By the time Ana had slipped into her nightgown, she was so exhausted that she climbed straight into her four poster. She couldn't help but smile broadly as she closed her eyes – the several hours she spent with Harry and her other friends – mainly Harry, she had to admit – were some of the most enjoyable she's ever spent to date.
She never would have taken Harry as someone with a dancing background; to her amazement he was a dream on the floor. Not once did he step on her feet, nor did he look awkward. And the boy oozed with confidence, a confidence that she always suspected was always there, but shone with unprecedented brightness in the mess hall. She was so proud of how he stood up to Replogle and defended Daphne's honor – any girl would be lucky to have him.
Merlin, he's not even twelve yet. And I'm just a few weeks shy of thirteen, she thought to herself. I should have no business thinking about this right now, but… is it possible that the seeds of something stronger than friendship are being planted? No, that's just silly. He's still a firstie, and he probably still thinks I have cooties. And if I'm being honest with myself, he's the first boy that I could ever truly call a friend.
Then a thought occurred to her. She witnessed Daphne give Harry a kiss on the cheek after he scared Replogle off. Harry didn't wince or wipe it off or throw a look of disgust, she recalled. If anything, he just stood there – he practically looked like he enjoyed it. What if he fancies her? She's a British heiress, and he is a legacy in Magical Britain… she can tell him a lot of things about his heritage that I cannot… I'm just a no-maj born hick – I can't blame Harry if he prefers Daphne over me. She comes from a far richer family, she's prettier than me, and she's a worthy competitor academically…
From out of the blue, a strange, airy voice jarred from her thoughts by an airy whisper.
"Anastasia…"
Ana suddenly snapped from her stupor. What was that? She pulled opened the curtain from her four poster. "Daphne?" she whispered. No response – Daphne was sound asleep in the bed next to hers – just quiet, gentle breathing. She then looked at the bed on the other side of Daphne. "Hermione?" Again, nothing but the sounds of peaceful, soft breathing. She shrugged, and closed the curtain and laid back down in her bed.
Moments after closing her eyes, the same voice called out to her.
"Anastasia…"
She sighed as she peeked out of her four-poster again. "Jilly? Sabrina?" she called out in a soft voice. No response.
She let out an agitated groan as she once again closed the curtain and fell back on her pillow. Just as she felt her eyelids getting heavy, the voice called once more.
"Anastasia, please…"
Ana tore the curtain open, irritation on full display on her face. "What is it?" she hissed. "This isn't fucking funny." Just as Ana was about to draw her wand, a shimmering, silvery image slowly formed in the middle of the room. Ana's jaw dropped in shock when she finally saw the source of the disembodied voice.
"…Morgan Doolittle?"
Morgan's ghost nodded sadly at Ana. "Anastasia, youmust listen to me. I know I was less-than-kind to you when I was alive… and for that, I'm truly sorry. I want to atone for my past sins, so please hear me out… your Defense professor's life depends on it!"
"Professor Lupin?" gasped Ana. She then gave Morgan a dubious look. "How do I know you're not doing something to trick me?"
Morgan hung her head shamefully. "You're skeptical, and I understand. In essence, my fate is tied to the Orb of Exuberance… if Harry Potter does not make good on his deal to destroy it, then I'll be walking the halls of this castle for all eternity. Perhaps it is a punishment that I deserved, considering how rotten I treated you and so many others in life..."
Ana shook her head. "No, Morgan… you don't deserve that sort of punishment. If it helps get any of that weight off your chest, I've already forgiven you."
"Thank you," replied Morgan. "There isn't much time, unfortunately. I'll need to consult your friend Harry Potter in a few minutes; he'll be meeting you in the common room." She paused, and her glowing form began to pulsate in intensity for a few seconds. "Now, there is a rodent that stowed away along with your Gryffindor friends… there's more to him than meets the eye. He's an animagus, and his rightful name is Peter Pettigrew. He's a British wizard in league with the Dark Lord… he appears weak and cowardly, but do not underestimate him – he's opportunistic and cunning, and he covets the very Orb that I've begged Harry Potter to destroy. What's worse is that he's taken Professor Lupin hostage, as he has a fair degree of familiarity with the artifact… you've got to help Harry find the Orb before Peter Pettigrew does… or Ilvermorny will crumble!"
