Closed On The Run

[Flynn North-McGowan]

This was not the first time that Flynn had been out of the common room after curfew, but this time was sort of an accident. He'd been out on the pitch trying to get his eye back in on a broom and had simply lost track of the time. But now came the task of trying to sneak back to the seventh floor without getting spotted by a prefect or a Professor. Not that he cared that much about getting detention, but he'd simply rather not have the bother.

Trying to keep as quiet as possible as he crept along the fifth floor towards the stairs, Flynn was actually making pretty good progress with this sneaking business. That was until he heard footsteps up ahead. Panicking for just a moment, the third year whipped his head from left to right for a hiding place before diving towards a pillar to try and hide behind. But there seemed to be a problem. Someone else was already there. "Hey, this is my hiding place," he hissed, narrowing his eyes at the girl he actually recognized. Harper. "What are you doing here anyway?"

@Harper Alston

 

[Harper Alston]

Harper had broken curfew a couple times, but always on the other side of the night. Thankfully, no one seemed to care that she liked to get up extremely early for her pre-dawn workouts. Most of the time, she didn't even see people around the castle that early in the morning. But today, she'd overslept and had been forced to move her scheduled run to after nightfall

The run had been a miserable experience as she'd had to hold her wand the entire time in order to see. Still, she'd managed to trip over hidden obstacles several times. Never again. All Harper wanted to do was go to bed so she could get early and resume her normal schedule, but it seemed the school's prefects had other ideas. There seemed to be one around every corner.

Harper was standing behind a pillar, hiding from one of them now. As she tried to peer out into the corridor, someone joined her, causing her to flinch violently and nearly cry out. It took her a second to recognize the intruder, and she had to resist heaving a sigh when she did so. "Same thing as you, hiding from the prefect up there," she whispered, pointing down the hallway. "They've been there a while. Do you know any other routes back to Gryffindor?" She assumed that's where Flynn was going, but part of her hoped he was headed somewhere else.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

He hadn't thought he would bump into anyone else, let alone someone who was also trying to hide from the prefects and Professors roaming the hallways. It would have certainly been easier to try and sneak back without having to worry about someone else getting in the way. But now they were both there and both didn't want to get caught and end up in detention together for being out after curfew, he supposed they were going to have to try and work together to make it back to the common room undetected. Though, Flynn did have a feeling that trying to work with her was no going to be an easy task.

Thinking on the question for a moment he tried to recall any hidden passageways he had found which might be faster to ge back up the seventh floor. But nothing came to mind and he sighed, moving slightly to peer out from behind the pillar they were both pressed behind to see if the prefect was still there. "Looks like the coast is clear for the moment," he whispered as he ducked his head back, "We might be able to slip past before they come back."

 

[Harper Alston]

While Flynn wasn't exactly the last person she wanted to see, he definitely wasn't at the top of the list. He seemed to lash out whenever they spoke, and Harper still wasn't quite sure what his deal was. She had braced herself for some sarcastic remark and was surprised when none came. It seemed he was just as intent on getting back to the common room with as little trouble as possible. She considered his observation for a second before deciding to trust him. "Okay, let's go," she whispered.

Indecisiveness would get her caught, so Harper moved swiftly, not bothering to consult Flynn. It was a good thing she was wearing running shoes and not more noisy footwear. There was a statue up ahead before the corridor opened up into a wider room with no opportunities to take cover, so she decided to pause behind it to figure out her next move. She was pretty sure there was a portrait nearby that concealed a secret passage and would help them avoid moving out in the open, exposed, but it was hard to tell where it was in the dark. "Here," she whispered loudly, trying to signal to Flynn her location in case he had lost sight of her.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

Flynn just hoped there wouldn't be any running involved in this grand escape they were planning. He was not very cut out for running, his prosthetic not really build for that kind of thing. While he could run, it just wasn't very easy and he'd rather not have to bolt through the corridors running from a Professor or a Prefect. Which was why he was planning on being very careful and making it back to the common room without anyone even noticing he was out after hours in the first place. And he just hoped that Harper had the same goal as him in all of this and wasn't going to make any noise or trouble to get them caught.

When Harper moved, Flynn moved, trying to stick close to the girl as much as possible, which was harder than it looked when she was moving so fast. But so far, so good and he quickly slipped back behind cover when they had managed to get past the first Prefect. But they were still quite a distance from the seventh floor. "Where to now?" He wondered quietly, peering from behind his hiding place just to check there wasn't anyone else around.

 

[Harper Alston]

As Harper waited for Flynn to catch up, she suddenly remembered that he was missing his lower leg. That would definitely make things harder. She tried not to feel too anxious as she waited; after all it wasn't like he could do anything about it. "I think there's a secret passage behind one of these paintings," she whispered. "It should take us to the seventh floor." If they could find it, then they wouldn't even need to worry about running into prefects or professors. She assumed the Hogwarts authority figures stuck to the main passageways in their patrols.

There was just one problem. "I, uh, don't remember exactly which one it is," she admitted. It was hard to even tell the different paintings apart in the darkness. And there were a lot of them. "Help me look?" Harper started to tug at the edge of a large painting but stopped suddenly when the man inside it let out a large snore. Thankfully he didn't wake up. Maybe this was all a bad idea.

 

[Flynn North-McGowan]

All the hairs were standing up on the back of his neck just from the absolute anxiety pulsing through him that moment. All it took was a prefect to come around the corner and spot them for them to end up in some boring old detention and no doubt losing points for Gryffindor as well. Of course, neither of those things really bothered him, but it was rather annoying and he would rather not get detention just because he couldn't be bothered with it.

"Helpful," he couldn't help but grumble when she admitted she had forgotten which portrait this passageway was even behind. And he inwardly winced when she fumbled with the wrong portrait looking for the right one and almost woke the figure sleeping inside up. "All it takes is for one of these portraits to wake up and we're done far," because no doubt they would be annoyed about being woken up and go and find someone to go and get the two of them into trouble. Flynn knew he would be annoyed if someone woke him up while he was sleeping.