Is This Not the Excitement You Desired?

[Aurora Night]

[adminapproval=30460615]Rory had been feeling the urge lately, the one that always began with a niggling at the back of her skull and then slowly crept its way forward until it soaked itself into every corner of her brain. It wasn't a screaming sort of urge, it never had been. Sometimes she just needed to go off on her own and... do something by herself. It was like a mini-vacation, in a way. Rest and relaxation from her usual hyper brain activities. At least, it could be if she could actually think of something to do. Being bored wasn't helping her wind down any, in fact it almost felt like it was making the urge worse. What had she used to do whenever she hid away from everyone for a bit? Rory scrunched her nose up trying to remember. Journals, that's what it had been. She used to write stuff down all the time, but she didn't think she'd seen one of those notebooks in years. They had likely become submerged away in the drawers and cupboards at home that were hardly ever opened now that she was living at Hogwarts for the larger part of a year. These days Rory just spent all of her time with her friends - she didn't need the journals to entertain her anymore.

However, as much as she loved her friends, Rory wasn't quite ready to give up her rarely-needed personal time just yet. She had just spotted Rose down the very far end of the corridor, and although she felt bad about it she hoped the other girl hadn't caught sight of her as she'd darted into the nearest empty classroom. Rory felt bad about seeming like she was hiding from one of her best friends, but if she explained it to Rose later she was sure the girl would understand. And if Rose hadn't seen her then all the better - there would be nothing to feel guilty about. Making sure the door was closed behind her, Rory turned to survey the room she had stumbled into. Most of these old classrooms were all the same, but she had always wondered why there were so many of them, particularly on this floor. Were they just used as extra store rooms now? Or perhaps secluded mouse homes, if that small thumping noise had been anything to go by. There were a couple of desks pushed up against the walls, which was standard. Chairs were littered about here and there. There was a line of cupboards along the back wall of the room, probably where the teachers of years past had stuffed all those essays they made students write, so they could forget about them.

Or maybe there was something more interesting in there. People could have potentially left any manner of things behind before the classroom officially stopped being used. Rory found herself drifting across the room towards the cupboards before she could even pause to properly think about it. The first one was empty, save a few cosy-looking spiders, and the second one she pulled open only had a couple of empty scrolls of parchment in it. So much for finding something interesting, Rory thought as she jerked open the door of the next cupboard.

Her grandfather slid out of the small enclosed space and dropped heavily to the floor at her feet.

It had only taken a second, but in that time Rory had already seen that her grandfather was pale, oddly stiff, and... and... dead. The next second passed in silence as she tried to process what had happened in the first. It wasn't until the third second was that Rory hurled herself at the body of her grandfather on the floor with a noise that she would never remember making herself. A sob, a scream, a dry cracking disbelieving moan - she'd never know or have any memory of it, because all of her senses seemed to have congregated themselves behind her eyelids and at the tips of her fingers, leaving no means for them to be employed anywhere else. He was cold and he was stiff and he was dead. "Grandfather!" Rory tried shaking his shoulders, an instinct that she immediately regretted. He was wrong, he felt all wrong like this, and the cold, his clammy hand was now brushing against her leg and she jerked away from it, repulsed by the very sensation, a sensation she had always hated ever since, ever since -

Crouched there beside her grandfather's body, Rory couldn't leave and neither could she bring herself to touch him again. She didn't know what to do - her brain had stopped working as soon as the cupboard door had opened. Her world was the cupboard and her grandfather, there was no room attached to the cupboard, and there was no outside of that non-existent room to attach to her assaulted thought process either. If asked where she was, she could have only said 'hell.' A hell with not enough air to breathe, and wet floors, wet because of the tears that she'd only just noticed but seemed to be completely covering her cheeks. And there was a rattling horrid sound that she tried to follow as a distraction, until she realised the sound was burrowed deep within her own throat and then she tried to not hear it again, desperately trying to fill the world of the cupboard and the body with anything else. "Grandfather, please, please no, you're okay you've got to be okay, please, Grandfather, please, we never even got to make anything in your potions lab, please, please, Grandfather, please..."

