I moved, quiet as I could, trying to move in the shadows. I felt a bit like an idiot. Whenever you read books or watch movies that’s what they do and I couldn’t get caught, not outside the dorm at night. I felt like I could feel Filch behind me, watching me and laughing at my pathetic sneaking skills. I had to get to the seventh floor, that’s where I would be safe. It wasn’t my first time and I doubted it would be my last. I was struggling to contain my tears, crying wasn’t going to help me get there.
I ran my hand along the coarse stonework walls as I moved quick and quiet, following a familiar path. The moving stairs were, for once, aligned. I tried to avoid eye contact with the many portraits. I thought for sure my first night that they were going to yell for Filch. But I was out of options and risked it anyway. I don’t know if it was how pathetic I looked on the night. Or it was what they had seen of me during the day; but they had all watched me go without comment. I don’t look at them anymore. Their expression smacks of pity. I don’t have the energy to feel hundreds of great and important witches and wizards pitying me. If I had been paying more attention I might have noticed the mounted knight following me. He stayed by my side through each portrait, but then again maybe not. I wasn’t in the best headspace to be noticing things.
I exited the stairwell on the seventh floor and then I noticed him. He was floating high near the ceiling in a corridor off to the left. Peeves, he hung in the air, a wicked grin on his face. He had never been the same after the war, loosing so many students had broken him a little more than he already was. They had all been nervous returning to Hogwarts the following year. Terrified about what new ghosts would roam the halls, what awful reminders of what we lost. I know some people were hopeful to run into their friends again. As awful as seeing them as ghosts would be at least they’d still be around. The halls hadn’t filled up with young faces that first year back. The older ghosts had all seemed changed, more distant, less engaged in the young folk. I hadn’t joined for another few years. The seniors graduating when I started had been in second year when the war reached Hogwarts. They didn’t talk about it much but I had heard that the ghosts had once been much closer and friendlier than now. I didn't know any of them, with the distinct exception of Peeves. Peeves had, if anything become more involved, his pranks became a daily inconvenience.
Looking at him smiling in the air I knew whatever was in store was going to result in me being found. Then punished and sent back to the room. That awful room filled with the other third year Ravenclaw girls. I tried to think through my options. I could run but he was known for tripping and harassing students so likely he wouldn’t let me get far. I could hide but he could follow me anywhere. He could travel through walls to make sure he knew exactly where I was when he called for the hall monitors. If I was lucky it might be a prefect I knew otherwise it would be Filch and Mrs Norris and detention at best.
‘Naughty, Naughty!’ Peeves crowed. ‘Third year out of bed and in the corridors!’ His eyes glinted and he licked his lips with glee. ‘How to punish you? I could call for a teacher or we could work out a little punishment amongst ourselves... I’ve found some interesting little spells around the castle through my years. I could make the corridor into a little swamp, keep things interesting while I got and get someone. You might even be able to get out before we get back?’ I sunk to my knees. Those tears I had fought back finally overflowing the dam behind my eyes. There was nothing I could do. He could surround me with a swamp of water and wait until I was wading through to call down a prefect. I would be returned soaking wet and stinking to the dorm and I couldn’t even think about how awful that would be.
I couldn’t expect tears to sway him, they never did. He didn’t respond to pleading or stern words. Only better pranks or bargaining, but I had nothing to offer, I had nothing inside but a gaping hole of despair. ‘Okay then…’ Peeves seemed to be wheeling up for something when a voice spoke behind me.
‘Give it a rest Peeves,’ I froze, he hadn’t even gone to get a teacher but the voice behind me was unmistakable. I buried my face in my hands and refused to turn and see those round glasses and messy black hair. Of all the teachers I didn’t want to let down by breaking the rules professor Potter was number one. Since starting here he was one of the few bright points. Most of the professors managed to pull me out of my life and back into the joy of discovering magic. Professor Potter, like professor Longbottom, were something else. They seemed to get that even with magic life wasn’t without its potholes and pitfalls.
To know Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the hero of the wizarding world, was watching me cry in the middle of the corridor was almost more than I could take. I could feel myself entering the numbing dark that sometimes came upon me. I knew I needed to get away but there didn’t seem to be an exit. Professor Potter walked forward. ‘Go on Peeves, you heard me, you’ve done your job and alerted someone to the students presence. Now off you go and cause mischief somewhere else.’ I hadn’t heard anyone talk to Peeves like that before.
