet, except with none of the Style, and the second one...
Oh. Apparently, it was a... phone book? Except not really. More like an address book. Most of the entries didn't mean much to her, but she could definitely make out things related to magic, and in the section B she found a long list of these all located within Bielefeld. That would make things a lot easier.
Staring at the price tag in exasperation for a second, Iris finally shrugged and picked up the yellow book, and took it over to the cashier. The old woman was wearing a blue shirt and pants, similar to Mr. Stern. Did wizards in Germany just entirely go with Muggle attire, or...
No. Upon further inspection, there were slight differences. The main thing seemed to be the material. This definitely wasn't cotton. It seemed silky, if anything. Also it was flowing, for the lack of a better term. A bit like robes, except properly fitting, at least. Something in between then?
"Faust verschone, junges Fräulein," said the old lady in a paper-thin voice, while cracking a wrinkly smile.
Iris returned the smile hesitantly, and placed the book on the conveyor belt. The book slid all the way over to the other side, and the lady pressed a single button, resulting in a loud mechanical Ka-Ching! sound, as the metal cash register clicked open.
"Eins, Sechzehn, Achtundzwanzig, bitte."
And of course, Iris handed over two whole Galleons. But at least, she got a single Knut back, so that was something?
~V~
After that, Iris had picked up a second lunch at McDonald's and began to wander the town in search for the one place that the shopkeeper in Knockturn Alley had mentioned. It had been listed in the magical Yellow Pages, but so far, none of the Muggles she had asked had known where she would find the Greifenstrasse, including the one Taxi driver she had come across. Or rather, the ones that had been fluent enough in English to even understand what she was looking for. She had been hoping that since English was the language of the Internet and all, there would be more people who spoke it to a sufficient degree to allow her to get by just using that.
Would she actually have to attempt to learn German for this?
Or...
Slowly, a smirk made its way onto her face. There was no way that would work, right? That shouldn't work. But also, it really should. Thoughts were less words and more meaning after all.
Before Iris could further think about it, her mind had acted all by itself. She brought a faint glow of Indigo into her eyes, this time careful not to blind herself again, and she looked. Now she just needed someone speaking the language, and—
There, on the corner of the street, a man in shabby clothes was shouting in German.
"Ihr versteht das nicht, nein, ihr alle seid blind! Der Himmel bricht auf, die Sterne fallen, und die Welt versinkt im Chaos! Die Reichen haben ein Geheimnis, ein finsteres Komplott! Die Bielefelder Verschwörung, ja, das ist erst der Anfang! Der Great-Reset wird uns alle einholen! Die Echsenmenschen sind unter uns, Politiker, Geschäftsleute, Menschen wie du und ich! Die Erde wird beben, und nur die Erwachten werden überleben!"
Uhhhm...
Her brain was spinning. This had been a bad idea, hadn't it?
What the hell were lizard people? And what did they have to do with the Bielefeld conspiracy?
Iris shook her head, and pointedly continued down the road. She felt like she had just accidentally met the male and homeless version of Luna. Note to self, never try to read Luna's mind.
But rolling it back, she felt like she understood... some of it? Most of it? In terms of what he had been trying to say, at least, even if the contents seemed to make no sense whatsoever.
The words stuck in her mind; had some meaning associated to them, but unlike the little French she had learned in St. Grogorys, it wasn't a translation to English words. More like... she had to think about what it meant, and then try to find an English equivalent. That was odd. It felt a bit like learning a second mother tongue, if that was even a thing. But it probably wasn't a great idea to learn it from a crazy homeless person of all things.
Also, she only learned the words that he had used. If she wanted to learn an entire language like that, that would be a... process.
Iris continued down the road, found an outdoor Cafe, and spent some time inconspicuously sneaking through the tables, trying to eavesdrop and meet as many eyes as possible.
From what she had picked up so far, apparently the literal translation of the street she was looking for was grabbing road? She really hoped that it wasn't the first thing that had entered her mind at that. But she wouldn't let that stop her.
