Closed Secrets of the Castle

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan had decided to go exploring the castle the moment he had the chance. It was huge, bigger than any other building he had ever been in before. It was pretty old too, or at least looked like it was. He had heard Hazel complain in the past about all the stairs she had to climb to meet up with her friends in Ravenclaw, so Logan had thought he was prepared for just how big the place was, but he really hadn't been. He was determined to learn all the secrets of the castle as soon as he could. It was more interesting than hanging around in the library or whatever. He had heard there were many secret passages in the castle, and Logan was determined to find them all.

After breakfast, Logan had made his way up the grand staircase and chosen a corridor at random. As he walked through it, he kept looking behind tapestries or under rugs, trying to find some hidden passageway or staircase. After not finding much on the first floor, he headed up to the second, and then up to the third. There he saw an ugly statue that looked big enough to hide something behind. Logan could squeeze behind it with some effort, and gasped. There was a secret corridor here. He barely stopped himself from yelling about it for anyone to hear. It was his discovery. Somehow, he was sure he was the only one to have ever found this. Logan eagerly pushed his way into the passage and moved forward urgently. He noticed it sloped down and wondered if the other entrance was a floor below. He wondered where, because thought he had looked in all the suspicious places on the second floor already.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

After visiting the most important parts of the castle - the library, student lounge, and conglomerated arts room - Callie had started to wonder about the rest of the place. The classrooms on her map and timetable were often several floors apart, which seemed terribly inconvenient in a school with moving staircases, but she'd overheard a pair of older students talking about shortcuts and was soon determined to find them herself. Unfortunately, much like everything else in this place, it wasn't simple. The passageways were well hidden and the portraits liked to point her in the wrong direction for a joke. After being sent in a circle three times by a stupid knight on a horse, she finally realised that he himself concealed a narrow corridor leading upward past the prefect common room. Ha! She'd get the hang of this place soon enough.

The portrait swung closed behind her, plunging the passage into pitch darkness. What was that light spell, again? Lumus? Callie took out her wand. "Lumus!" Nothing happened. "Lumus!" Nothing continued to happen. Well, she could keep trying while she walked. The wall on her left seemed to be continuous, anyway, so it wasn't as if she could get lost. She carried on like this for several minutes, repeating the useless spell and holding her unlit wand ahead of her, until suddenly the tip jabbed into something fleshy. "Um." She took a generous step back, debating her chances of outrunning whoever - or whatever - she'd bumped into. "Friend?"

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan headed into the corridor without thinking it through, and didn't realize how dark it was getting until he was unable to see much in front of him. But surely there had to be an end to it somewhere? He kept on walking and only stopped when he heard a girl voice saying a weird word. He frowned, squinting into the darkness as the voice grew closer. He let out a small yelp as something prodded his chest. "Hey!" He said, taking a step back. "Who are you? Is Lumus your name?" He asked, unsure how to answer her question (was it a question?) as he wasn't sure if she was a friend.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

Well, at least the thing in the darkness was human. Callie reached out and found a shoulder about the same height as her own. Not a professor, either - unless he was a very small one. She began to relax. "No, it's a spell," she said. "It's supposed to make your wand light up, but I can't get it to work. LUMUS! Is this thing on?" Callie smacked the wand against her palm. Healer Baros had said there weren't any batteries in them, but she was starting to wonder if they would help. "I'm a first year - Callie. Who are you, and what are you doing down here?"

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan couldn't help himself, he laughed as he realized what the girl was trying to say. He knew the spell well, his parents had cast it plenty of times when they just needed a quick light in the dark. "You mean lumos?" He asked with a laugh. "Where did you get lumus from?" He grinned, though he doubted she could see. He shrugged at her question. "I'm Logan, I'm also a first year. And I'm here for the same reason you are, to explore." He paused. "I found this passageway first, though." He told her.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

There was a short silence. "Yeah, that's what I said. Lumos." Callie flicked the boy with her wand in the dark, grinning. "Don't laugh at me! I've never been a witch before. Lumus, lumos - it's only one letter off." Perhaps she should have tried it again now, but she was reluctant to give the boy anything else to laugh at her for. "Oh! Did you really?" she said. "Remind me when we get out of here, and I'll give you a gold star."

