Chapter 4
The Ravenclaw Passageways
“Mail’s here! Mail’s here!” shouted Bailey from across the table as she jumped up onto her seat.
Albus looked up from his breakfast plate to see the dozens upon dozens of owls flock into the Great Hall and the packages they were carrying fall to the tables. All around the Gryffindor table, students held out their open hands as the swarm of owls dropped letters and parcels to their owners. To his left, he watched as Leo opened up a package of some type of Muggle candy. Damien was fingering a lumpy package wrapped in brown paper, and Maeve had a bundle of about eight letters, tied together with twine.
“So Muggles really have just one man whose job it is to deliver all the mail every day?” Albus turned to his right and asked Gavin as more packages fell to the Gryffindor table.
“Sure,” Gavin told him as he stirred honey into his porridge. “He’s called a postman. He goes to every house in town, collects the mail, and then he brings everyone their mail.”
“Blimey!”
Ever since Albus had his talk with Maddox, things seemed to be going a little bit better. He had even made friends with a few of the other Gryffindors. Not with Simon Henry, of course, but he talked to Leo and helped him with his Charms homework a few nights ago, and the night after that, Damien helped him with his Transfiguration essay. Now he had started having breakfast with Gavin. The girls had even seemed to start speaking in English, and invited him to play Gobstones just last night.
Blythe, Albus’ barn owl, swooped down over his head, dropping an envelope onto his plate before perching on the edge of the table. Albus smiled and gave her a small bit of sausage before tearing the envelope open.
Dear Albus,
Congratulations on making Gryffindor! The whole family is so proud of you. Between you and me, your father was more excited than anyone else. Your father’s work has been pretty quiet lately and he has actually been home in time for dinner this entire week. I have been working on my Quidditch reports, as usual, and following the records of the Falmouth Falcons for James and Puddlemere United for you. Puddlemere has a game during your Easter break, and it wouldn’t take very much for me to get press box tickets for the whole family!
Albus felt an ever-growing smile on his face. His mum knew that Puddlemere United was his absolute favorite Quidditch team. He even had an autographed team poster in his room back home because his mum and dad knew the coach, Oliver Wood.
Lily is adjusting to being the only child in the house. However, despite the fact that she helps herself to extra dessert and has moved all her dolls into your room, she tells me every day that she misses you, and she still wants to go to Hogwarts RIGHT NOW!
So far, you father and I haven’t gotten a letter from the school or from Dominique, so we can assume you haven’t gotten into trouble yet. That already gives you a better school record than your brother, and possibly even your father and I!
I hope all of you classes are going well. Did you make sure to give our love to Neville? Don’t let what your brother says influence you too much. We don’t expect you to go up and hug him right in the middle of Herbology class in front of all your new friends. Just let him know that your father and I have him in our thoughts. I hear you also have Eleanor Branstone and Padma Patil for professors. You know, your father and I went to school with those two as well. In fact, if you and Rose want to see something funny at Christmas, all you have to do is ask Uncle Ron about Professor Patil and the Yule Ball. He’ll know what it means, and his face will turn that funny shade of red.
Love always,
Mum
P.S. I’ll see what I can do about getting Lily to move her dolls out of your room before Christmas.
Albus sighed. He was happy to hear from his family, but it only made him think about Rose. They had been attending Hogwarts for almost two months, and Rose had yet to make a single friend. Albus himself had formed a few casual friendships with his fellow Gryffindors, but Rose hadn’t even accomplished that yet. Even the other members of the family had begun to notice something was wrong.
“You know, Albus, I’m good friends with Justine Grant, one of the Ravenclaw prefects,” Victoire told him one evening in the Common Room. “If you want, I can ask her to keep an eye on Rose, see what we can do to help.”
However, Albus was not sure he trusted the other Ravenclaw girls to help his cousin. He remembered the horrid first-year girls who Rose had to share her room with every night. How much would they be willing to help? Yes, there didn’t seem to be anything that anyone in the family could do when everyone Rose cared about residing in Gryffindor.