Once more trying her luck with a taxi driver, Iris had to make use of the little German she had picked up so far.
"Entschulding, wissen Sie wo ich die Greifenstraße finden kann?" Iris asked.
"Greifenstraße?" echoed the aged man who was wearing round glasses.
Iris nodded, but her Mindlight had connected a dot in that moment that provided the missing link. She knew his answer before he even said it, but Iris had gotten another, much more important answer on her own.
"Die gibt's nicht," he said.
"Sicher?" Iris asked, just to be sure.
He frowned, then tapped a few buttons on his onboard navigation system, and shook his head again.
"In Bielefeld? Nein," the man confirmed.
Well. Of course. Now that she understood, it made sense none of the Muggles would know about the street she was looking for.
Greifenstraße wasn't supposed to mean grabbing road, it was supposed to mean Griffin road. She just hadn't known that word before. That would mean that it was in all likelihood part of some magical district.
But that still left the issue of finding it. But, she supposed, now at least she knew who to ask. If all else failed, she could return back to Aldi West and ask someone there, but by now, she was already half-way across the city. But she had a feeling that she'd find other magical locations, if she just kept looking. There was something about this town; if only the fact that there were enough conspiracy theories about Bielefeld that Luna would probably be able to hold a TED-Talk on the topic from memory. And given the fact that there was a magical district here, she had a sneaking suspicion that the two were somehow related. She wished she could have just asked her. Or someone. But given what she was here to do, it would be extremely foolish to let any of her friends know that she was here. Luna already knew too much about what happened with Lockhart. She hadn't told her anything, but simply the convenience of the timing would definitely raise suspicion with someone like her.
Wandering throughout the street, she began to notice even more things that were off. Above the street, wires spanned the distance between the buildings, suspending small rectangular streetlights in the center of the road. But something was off about these. They definitely should be off at this time of day. Still, a soft yellow shine was emanating from them, and also a faint... Indigo? Violet? Something was definitely magical about them. And judging by the colors, something to do with Mind or Illusion? They seemed to be spread all over town, but as far as she could tell, they weren't really... doing anything? Other than glow during the day. Although, that might just be visible to her eyes, now that she thought about it. Maybe the yellow glow was just the Control aspect?
In one of the side-alleys she found a lamppost instead of a wire-mounted one, which was shimmering in exactly the same colors. Upon further inspection, there was something... At the top, right next to the light, there was a tiny letter A engraved into it, inside a small misshapen rectangle. She had seen that before—the Astro TV logo! These were made by Mr. Stern? What the hell did those things do?
Staring at the lamp for a bit longer, she tried to decipher its purpose just from her senses and intuition. It felt a bit like... something she had seen before... something pretty... with graffiti on it...
Iris engaged her Mindlight to its full brightness and kept rummaging through her memories. Yes! The chunk of wall that would lead onto platform Nine and Three Quarters! So did that mean this was some sort of secret entrance?
But... where? How? And also... even if this lamppost was a secret entrance, the suspended streetlights looked exactly the same, and she didn't think even wizards were stupid enough to suspend a secret entrance in mid-air.
Iris frowned, and finally continued her exploration. She was brought up short by a large skeletal horse wandering down the alleyway entirely unconcerned by the Muggles and even cars bustling around it. A Thestral? What?
Iris had looked up these beings after the start of last year and to her relief had realized that she was, in fact, not going crazy. Apparently, those things could only be seen by those who had seen Death. And while it did make sense that she saw it now, she had no idea why she had been able to see them a year ago already. It also made sense that people seemed mostly unconcerned, but nobody? Could Muggles just... not see them at all?
In a daze, she followed after the creature, as it took her back the way she had come from, but her path was cut short by the same kid she had seen before—now riding his metallic broom—flying down the road above her. In plain sight of everyone.
And yet, nobody seemed to bat even so much as an eye. Was the Statute not a thing here? Or was...
