(Corridors) The Fat Lady

[Harrison Greg]

Feeling Effie brush past him Harrison took a small step back and let her get the whole feel of the area around them. He watched her every move, where she placed her foot, how she held her wand and traced the movement of her eyes with his own. And as she came to a stop and explained it was that way Harrison gave a small smile to show he had some form of faith in her and started to walk forwards, but as soon as he was level with he could not help but laugh.

“Now I have full faith in your decision….” He noticed that Effie had started to move forwards “Hang on what do you think you are doing. I said I would go first you never know what maybe down here. You’re the brains and I am the brawn remember that.”

Harrison was unsure if she had seen it but he actually shot her a small wink before putting his best foot forward and headed down the dark corridor, still laughing lightly to himself. The two beams of light moved from side to side along the passageway and for almost 100 meters it seemed that it was exactly the same as the last one. Cobwebs and green slim. But s Harrison moved his wand light it caught something. In the distance an object was glinting. As the excitement filled him Harrison sped up, quickly glancing over his solder giving Effie a glare of ’stay where you are’, he had become strangely protective of her.

As he moved closer a faint outline became clear, it was tall and broad and it all seemed to be reflecting the light. Reaching out Harrison formed a fist and knocked on the object and heard the hollow ringing noise fill the corridor. With a small laugh he turned around to find Effie.

“Effie it is a suit of armour. Wonder why it has not grown rusty over these years. Maybe I should put it on and be your night in shinning armour.” He gave a small laugh but as he turned around to look at it again he heard a faint creek, like the sound of the metal joints moving. His slow step backwards turned into a fast run accompanied with him swearing loudly. The suit of armour had its sword drawn and all be it rather slowly was moving towards him. Skidding to a halt in front of Effie Harrison looked straight into her eyes almost begging her to come up with an idea or turn and run. At this present moment in time he could not think of any spell that would stop a enchanted hollow suit of armour.

[effie]

Effie smiled as Harrison passed her to lead them down the corridor, feeling quite glad that he opted to go first, not that she would admit it. Keeping close to the Gryffindor as they moved through the equally dark passage, Harrison turned to give her a look that said “stay put” and quite unusually for Effie, she did as she was told.

A hollow ringing noise soon reverberated around the chamber, and Effie moved her wand forward, squinting to see what Harrison had discovered. Gleefully he told her what it was, though she didn’t register his sentence past the first word. Effie. She repeated inwardly, as if to confirm that was what she had really heard. It had always been, Howard this, Greg that - that’s how it was between them and always had been. She glanced at him with an uncertain, but genuine smile.

An ominous creak quickly stole it away, as a second later a panicked looking Harrison came almost skidding into her. He searched her eyes as she stared past him at the approaching suit of armour, that was already beginning to raise its sword as if to get ready for an execution.

Her eyes widened in slight alarm, though even in a time like this she managed to find her quick tongue. ‘So much for being the brawn eh?’ She whipped her wand round and cast the first spell that came into head. The light extinguished from it and suddenly began issuing ropes out of the end to firmly wrap around the enchanted armour’s legs.

The armour came to sudden halt as the spell reached it, and Effie was just about to give out a laugh of relief, when the helmet abruptly clanked as it moved to peer downwards. ‘What is it doing-’ She broke off, as the armour suddenly brought its sword crashing down, slicing through all the ropes and creating an almighty bang. Effie stared. ‘Crap.’

[Harrison Greg]

Harrison’s heard was pounding in his chest as he looked at Effie, seeing her eyes grow wide in fear. Looking around with his wand out he saw the suit of armour was right by them sword in the air. It was lucky that he had been thrown down the corridor with this Ravenclaw otherwise he would be convinced they would have been sliced in two by now. But as ropes came out of the end of Effie’s wand Harrison allowed himself to let go of the breath he had been holding unconsciously.

“Well done, I did not think about…..” The suit of armour used what ever sense it had floating inside it empty helmet and cut it’s self free, and this amused Harrison for a second and he turned back to Effie almost to gloat. “Now you see that is why I did not think if that Howard. The bloody thing has a sharp sword. Speaking of which…….lets run!”