"So Erebus was on to something," Ana gasped with realization. "He noticed something was wrong before any of us did – he wasn't just letting his feline instincts kick in when he chased Scabbers around!"
"Yes," Morgan confirmed. "Now please hurry, Anastasia… there is little time to lose. Meet Harry in the common room, and he will tell you more. As for me, I'll be waiting for you underneath the castle with more information. May Isolt Sayre and Merlin watch over you… good luck." With that, her shimmery form gradually dissolved into nothingness.
Ana quickly threw on a sweatshirt, blue jeans, and trainers, and tied her hair back in a ponytail. She sneaked out of her room and waited by the fireplace for Harry. Her wait wasn't long, as she saw Harry emerge from the boys' side just a few minutes later, followed by Othniel. She let out a long sigh of relief as they sat by her on the couch.
"I'm not gonna lie – given her history, part of me was thinking Morgan was full of shit," admitted Ana. She shuddered. "I can't believe we're going to have go to back to that creepy wand-selection room."
"She visited me before from beyond the grave," Harry admitted. "She may have an ulterior motive, but she's not holding the proverbial carrot stick in front of us." He pulled a silvery garment from behind his back. "We're going to need this too, I think. I remembered that it fit all three of us as long as we stay close, and we tread carefully."
"So, what are you doing here, Othniel?" Ana asked. "I was under the impression that it was just gonna be Harry and myself…"
"That was the original plan, but I told Harry I was coming along whether he liked it or not," Othniel replied with a shrug. "You're the smart one, Ana. And Harry's a natural leader… I need to make sure you two stay safe." He held out his left hand, palm-down. "For Remus Lupin."
Harry put his hand over Othniel's. "For Remus Lupin."
Finally, Ana did the same. "For Remus Lupin." Before she slipped inside Harry's invisibility cloak, a thought popped in her head. "If things get a bit dicey, we're going to need someone to know where we are, so they can send someone in after us. I'll leave Tallulah a note so she can get help if we don't get back by morning."
"All right, Ana, but just make it quick," Harry urged. Ana hastily retreated to her room to write a quick note, folded it, and finally slipped it underneath Tallulah's door.
"Ready," Ana breathed as she returned to the common room. All three got inside the silver garment and quietly began to tiptoe out of the tower. A familiar hollow voice caused the children to freeze in their tracks. "Going somewhere?"
"Old Margie," Harry pleaded, "Professor Lupin's in trouble! We've got to save him… a madman is holding him hostage under the castle!"
"Nice try, young Potter," Old Margie replied. "You naughty children are out of bed… I've fallen for your cheap tricks before, but you're not going to fool me again. I'd return to your beds, if I were you."
"We don't have time for this," Harry growled. "This is urgent! Morgan Doolittle's ghost visited just a few minutes ago – the whole school could be in danger if Peter Pettigrew gets a hold of the Orb of Exuberance!"
The enchanted lift remained unmoved. "The legend of the Orb is exactly that – a legend. I'm going to need a better reason than that…"
"Oh, step aside, amateurs," Ana snarled as she stepped in front of the boys. She waved her wand in a loopy motion. "Forgive me, Old Margie… surgito!" The boys stared at each other, before looking at Ana, horrified.
"What'd you do, Ana?" Othniel asked.
"I temporarily disabled the enchantment that guards the lift," Ana replied matter-of-factly. "I hated to do it, but seeing as there's no other way… now, there's a manual crank we can use near the back of the lift. It looks like we'll have to use a fair bit of elbow grease, and it may take us a few minutes to get us all the way down…"
Harry quickly made his way to the crank. "C'mon, help me spin this winch, guys," he implored. Ana and Othniel soon joined him, and the three children slowly descended the shaft.