Her eyes flashed back to the still glowing streetlights. Oh. Well, that would explain a lot. It had felt familiar from the barrier on Kings Cross, not because it was a secret passageway, but because it was charmed for Muggles to ignore anything unusual about it.
Had... had they somehow... charmed the whole city? As a way for Magicals and Muggles to openly live together, without the Muggles knowing about it?
How the hell would that work with technology? How would they prevent someone from just taking a picture...
That...
One of the strange conspiracy theories she had read was that there didn't seem to be any pictures of Bielefeld on the Internet. Nor were there any people who were from there, had been there, or knew anyone who had. And of course, any pictures that would show up were supposedly fake. Almost as if the town didn't even exist where the Internet was concerned.
Maybe they somehow... prevented cameras from working entirely? Or even the whole Internet? And the Muggles just didn't care as the city-wide ward prevented them from noticing anything odd?
Did that... did that mean she could do magic here, and the Muggles wouldn't even notice?
Iris knew she really shouldn't. She was tempting fate, doing something unnecessary and reckless again. But she didn't care.
Reaching out her right hand, she called her orb of iridescent light, poised to make a run for it at the slightest hint of anyone even so much as looking at her the wrong way.
Color burst forth, and drenched the brightly lit street in dancing shapes. Iris' eyes darted between all the people on the road, looking for any hint, any trace, a shout, something. Yet everything continued business as usual. In fact, the eyes of the passing Muggles seemed to almost glaze over as their minds were making a concerted effort to look anywhere but at what Iris was doing.
A small, silly grin spread onto Iris' face.
Then, she blinked, cut out her light, and slapped herself.
Stupid. If it hadn't worked, she'd unnecessarily risked the Statute again. She really had to be better than this.
Right, back to work. She had a Greifenstraße to find.
"Wunderschen! Sowos kennt ma jo von Durmstrang garned!"
Iris froze.
Split evenly between an impulse to either pale and blush, they somehow cancelled each other out and she managed to do neither. Iris turned around towards the matronly voice which had come from right behind her.
A heavyset woman who was wearing a blue and white apron, had curled dark blonde hair and a gentle smile on her face, was standing in the entrance of one of the small shops she had passed.
"Uhm... Hi, I well... Sorry," Iris quickly stopped herself, and tried to switch back over to German, but it was too late.
"Gertrude, dear. But they call me Gerti," the woman said in a heavy German accent with a gesture at the wooden sign above the shop which read Gerti's Feinstes.
Iris carefully engaged her Mindlight, trying to build some goodwill.
"Hallo, uhm... was ist das für ein Geschäft?" she asked curiously, the words merging together oddly, but still feeling correct, even if the translation she worked out afterwards didn't.
The woman's smile somehow brightened even more and she switched right back to German, although apparently somehow with an even heavier accent than she had in English.
"Na du bis ma wea..." she replied with a chuckle. "Wos wiads scho sei? A Bäckarei!"
Her mind rebelled against itself, trying to parse the words into what she had already learned. Most of the people she had eavesdropped on had been speaking more or less the same type of German here—even the crazy homeless person—but this was an entirely different dialect. Almost what Scottish was to English, she guessed. It felt... less refined? More... laid back and... friendly? But also unfriendly at the same time? It made no sense whatsoever.
Also, it really didn't sound like a good idea to learn that as well with her Mindlight. If she got lucky, she'd end up with an entirely separate language that she'd understand even less of. And if not, she'd mess up what she learned so far and end up with a hybrid dialect that didn't sound like either, which would prevent her from even trying to fit in with the locals.
So, reluctantly, she switched back to English. "Sorry, uh... my German isn't that good yet..."
The woman called Gerti smiled warmly and stepped back, allowing her to peer inside the shop.
"It's a bakery, dear," she repeated in a heavy accent.
And that, it was. A small cramped wooden store held two tiny tables and chairs in the corner, but the majority was taken up by a large glass counter displaying a dizzying assortment of baked goods of all types.