Reaching out, just like before on the stairs Harrison took hold of Effie’s wandless hand and began to drag her along down the corridor with him. His mind was spinning trying to think of ways of beating the suit of armour. He felt like it should be something simple, he tried to think of what he would do in a wizards duel and then try to use that to help him. With his eyes growing wide in annoyance that he did not think of it before Harrison let go of Effie’s hand, stopped and turned around to face the on coming knight.

“Expelliarmus!”

There was a flash from the end of his wand and it headed towards its intended target, hitting it square in the chest plate. With a small smirk Harrison was about to continue boasting to Effie when he noticed that the light did not fade, it fact it was getting bigger, coming towards him, Swearing loudly once again he dived to the ground and let the spell fly back over its head. He never really thought about the armour being a reflective surface.

[effie]

For the second time that evening Effie felt Harrison take her hand in his, though this time for a much more worthy reason. He dragged her down the corridor, and whilst Effie stared back at the armour clanking along after them, you could almost see the clogs working as Harrison seemed to plough through a plan internally.

He abruptly came to a stop and released Effies hand. If he had wanted her to continue running, she certainly wasn’t going to and skidded to a stop herself. She watched slightly out of breath, as the Gryffindor sent the disarming spell flashing towards its victim. A smile disappeared as fast as it appeared, when the spell reflected to shoot straight back at them. Effie threw herself to against the wall to miss it by mere inches.

She laughed, the knight (putting aside the small fact that it was trying to dismember them both) had almost become a game for them, as one student tried to beat the other. ‘And now you know why I didn’t try to stun it.’ She offered Harrison a hand with a smirk, and quickly help to pull him up as the armour moved dangerously close. ‘Accio sword!’ The spell had seem a perfectly good idea in the heat of the moment, but when a whacking great big sword came hurtling towards them both, Effie began to have second thoughts.

[Harrison Greg]

Looking up Harrison saw Effie offering him her hand to help pull him up. Had it been any other time, with any other person Harrison would have pretended not to see it and pushed himself up but this was different. So thankful he reached out taking hold of her hand and pulled himself to his feet. It was starting to become a common thing of theirs as well as the idea of trying to better the other.
Harrison was quite ready to start running again and try one of the other passageways but it seemed Effie still wanted to take on the suit of armour. A part of him could not blame her, not only was it trying to hurt them but it would be strange for it to be here unless it was to protect something, or to hide it as it was unstoppable.

Watching Effie Harrison listened to her choice of spell and it seemed like her it seemed a sensible spell at first, it got the sword away from the suit of armour but the problem was that it now was coming at a rather fast speed towards Effie. It was his turn to think fast, and this time his target being a not so shiny sword he had hope.

“Immobulus!”

He watched with baited breath as it got ever closer to Effie, but then it stopped in mid air, only inches away from her face. Keeping his wand pointed at the sword and his gaze on the knight he started to step towards Effie and placed his free hand on her shoulder, and gently started to pull her backwards away from the sword. He was sure she did not need to know to move away from it, but it was the only thing he could think of doing.

[effie]

The sword was gliding towards her at a frightening pace. There wasn’t the time to move, so Effie did the one thing that human nature feels necessary though is completely useless in most situations, and protected her head with her arms. She gave out a yell, convinced she was going to have a sword slicing through her at any moment.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Effie lowered her arms and opened her eyes. The sword was frozen, mere inches away from her face. She gazed up at Harrison and smiled, and would have said thank you if she hadn’t noticed the knight’s state at quite that moment. ‘Look…’ Harrison’s spell seemed to have been more effective than he realised. ‘The sword was the enchantments core.’ The knight stood frozen to spot, just like its disarmed sword in front of it.

A few moments of silence followed, broken by the question both of them were thinking.‘What the hell is a thing like that doing lying around?’

[Harrison Greg]

Gently lifting his hand off Effie’s shoulder Harrison walked slowly towards the frozen sword, studying in carefully and trying hard to resist the temptation to poke it. If Effie had not have pointed it out the chances are Harrison would have forgot all about the knight and as her surprised voice rang out around the empty corridor Harrison looked up and could not help but smile. He had out done the Ravenclaw, although without meaning to.
He was half tempted to turn and gloat away but as he walked closer to Effie she blurted out the question had had been thinking early. But for some reason he did not expect her to say it in such a way and it actually made him jump backwards slightly.