Even Headmistress McGonagall at least pretended she wasn’t giving him orders when she sent him on his way. But Harry was overt in sending Peeves packing. I could hear when his footsteps reached me and felt that he twisted and crouched beside me. Not only was he that bold but he had completely dismissed him as though he knew Pevees would leave without a fight. That alone got me to look up and see what the ghosts’ reaction would be. Was I about to be plunged into a swamp in retaliation for something I hadn’t even said? But he was gone, it was only me and the professor in the corridor. I looked at him with something edging on wonder and disbelief. I wanted to ask how the hell he’d done that, but speech was beyond me at this point. Harry assessed me then offered his hand to help me up.
My eyes went wide. This was when he took my back to the dorm and doled out the punishment. If I could feel anything I would have been crushed but all I could muster was dread. He pulled his hand back and looked around. He stepped back to the wall and leant against it, blowing out a long sigh in the process. He tucked his hands into his robes and began speaking without seeming to expect me to contribute. ‘Sir Cadogan came to me a couple of weeks ago,’ he began. I must have looked confused and his smile was wry. ‘He’s a knight of the round table. He lives in the paintings in the stairwell. Go there during the day someday and ask for him, he does a much better introduction.’ His amusement was clear in his tone. ‘Anyway he came to me to ask for my help. This is pretty rare for him,’ Harry explained conspiratorially. ‘He likes to think he can handle things on his own but he came as a messenger on behalf of the stairwell paintings. They were concerned about a young girl who they described as: ‘needing protection’.’ He paused and looked off down the corridor. ‘Its rare for the portraits to get involved and I’m still not sure why they came to me and not the headmistress.’ He looked at me again. ‘I’ve been watching you for the last little while. I should have made myself known sooner but I was interested in what you were up to. And how often you were out.’ He fished a large folded piece of parchment out of his robes. He started tapping it with his wand while watching me. Finally he folded it back into his pocket.
‘You were nearly there’ he observed. ‘The room of requirement is around that corner. Want to show me what’s waiting in there?’ I was frozen but slowly I nodded, I could do that much. It was embarrassing to think of showing him. Revealing what was in there was a little like showing him my diary but he knew I had been sneaking out. I hoped he wouldn’t laugh too hard. I stood, realising there was nothing else I could do, I walked down the corridor. I had to remind myself not to try and sneak, we were beyond that now. Around the corner as he said it was a small unassuming door stood in an alcove. It was wooden and gothic, wide iron bands across it and a large handle. I reached for the handle with a deep breath. Feeling the iron under my palm sent a tendril of calm and cool through me.
Touching the handle was the beginning of a meditation. I could feel the professor behind me, and with the strength the handle gave me I pushed it down and away. A cool breeze hit me first, making me shiver. It was always chilly in the room. A cold breeze which carried the scent of wildflowers was constant. As though it had travelled over an open field of spring blooms on its way to me. The room seemed endless. The expanse of space stretched out in every direction. Galaxies and stars of all colours were the only light source. I stepped out confidently. Much like the roof of the grand hall I knew the room had walls, I couldn’t see them, and pretended they didn’t exist. I walked out into the night. completely forgetting about the professors’ presence as I wandered into my utopia. In centre of the space a hammock hung from nothing. It was not like any hammock I had seen in my muggle up-bringing. It was about the same size as most people bedrooms. Big and round suspended by a cream gossamer fabric. It was enough to make the space feel enclosed without obstructing the view of the cosmos.
On the edge hanging neat and clean was a fresh uniform for the morning. The room knew I wouldn’t be leaving before class started. Inside the hammock was mountains of pillows and blankets. The whole contraption swung gently side to side. I crawled into the middle, my climbing aboard not interrupting the sway or tilting the hammock in any way. I shifted my way into the middle and pulled a blanket around my shoulders. Feeling cocooned and warm while that fresh breeze wrapped around my ears and the lights of the stars warmed my soul. I only noticed the professor when he closed the door behind him, competing the starscape. He took a moment, hands in his pockets and wonder in his eyes. He took his time strolling over to the hammock. With a slight shudder at the cold he jumped on and selected a blanket for himself. He wrapped around his shoulders. ‘This is amazing,’ he told me. ‘I didn’t even know this was possible.’ He wasn’t looking at me which made it easier, he was tracking the stars and marvelling at the room.
‘I got the idea off you in fact,’ I spoke for the first time that night, it was thin and wavering but it was a voice. He looked surprised but only glanced at me for a moment to convey it before his attention was stolen by a shooting star. ‘Well you told us about the room in first year. When you formed the DA, the room because what you pictured that you needed.’ He nodded. Feeling the blankets and pillows around him. A quick mischievous grin and he flung himself backwards. Then lay sprawled amongst the pillows with a sigh of pleasure. ‘We never had a room like this though. In all my years of coming to this room I’ve never seen anything quite like this, I don’t even know how it came up with it!’