Krustenbrot, Roggenbrot, Vollkornbrot, Dinkel-Bio-Alraunenwurzenbrot, Sonntagsbrot, Kesselbrot, ...
Who the hell needed this many different types of bread?
One of the baskets was just labeled Bernd. And whatever was inside of it appeared to be moving. And speaking. And unbelievably depressed.
Thoroughly bewildered, Iris was about to make up an excuse in order to leave, but her eyes were entrapped by the other half of the glass counter. And so was her nose.
Pastries. Chocolate, cinnamon, marmalade, it just didn't end. And it smelled so good!
The woman called Gerti noticed the direction of her gaze and her smile widened.
"I wood recommend my speshellty, Drachenkrapfen," Gerti said.
Somehow, her Mindlight came up with several possible translations for that word.
The woman gestured towards a small podium front and center upon where round-ish dark brown... things... pasty-cake-something, with a chocolate glazing, suspiciously shaped... no.
What the hell was actually wrong with wizards?
This looked like... looked like...
But why did it have to smell so goddamn good?
Okay, No! Stop. She had some standards, okay? There was no way she'd be seen eating something that looked like—Nu-uh. Nope. No, no no no, no way, not happening.
Nope.
~V~
God damnit.
Okay, in her defense, it had somehow tasted even better than it had smelled. No matter how disgusting its appearance had—No, you know what? No.
Screw that. If anyone asked, she had turned around, without a word, and left.
And she definitely hadn't bought a second one.
Got that? Good.
Heroically managing to keep her blush to a minimum, Iris made her way down the street—following the short description that the woman had given her towards the Greifenstraße, while she had definitely not been stuffing her face.
Iris still had no idea what the hell was wrong with wizards, but it sure as hell wasn't a lack of baking skills.
In the end, she had to slap herself once again. She had walked straight past this street, but she hadn't been able to read the ancient street sign declaring this to be the Greifenstraße, and she had immediately dismissed it on account of there being cars parked inside it. But it was so obviously magical that she had no idea how she had managed to look at this and decide that, yep, there was nothing to see here.
It was just there, one right turn from the main shopping street she had been walking down, basically in plain sight. Except all the Muggles just seemed to be walking past it.
And inside, the place was bustling with people, and all kinds of things. The street was stretching out into a right turn in front of her, and right in the corner there was a large building labeled with a gigantic metallic rotating cube displaying a large blue letter N on all sides. It also had glass walls. The rest of the street had more regular looking houses and storefronts.
Directly to her left, a store labeled Volksbesen, displaying a large assortment of brooms of all kinds, including the strange metallic ones. Further down, a smaller wooden storefront shoddily labeled Präzisionszauberstabwerkstatt Gregorowitsch; which was mostly covered up, only displaying three plain wands to the outside.
In the middle of the road, there was a large stone statue of something that looked a bit like the Gryffindor house crest, except somehow less majestic and instead more disturbing. A large... whatever the hell it was, standing atop a podium of large stone bricks. She thought it was supposed to be a Griffin, but it looked more like a cross between a Griffin and a Thestral.
To her right, there was a sort of open market, several vendors displaying all sorts of ingredients—probably potions ingredients—openly in crates along the street—okay, really, how had she missed that? And right on the corner—where she wasn't even sure if it was still part of the magical street or not—was a small takeaway in a tiny metallic box labeled Döner Kebap.
She kept staring for a bit, but then Iris noticed something else. Or rather, she noticed something missing. The place the shopkeeper from Knockturn Alley had mentioned. What was it again... right, number thirteen. So, to her left was... number one... next to it, number twenty-seven?
Great.
Iris began to make her way down the road, trying to take in as much as possible. Yeah, as far as she could tell, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the order of the street numbers. Which meant, she'd have to comb through the whole thing manually. She really didn't want to just ask, she had no idea what a Basstronomie was supposed to be, and had no idea if just asking about the place would cause suspicion. But it was listed in the magical Yellow Pages just like the creepy shopkeeper had called it, so she supposed it had to be somewhere around here.