Trying to pull himself together from the slight embarrassment of being shocked by such a simple thing Harrison gave a shrug of his shoulders and turned to look back at the knight over her shoulder.

“Maybe it is here to protect something, stop young youths such as ourselves from getting our sticky little hands on it.” The smile that was filling Harrison’s face turned into a slight mock frown in an attempt to be serious. “Or, they put it in here as they did not expect anybody to discover this corridor. I mean how stupid do you have to be to lean into the grasp of a statue. I mean come on!”

His frown soon turned into a smirk as he looked straight at Effie. For some reason he found it strange that he was having a good time. His and Effie’s life styles and personalities were so different, they had different opinions of themselves and of others and over the years almost a prejudice had been created. Harrison was seen as one of the ‘popular’ Gryffindors while Effie was the Ravenclaw in the background, they would not normally be seen together, yet here they were acting like good friends. Harrison guessed that when you take away the groups of people that help form that prejudice and a person has to stand alone the facade falls away and the real person has a chance to come through, but for Harrison he had acted like this for so long, played up to the spotlight, it had become him.

[effie]

Effie, quite on purpose, didn’t give Harrison the time to mention he was the one who defeated the knight. She had a retort fully prepared of course, which involved pointing out that he wouldn’t have been able to cast the spell if she hadn’t summoned the target.

Effie gained a smirk as Harrison joked how stupid it was for someone to lean in the grasp of a statue. She had quite forgotten that it was her fault that were both stuck there.

Her smile dropped ever so slightly as something like reality seemed to kick in. She felt almost guilty that they were having a good time. It seemed wrong that she should be getting along with the Gryffindor, as if it was something that wasn’t allowed. Her group of friends were among the minority that didn’t fall for the charm of his group of friends. In fact, they prided themselves on this fact and often joked about those who did. It had been like that for so long now, Effie couldn’t remember how it all came about in the first place.

They had been watching each other for a few too many seconds, and Effie wondered if he was thinking about the odd situation, the same way she was. He’s probably thinking about what he wants for breakfast. She joked inwardly, the old presumptions about him clouding her mind once again. 'Erm... I guess we better keep going then.' She said finally, illuminating her wand.

[Harrison Greg]

The silence was becoming awkward and all Harrison could do was look at Effie. He did not want to quickly look away as it would make it seem as if something was wrong, so the only thing he could do was keep his gaze fixed upon her and almost wait for her to say something to break the deadlock. Eventually Effie suggested that they continued and Harrison gave a nod of his head in agreement, thankful that he had a reason to look away.

It was not that Effie was an eyesore; she was in her own way very beautiful. But because of that he became very aware of himself and did not want to make her think that he was looking at her in that sort of way. He was only looking at her because there was not anything else to look at. With a flick of his wrist the thin beam of light appeared from his wand again and he slowly began to walk down the corridor, edging slowly past the suit of armour, giving it a careful look in case it came alive again. Alas it did not as they were able to continue albeit in silence. That was until Harrison could stand it no longer and had to say something.

“So why where you really by the common room Howard? Saying you had homework was a rather pathetic excuse when clearly you have nothing with you.”

With a small smile and a look over his shoulder Harrison continued to walk down the dark corridor with only the sound of their footsteps around them. It was almost as if the rest of the castle was empty as no other sounds could be heard.

[effie]

'I was there for homework reasons,' Effie defended, with a jokingly "How Dare You Question Me" sort of look. 'Even if I did neglect to take the homework with me.' A half smile appeared on her face. 'Well ok, I didn't plan on specifically being there-' The Ravenclaw admitted. '-The staircase decided it was moving day.' Her smile morphed into a bit of a smirk. 'It was good job it had really, I would have looked a right prat marching into the Professors office empty handed.'

Since the knight incident, Effie had begun to flick her wand left and right to survey the whole passageway. She didn't want them to get any more nasty surprises. They had gone a few more hundred yards or so when something on the right hand wall caught her eye. The first thing that struck Effie was that on that patch of wall there was distinct lack of green, and as she moved a little closer she noticed something rather odd.