‘It didn’t,’ I whispered but then corrected myself. ‘Well it did do a lot of it. I have this as my meditation safe space, where I go in my mind when I can’t deal anymore. I brought my ideas to the room of requirement. Softness, warmth in the cool, starlight and gentle rocking, this is what it made for me. You can use it too if you need to,’ God that was lame, why in the world would professor Potter need my crappy safe space. He been through worse things than I can imagine and is more together than I will ever be. He didn’t respond for a long time, when he did speak I almost missed it. I was so busy castigating myself for being such a dweeb. ‘Thank-you, that’s very generous, I mean it. I hate to ask a favour after you’ve given me a gift but do you think you could tell me whats going on?’ His voice was soft and he hadn’t sat up to drill me with those emerald green eyes. I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak with him watching me, hell my eyes were dripping silent tears even considering it.
‘How can I tell you my problems when you’re the great Harry Potter?’ I sounded so small in the vastness of space. He shuffled a little, seeming awkward and uncomfortable with the name. Silence fell for a while and the gentle back and forth brought some life back into me. He didn’t seem to know what to say, what I wouldn’t give to know what was going through his head.
‘Maybe,’ he started hesitant. ‘You could pretend I’m not here and tell the room?’ I thought about it for awhile and he did a wonderful job of pretending not to exist. I was so alone, so completely empty and awfully sad, there was nothing that could make me feel worse? So I started. From the beginning. From being the only muggle-born in my year in my house. From feeling forever on the outside to the start of the bullying. Through the three years of torment form every-side in every class and study hall and night time. Through the nasty hexes and whispered words in the dark, I didn’t even know which was worse. Till the final desperate run from the room to this corridor. To crying across from the room looking at the doorway too scared to open it. Knowing it was the last thread of hope in my world that had started out so exciting and had turned so quickly to ashes. I told it all. And he didn’t talk or move the entire time.
I didn’t know what he was going to say, I didn’t know what I wanted him to say but I was bowstring tight waiting for his response. ‘You know what was the hardest part of those seven years of fighting Voldemort? It wasn’t when I had to fight him. It wasn’t the fear about what he would do next it was when I lost a friend.’ He didn’t seem to be talking to me either, not directly. I had the sense that like me these topics were impossible to tell a person, but the stars? Well they are particularly good listeners. ‘And not lost them like in the final battle although that was awful, but when it was the three of us, me, Ron and Hermione. Those two had got me through everything up till then and Ron left. I didn’t even know how much I leant on them both... then he was gone. It was Hermione and I. Don’t get me wrong,’ he hurriedly added. ‘If you only get one witch or wizard on your team you’d want Hermione but, support is more important than anything. One of the smartest people I know once told me that if she wanted to defeat me she would want me to feel all alone. Cause you by yourself? You aren’t much of a threat. Does that make sense?’
Was professor Potter, the chosen one, telling me he understands? That he thinks feeling alone would have defeated him? I don’t know what I was expecting him to say but that wasn’t it. He sighed, ‘I’m awful at this kinda stuff he admitted ruefully. He sat up and scratching the back of his neck sheepishly. 'I want to help but I’m not sure how, leave it with me?’ He asked softly. I nodded, breaking eye contact almost as soon as I made it. ‘In the mean time I’ll leave you to enjoy the peace,’ What? He wasn’t going to make me go back to my room? ‘I’ll have a word to the professors for now. If you need to come here at night I’ll try and make that possible.’ I was crying again, I wouldn’t have to go back to that awful room to sleep? I could come here every night after lights out without having to tell anyone?
He had almost made it to the door which glowed faintly when you wanted to leave when he spun on his heel. Having thought of something. ‘Hagrid’s!’ He exclaimed, pointing at me as though expecting a response. I looked confused, I knew of Hagrid but hadn’t had a chance to get to know him. ‘Tea at Hagrid’s on Friday after classes? We all tend to get together, me and Neville and Hagrid, hell I’ll even see if Luna's free? I think you’d like her,’ he finished warmly, a smile firmly set into his features, like a boy who finally solved a rubix cube. I must have looked hesitant when he added, ‘there will be a few other students there too. Neville, Hagrid and I tend to collect a ragtag bunch. ’ A small answering smile formed on my lips. ‘I’d like that…’ Sure I may forever be labelled as a teacher’s pet but if there are other students that tag along. Who knows maybe there’ll be someone there I could finally find a friendship with.