Except she had now made her way up and back down the whole street twice, and found no trace of either a number thirteen, or something even resembling the name in the book. Maybe it didn't exist anymore? Had she come all this way for nothing?
"Danke, Meister! Kommst du wieder!"
Iris turned to look as a middle-aged man stepped back from the takeaway, a sandwich of sorts in hand, and turned right back down into the Greifenstraße. Was this a magical place after all? Or was it just... very conveniently placed? But if it was, maybe this was the least... risky place to ask? With a frown, she stepped closer.
"Hallöchen, schöne Frau! Was darf's sein? Schöner Döner mit Alles?"
A young man with black hair, large bushy eyebrows, and a thick neatly-trimmed black goatee greeted her behind the small metallic counter with a smile.
"Äh... also eigentlich habe ich eine Frage..." Iris began awkwardly, trying to ask directions.
"Bist du neu in Bielefeld, oder? Ich haben Spezialität für dich!" he said, completely ignoring her request.
He turned towards the back and pointed at the large sign that read Schöner Döner. Then he leaned back in and whispered conspiratorially, "Diese Döner macht wirklich schöner!"
A... sandwich... that would make you prettier? What the hell. So... it was a magical takeaway? Or was it just marketing bullshit? She still couldn't see anything pretty about it...
"Uh... ich suche die... Basstronomie?" Iris asked again, trying to get back on track.
Suddenly, the young man broke into a wide grin. "Basstro! Gehst du? Geilste Klub in ganz Bielefeld!"
So he did know about it. "Aber wie komme ich da hin?" she asked for further directions.
"Basstro macht erst um Zehn auf, Eingang ist dann direkt bei die Statue."
Oh. Okay? So it was not really a bar? And it was right here over at the Griffin statue? But she couldn't see anything there... Maybe the entrance would only show up at ten pm once the place opened? Great. Now she had to wait for another four hours.
Suddenly, the man leaned far out of the window and waved her closer conspiratorially. "Brauchst du Ausweis?"
Iris blinked. Did he just offer to sell her a fake ID?
His grin widened. "Kannst mir nicht erzählen du bist Sechzehn."
Iris had to try very hard to prevent her Mindlight from imprinting the awful broken German that the man was using. Also, no, she obviously wasn't sixteen. Did that mean they wouldn't let her in without an ID to prove she was sixteen years old? She did have a fake ID herself, but on that one she had kept her original age of a few days short of thirteen. She hadn't thought it would be an issue, since the train only required her to be twelve years old.
Well, if all else failed, she could attempt her luck with the shadows, she guessed. But there was no way she'd have this random street-food vendor procure an ID for her, he'd probably need a picture, and then do God-knows-what with it. No, if anything, she'd use her remaining four hours to try and fix her own ID, or maybe find another way inside.
~V~
In the end, she had found a public printer in a library, and re-printed her ID for the second time to show herself to be sixteen and a half years old. It wasn't her best work. The PC that she had found had used a different program, and no matter what she had tried, the font just hadn't looked the same as the rest of the ID. Deciding that this was the best it was going to get, Iris finally gathered up her stuff again, went to find some dinner, and returned back to the Greifenstraße right in time at ten on the dot, where she got to witness something... magical.
A bright ray of light pierced the night, originating from the base of the podium upon which the stone Griffin-Thestral sat. Another followed, in a different color. More and more beams of light, shining in all directions, until they suddenly began to move across the night sky. The ground began to shake with a deep vibration, and the Griffin-Thestral came alive, leapt from the podium, sat down on the edge, as the rest of the stone platform slowly began to descend. Deeper and deeper it went, breaking into chunks along the gaps in the stone bricks, as it began forming what looked like a staircase, leading down.
The reverberating sound pulsed yet again, and the lights along with it. Iris could feel the ground shake underneath her feet. Someone bumped into her shoulder from behind her.