As the three emerged from the bottom of the tower, Othniel tugged on Harry's sleeve. "You do remember the way to the Wand Selection Chamber, right? And how to get in? It's been months…"
"Yeah," Harry confirmed. "It's something I've committed to memory a good while back." He then flicked his wand. "Lumos."
The trio steadily continued their trek through the castle, descending the grand marble staircase which led to the basement, and finally down the dark drafty passageway which led to the Wand Selection Chamber. He pointed his wand at the wall, trying to locate the off-colored brick that he activated several months earlier. Got it, he thought to himself in satisfaction once he located it. He placed his hand on the brick, and for a few seconds, the low, rumbling sound of grinding stones filled the end of the corridor.
Once the four-button panel appeared, Harry immediately punched in the appropriate sequence without even having to pause to think: blue, green, yellow, red. Again, there was a low, rumbling sound as brick and stones changed shape, size, and position to reveal the archway which led to the chamber.
"Oh-kay," Harry gulped as he took a tentative step inside the dark, eerie room. "This is as far as I'd gotten since detention last fall… I know one of the shelves against the wall has a loose brick behind it – I'm just not exactly sure which brick, or even which shelf…"
"Please find it quickly, Harry," Ana begged. "This room legitimately scares me."
"All right," Harry agreed. "I know it's on the far side of the chamber… it might not take all that long to find the correct shelf, but I don't know which brick causes the shelf to rotate as I never actually saw it." He led them to the opposite side of the chamber, and stepped outside of the cloak so he could start climbing shelves and begin feeling around for some sort of button or lever that would activate a rotating bookcase. "You two – stay as close to the bookcase as you can," Harry advised. "I don't know if these shelves can support the weight of three kids, so it's probably better if I just climb these shelves myself and start searching for the mechanism as I know it was on the top." He began ascending the first shelf and holding his wand with his mouth, he began to feel the wall up and down with both hands.
Nothing.
"Gah," he spat. "On to the next one." He quickly clambered down the bookshelf and led his friends to the next bookshelf along the wall, and again climbed to the top of the shelf – doing his best to avoid knocking anything off – and again, using his wand as a makeshift torch, he began feeling the cool, stony surface in an effort to locate the locate the rotating mechanism. Again, he came up with nothing.
"Should we each try and climb the shelves?" suggested Othniel. "Y'know, to speed the process up?"
"No," Harry replied firmly. "Not just anyone can get the shelf to rotate… only those gifted with the knowledge of Parseltongue can do it."
"What in the world is Parseltongue?" Othniel wondered aloud.
"It's an arcane language that magical snakes, and possibly even certain dragon species, have used for millennia," Ana replied. "When the Dark Lord left his mark on Harry over ten years ago, he unintentionally instilled the language in Harry."
Harry continued on to the next shelf. He again carefully made his ascent to the top. He continued to push brick after brick. As he approached the end of the shelf, the palm of his right hand felt a brick give just a little bit more than all the previous ones. He pushed harder – ssshhhuuurk. "Hang on," he yelped. "We're going for a ride."
Ana and Othniel stayed on the floor, but huddled next to the bookshelf. They felt the butterflies in their stomachs as the floor around them slowly began to rotate a hundred eighty degrees clockwise. To Ana and Othniel's horror, the next chamber was even more dreadful than the first… it was cold and pitch black.
Ana illuminated her wand with a quick lumos, and she and Othniel helped guide Harry down from the top of the shelf. As she turned back to the passageway before her, she let out a shrill scream.
Othniel jumped. "Ana! What is it?"
Ana felt the eerie sensation of her skin crawling. "There's a big s-s-s-spider on your back, Harry…"
Harry reached around with his wand, and flung a spider the size of a playing card off the bottom of his shoulder blades. "Eeugh," he spat. "Now, I know you don't like spiders, Ana, but this passageway is full of them. You'll just have to grit your teeth and push onward… we have a professor to rescue, after all."