Suddenly, Albus felt a gust of wind brush on his hair. He looked up to see Giuseppe, the boreal owl that belonged to his Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione. Albus groaned and shook his head. Last summer, when Giuseppe delivered a letter to their family about when to meet at King’s Cross, he and James had gotten the idea that it would be funny to feed it a Bertie Bott’s Bean while their mother was in the other room. Unfortunately, it had turned out to be locust flavored, and ever since, Giuseppe had come to see them every day in the hopes of getting more treats.
Albus hadn’t seen the owl since he came to school, but it seems that the greedy little bird had finally tracked him down. He probably saw Albus the last time he was delivering a letter to Rose.
Speaking of which, he noticed a white envelope in Giuseppe’s claws that had to be for his cousin. It did not look like the type of parchment that a wizard would use, so it had to be from her Muggle grandparents, the Grangers. Albus tried to take it from him, but the owl refused to let go and even took a snap at his reaching hand. Finally, Albus got an idea to give him a small piece of his fried egg. While the bird choked down the food, Albus snatched the letter and ran for the Ravenclaw table.
“Rose,” Albus called out, “Rose, Giuseppe brought me your mail.”
Rose continued to stare straight ahead. A strand of her red hair fell in her face, but she didn’t even bother to push away.
Sitting on the same bench as Rose were some of the other Ravenclaw first-years, mostly boys and one Chinese girl with her nose buried in a copy of A Thousand and One Herbs and Fungi. Sitting across from her was that same gang of four Ravenclaw girls, giggling and gossiping, and now pointing at Albus, as well as everyone else within their range of sight.
“Did you hear me, Rose?” Albus tried again. “I have your mail.”
Still Rose acted as though Albus wasn’t there. She just continued to stare down at her plate, her chin in her hands, as though she were waiting for the bacon to put on a show.
“Well, don’t say ‘you’re welcome’ or anything,” Albus said sarcastically, shaking the envelope in front of his cousin’s face.
“It’s from your Grandma and Grandpa Granger,” he told her, hoping that would perk Rose’s interest. “You know, for Muggles, they’ve gotten pretty good at all the wizarding ways of doing things.”
Rose moved her hand to take a very minuscule bite of bacon, but still acted as though Albus was not there. Not as if she was ignoring him to be mean, but more like she was in her own little world right now. Or maybe she just wanted him to think she was in her own little world.
“Are you going to read it?” Albus asked, his arm becoming tired from holding the letter up for so long. “Do you want me to read it to you?”
Rose did not answer, but Albus’ own curiosity allowed him to assume that meant ‘yes’.
He tore the envelope open, squeezed into the seat next to Rose, and began reading aloud, quietly enough to be sure that the Ravenclaw Gang could not hear anything he said.
“They say they’re really proud of you for getting sorted into Ravenclaw,” he told her, hoping that hearing that someone was proud of her Sorting might lift her spirits. “Listen to what your grandpa says. ‘Sorted into the house that is distinguished by intellect; you’re definitely a Granger’.”
However, it only seemed to make things worse. At the words, Rose pushed herself away from the table and stomped out of the Great Hall, her gasping breath telling him that she was trying as hard as she could to keep from crying. Albus was left standing there, still holding the letter from her grandparents, the Ravenclaw Gang laughing quite loudly at his turned back.
Albus closed up his collapsible telescope and slid it into his book bag as Astronomy class concluded. Unlike all the day classes where all the houses would be separated, all the school’s first-years took the class together. Astronomy could only be taught at midnight, so there was not enough time to separate the students by house. The N.E.W.T. students had their classes on the weekend, but Albus still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
However, unless a student had night vision or actually paid attention, they might not have even noticed everyone was together. No one in the class even talked to each other. Everyone had their own telescope, had to chart their own star charts, and anyone caught talking when they were supposed to be working got an automatic five points taken away from their Huse by Professor Sinistra.
