FicWad

The Harry Potter universe is the creation of J.K. Rowling. This is fanfiction. The standard disclaimers apply.


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Chapter 30: Hidden Spaces


Saturday, November 17, 1990


Irma Pince arrived in her office at 9 AM sharp. Normally the library opened at 8, but she slept in on Saturdays and took a leisurely breakfast.

This morning her ordinarily-tidy office was packed to the ceiling with wooden crates, trunks, suitcases, and some muggle cardboard boxes. It was done neatly, so far as that was possible—nothing was precarious, waiting to fall on her. In all of the containers she could see into, there was paper. It had been more or less tossed in—mixing together bits from different eras—she saw scrolls, parchments, notebooks, binders, and few old textbooks. The room now smelled of dust and mildew, which might have merely annoyed a regular person, but was extremely upsetting to a librarian.

There was a note on her desk.


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Dear Madam Pince,

I found the documents in these boxes while I was exploring the castle. Many of them are probably historically valuable, and I think they were a fire hazard in the places where I found them. I respectfully request that you evaluate them for inclusion in the Hogwarts archives.

I apologize for breaking into your office to leave them for you, but I didn't want to get in trouble if it turned out I went somewhere I shouldn't have. Don't worry, I didn't touch anything else in here.

I really am sorry for handing this off to you, but I didn't know what else to do!

Sincerely,

an anonymous student



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It wasn't actually easy to break into the Librarian's office, and, in fact, so far as Madam Pince knew, no one had ever done it before. A simple alohamora wouldn't do it, nor would picking the lock. Whoever had done this had carefully gotten past the lock and locking charms without damaging either, stacked the boxes as neatly as she could have managed herself, and then relocked it all upon leaving—all without getting caught by patrolling staff members or prefects. She wasn't sure whether she should feel worried or reassured.

There was, in fact, a priceless artifact in here, in the form of a carved wooden staff leaning in the corner, although only there were only four people living who knew what it was. The Librarian's Staff had been created by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, and it acted as the key to the Hogwarts archives. She understood that it had formidable defenses of its own, and any would-be thief would be unable to take it peacefully or quietly. But there was always a risk with this sort of thing, and she decided to ask Albus about the locks on the door, once everything was safely stored away.

There was a second door to the office, which opened out behind her desk in the library itself. It was blocked by a wall of boxes. She was forced to go out to the hall, fetch a cart from the library, shrink the boxes one by one, and load them up. Taking the staff in one hand and moving the cart before her with her wand, she entered the library and locked all the doors.

She walked to the center of the room, and tapped the floor three times with the staff. With a deafening rush of scraping and clattering, the tables and chairs were pushed apart, leaving a wide space on the floor. She wheeled the cart to the center of it, and rapped three more times against the floor. A circle of light, about ten feet in diameter, appeared on the floor around her, and then there was a jolt as the floor dropped beneath her, accelerating downwards until it approached a speed rivaling the carts in Gringott's. The light from the library above was a distant speck when the floor started slowing, and was nearly invisible in the distance when it halted with a final bump.

A magical torch came on in front of her, and she rolled the cart out into the next room. The room was dome-shaped, and had been carved directly into the bedrock. On the far wall was a heavy iron door, set into an arch. The Hogwarts seal was etched onto it, large enough to cover the entire door. Irma stood before it and rapped the top of the staff against each of the four animals, then pressed her palm against the central 'H'. A faint vertical line of light spread outwards from her palm, splitting the door from top to bottom and growing in intensity. After the light had grown so bright that she needed to shield her eyes, the door split apart, its two halves sliding into the walls.

From here, the archives were essentially a catacombs. Near the entrance there were further iron doors leading to a workshop and several long, climate-controlled hallways with shelves set into the rock. Irma left the boxes, unshrunken, on a workbench, cast a few charms to keep the mildew from spreading, and returned to the surface. Dealing with the papers would take all her spare time for weeks, maybe months, but it was in fact part of her job description, and the anonymous student had worded his note carefully enough that she was obligated to do this even if she didn't want to.

