You Can't Run, But You Can Hide

[Lea Mauven]

Many would have thought that Lea had had a very eventful holidays, afterall she had been adopted by the Mauvens, attended her adoptive parents' wedding and moved into a positively divine manor in Europe. But Lea was ever growing in social capabilities and found herself perpetually bored. So she had found herself at Zonko's with the help of Frances and her apparition skills, and the fifteen year old had been spoilt for choice. Now that she had a family she had found herself spoilt beyond anything she could have ever imagined and the once weedy little girl had even gained a little weight from dining in her adoptive father's restaurants almost every night for the past few weeks. So with a pocketful of galleons and the world at her fingertips the young Tahitian girl wandered along taking in each item of each shelf ever so carefully, she wanted to make the perfect decision. As she looked she imagined the shop to be something that her friend Elspeth would like, she hadn't seen the girl in such a long time and felt as though they did really need to catch up, before they got snowed under with school work once more, she made a mental note of it as they both had reason to celebrate. Afterall since they had last seen eachother they had both been adopted, it seemed like their lives might just be coming together the way they had once hoped.

At the end of the second last shelf Lea spotted the most colourful box she had ever seen and immediately seized it in her hands like a small child, about to be ready to beg her mother if she could have it, but then the blonde girl remembered that the jingling in her pocket was galleons, that she could spend on herself and there was no fear of the suply of galleons ever running out. Being adopted truly was all it had been cracked up to be, it had seemed like a silly fairy story when she was living at the Hogwarts Halfway House, but her dream had come true and now here she was, buying something for pure and reckless fun. She tiptoed up to the counter and put the box of fireworks down upon it, a telltale grin across her face. She paid quickly before rushing back to Frances, who's stomach was growing bigger by the day. Lea could hardly believe her luck, being adopted and now even a new sibling to add to the package of suburban bliss she had created in her mind and in reality. As she walked the corridors of Hogwarts after returning from break she settled down in the sixth floor, sitting on the floor and leaning up against a wall. She pulled from beneath her cloak the very box she had been saving for a quiet moment like this and pulled out her wand and with one firework set up on the ground in front of her she lit the wick and watched it go. But these were no normal fireworks, Lea stood up and observed as they flew around the corridor and she ducked and swerved trying not to be hit by them. Each time the wick ran out, it replenished! She could find nowhere to hide from them. It was times like this she wished genies existed. "I wish I could find somewhere to hide!" she said to herself as she noticed another unfortunate student stumble down the hall. ​

 

[Elspeth Brookes]

Exhaling heavily, Elspeth climbed the stairs to the Ravenclaw tower. She had been in the dungeons again, and now that it was time for her to return to her common room, she wished she was in Slytherin, where at least it was all downhill on the way there. The stairs ended, and she found herself on the sixth floor. She opened the door to the corridor, and was immediately almost blinded by a multitude of fiery shapes flying at high speed through the suddenly narrow-seeming hallway. She noticed a firework in the shape of the letter Q tried to escape into the stairwell behind her, and quickly slammed the door. She knew from stories about wizarding fireworks (and an unfortunate prank played on her mother when she was very young) that if even one escaped, they would be everywhere in a matter of hours.

She ducked as a bright green blur ricocheted off the opposite wall and flew towards her head. She noticed another unfortunate student at the end of the passage, and hastened towards them. The room was rapidly filling with smoke, and she quietly swore to herself. "Hello?" She called, trying to see through the confusing mixture of bright flashing lights and dark grey smoke. She waited a few moments, but the whistling sounds the fireworks were emitting had probably drowned out her voice. She gave up, and remembering a brief lucky moment in her third year, and recognising the corridor as the same, she turned back the way she had come, thinking hard to herself. I need to find somewhere to hide. I need to find somewhere to hide. I need to find somewhere to hide. A large, ornate wooden door appeared in front of her, and she ducked through gratefully.