However, even though the students were all kept in a circle, houses separated as they studied the night sky, as soon as Professor Sinistra called “Class dismissed’, the students quickly found their own kind and walked down the staircase in those groups. The Ravenclaw students, as much as they all claimed to love learning, were always the first ones to leave. It didn’t seem to bother Albus as much as it had before, though, now that he had friends among his own house to walk with. Tonight, he found himself in the middle of a small gang of Gryffindors including Damien, Bailey, and Gavin.
“Do you want to come with us, Albus?” Gavin asked him as the group made their way down the staircase. “Elle thinks she found the Room of Requirement that the resistance used during the war. She says there are even messages and people’s names carved into the stone. Do you want to come with us to see? It’s not like we wouldn’t be able to outrun Filtch if he sees us.”
“No, thank you,” Albus told them. “I’m exhausted. I’m just going straight to bed.”
Bailey shrugged. “Have it your way. I normally just get my sleep in History of Magic.”
At Bailey’s statement, the group of Gryffindors burst into laughter. However, even though Albus laughed right along with them, he still couldn’t help feeling somewhat of an outsider. It was easy to tell that Bailey, Damien, and Gavin were as thick as thieves, despite the fact they had been complete strangers not two months ago. They sat together during classes, they were together outside of class, and had even served one detention together. Some of the older teachers remarked that Gryffindor had gained in a new ‘Golden Trio’ had remarked it. Most of the staff took it as a joke, but no one could deny that the three of them definitely had a much closer eye kept on them than everyone else.
It was almost like seeing a snapshot of his dad and his friends when they were at Hogwarts; a snapshot the Albus seemed stand far off to the side in.
“We’ll see you in the morning, Albus,” Gavin called back as he followed after Damien and Bailey, who had already gotten a running start down the corridor.
Even though the thought of his warm bed overpowered his desire to explore, he still wondered about the Room of Requirement. What kind of messages would the resistance have carved into the walls? It wouldn’t have been battle plans, or something that could be used against them by Lord Voldemort’s forces. Maybe it was things like sayings or passages written for the dead. How many people would he know who had carved their names into the wall? Neville probably did, along with his wife, Hannah. His mum’s might be there. He knew that his dad, Uncle Ron, and Aunt Hermione probably wouldn’t have carved anything on the walls; they never-
“POTTER!” he heard someone shouting behind him, “ALBUS POTTER!”
Albus turned around and instantly felt his blood begin to boil. Running up behind him was none other than Scorpius Malfoy. What was he doing following him? The Slytherin dormitories were the other way.
At first, Albus held out the hope that the Malfoy boy had been calling out for someone else; that maybe, against all odds, there was another Albus Potter in this school that the Malfoy boy was really calling out to. That delusion ended rather quickly as he stopped Albus from leaving, grabbing onto his shoulder.
“Hello, Malfoy,” Albus tried to say in a cold voice. “What are you doing out this late? Aren’t the Slytherin dormitories the other way?”
“Looking for you!” Scorpius answered angrily. “And will you stop with that ‘Malfoy’ nonsense? I came out here to apologize.”
Albus stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around to see if this was some kind of trick. For all he knew, this was just some ruse so he could finish insulting the rest of Albus’ family. James had used this trick on Albus too many times before in his life for Scorpius to be able to pull it over on him.
Scorpius was hunched over, gasping for breath, but his face held an expression of pure sincerity.
“Are you at least going to hear me out?” Scorpius asked when Albus had still hadn’t answered him.
Albus thought for a moment. James had gotten a lifetime of laughs out of this stunt when he used it, but the boy in front of him was clearly not James. Besides, other than one infraction, which even now he was apologizing for, Albus had no reason to think he was being tricked.
“Alright,” Albus finally answered, setting his book bag down and leaning against one of the stone columns.
Scorpius inhaled deeply, as though preparing for a very long-winded speech. Finally, the words poured out, almost faster than Albus could keep up with them.
“I’m sorry I called your aunt what I did, but I honestly didn’t know it was a bad word,” Scorpius explained, still breathing somewhat hard. “Both my dad and my mum use that word at home all the time. I just assumed it meant someone who has Muggle parents.”
Scorpius was panting and straining, as though his brain was running at the speed of light and his mouth was trying to catch up.