The archives were designed to be one of the most secure places in Hogwarts, and a thousand years of librarians had ensured that they were never used for storing anything other than actual records and historically important documents, even if the threshold for "important" was exceedingly low. This minimized the temptation for pranksters, thieves, and dark lords to attempt a break-in — few, if any, of them would really want to get past Ravenclaw's traps just to steal a multi-thousand volume set of, say, the Headmaster's budget reports.

After she was first hired, when she was younger and less set in her ways, Irma had done considerable exploring down here. A final set of iron doors led out of the archives area itself, opening to a seemingly endless network of rough-hewn passageways. Several pre-carved halls were clustered near the door, obviously intended as additional archive space when some librarian thousands of years in the future finally ran out of space in the original rooms. Beyond that, it was a maze. She had walked for hours in it, unable to find either its outer limits or any apparent purpose.

There had been one initial scare where she was nearly lost, but she was methodical enough to prevent that from happening a second time. Careful chalk markings worked; she didn't dare trust a map, in case the catacombs of Hogwarts were as changeable as the castle itself. There would be no one to rescue her, if anything bad happened. Maybe the Headmaster himself would be allowed past the doors, if the castle decided it were necessary—she wasn't sure. Her predecessor had explained that if anyone other than the librarian attempted to enter the archives, they would be faced with the full power of Rowena Ravenclaw's deadly ingenuity at every step of the way. Given that Ravenclaw's idea of a dormitory "password" consisted of ever-changing riddles, Irma wasn't sure how well even an authorized rescuer would fare down here, where the founder had gone all-out on the security.

In theory, the catacombs of Hogwarts might contain hidden treasure, secret chambers, monsters, and so on. She had found no sign of anything other than miles of passageways, all alike. Her working theory was that whenever Ravenclaw had gotten tired of whatever she was supposed to be working on, she would come down here and enlarge the maze. Well, it was as good an explanation as any. In any case, Irma had eventually stopped going in there altogether; it was simultaneously dangerous and boring.

When the students started getting to her more than usual, and she had repaired one-too many damaged books that day and broken up one too many noisy gossip sessions, she liked to imagine there was some enormous magical corvid down here, sleeping through the centuries, waiting for the Heir of Ravenclaw to summon it, whereupon they would rise together and purge the school of children who didn't return their library books on time. She had even contemplated spreading that legend as a threat, but didn't think she could pull it off. Maybe some day she would forge an ancient-looking document.

Fantasies aside, she would have to go talk to the headmaster about this. She'd go see him after closing up tonight; talking at the faculty table about this wouldn't do. The story might spread and give people Ideas.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


That evening, in another part of the castle, the Weasley twins were engaged in one of their favorite pastimes—trying to find parts of the castle not covered by the Marauder's Map. Today, they were in the dungeons, and after checking the map for an adequately deserted area, were going from door to door. Most were had unhelpful labels like "Storeroom", "Spare Classroom", "Empty", or just "?". The doors to these were invariably locked with magic, and after a few conversations with Charlie about wards, the twins were holding off on breaking into anything until they were more skilled.


"Surely the bathrooms won't be locked."

"That would just be cruel. Oh good!"

"It smells old."

"Like, dust and mildew, old?"

"No, more like cleaning products Filch doesn't use nowadays. I bet he doesn't have to come in here very often."

"Suppose it's haunted, like Myrtle's bathroom?"

"Don't know!" Then, louder, "Hey, is this bathroom haunted?"

They waited a moment.

"Guess not. So what's this grate in the wall?" A three-foot square metal grating was set into the wall on the far side of the stalls.

"Intriguing, is what it is. Clearly not a drain. There's a draft coming from it—cold air."

"Promising! Can we get it off?"

"Seems like it, with the right tool. Let's see . . ." Fred pulled out a pencil and transfigured it into a small steel prybar, which made quick work of the grate. He set it aside and looked down the hole.

"What do you see?"

"Darkness. Lumos! It goes back about ten feet, then turns."

"Excellent! That's definitely not on the map."