 

[Lea Mauven]

With her hands over her head, Lea cowered in the corner hoping that by some miracle somebody with firework experience would come along and save her from her doom. But it was no such luck, she sat, petrified and feeling so stupid, why on earth did she set of fireworks indoors? She couldn't think why she would do such a thing, most fifteen year olds knew by now that there were things that were simply meant to be done outdoors and setting off fireworks was one of them. Just as she was fearing the worst she noticed another body amongst the smoke and felt as though she was about to be in a big amount of trouble, the figure was too small to be a Professor (thank goodness for that) but it could have very well been a prefect, but what Lea didn't know was that it was Elspeth Brookes, and new prefect and one of the fifteen year old's best friends. "Over here!" she called desperately in response to a muffled hello. The hall was filling with smoke and Lea bit her lip in a nervous fashion, not only was she probably going to die in the old hall, she was also about to miss a charms lesson, which would have her in a lot of trouble.

Lea kept her wide open eyes fixed on the figure coming through the smoke and just as she thought the other student had noticed her, she vanished into thin air. She was just there a second ago. the Hufflepuff thought to herself, she was growing rather upset, her first day back at Hogwarts was not going well at all. Lea didn't know whether she believed in God like she believed in magic, or whether genies existed but there was nothing left to do but hope as the fireworks bounced off the walls and she narrowly missed each one as it multiplied, filling the hall with more and more smoke as it did so. I wish I had somewhere to hide. I wish I had somewhere to hide. she chanted in her mind, hoping that something, anything would hear her cries of desparation, how embarrassing it would be for her to die from being hit by fireworks she let off herself. Suddenly next to her a door appeared out of nowhere, surely she had noticed the antique framework before? How could she not notice such a thing right beside where she was crouched? Although it seemed unreal, the fifth year had nothing to lose so she turned the handle and hurried inside, clinging onto her cloak as she did so, holding it over her nose and mouth so she didn't suffocate on the smoke trailing behind her. Slumping onto the floor, Lea Mauven vowed to go to church at least once as she was somehow convinced her silent praying had had something to do with the magical room that had appeared before her.

Removing the cloak from her face after escaping the smoke, Lea coughed and looked up to see another student staring right back at her. "Elspeth?" she said, she couldn't believe her eyes, her Ravenclaw friend must have been the student she had seen vanish from the corridor. Even after four years at the magical school this day had proved to Lea that magic was not something you could predict but it followed her everywhere. Jumping up from where she had been slumped on the ground, Lea threw her arms around Elspeth and squeezed tightly. Now there was just the one question left, would they ever be able to leave this room? ​

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[Elspeth Brookes]

Elspeth lay sprawled in the Room of Requirement. As she had entered the Room, her foot had caught on her opposite ankle, and she had once again managed to trip herself over. The Ravenclaw prefect lay there for a few seconds, trying to get her breath back, before sitting up. "Well that was unexpected." She commented to the empty room, which had formed a neat sitting room, with a blazing fire and several comfy looking chairs. She settled into the nearest of these with a grateful sigh; the unwelcome exercise of the castle stairs coupled with the adrenaline fuelled moments in the corridor had left the witch feeling exhausted.

Just as Elspeth started to wonder how she would get out of the room, the door banged open again, and another student collapsed through the portal. When she lowered the cloak from her face, Elspeth immediately recognised her. Usually filled with distaste at the thought of seeing her old friends, Elspeth instead felt relieved it was someone she knew. "Lea!" She waved from her seat on the chair, not bothered to move, even for the Hufflepuff. "Come in, sit down, make yourself at home!" Her smile was as cheery and inviting as the merrily crackling fire, quite different from her usual moody countenance. However, when Lea's arms wrapped around Elspeth's torso, her smile disappeared. "Um, Lea? Loosen up a little, won't you? Breathing would be nice."

Predicting the next question that would occur to Lea, Elspeth grinned. "Lea Yellowstone, welcome to the Room of Requirement." Elspeth waited for her Halfway House buddy's reaction. The Ravenclaw in her revelled in the bliss of having knowledge not possessed by others, while the teenager in her wanted to see how Lea would react to the news that she had found the Room that was told about in stories, believed by most to be false. And that they were two of the few people to ever discover it.