 

[Rose Holland]

Rose was walking through he corridor, looking for something fun to do or someone to talk to. She hadn't seen any of her friends in a while, which was too bad. She had ventured outside to see if Hayley, Harley or Rory were hanging out there, hopefully not all together without her, but she hadn't seen any of them. As she headed up the corridor's on her way back tot he common room, she caught a flash of familiar red hair moving around the corner. Rose frowned. Had that been Rory? She thought so, but she wasn't sure what her friend could be doing here all by herself. Especially since she seemed to have ducked into an empty classroom. Was she meeting someone? Rose knew she had broken up with her boyfriend, but if she was smooching him in an abandoned classroom that would be funny. At least it wold probably give Rose enough ammunition to stop her friend from teasing her about Charlie. With that in mind, she headed to the end of the corridor Rory had been at and opened the door.

Just as she did it, she knew there was something horribly wrong. A noise came out of Rory that she had never heard before, and she immediately knew her friend was in pain. Rushing inside, Rose paused at the horrifying sight. Rory wasn't in physical pain, but she was definitely in distress. It soon became clear to her why. Rory was sitting with a corpse, the body of an old man. Panic struck Rose immediately, what was this doing in the school? What had happened? Who was this? "Rory?!" She asked, stepping closer. Why wasn't Rory getting away from the body? Who was that? But then she heard what Rory was saying, mumbling, pleading. She was calling the body grandfather. In the shock of seeing the body, all information was processing more slowly. Why would her grandfather be here in the school? In this classroom no less? It made no sense. This had to be something dark. Suddenly determined, Rose stepped forward to take Rory away from here.

But as she came close enough to touch her friend, the body disappeared. In a flash, the floor in front of Rose opened up and she stopped moving. Her body freezing up in terror. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the classroom, there was now a crack in the floor that seemed to span the entire classroom. To Rose's now swimming eyes, it looked as if it was expanding, which made her squeak in terror. A part of her brain tried to tell her this couldn't be real, but the deep black gaping hole in the ground in front of her seemed very real to all her senses. With wide eyes, she turned to look at Rory, then back at the crumbling floor. "Rory?" She asked again. "We... w-we have to go, we're going to fall!" She finally managed to take a step back, nearly stumbling over her own feet in her haste to get away from the edge. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Extending a hand in Rory's direction, she hoped her friend would come to her. They had to get out of here. With a deep breath, she took a step closer to Rory, planning to grab her hand and pull her out of the room. But as the two girls moved closer together, she noticed something odd. The apparition of the cliff in front of her seemed to flicker. Briefly, she could see the classroom floor again with Rory's grandfather lying on it, then it went back to being a hole in the ground. Her terror-stricken brain couldn't make much sense of it, but she did feel a little more steady now that she had seen the floor again, even if it had been brief. She grabbed Rory's shoulder. "Get up." She murmured to her friend.

 

[Professor Kahurangi Josephs]

Kahurangi found that the longer she was at Hogwarts, the less time she was spending in the lower levels of the castle. Other than patrolling and the trips between her office and the library, the only times she really ventured downstairs was for meals. It was beginning to feel rather antisocial, and the lack of sunshine was starting to get to her. Maybe she would be able to convince the Herbology professors to give her a little square of the gardens as a reason to get out more. Kahurangi was trying to think of the friendliest way to approach co-workers she had spoken with woefully little with a request for a favour as she made her way down the corridor. Her thoughts were interrupted though, by the sounds of girls shrieking in one of the classrooms.

The sounds of children shrieking and being silly were hardly unfamiliar in a school, but this didn't sound like happy shrieking. Her stomach sinking, Kahurangi took a deep breath as she opened the door. But nothing could have prepared her for the sight that awaited. The floor seemed to go down and down forever, two horror-struck children at the edge of the chasm. But even as Kahurangi was drawing her wand to fix... whatever had happened here, the vision flickered, the dead form of an old man replacing the hole in the floor for a moment. It wasn't until she took another step forward and the floor flickered again, now taking on the form of her own mother lying cold and dead in the middle of the room that Kahurangi clicked exactly what was going on.

Wondering in the back of her mind how on earth a boggart could have gotten into an unsupervised room in the castle, Kahurangi stepped forwards quickly, getting between the girls and the vision, its shape now rapidly flickering and warping, struggling to settle on which form to present. "Stay behind me, girls." She said with as much strength as she could, hoping they couldn't hear the waver in her voice. "It isn't real." Kahurangi raised her wand and took a firm breath. Dealing with dark creatures certainly wasn't her field of expertise, but she had studied this in school, she had tutored others, surely her strong grades were enough to carry her through this real encounter.