“But when I got back to the common room after class, a fifth-year told me what it really meant,” he said, becoming quiet, “I had no idea what an awful word it was, I swear!”
After that last statement, Scorpius stopped to study Albus’ expression, as though he was trying to figure whether Albus was truly listening to his apology, or simply humoring him so that he would let Albus go off to bed.
The spell of quiet didn’t last very long, however, before the words began pouring out all over again. Albus was listening to Scorpius’ words, although paying more attention to the emotion behind them. One thing he had learned from years of fake apologies from his older brother was that the words hardly matter; as long as you heard the true plea for forgiveness in the tone of voice and expression of face, you could tell a person was truly sorry. From everything Albus could see and hear, the one coming from Scorpius was genuine.
“So,” Scorpius asked, breathing deeply from the effort of the long-winded speech, “do you accept my apology? Do you forgive me for what I said?”
Albus didn’t have the chance to answer, however because the conversation was interrupted by the sound of a heavy book bag falling to the floor. Albus spun around without even thinking, not sure what he would say if he saw a teacher. However, as quickly as the panic had filled him, it left when he saw that the noise wasn’t made by anyone who could get him in trouble. It was a mousy-haired girl, probably not any older than Albus, walking across the connected hallway.
“I know that girl,” Scorpius remarked, gesturing towards her. “That’s Maris Bletchley. She’s a Slytherin.”
When he heard that, Albus was certain they were done for. He had heard all kinds of stories from his older cousins about how Slytherins would snitch on and even tell lies about Gryffindors solely for sake of getting house points taken away. Scorpius would no doubt be left out of this girl’s report, but Albus began to panic at the though of the reaction he would get from his housemates when they learned it was him who had lost them so many points.
“Maris,” Scorpius shouted out, clearly not worried about teachers, “Hey, Maris! What are you doing out this late?”
But Maris Bletchley didn’t so much as glance at the two boys. Her gaze remained straight ahead, her steps slow and shaky. She didn’t even go back for the books that had scattered across the stone floor, so she certainly wasn’t going to listen to what Scorpius said to her.
“That’s weird,” Scorpius said with a raised eyebrow. “Bletchley is so inbred; she can’t even trick the house-elves. I didn’t think it was actually in her to have the mental capacity to ignore someone.”
“Well, what’s she doing?” Albus wondered aloud as he snuck around the corner, Scorpius not far behind.
Maris Bletchley’s steps were so loud against the stone floor, and far too distinct sounding to keep anyone from knowing she was a student out of bed. It would be only at matter of time before she herself was discovered by a teacher. She strode mindlessly down the corridor without even bothering to turn her head to make sure no one was following her.
“MARIS!” Albus shouted down the corridor, hoping to make her realize how much trouble she was in. “MARIS, COME BACK HERE BEFORE ONE OF THE TEACHERS SEE YOU!”
Still, Maris continued forward, not even turning her head to see who had shouted at her.
“It’s like she’s in some sort of trance,” Scorpius observed. “I don’t think she even heard you.”
This time, Albus tried to see where it was that Maris was walking to, in the hopes he could see the source of Maris’ trance. When he peeked around the last corner, he shifted his line of vision to match that of Maris’. As he leaned his head to the right, he was finally able to see the object of Maris Bletchley’s interest. It seemed to be another student. A first-year, although he seemed too small to be even that old, for he was practically swimming in the black robes he wore. He beckoned Maris closer still, with a bony finger and a surprisingly pleasing cackle.
“It’s that ugly first-year peeking behind the trophy case,” Albus pointed out.
“Where?” Scorpius leaned forward over Albus. “I don’t see.”
“Down there,” Albus pointed Scorpius’ gaze lower, “He kind of small, so he’s hard to see in the shadows.”
But when Scorpius saw where Albus was pointing, his face lost all its colors and his breathing became heavy.
“What’s wrong?” Albus asked, even though he was almost too afraid to hear the answer.