"Tschuldigung!" mumbled a boy, as he shoved past her, and began his descent down the staircase. Iris turned back to see where he had come from, and realized that something was different. The Muggles, right outside the street were no longer simply passing it. There now seemed to be smaller groups, mostly younger ones, that broke off and turned deliberately into the Greifenstraße. They just continued past the closed up magical storefronts without a second glance, and headed straight for the staircase.
Was this a club for Muggles as well as Magicals?
She supposed... if the whole city was charmed to have Muggles ignore anything odd...
Yet another heavy beat shook the ground, then another, and another, slowly picking up in speed, until it settled into a regular rhythm.
"Eeyy! Jez wird Party gemacht!"
Iris turned to the side and noticed the street-food vendor from before, grinning and pointing finger-guns at her from the window of his shop.
"Hoff du hast gute Ausweis, die prufen bei Eingang, weist du?" he added in a lower tone.
Iris swallowed. Yeah. Her ID was anything but good. Here was hoping that if they were Magicals checking it, they wouldn't be able to understand her Muggle ID. Maybe she could just entirely pretend to be Muggle, if they did allow Muggles inside anyway? She at least had the clothing to match...
Iris stared at the entrance for a while, the regular deep bass emanating from the ground like a heartbeat underneath her feet, making her feel a strange tingly sort of anticipation. More and more groups of Magicals and Muggles alike made their way down towards the entrance, and even the vendor from the Döner place seemed to be closing up shop.
She wondered for a moment how the residents were even able to sleep with something like this in front of their door, but then again, that's what magic was for, she guessed. It'd probably be a lot more problematic to have this place within a Muggle area.
But slowly, all thoughts of worry, pondering and hesitation took the backseat. Like a moth drawn to a flame, the rhythmic beat in tune with the dancing lights just seemed to lure her in. Instead, they made way for unbridled curiosity, and palpable anticipation. Iris took a step forward, then another, down the large stone stairs, into a tunnel illuminated by colorful lights lining the walls that seemed to come from nowhere at all, and were distinctly... pretty.
As she descended, the muffled beats echoing throughout the walls grew louder, now even shaking her knees slightly. A small queue of people was gathered in front of her, quickly dwindling away. At the end, there was a small room, dilapidated concrete walls on all sides, with a blank metal door at the end. And in front of it stood two men, who looked for all intents and purposes, scary. And very Muggle. Large, burly, black hair, muscular and wearing black suits. The one standing right in front of her was wearing a lazy smirk, and the other one standing right next to him was wearing sunglasses indoors.
Iris swallowed. The man in front of her caught her eye, and raised an eyebrow. Crap. He was already suspicious. Should she try and confound them? Or—
Bad idea. One of them had just drawn a wand and waved it over the proffered ID of the older girl who had been waiting in line before her. He then nodded, waved her through, and suddenly, Iris was standing in front of the two towering men, both glaring down at her, and all three of them obviously knew that there was no way she was supposed to be here. Even if she had grown a lot, she still did look a bit younger than sixteen. She was in so much trouble. What the hell had she been thinking?
Iris didn't move, standing like a deer caught in the headlights, until the one in front of her spoke up in a gruff voice, "Ausweis?"
Fumbling her hands, Iris almost dropped the slip of paper that was so obviously fake that she almost bolted the moment it left her fingers. The large man took the proffered piece of paper, raised it up, and snorted.
Iris was blushing as red as her hair now. She'd just leave. If she managed to get away with just some stern glares, she could maybe try her luck through the shadows instead.
The man raised his wand again, waved it over the piece of paper, and Iris couldn't help but stare. It was... definitely some sort of revealing charm. Destruction and Illusion. And also... it felt like... it was looking for something specific... Something... magical?
The wand flashed for a second, then went out. Without so much as a second glance at her horribly fake ID, he held it back out to her. Iris reached a shaky hand, picked it up from his fingers, and looked down at it. Then back up at the man.
"Alles in Ordnung," he said in a matter-of-factly voice, and jabbed his head towards the metal door.
Wait, what?