"Ridikkulus!" She incanted. It was a struggle to picture anything funny in such a dire situation, but Kahurangi did her best, and was relieved to see the dead form of now her father turning into a comically large egg. It put a small chuckle in her throat - mum had been calling him an egg ever since he began balding, and the change was enough for Kahurangi to back the creature back into the wardrobe behind it and securely lock the door. Once she was sure it was secure Kahurangi turned her attention back to the girls, hurrying to crouch next to them and putting a hand on each of their shoulders. "Now listen to me girls, I know that was very frightening, but nothing you saw was real." She said gently, hoping they couldn't feel her hands shaking with nerves. "That was a Boggart, a creature which feeds on our fears. Nothing that it showed you was real."

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory didn't hear the sounds of someone else entering the room, nor the voice that called her name. Her brain was still too busy trying to find any sort of sense in the evidence of what she saw before her, and all it could come back to was the bewilderment of how this had happened. Her grandfather had always been invincible, as strong and long-standing as any of the countless large trees she had climbed in her life. How could someone who was able to quell Jasper, her little terror of a cousin, with a single look be... be... The sound of sobbing came back into focus again, and she wondered if she had ever really managed to make it go away. She didn't know what to do now; she wanted so desperately to be able to do something - anything - that would... that could...

Her grandfather disappeared. Rory let out an involuntary shriek and pitched forward towards into the place where he had gone, her hands scrabbling at the floor. "Grandfather? Grandfather!" But as she watched, the floor began to tear apart in front of her. Her brain tried to fit this new piece of information into the muddled mash of confusion that resided there already, and it was then that she finally heard the voice and turned to meet it. "Rose?" She didn't know how her friend had turned up right when she needed her most, but knowing that she wasn't alone suddenly slammed through Rory's gut like a pylon. It was like Rose gave her strength just by being with her. Before, Rory hadn't known what to do. Now, she did. As she leaned further over the expanding crack in the floor, she could hear Rose telling her they would fall... but that was the point. Rory wanted to fall. Her grandfather had disappeared through the crack in the floor, and she was going to go in after him. How could she leave him alone again, when he'd already been alone, lying on the floor when she'd first burst through the door and seen him -

Rose came closer and Rory's thoughts skittered off track again. She felt like she was forgetting something, but there wasn't time to figure it out. Looking up towards her friend she could see the terror on the other girl's face, but the hand stretched towards her showed only support, and care. Rose was going to come with her, Rory felt relieved to realise. The memory of laughter and teasing and then hearing about the trauma of falling out of a tree was lost in the recesses of her mind, and she selfishly clung on to the thought that her grandfather was all that mattered, a notion so clear within Rory's entire being that it seemed impossible that Rose would not feel the same. They needed to jump down into the crack now, and she turned back to assess how close they were to the edge.

She almost missed it. Out of the corner of her eye she had seen her grandfather again, but as she blinked in shock the large crack in the floor was once again in place. It was enough to give Rory pause, but even as she frantically tried to figure out what she was seeing, what this meant, the touch of Rose's hand on her shoulder jolted her back to her plan. "Grandfather, he - Rose I have to -" she babbled, trying to pitch herself forward down into the chasm in the floor. So sure was she in her plan, so sure in her friend's support that the sensation of being held back was a shock to her. Rory struggled in confusion. "Rose, no! You have to let me go after him! Please, please just let me g-"

There was a new body lying on the floor, and a woman she barely recognised suddenly appeared in front of her. This, her brain could barely connect to the previous events at all, and Rory could suddenly feel the mental exhaustion sweeping over her. She tried to fight it, tried to focus on the shifting mass of... something in front of her, her grandfather was still... she didn't know what had happened to him anymore. He could be anywhere, he could be... but what was worse than being dead? Rory sagged back into Rose, new tears beginning to track down her face. Was the woman talking? Would she know where her grandfather's body had gone? She must be a mind-reader, though hearing that the question was ridiculous didn't make Rory feel any better. But had the woman said ridiculous? Maybe she was hearing things as well as seeing things... she could swear the woman had just made a giant egg put itself in a wardrobe. Blindly she reached to find Rose's hand. Rose made sense in all this madness.