“That’s not a human, Albus!” Scorpius shouted in a hushed tone, his eyes quickly filling with fear. “That’s an Erkling! They EAT kids!”
Now, Albus had never heard anyone talk about what an Erkling was before, but by the sudden loss of color in Scorpius’ face, he knew it could not be anything that children were meant to be alone with. When he looked back towards the cloaked figure, he saw that it was, indeed, not human. It had a thin face with kiwi-green skin, and a long, pointy nose, with a chin to match. Now that Maris was finally getting close enough, Albus could also see the hungry gleam and pointy-toothed grin on the creatures face. Albus didn’t need Rose lecturing behind him now. He could tell on his own that things were very, very bad right now.
“What do we do?” Albus spun around, and grabbed Scorpius by the shoulders. “We can’t just let Maris get eaten by some midget-troll!”
“Class didn’t let out that long ago,” Scorpius told him, already beginning to walk back towards the Astronomy tower. “Professor Sinistra is probably still in her office. If we run, she’ll probably be able to stop it!”
He knew there wasn’t enough time to go running after Professor Sinistra. Not if they wanted to save Maris too. So, instead of following Scorpius, Albus ran straight ahead, even though he didn’t have any idea what he was going to do when he got to the end of the hall.
“Albus,” Scorpius exclaimed, causing Albus to stop shortly in his tracks. “What are you doing? The teachers’ offices are this way!”
“C’mon!” Albus gestured back towards Maris and the Erkling.
But Scorpius didn’t understand what Albus was trying to say.
“C’mon what?” he asked.
“C’mon, we’ve got to help her!” Albus explained with exasperation.
“Are you crazy?” Scorpius shouted, his eyes going wide. “That thing will just eat her, and then eat us!”
Despite Scorpius’ reasoning, Albus couldn’t wait around and argue while one of their classmates became someone’s dinner, so he simply took off. Eventually, the footsteps he heard behind him told him that Scorpius had finally given in and decided to help him.
“Potter!” Scorpius shouted, following after him, “Albus, are you crazy?”
He couldn’t be that crazy, Albus thought to himself; not if Scorpius was following him.
By the time they reached the end of the hall, Maris was already close enough for the Erkling to grab. Her eyes had a glassy quality to them, and her expression was blank. She was completely unaware of the monster licking its lips in front of her; unaware she was walking into her own grave.
With only mere seconds to react, Albus reached into his book bag, and pulled out the first thing his hand found.
“Hey, you!” Albus shouted as he threw a glass bottle of ink at the back of the creature’s head.
It shattered to pieces with an echoing sound that rang through the corridor. Luckily, the sound of breaking glass and splattering ink seemed to be the exact sound that brought people out of trances, because Maris’ eyes lost the glassy look they held before, and she began shaking her head violently. Albus could tell the instant that Maris came back to full consciousness because her face took on an expression of utter fear and dread at the creature in front of her.
However, by then, it didn’t matter what she did, because the Erkling had completely lost interest in her. Now it had its eyes set on the two first-years that actually had the nerve to come to it willingly. Licking its lips, the creature spun around and began a clunky, but quick pace towards Albus and Scorpius.
“Albus,” Scorpius gasped as the creature came closer and closer, “this is your plan?”
It was true. Albus plan had been to get the creature away from Maris Bletchley by any means possible, but he hadn’t exactly known what he would do once he did.
“What do we do?” he asked Scorpius, weakly.
“We run, oh genius of the Gryffindors!” Scorpius told him, dragging him backwards by the hood of his robes
“MARIS, RUN!” Albus shouted, as he stumbled along backwards, hoping he could at least make sure the girl was okay.
It took barely a moment for Maris to scramble to her feet and sprint towards the dungeon staircase, disappearing from sight. Albus felt some amount of relief knowing the girl was safe, a fleeting feeling that disappeared as soon as he realized how quickly the Erkling was gaining on both him and Scorpius.
At some point, Scorpius lost his grip on Albus’ hood, causing Albus to tumble to the ground. Scorpius didn’t wait for him, but with the kind of creature that was following behind them, Albus wasn’t so sure he blamed him.