The wall had firmly attached to it, a bunch of different coloured masks positioned in a perfect circle, with one in the middle. With a quick glance Effie counted that there was seven of them altogether. 'What do we have here then...' She said half to herself and half to Harrison, an intrigued smile crossing her lips. Moving closer to the masks, she soon gained a confused expression. They had been attached to the wall the wrong way. Instead of showing off the front of the mask for decoration, they had been positioned with the front facing the wall.

'Its like they've been put that way so you can wear them.' Effie thought out loud. She outstretched her hand and lightly poked one of the masks, before snapping her hand back. Nothing happened.

She gave a sigh of relief, and then turned to Harrison with a somewhat mischievious glint in her eye. 'I will, if you will.'

[Harrison Greg]

Harrison could not help but laugh as Effie described about how she ended up by the Gryffindor common room with out her homework. The stairs were always a pain and when it spent you into a part of the castle you have never been in before then you really do get stuck. And he was glad it had happened and that there where to singing 5th years as it meant he left and so bumped into Effie. And even though they had nearly been killed he was still finding it fun, it was not everyday he went wondering down a secret corridor with a Ravenclaw, and an amusing one at that.

After his laughter had died down he was starting to worry that the silence was going to fall over them again, but alas it seemed not as Effie had spotted something. Turing around as she spoke he walked over towards the wall where she stood and with wide eyes saw why she had stopped.
Gently moving his wand light over the masks, this corridor was getting stranger by the second.
With a glint in his eye and a playful smile on his face Harrison turned around to look at Effie and she looked at him. It seemed they were having the same idea. Where was the fun in life if you did not take a few risks?

“You took the words right out of my mouth How….Effie.”

He was not sure what made him change his mind on calling Effie by her first name, but seeing as they were almost acting as good friends it seemed to formal and distant to call her ‘Howard’, anyway it made her sound like a guy.
So with one last smile at Effie Harrison turned to face the masks and picking the closest to him, which by wand light seemed to be a red colour he decided he might as well go for this one and put his head inside, finding it rather strange that it fitted him perfectly, in fact it was getting tighter and tighter it was sucking him in.

There was darkness for a moment and then a blinding light, for a brief moment the blond part of Harrison’s mind thought that he had died and this was the blinding white light to take him away. But he soon realised that it was not the pearly white gates he was looking at but the Gryffindor common room. But his view was high, like he was on the wall, he saw the empty couch were he had been lying, the gaggle of girls sitting in the corner talking and giggling. He was inside the portrait of the Quidditch player that sat above the fire.

[effie]

Effie quickly studied the masks one by one, seeing which one she liked the look of best. The one in the centre seemed to have had a particularly long time spent on it by the craftsman. It was jet black, and shaped with a surprising intricacy. There was just something about it though that made the Ravenclaw wary of it, and seeing that Harrison was moving his head towards the red one on the left, she quickly decided on a small, brown-ish one that was positioned almost perfectly for her height.

Effie placed her face in the mask, and for quite a few moments, nothing happened and she was just about to move her head out of it in disappointment, when suddenly she was hit with something comparable to the G force of a rollercoaster. She didn't have time to yell, it was as if she was being hoovered up like a piece of dirt, and as quickly as the sensation had come, it had gone.

The Ravenclaw was in the Great Hall - rather high up - and felt panic flood through her, thinking the mask had transported her to fall to her death. She didn't move though, no feeling of falling came, and that's when she realised how odd she actually felt. Effie could feel the rest of her body, she knew it was attached to her, but it was like it wasn't there with her. She gazed down at the Great Hall - she could see the whole room from where she was, allowing her to deduce her position. Somehow she had managed to find herself above the great, wooden entrance doors, exactly where a large portrait of merry wizards having their dinner was.

Effie could feel her body still standing as it was in the chamber, and somehow knew she could still control it. She stepped back, and the sucking sensation of before seemed to become reversed.

She was back in the chamber, heart thumping wildly at what had just happened. Harrison still had his face pressed against the mask, and Effie pulled him by the arm out of it, unable (for once) to find words.