Fred crouched down, crawling into the hole on his hands and knees. "So what does it show now?"

"It looks like you just walked through the wall. It's not showing the duct at all. So what's back there?"

"Looks like all the plumbing—pipes coming out, joining up, turning another corner about forty feet down. I'll go check it out. If it keeps going, I'll yell back, and you pull the grate back in place behind you and follow, okay?"

"Sure." The twins operated under the assumption that whatever they were doing—no matter how innocuous it seemed—was probably against the rules, and covered their tracks accordingly. They had long since given up on trying to figure out what they could actually get in trouble for, and now focused on not being observed in the first place.

"It keeps going! Come on!" George pulled the grate in place behind him, and was relieved to find it fit neatly.

A little further down the pipe joined up with another, which led down a similar passage leading, as best as they could tell from the map, to the corresponding girl's bathroom. They made a mental note to check for a grate there sometime, and kept following the main passageway.

"You know, these are only the incoming water pipes. The sewers must be somewhere else."

"Assuming there are any."

"Yeah, maybe it's like those stupid toilets the Ministry uses as an entrance."

"What, all the Hogwarts toilets are a gateway to somewhere else? I don't think I'm going to test that myself, thank you."

"Nor I."

"But I think we should spread the rumor that it works for some of them."

"Oh, yes, I'm sure Salazar Slytherin put the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets s in a bathroom."

"Hah!"

Well over a hundred feet further on, and several turns later, Fred stopped. "What's this?"

"Hm?"

"Looks like it ends in a shaft. Straight up and down, as far as I can see."

"The pipe follows it?"

"Right."

"So can we climb it?"

"Maybe? Where are we on the map?"

"It looks like we're just in the walls still. There's an outer castle wall not far from here." George tried flipping between floors, trying to find a familiar landmark above them. "I think we're five floors under the Hospital Wing."

"I wonder if you can get out of here through any other bathrooms?"

"I don't know. Did you ever see a grate like that one?"

"I don't think so? So, maybe not?"

"If it just dead ends behind a bunch of bathrooms, that would be weird."

"Not if all your plumbers were house elves."

"Sure, I guess so. So which way?"

"What, you want to keep going?"

"Of course! Don't you?"

Fred stared down into the abyss. "If we go down, are we sure we can get back up?"

"Mental note: nick rope from somewhere. Well, what if we climb up a bit, and see how that goes, and if that's easy enough, then we go down . . ."

". . .because then we think we can get back up again?"

"Right. Actually, try chimneying down instead of messing with the pipe."

"This will do a number on our robes, you know."

"That's what repair charms are for. Want me to go first?"

"Nah, I can do it. Actually, stay up there for a while, so you can go get a rope if I need it. I'll call up when I see something."

Fred grabbed the pipe and leaned over to the far wall, then walked his legs onto the vertical surface of the shaft. Bracing himself with his back to one wall and feet to the other, he slowly started downwards. He had one hand on the pipe, and one on his wand, maintaining a lumos. "Can lumos be learned wandlessly?" he yelled up.

"Maybe? Or you could just get a magical device to do it. Like one of dad's muggle torches."

"Let's look that up."

"Right."

George waited patiently, listening to the shuffling sound of his brother climbing. Fred had gotten more confident after the first twenty feet or so, and sounded like he was moving at a pretty decent clip. George assumed if anything went wrong, he'd be able to hear.

Fred yelled up. "There's another horizontal passage here—I'm maybe fifty feet down—and the shaft keeps on down, too. Pipe follows them both. Can't see the end of either. I'm continuing down!"

A few minutes later he yelled up again. "Okay, problem. The walls end, but the down doesn't. Which is to say the pipe goes down and around and disappears. I think there's a floor about thirty feet down . . . I'm going to try hanging from the pipe to see what's down here." George could no longer hear Fred moving. "Can you still hear me up there?"

"Loud and clear, brother o' mine! But only because the acoustics are good—nice echo!"

"I think you should come down. There are some big water tanks here, and we can climb over and get down from them, I think, but we won't be able to get back the same way! Am I even on the map still?"