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan was sure the girl was going to snap at him when he corrected her, but she didn't. She sounded almost like she was smiling? He kind of wished her spell had worked, as he couldn't really see her. He laughed lightly when she said he would get a gold star. "I'll keep you to that." He said, taking out his own wand. "Lumos." He said, trying to see if he could do it. He hadn't really tried any magic yet. The wand flickered on and off. "Lumos." He tried again, letting out a small cheer when there was a light. It wasn't very strong, but it was there. "Now we can actually see." He said brightly. "Where did you find your entrance to this tunnel that I discovered?" He asked her, still grinning.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

In the last moments of darkness, Callie rolled her eyes. Maybe she'd actually try to find a gold star for him, if she ever found out who he was. There was a flicker of light then, followed by a steady glow that lit the passageway and revealed his face. "Oh, I remember you," she said. He'd been one of the first students sorted. "The hat nearly put you in Gryffindor, like me." Hopefully, Logan wouldn't remember that the hat had called her obnoxious. "You know, Thomas Edison wasn't the first person to invent the light bulb, but he's the one everyone remembers. And it's behind the massive knight portrait, next to the prefects' common room. Does it go all the way up to the third floor? I'm looking for shortcuts between classrooms. This place is enormous."

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan grinned as the girl said she remembered him. "I'm memorable." He joked, though he was only half joking. "It did, but I guess it thought Slytherin was better." Logan hadn't noticed this girl's sorting. He had been too busy with himself and his own sorting to pay attention again until around the 'E' names. He raised his eyebrows a little. "The who invented the what?" He asked, though he did know what a lightbulb was. But he had never in his life cared or thought about who invented it. He inwardly cursed himself for believing the knight portrait when it said it wasn't concealing anything after Logan asked. He guessed he hadn't thought paintings could lie. He nodded. "Yeah, the third floor behind a statue." He told her. "I don't really care about getting to class on time, but I do like finding hidden stuff." He told her with a smile.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

Calliope smirked. She would have disagreed, except that Logan obviously was memorable, or she wouldn't have remembered him. "Better for you, maybe," she said. "Gryffindor is perfect for me. Brave, adventurous, heroic - can't argue with that." She was grinning now, and continued to grin even while she rolled her eyes at his ignorance. "Is there a statute of secrecy that stops wizards learning about the muggle world? If not, you have no excuse." Edison she could understand, but surely everybody knew what a light bulb was? Maybe Logan was just winding her up - and, naïve as she was, she'd fallen for it. Latching onto the new subject, she said, "What else have you found? I'll share if you share."

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan scoffed at Calliopse's words, crossing his arms and tilting his head slightly. "Gryffindor is fine, but Slytherin is better. The proof is the hat putting me in Slytherin." He said, before grinning widely. Logan laughed slightly as she told him off for not knowing muggle stuff. He shrugged easily. "Nah, but I had better things to do." He told her. "Like playing Quidditch. Are you muggleborn, then?" He asked, curious. "How'd you almost know that spell then?" Though he supposed it made sense she said it wrong if she had never heard it before. His eyes widened slightly as she asked him what else he had found and offered to share. "You've found others?" He asked, only to realize he had now revealed that he hadn't found anything himself. He sighed. "In my defense, I only just started looking." He told her as he leaned against the wide of the passageway.

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

Callie folded her arms. "No house is better than any other house," she argued, determined not to let Logan have the last word. "They're just different. And yes, I'm muggle-born, and I know about Lumos because I read it in The Standard Book of Spells, and I know what Quidditch is, too - it's a game you play flying around on broomsticks, which is hardly as important as knowing how the world works." The wizarding world was, after all, only a small part of the world entire. Callie appreciated sports better than most, but even she wouldn't have called them important. She smirked as Logan admitted this was the only passageway he'd found. "Maybe. But I'm not going to tell you where unless you have something interesting to tell me. Think of it like a trade; my secrets for yours."

 

[Logan Ashworth]

Logan laughed at Calliope's words, in his mind she was backtracking what she said earlier. "Of course not, you just think Gryffindor fits you because you're brave, adventurous and heroic but that doesn't make you better than the other houses." He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He scoffed as she talked about Quidditch and having read it from a book, shaking his head. "Listen, I will forgive how wrong you are about this just because you only have it out of a book. If you had actually seen a match, you wouldn't be talking nonsense like this." He told her. "We'll watch the first Hogwarts match together, and you'll see." Unless he was playing in it, but even Logan wasn't confident enough to say that out loud. He knew as a first year, those chances were small. As Calliope spoke about the passageways and implied she had found more, Logan narrowed his eyes. "How do I know you're not lying?"

 

[Calliope Cartwright]

Callie scowled. "I never said Gryffindor was better. I said it was better for me," she said, without much conviction, because she couldn't actually remember how she'd worded it. Ugh - he was one of those sorts. The sort who thought sport was the most important thing in the entire universe and threw a hissy fit when you insulted their favourite team. "For your information, I play hockey, netball, and football, which are just as important to me as Quidditch is to you. Some of us can enjoy sports and have a brain. I guess not everyone is so lucky." She smiled sarcastically. "Nope. No secrets. I'm not telling you anything, now. Move over - you're blocking my way."