[Harrison Greg]

‘I love his hair, its so…’
‘Floppy, soft looking…’
‘Yeah, but the beard it makes him look…’
‘Sexy!’
‘NO 30!’

The girls burst into fits of giggles as they continued to talk about Harrison unknown to them that he was listening into the portrait above the fire. He would have been willing to stay there all day and listen to them talk about him. He could feel his confidence grow as it was clear that at least one of them liked him. Slowly they stopped laughing and began to talk in hushed tones, Harrison tried to listen once more but found the room was fading, he felt something take hold of his arm and before he knew it he was standing in the dark corridor let again looking at Effie.

“What did you do that for? I am convinced the blond one was about to admit she loved me. Now I will never know!”

Harrison started to protest about the rude interruption that was until the light from his wand passed over Effie’s face and he saw her stunned look. He guessed that the same thing had happened to her but her experience was clearly not as enjoyable as his. For once Harrison managed to slip out of his own world and stop thinking about only himself for once. Reaching out he put a hand on Effie’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze, the thing that shocked him was that she was being rather quite.

“Effie. Are you alright?”

His voice held a slight note of concern in it, he started to fear that she had been transported into the boys wash room and got a few sights that should not be seen by one so fair, or worse the professor bathroom. Winching at the mere thought he found his eyes darting towards the masks again, he wanted to do it again. Feel the sensation of being squeezed through a thin tube and then being able to see and listen to other people without them knowing he was there. But he wanted to try a different one and the centre black one was almost calling out to him.

[effie]

Effie’s stunned look slowly inch by inch turned into a look of pure delight. ‘Merlin… You were somewhere different weren’t you!’ It seemed that Harrison hadn’t quite grasped the magnitude of what they had found and instead, unsurprisingly, was fussing about some girl.

She moved past him, and slotted her face into the red mask that she had just pulled him out of. With the element of surprise removed, the sensation a second time round was much more thrilling.

‘But you’ve got to admit, Harrison is gorgeous…’
Effie wrinkled her nose, and pulled a face as if she’d just been put in a room full of dragon’s dung.
‘I think someone’s got a crush… ooooh…’
A blonde girl sat on an armchair directly in front of Effie turned an impressive shade of red.

Effie stepped back, and was dragged back into the chamber. She looked up at Harrison, trying to keep a straight face as she shook her head and said ‘No chance.’ Her usual teasing smirk appeared.

The Ravenclaw turned back to the masks, and could see that Harrison was itching to try out more just as much as she was. 'I'm guessing these three are also common rooms.' She gestured towards the three masks that came after the red one, their appearance matching that of the house colours.

[Harrison Greg]

The black mask had held his gaze for a long time, Harrison found himself tracing his figure around its sides as he wondered where it would take him too, but he was distracted by the movement of Effie’s wand. She was putting her face inside the red mask, and he waited with baited breath to see if she had been taken to the Gryffindor common room.
It seemed like an age standing in the dark, almost by himself. Harrison found himself looking over his shoulder and straining his ears to try and hear some sound that could be from the castle above them. But as Effie pulled back out of the mask he looked at her with a confused smile as she mentioned something about someone having no chance.

A wide grin appeared on Harrison’s face as he managed to put two and two together. Effie had been inside the Gryffindor common room and the girls were clearly still talking about him. Letting his ego grow slightly he only half heard what Effie was saying about how the some of the other masks would link to the other common rooms. Raising his eyes brows and moving his wand light over Harrison tried to find the blue one, and with a glee full smile moved towards it, and by standing on the tips of his toes it was perfect face height.

“Well seeing as you have seen my common room. I might as well be nosey and see yours!”

With a wide grin Harrison stuck his face into the blue mask, the same sensation of being sucked into a tight space filled him up and before he knew it he was looking out over a crowded common room, but much to his annoyance they all seemed to be reading. With a quick look around he pulled his head out and looked at Effie feeling rather disgruntled.

“Where were your friends Effie? I wanted to learn you dirty little secrets.”

With a smug grin and a flirtatious wink Harrison took a few steps backwards so he could take in all of the masks that were on the wall. He moved his wand light over them all, almost hoping it would provide more answers.