"No! I'm still on it, but you're gone."

"Awesome! Come on, there are some normal-sized hallways head out from this room. I'm going to climb over to the cistern-thingy, or whatever it is."

"Alright, I'll be with you shortly. Where shortly is probably ten or fifteen minutes."

They both worked in silence for a while. George would have found the climb really annoying, and probably scary, if he hadn't been so curious to see what was at the other end. By the time he saw the pipe turn below him and disappear, he was too tired to go back up again any time soon. Fortunately, he also saw the light from his brother's wand coming from down below him. "Get down, did you?"

"Yeah, just slide down the pipe and go hand over hand. Put your wand in your pocket—my light should be enough."

"Sort of a leap of faith."

"More like a slide of faith."

"Sure. Okay, now what?"

"Just go hand over hand, like I said. Here, I'll hover charm you to help."

This in fact helped considerably. The twins were only 12, but they had enough power that Fred could make George about a third lighter. Since the next step turned out to involve going fifty feet across the room while hanging from the pipe, George was grateful for the help.

"Okay," he said, when his feet finally touched down on the top of the enormous tank, "how did you get down from here? It's another twenty feet or more down."

"Far side. There's a pipe that goes over to the wall and then down in order to head off a side passage. Go along it, then slide down, and it will be safe to drop off."

"Ugh!"

Eventually they were both on the floor together.

"Nice to go back to a normal way of moving around."

"So what does the map show?"

"We're both gone. It doesn't do anything weird—we can still see the rest of Hogwarts. But this part isn't on it."

"We're what, a hundred feet lower than we started?"

"Sounds about right. I guess this must be the main water source for Hogwarts."

"Suppose it just generates the water magically here, pressurizes it, and send it out?"

"What, as opposed to a well or rainwater cistern?"

"Yeah. I don't see anything looking like an incoming pipe. Just a huge metal tank."

The room had no other interesting features to speak of. There was a hallway going off from each of the four walls. These were about five feet high, and had large pipes running along their ceilings. "Well," suggested George, "people were shorter then, right?"

"I guess so. So the rest of the castle was just built at a grand scale?"

"Or it adjusts."

"That works too. Damn, this just ends in a shaft up."

The next two were the same.

"This is getting worrisome. I do not want to climb up a hundred feet of shaft and not find a way out."

"Are these roots?"

In the fourth passageway, there were fibers of something coming between the stones of the ceiling and walls. Fred broke some off. "Smells like it."

"Huh." Halfway down the hall, above the pipe, a space just wide enough for a person extended from the ceiling for about two feet, where it simply ended. The pipe continued on at head height, bolted to the ceiling in places, and eventually turned up another vertical shaft that rose into darkness. The twins groaned.

"Well, we're not exactly trapped, per se."

"Oh no, we know exactly how to go back the way we came."

"I just really . . ."

". . . really . . ."

". . . don't want to."

"Could you try doing a hover charm on me?"

"Suuure . . ." Fred watched as George, weighing about forty pounds lighter, pulled himself up on the pipe, maneuvered on top of it, and inspected the two foot shaft.

"You know, the ceiling stone is colder than the walls."

"You're not thinking of trying to break through it, are you?"

"Not exactly—let me see something." George turned so his shoulders were against the ceiling, so that he could press upwards. The stone gave way easily—it was only about an inch thick. Cold air rushed down on them.

"What's up there?"

"I think it's the outdoors, actually. It's a little courtyard!"

Soon they were, in fact, standing in a small courtyard. Thick-stemmed, ancient vines grew up the walls, which towered high above them. Some moonlight filtered through the clouds, but from down here, the patch of visible sky was not very large. Grass and weeds grew from between cracked paving stones. There were no other features, like the statues and fountains of other courtyards. The effect was like standing in a forest clearing.

"Um, Fred, I'm not finding any doors or windows or anything behind this ivy."

"Me neither."

"What does the map say?"

"We're still not on it."

"Huh. Where the hell are we?"

