The Tunnel
Adhara wandered into the Slytherin common room. Most of the older students were still awake, and were sitting in small groups talking or studying quietly. She realised then that she had no idea where her dormitory was.
She looked around the large room. It was at least two stories high, with a balcony that wrapped around the walls. One of the walls was glass, showing the greenish waters of the Black Lake. It had stone arches along it, each carved with Slytherin’s crest. In the middle of the glass wall, a giant fireplace was alight, and above it there was an immense portrait of a man. He had dark shoulder length hair, similar to Sirius’, and a well-kempt beard.
Adhara knew this was Salazar Slytherin, the founder of her house. The other walls were lit with flaming torches that were evenly distributed along them, although the common room still looked rather dark. Adhara scanned the room for someone familiar, when she spotted a head of dark curly hair sitting on a sofa next to a head of sleek, glowy hair.
It must have been Ophelia and Elodie. Why were they still up? No other first years were. She went over to them, and heard them quietly chatting. She considered making them jump, that would’ve been hilarious, but she had only known them for a few hours, she didn’t want to scare them away.
Instead, she walked around to the sofa opposite them, and sat down. “Why are you too still awake?” she asked, trying not to sound like a professor.
“Oh! We were waiting for you, because we didn’t know if you knew where to go.” Ophelia said, and beamed up at her.
“Thank you, I actually don’t Professor Slughorn just gave me the password and bumbled off.”
“Our dormitory is awesome! Alecto is already asleep, I think, so we will have to be quiet.”
They all walked over to an elegant staircase, which led up to the balcony, and climbed up. Ophelia led them both about a quarter of the way around, and stopped. There were bookshelves lining all the walls, and a few armchairs and small tables dotted about.
Ophelia combed through the bookcase, muttering, “It was somewhere around here, wasn’t it?” Suddenly, Elodie pulled one of the books out halfway, and said quietly, “I found it.” The book she held was quite small, with a delicate binding, picturing a golden tree on its green cover. On the spine it read ‘first year girls: Adhara Black, Alecto Carrow, Elodie Laurent, Ophelia Zabini.’
Elodie flicked the book open, and placed her slim finger on the page, which glowed slightly. The bookcase started to move backwards and then sideways into the wall. This revealed a door, which they all walked through, into their dormitory.
The room was quite small, but not uncomfortably, and it was shaped like a hexagon, with an alcove in the middle of four of the walls. The other wall had a door in, surrounded by empty bookshelves, which Adhara assumed lead to the bathroom.
One of the alcoves had its emerald green curtains shut over it, which she assumed was where Alecto was sleeping. The others all had a bed slotted into them; they were the perfect size, and a small, arched window, where the lake was visible.
Next to all the alcoves was a chest of drawers, and on the other side of it, a desk and chair, which stuck out into the middle of the room. All the furniture was a dark, well-polished mahogany wood. The room smelt strange, and Adhara didn’t like it much, but she ignored it and turned to the others.
“Which are your beds?” she whispered, not wanting to wake Alecto up.
“These two.” Ophelia said not bothering to whisper, “And don’t worry about waking her up, I started shouting earlier, and she slept through it like a log.”
“Oh, ok.” Adhara replied in her normal voice, wanting to ask why Ophelia was shouting, but knowing it wasn’t important.
They all started getting ready for bed, and when she had changed, done her teeth and washed her face, Adhara was even more exhausted, so she climbed straight in bed, whispered goodnight, shut her curtains, and promptly fell asleep.
When she woke in the morning to Elodie’s alarm, she felt much better. Her parents wouldn’t be too bothered because Sirius wasn’t in Slytherin, and they wouldn’t be seeing them until Christmas anyway, so they will have forgotten about it then.
As she stretched, she thought about the day ahead of her. She got changed, brushed her teeth and hair, shook Ophelia awake, as she had slept through the alarm. “Ughhhh… nooo… 5 more minutes..” Ophelia said, turning her face into the pillow.
Alecto had left a few minutes before Ophelia was finally ready, and she, Adhara and Elodie all walked up to breakfast in the Great Hall together. When they got there, Adhara scanned the room for her brother. She saw him sat at one of the tables, pushing food around his plate and generally looking quite awful.
“I’ll see you guys later, I’m just going tom go check on my brother.” Adhara said
“Bye,” Elodie said, smiling at Adhara
“See you later!” Ophelia called as they waved and walked over to another table.
Adhara sat next to Sirius, and nudged his arm. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, just tired. I didn’t sleep too well.” He sighed, “Anyway, this is James and Peter, and you’ve met Remus.” He introduced them, waving a lazy hand in their direction.
“James and Peter were on my boat, so I’ve met them too.” She said looking at them. James was smiling widely at her, and Peter was staring at her nervously with watery blue eyes. She smiled politely at them, and turned back to Sirius.
“Nightmares?” She asked under her breath, “Do you want me to come up with you tonight?”
He nodded mutely, and she assumed that was his answer to both questions. Remus was looking at them, but when he saw Adhara glance over, he turned down to his plate full of food, his blonde eyebrows slightly crinkled.
Adhara spent the rest of breakfast talking with James and Remus. Sirius stayed quite quiet, only occasionally adding to the conversation, and Peter didn’t speak at all really, he just laughed at James or repeated what James said sometimes.
As Adhara was laughing and trying not to snort her pumpkin juice out her nose at a joke James had made up, Professor Slughorn waddled over. “Ah! Adhara, my dear, glad to see you found your way back up here! Here’s your timetable.” He gave a piece of parchment, and turned to Sirius, “Ah, and here’s Sirius. Shame you weren’t put in my house, but, oh well.”