The woman crouched down next to them then, and as she tried to say that what they had seen wasn't real, Rory thought that she must be a professor. And it was only once she thought of that that she realised... she was at school. She had been at school this entire time. It made her more confused, and definitely more scared. "But it was real," Rory tried to protest, though her voice was weak and shaky. "It was real, I could feel his hand, he was so cold..." She didn't like to think that the professor was lying, but what she was being told and the events that had just occurred couldn't reconcile in her mind. "I need to find him, Professor, please, he's my grandfather..." It was odd how she wanted to go and yet her body wanted to stay, how she seemed to be bone-tired and yet completely keyed-up all at the same time. She didn't know what to do.

 

[Rose Holland]

As Rose holding Rory back from jumping into the chasm at their feet with all her might, even though she felt dizzy and like she was about t fall into that deep hole, the hole disappeared. Instead, another body appeared, this one a woman. Rose's mind scrambled to make sense of it, though she kept her hold on Rory tight. The hole was some sort of portal, some sort of dead-body-depositing portal. But no, that didn't make sense either. Numbly, she watched as ...whatever it was changed shapes again and again. The Gryffindor didn't notice the professor until she moved in front of her, between the two of them and the body. Rose watched in amazement as the woman pointed her wand at it. The spell she said was familiar, and she was reminded of her Defence Against the Dark Arts classes of the previous year. A boggart was defeated with that spell, wasn't it? But was that really a boggart? The egg it turned into was strange, but she was soon distracted by Rory's hand. She held it tightly as her friend clearly needed the support. And in all honesty, she did too. The professor crouched in front of them and talked to them. She was nice, and Rose felt herself nod automatically though her eyes drifted to Rory. It was understandable that Rory told her it was real, even to Rose it had felt very real. Her rational mind knew that a chasm like that wouldn't just open up in front of her, but it had felt real. Finally, Rose found her voice again as she let go of Rory's hand to put her arms around her. "It wasn't real." She said softly. "It was just your fears, okay? That hole wasn't real either, even though I thought it was and I thought we were going to fall in..." Her voice trailed off, the memory making her shudder. She looked at the Professor. "Maybe... maybe... we can send an owl to her family, they will tell her he's okay..." But an owl would be slow, and if Rory stayed in this state until word came back Rose really didn't know what to do.

 

[Professor Kahurangi Josephs]

Kahurangi knew that what these girls were going through was a distressing experience, but it still alarmed her just how distressed the redheaded girl seemed. She rubbed the girl's shoulder gently, shaking her head. "What you saw wasn't real." She said softly. "It was a creature pretending to be your grandfather. I promise you, everything is just fine." Kahurangi did her best, but she suspected that the girl's distress was beyond reasoning right now, and understandably so. Turning to the other girl, who seemed somewhat more lucid, Kahurangi tried to get her to help, in the hopes that giving the girl a task would help her calm down enough to make sense of things. "First thing your friend needs is a trip to the hospital wing." She said gently. "I think some calming draught would do us all a lot of good. Can you help me?" Kahurangi would have been perfectly capable of carrying or levitating the weeping girl herself, but her friend helping would probably give more comfort, and give the other girl something to focus on. Shifting a little, she helped the redheaded girl to her feet and, along with the girl's friend, began guiding her towards the hospital wing.

 

[Aurora Night]

Rory could still feel the high levels of distress bunching tightly under her skin, but as more seconds passed, and then a minute, she could slowly feel the beat of her heart beginning to regain a more normal rhythm. The steadiness of the noise, and the way Rose's arms now encircled her were helping anchor her back into the real world, the world where... where her grandfather had not fallen through a hole in the floor. There was no hole in the floor. He wasn't dead, Rose and the professor were saying so. The words didn't really assuage the niggling worry clawing at the back of Rory's brain, but she was coming down from the adrenaline high now and everything was becoming more... tiring. Her throat was sore from yelling, she realised, swallowing and hiccupping back the remaining tears in her system. Though it was slightly painful to do so, she was too tired to try and stop the automatic response, and in this dazed fashion Rory allowed herself to be pulled up onto her feet and led out of the classroom.