"Lost!"

"Excellent! That was the goal tonight, right?"

"Absolutely. Although I kind of just want to get back somewhere familiar at this point."

"Me too."

"So, back the way we came, or try to climb the ivy?"

They looked down the hole they came out of, then up at the sky.

"Getting here was a real pain. I don't want to just turn around. I vote for 'up'."

"Great! Let's get to it, then."

Together they replaced the stone over the hole. It would not be easy to get it back up again, let alone find it in the dark.

The ivy was far easier and more fun to climb than the pipes had been—they were outdoors, it smelled good, and there were lots of natural handholds. The main trunks of the vines started at the ground, four or five to a wall, each at least a foot thick. Down here there weren't too many leaves, given the struggle for light, but further upwards it bushed out several feet, until the twins were climbing through darkness.

"Hey! I found a window!"

"Does it open?"

"No. I think I can say with confidence it is not designed to open. Looks like nice stained glass, though."

"Lovely. Can you see inside?"

"Nope."

"Damn."

Variants of this exchange repeated themselves several times.

"You know, I think we are back at the level of the dungeons now, where we started."

"Do you suppose this was supposed to be a giant light well?"

"I have a theory, actually."

"You do?"

"I do!"

"Will you share this theory of yours?"

"I will! . . . Okay, fine. I think we are seeing parts of the castle that can in theory move, but haven't in a long time."

"So the reason it looks like it's not doing anything useful right now. . ."

". . . might be that it is not, in fact, doing anything useful right now. Also I think maybe the ivy is holding it in place."

"Wow. I guess it might be strong enough. I wonder if other parts of the castle are similarly 'stuck'."

"Maybe? I don't remember seeing ivy on the Hogwarts walls anywhere else. Maybe this is why. Oh, here's a bird nest."

"Yeah, I've seen several by now. Must be nice and protected down here. Let's make sure to bring Charlie here some time!"

"Oh, yes! He'd love it. Tell us all about the monsters living in the ivy right now, watching us, . . ."

". . . wondering what the hell we're doing here."

"To be fair, we don't know that either."

"True."

"Is that a gargoyle up there?"

"If you're pointing, it's not doing any good, since I can't see you through these leaves."

"Right. I think we're approaching the roof."

"Would have been nice to run across some actual moving windows by now, wouldn't it."

"Assuredly."

They were, in fact, reaching a point near the top where the vines were much younger and narrower, and less well attached to the wall. This required moving slowly and testing everything before putting weight on it.

"George?"

"Yes?"

"I am beginning to question the wisdom of this plan."

"What, you can't find a good place to grab hold of the gutter, either?"

"Not really, no. I might be able to work my way sideways over to where that gargoyle is, and hope it's not one of the animated ones."

"Be careful with that. Charlie said they are pretty foul-tempered."

"Hey Gargoyle! Can I climb on you? . . . Well, no reaction. Here goes."

There was some rustling as Fred evidently managed to get up onto the roof.

"Okay, there's a gutter running along the inside of the roof, the whole way around the light well, or whatever this place is. And the roof slopes inwards all the way around, except there's a tower in the corner, to your left. There's a gargoyle on either end of this wall—if you can work your way left or right, you can pull yourself up on one of them, I think. At least, right worked for me."

"Just give me a moment. You know, next time we go exploring like this, I want to be better equipped. This is exciting and all, but we've climbed what—a hundred feet down and then two hundred up tonight? I'm sure if I were able to see down through these leaves, I'd be paralyzed by fear."

"Yeah. I'm trying to creep along the gutter towards the tower. Here, let's see if this helps—Lumos!"

"A little. Thanks. Okayyyy . . . there. I think I'm over one ivy plant to the left now. Not that I can really tell."

"You're most of the way there. Once I see you, I can help you up with a hover charm, but I need a line of sight first."

"Right. Uh, I see the gargoyle! Looks like the vine goes right around it."

There was an abrupt rustling noise from the corner.

"Aw, bugger it. This one's animated."

"Can you get around it?"