“WHAT DO WE DO?” Albus shouted as he pulled himself to his feet and raced to catch up with the boy in front of him. “The dungeons are the other way, and I don’t think I can run all the way to Gryffindor Tower! Besides, what if that thing goes after another student before we can get help?”
“Ravenclaw!” Scorpius pointed towards an eagle-shaped knocker not five feet in front of them. “We don’t have to find a teacher. I’ll bet a sixth or seventh-year could handle that thing just as well as any of the teachers could.”
While Albus highly doubted that, it was a Ravenclaw N.E.W.T. student or just continue to let this monster rampage through the school.
“How will we get in? We don’t know the Ravenclaw password!” Albus suddenly realized as Scorpius reached for the eagle knocker.
“This dormitory doesn’t have a password,” Scorpius explained. “It will let anyone in as long as they can solve the riddle it gives them!”
“You make it sound so simple,”
“All we have to do is answer a riddle, Albus,” Scorpius told him as he gasped for breath. “How hard can it be?”
Scorpius gave three sharp knocks against the brass, causing the eagle to come to life and ask the fatal question.
“You are walking through a path in the woods, and you come to a fork in the road. One road will lead you to Hogsmeade Village, and the other will just lead you further into the woods. Two men stand at each road, one tells only truths, and one tells only lies. You are allowed to ask one question. What will you ask to find the path that leads to town?”
Albus blinked in confusion and Scorpius’ previous look of confidence vanished from his face. This was a riddle that they expected children to solve? He knew that Ravenclaws were supposed to be intelligent and creative, but the riddle was so obscure, he barely understood the question, let alone the answer.
“We could ask it which one’s the liar.” Albus asked, breaking himself out of his spell of awestruck confusion.
“No, they’ll just both say they’re not the liar,” Scorpius told him. “What if we asked them to show us the path to the woods?”
“No, they’ll just each point to a different path,” Albus shook his head, feeling his heartbeat quicken as he began to hear the faint sound of footsteps stomping across the stone floor. “What about ‘Which path doesn’t lead to the village’?”
“That’s just the same problem as before!” Scorpius exclaimed as the clunking footsteps drew closer and closer.
"If I were to ask you which path leads to town, what would you reply?" came a voice from behind them.
“Very insightful,” the knocker answered as the door opened slowly.
Albus and Scorpius turned around to see a pajama-clad girl with bed-ragged red hair, an exasperated look on her face and polar bear slippers on her feet.
“Why are you two still wandering around the halls?” she asked in an almost-bossy tone.
“ROSE!” Albus shouted, finding himself face to face with his cousin.
“What are you two doing out of bed this late at night?” Rose asked them in a voice of calm annoyance, even as Albus and Scorpius heard the Erkling’s clunky steps draw closer and closer. “You do know if one of the teachers catches you out of bed, you get twenty points each taken away from your house.”
Oblivious to their fear, Rose continued to lecture. Scorpius and Albus watched the Erkling appear from around the corner, glance around while sniffing through the air, and set its sights on the now three first-years, just waiting to be eaten. Albus could swear he saw a trail of drool trailing the monster from behind.
“Rose!” Scorpius pointed behind her as the Erkling drew closer.
“Don’t you try to shift the blame onto me, Malfoy,” Rose crossed her arms across her chest, “That’s not going to satisfy anyone who catches you unless you can come up with a good reason for why you haven’t gone to bed yet.”
Albus, not trusting himself to come up with the right words to say in so short an amount of time, simply grabbed Rose by the hair and the chin and turned her so she could see for herself why they were still out of bed. At first, Rose looked as though she might scream, but as soon as she saw what the boys saw, her voice went quiet and her face became as white as it had been the day she wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor.
“Alright,” Rose gulped as her eyes grew large, “that’s a very good reason.”
This time, instead of the familiar cackle they had been hearing so far, the Erkling let loose an echoing roar, and its face took on a look of anger. This time, Albus didn’t need a N.E.W.T. student to tell them that they had just made things that much worse.