He knew! He obviously knew! Yet he was letting her in anyway? Why? And what was the magic detection spell all about then?
Unsure what the hell was going on, or what to do, Iris did the only thing she could and began to awkwardly shuffle towards the door, and finally slipped inside.
The moment the door clicked shut, she was plunged into utter darkness.
Iris stumbled back, trying desperately to reach for the door again, but it was gone. She couldn't see anything, feel anything, and the only sound she heard was the steady rhythmic beats, the vibrations now tingling across her whole body. Louder and louder they grew, until she noticed something else. In the distance, a small, tiny white square, almost infinitely far away. It seemed to pulse along with the beat, but it was so tiny and microscopic, she had no idea how she had even noticed it in the first place. With every pulse it grew bigger and bigger, small rectangular shapes pulsing around it in all the colors of the rainbow, bouncing and jiggling, larger and larger, big as a planet, then even bigger, growing incomprehensibly large, until the music suddenly changed.
One heavy beat that seemed to go on and on, reverberating deeper and deeper, sending the small rectangular shapes wild, growing faster, coming flying at her, until they arrived and began zooming past her in a maelstrom of colors, plunging the darkness into a dizzying dance and torrent of colorful geometry. So close, yet still miles away all around her, it almost felt like an electric shiver running over her skin as they kept blurring past her, a long infinitely stretching tunnel of spinning colorful rectangles, until it came to a stop.
A heavy harmonic and electronic sound pierced her ears—almost deafening—causing all the rectangles to flare up and begin to spin around her, and the ground to softly light up in a faint violet, which was apparently several hundred meters below her WHAT
Another chord; an even fuller spectrum of electronic sounds and harmony, reverberating through her entire body, causing her bones to begin singing as she felt a very distinct tingling sensation move down her spine along with the note. The floor lit up and large rectangular pillars as tall as skyscrapers glowing in a dull blue burst from the ground, plunging up into the sky, completely frying what was left of Iris' brain.
A third note, the final crescendo, as it built up to something. Her entire body was shaking, every single cell vibrating along with the chord. All the pillars moved, crashed higher up into the dark sky, only to descend back down, moving like gigantic audio indicators along to the sound. From the ground below her, countless rays of light, lasers of all colors burst forth, crossing over in the nothingness beneath her feet, and piercing into the infinite void above her. Only now Iris noticed that she was apparently standing on nothing, right in mid-air, somehow. The buzzing electronic note grew louder and louder, more distorted, as the lights began to flicker, and the rectangles grew wilder and wilder as they zoomed past her, blowing her hair in the wind, until with a snap, the music cut, and everything plunged into darkness once more.
A dull, rhythmic beat began sounding from somewhere in front of her, slowly growing less and less muffled. Colorful lights began flashing in the distance in front of her, shapes, rays and motion, all of it pulsing and dancing along to the steady beat. Something was approaching, and fast. The lights were growing bigger, brighter, closer, and something was in the middle, a long and flat shape, just at the level where she was standing, moving with a paralyzing speed, it was going to crash right into her—
With a final snap, all the dullness vanished from the sound, and she could hear the music clearly. Iris blinked.
Things had stopped moving. Because they had arrived. She looked, and looked. And looked. Something bumped into her from behind her. And she barely registered it.
Iris was standing in the middle of a large crowd of people, presumably cheering and shouting, as they moved wildly, jumping and dancing in sync to the deafening beat. The floor was a dizzying shape of rectangular panels, flashing in all sorts of colors. The room around her was still an infinite open expanse, but all the dancing lights, shapes, and lasers seemed to be focused on the comparatively insignificantly small dancefloor that she now found herself upon. She noticed that the rectangular shapes in the floor had a slight curve to them, as the whole room seemed to revolve in a large circle around a central podium. All the lights were converging onto a single point—a floating half-sphere—upon which a silhouette of a man emerged, an almost completely black outline against the blinding lights, who slowly raised what looked like a microphone to his face.
"Guten Abend, Bielefeld!"