"Actually, it looks like the vine's really got it tied up. It's kind of squirming around. Yeah, you, I see you! You know, it's got a long snout, and I don't think it can open it. Looks pretty miserable actually."

"Well, don't take pity on it until we're safe."

"Yeah, yeah." More sharp rustles from the corner, as the gargoyle tried to shake free.

"Know what? The longer I wait, the better the chance this guy has of escaping. Cast the charm as soon as you see me."

"Okayyyy."

As soon as George's hand appeared on the gargoyle's struggling foot, Fred cast the charm. He wasn't sure if it mattered that it was on an extremity and not George's torso or something, but it seemed to help, as his twin rapidly scrambled up the vine and over the gargoyle. Once George was gripping the vines on the tower's walls, he stopped, foot still in the corner of the roof near the gargoyle. He was kicking. "It's got my shoe!"

"Damn. I could try to hex the gargoyle, but not while maintaining the hover charm. How steady are you there?"

"Not enough." He slipped an inch. "Stick to the hover charm. Uh, there we go." George managed to kick his shoe off, leaving it behind, and pulled himself all the way up to the tower. "Darn it. Mum will kill me for losing that."

"Priorities, George!"

"Right."

"Also, if you have a free hand, try an accio."

At that, the gargoyle tossed the shoe far into the courtyard, where it disappeared faster than either twin could react.

"Damn. Okay, maybe we can retrieve that later. Let's see about this tower. Thank Merlin, I think we can fit through these arches."

Fred watched as George threw one leg into an arched opening of the tower, and then fell inside. "I guess that works." He inched past the gargoyle, which now had both arms free and was waving them around, and at long last joined his brother in the tower. It was a landing in a spiral staircase, with windows on all four sides. The view was gorgeous, but for now the two boys were just sitting down, backs against the wall.

"If we turn out to be stuck up here, I am not climbing back down. I am going to scream my fool head off until somebody comes up and finds us."

"I think, under the circumstances, I concur."

A few minutes later, they had caught their breath.

"So, are we on the map yet?"

"Dunno." George checked. "I don't think so. If there were some sort of 'You Are Here' marker this would be a lot easier . . . No. We're still not on it."

"I guess I didn't really expect to be." Fred stood up, and stretched. "Since we're here, let's see what's up, before we head down."

"Sounds good."

The spiral staircase, after going once around the tower, ended in a trap door. The next room had about a dozen ropes coming from holes in the ceiling, and a rickety wooden ladder was attached to the wall, leading up through a hole in the ceiling.

"Bell tower?"

"Looks like it. Also looks like no one has touched it in centuries."

"I'd be scared to pull these ropes, in case something up there broke."

"Yeah. Maybe we can come back here some day and fix it up. An apparatus for making a gigantic amount of noise . . ."

". . . should not be allowed to go to waste!"

"Agreed."

"We'd need to bring other people here, you know. This is what—fourteen ropes? And that hole over there is empty—it might have a bell but be broken."

"We'll find someone good at repair spells."

"I think Percy's actually pretty good at that sort of thing."

"Huh."

They weren't sure where to go with that line of thinking, and dropped it.

Downwards, the staircase wound around three or four times before ending in a room with a door.

"Map?"

This took a moment, since they had no idea what floor they might be on. "Look!" He handed Fred the map, pointing. They were on the seventh floor, on the far side of the castle from Gryffindor Tower. And they were in the wall. But they were on the map.

"This door has an ordinary doorknob."

"Does it turn?"

"It does."

"And does it open?"

"It does!"

"Now where are we?"

"In a broom closet. Aannd . . . no one is around. So we're clear. We probably look pretty beat up, though."

"I know I'm bleeding from several places."

"And I have one shoe."

"Right. Sorry about that, by the way—if I had been faster . . ."

". . . don't worry about it."

When they shut the door to the tower behind them on their way out of the closet, it simply disappeared. No amount of poking, kicking, or wand-tapping made any difference.

"So, if we want to go back . . ."

" . . . we plan ahead very carefully."

"Right."