“Both of you, run!” Scorpius shouted as he sprinted into the Ravenclaw common room; Albus was at his heels, holding Rose by the wrist.
“How did that thing get into the castle?” Rose exclaimed once they finally reached the Common Room floor. “You two didn’t let that thing follow you back from the Forbidden Forest, did you?”
“Yea, that’s it, Rose,” Scorpius gasped, but still able to sound sarcastic. “Albus and I found a forest monster that lives off the flesh of children, but instead of running away like scared chickens, we thought it would be more fun to bring them back to the castle to see how many of our friends it could eat before anyone noticed!”
But before Rose could come up with a response, another roar echoed from the bottom of the staircase, followed by the growingly familiar clunking footsteps.
“You didn’t even shut the door behind you?” Rose screamed at the boys.
“Lecture later,” Albus told his cousin, eyes racing over the common room. “Right now, we need a place to hide!”
Rose’s eyes began to race around the common room, looking for somewhere, anywhere, that would be out of range of the Erkling. Finally, her eyes rested on a dark blue tapestry of the constellation, Pegasus. With one swipe of her arm, the tapestry was pushed aside to reveal a heavy wooden door hidden behind it.
“Up through here!” Rose screamed as she ran off ahead of them.
As the three of them raced up the stairs, a sudden thought seeped its way into Albus’ mind at the seventh step, causing him to stop dead in his tracks.
“Rose, boys can’t go up into the girls’ dormitories,” Albus reminded her. “Scorpius and I will fall right back down into the Erkling’s mouth!”
“We’re not going to the dormitories,” Rose turned her head to tell Albus. “This is Ravenclaw’s secret entrance to the Astronomy tower. If we can get the Erkling to follow us, I might have an idea!”
“You have your own secret entrances to the classrooms?” Scorpius asked, curiosity shortly overriding his fear.
“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” Rose reminded them, trying to sound singsong even as she gasped for breath. “Faster, boys!”
Albus felt his heart beat faster and faster until it felt like it was going to burst out of his chest. Finally, at the very end of the staircase, Rose pushed up against the ceiling, allowing the moonlight to flood in. With one very high jump, she grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up. When she scrambled up to the floor above them, she held out her hands to Scorpius and Albus to help pull them up.
No wonder the Ravenclaw students always disappeared so fast.
“Okay, is it following us?” Rose asked from the ledge.
Rose’s question was answered for her by yet another deafening roar. A sound that was much too close for any of them to feel safe.
“Yes, it’s following us!” Scorpius informed her, crouching over the trap door in the hopes he could hold the monster off for a few precious moments.
“Good!” Rose breathed as she looked down onto the courtyard, calculating her next move.
“Alright, Rose,” Albus asked, joining his cousin at the side of the ledge. “What’s your brilliant plan?”
Rose squinted in the darkness as though she knew exactly what she was looking for, but she didn’t bother to tell Albus what that thing might be.
“There!” She pointed to the castle wall off to the left. “See the brooms left there for the first-year flying lessons?”
“What about them?”
“Well, I’m going to need one of them for this to work.”
“But if you needed a broom, why did you lead us all the way up here?” Albus shouted, keeping his eyes on the trapdoor that Scorpius was trying to block. “Don’t you have a secret passageway to the ground?”
“We’re going to charm it up here,” Rose explained, pulling her wand from the inside of her pajama sleeve. “Accio broom!”
But nothing happened. Every single one of the brooms remained happily on the ground, a good three hundred feet below them. Rose’s wand didn’t even so much as send out a spark.
“It’s not working!” Albus informed his cousin bluntly.
“Well, this is an upper level charm!” Rose defended her skills as a witch, “and this is the first time I’ve tried it.”
“It’s what?” Albus exclaimed at Rose, the ‘brilliant’ Ravenclaw.
Suddenly, both of them were distracted by a shout from Scorpius and the distinct sound of the trapdoor jolting as the Erkling tried to push it up from under Scorpius’ weight.
“IT’S COMING!” Scorpius shouted as the trapdoor shook under him.