He waddled away to some other Slytherins and everyone at their table looked towards Sirius. “It’s fine, honestly, I’m not upset that I’m a Gryffindor. Mum is always annoyed at me for something anyway, and she’ll get over it. Also, I think red suits my skin tone and hair better, green seems to wash me out a bit.”
They all laughed at Sirius’ desperate attempt to convince them he was fine, and Adhara said, “Oh no, but we have the same skin and hair,” sticking her bottom lip out in a sarcastic frown.
“It’s alright, Adhara, I have always been better looking, so no one will notice you looking washed out.”
Adhara dramatically gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth, “How could you?! Everyone knows I’m easily the most gorgeous!”
Sirius snorted and said, “Sorry, but that title goes to me, thank you very much.”
They continued their petty argument, while Peter and James spoke about the classes they were going to be in, and Remus carried on stuffing his face with any and all food he could find. Adhara briefly wondered how someone that small could fit that much food inside of him, but she quickly lost her thoughts as Sirius insulted her again.
Soon, breakfast finished, and Adhara rushed back down to her dorm to collect her bag. It didn’t have much in at the moment, only some spare parchment, quills and ink, but she was sure she would need it later, and she wanted to try to find the library and get some books from there.
Ophelia and Elodie were gathering their stuff too, and they all set off to their first class; charms. According to their timetables, it was on the third floor. Guessing that if the Great Hall was on the ground floor, they’d have to go up three staircases from there, they set off back towards where they came from.
They walked through the Entrance Hall and started up the marble staircase, until something hit the back of Elodie’s head. “Hey! What was that?”
They all spun around, looking for the person who could have thrown it, but there was no one in sight, except a group of seventh year girls chatting in a corner. They all turned back around, confused, and carried on walking.
The next thing hit Ophelia’s head. They were halfway up the staircase, when she spun around again. “Who did that?!” Adhara and Elodie looked back to see her glaring around the Entrance Hall, but again, there was no one there.
Elodie, Ophelia and Adhara were all very confused now, and they shared a look. Continuing up the staircase, they all guessed Adhara would be next. When whatever it was hit her, she whirled around with her wand raised.
“Malus intentio revelio!” She shouted, brandishing her wand at the empty air. A crackling, writhing purple glow appeared. Elodie and Ophelia looked over at Adhara in wide eyed shock. Adhara was equally surprised.
“I did not think that would work.” She said in a small voice. They all looked back at the purple thing which was twitching and flickering, until it faded into a humanoid form of a man rolling around. He started to cackle, “Ooo, ickle firstie knows some magic, does she?” A malicious glint appeared in his eye, and he swooped towards Adhara, who tried to stop her face paling considerably.
In her peripheral vision she was vaguely aware of Elodie and Ophelia backing away. Gathering up all the courage she could, and tilting her head closer to his face, she blurted. “I would appreciate it if you would stop throwing things at us.”
“Missy has manners…. well, we had better get rid of those, yes?” He replied, floating even closer to her face until their noses were almost touching, and they were glaring at each other. “No, we had better leave, and stop bothering people, before they decide to freeze us, hadn’t we?”
The ghost-thing snorted. “Maybe you should have been in Gryffindor, hm? Lots of confidence where you should have none. I like it. Peevesy will leave you alone he supposes. What is bossy-boos name then?” He had backed off now and was floating with his legs crossed staring pensively down at Adhara.
“Adhara. Now we need to go to charms, so leave us alone, if you please.”
“Well, maybe ass-hat Adhara isn’t as clever as she seems… that’s the wrong way.”
Adhara frowned slightly. “Which is the right way then?”
“I shan’t tell youuuu… I will show you instead… follow meee”
With that he swooped back down the staircase in a dramatic dive, and came back up to circle their heads like a vulture. The three shared another look, and Adhara shrugged. “May as well. It’s not like we know the actual way, anyway.”
She set off down the staircase, and Elodie and Ophelia glanced at each other again before reluctantly following Adhara. They all got to the bottom, and Peeves floated over to the stone wall.
“Now, arsehole Adhara, tap your wand here, here and here.” She brought her wand up to the wall and tapped the bricks where there were some slightly lighter marks. They heard the quiet sound of stones grinding against each other, but nothing visible happened.
“Now. Walk through.” Adhara looked up at Peeves sceptically, but cautiously pushed her hand through the stone, which seemed to ripple under her pale hand, before it disappeared. Adhara looked back at Elodie and Ophelia, smiling reassuringly, before pushing her whole arm through, and then her leg.
Ignoring the pit of anxiety that had quickly settled in her stomach, she stuck her head through, followed by the rest of her body. Letting her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness that had enveloped her, she looked around. It looked like a dirt tunnel. Flickering lamps hung from the ceiling, letting a small puddle of light pool beneath them.
She turned around, and saw that there was some kind of transparent veil blocking her from her new friends, who were looking increasingly worried. She stuck her face through the veil and smiled at them. “Come on, it’s some kind of tunnel.”
“Can’t we explore it later, Adhara? We are already late enough as it is…” Elodie said, looking quite relieved.
“Yeah, it’s our first lesson, and you’re already being closely watched because of your fight.” Ophelia said.
“Oh yeah… ok then. Sorry Peeves we really have to go.”
“This way is much quicker. You will probably make it on time. Peeves pinkie promises? I never break a Peeves pinky promise, promise.” He stuck out his ghostly hand, with his pinkie extended.
Adhara looked back to the tunnel. She soo wanted to look at it, and they might be there on time. It did seem to slope upwards, so that was a good sign.
“Ok, fine. You two can find the lesson normally if you want, I’ll see you later.” She shook pinkies with Peeves, and turned back towards the dimly lit tunnel. Elodie and Ophelia looked exasperatedly at each other again, and both walked through the wall into the tunnel behind Adhara.
Peeves followed them, rolling in the air and cackling as they set off through the silent, narrow passage.