“Accio broom!” Rose tried again, but to no avail.
Unlike them, the Erkling had decided to change strategies. Instead of only one massive jolt, it began to shake the door continuously in the hopes that Scorpius would lose his grip and get tossed to the side.
“Rose, we need a new plan!” Albus shouted, as he watched Scorpius, eyes squinted and teeth clenched, hanging onto the trapdoor for dear life as his thin frame shook violently.
“I CAN DO THIS, ALBUS!” Rose screamed, half out of fear, half out of desperation. “ACCIO BROOM!”
This time, the broom shot up to the Astronomy tower faster than it probably could have flown, right into Rose’s waiting hand.
“I got it!” she shouted in momentary celebration.
“Wonderful,” Scorpius gave a mock cheer as the door continued to shake beneath him. “Now what?”
“Okay, Albus,” Rose turned towards her cousin, letting him in on the finer details of her plan. “Erklings live off of eating children, but luckily for us, they’re not terribly bright.”
She ended by holding the broom up to Albus and thrusting it in his direction. “All you have to do is fly this broom just a meter or so beyond the ledge, and it will probably follow you right off!”
“But, Rose,” Albus argued, pointing out the one flaw in his cousin’s plan. “I don’t know how to fly!”
The tower fell dead silent, save the struggles of the Erkling grunting and struggling under Scorpius’ feet.
“Excuse me?” Rose glared with an expression that showed she was trying not to scream. “Your father was possibly the greatest Seeker this school ever saw, your mother played professional Quidditch, your own brother’s a Seeker now, and you can’t even ride a broom!”
“What about you?” argued Albus. “You come from the famous Weasley Legacy of Quidditch!”
“I also come from the famous Granger Legacy of ‘Rose, get off that broom before you break your neck’!”
“Oh, for the love of Merlin!” Scorpius groaned as he jumped off the door and reached Rose in four leaps.
However, the door only remained closed for a mere moment after that before the Erkling burst through, tearing the trapdoor off its hinges and across the stone rooftop. Certain that he felt his heart stop, Albus sunk down along the ledge, dragging his cousin down with him. While the Erkling lifted its nose to sniff through the air, Albus covered his face with his hands and waited for his life to flash before his eyes.
“Hey, dung-breath! Over here!”
Albus peeked through his fingers just enough to see that Scorpius had mounted the ancient school broom, and was standing as close to the ledge as was physically possible. To his right, Rose curled against the ledge, hiding her face behind her knees and shaking, as though she was afraid to see even the smallest hint that her plan might not work.
Scorpius kicked himself away from ledge, wobbling just slightly, but certainly not falling to his death. Now Scorpius seemed to have completely attention of the Erkling, lulling it away from the fact that there were already two children not three feet in front of him, proving Rose’s words about Erklings not being the brightest creatures that walked the earth.
Scorpius looked down, becoming slightly paler than was even before, and then shook his head, as if shaking the memory of the height from his brain. Finally, he surveyed the distance he had floated from the tower, making sure he was still close enough for the creature see him before he moved onto the next phase of the plan.
“That’s it, ugly. Come get your dinner,” he called out to the monster, beckoning it forward with his one free hand. “Yummy, yummy first-year floating all alone with no adults to smash you over the head with a cauldron.”
The Erkling had now completely forgotten about Rose and Albus now that there was another child right in front of him, literally begging to eaten. It ran its tongue over its scaly lips and came closer.
“Mmm,” Scorpius hummed, running his nose over his arm. “Pureblood: the other, other white meat.”
Just as Rose predicted, the Erkling ran towards Scorpius and leapt at him, falling to his death when Scorpius was but a few precious inches out of its grasp. Then, with a sound similar to that of an extremely heavy water balloon, Albus felt his heart start to beat again, and Rose’s fingernails pull out of his skin.
The Arcane ScoRA and the Wand of MacArt by OliveOil_Med
Chapter Notes: One night after midnight, a unwelcome visitor in the school corridors forces three unlikely allies to band together. The only question is will they live to tell the tale.
Thank you Kate and Kayla!