[Corridors] Perplexed Steps [Narc;Echo]

[Noah Yves]

The changing staircase to the fourth floor corridor had just begun to swing away when Noah halted in front of it. Cursing out loud, the Gryffindor shoved his Astronomy essay into his back pocket and grabbed onto the railing that was quickly trying to move away.

"Hold it," He admonished, stepping a foot over the growing gap toward the steps. "You're early! Let me on." He patted the banister gently, until it finally relented, allowing him to climb up.

Running a hand through his rumpled hair, the Gryffindor leaned crookedly against the stairs with each foot resting on a different step. Relaxed as he was, it took Noah a moment to realise the staircase wasn't gliding toward the fourth floor at all.

It stopped suddenly, lurching toward a small balcony on what Noah thought was the third floor corridor. There was nowhere to go except to enter the one door standing idly amongst rocky wall, and it seemed the staircase refused to move any further.

"Brat," he tapped his fingers against the railing one last time, rolling his eyes at the temperamental furniture, before stepping onto the mysterious and unfamiliar balcony. As soon as he did, the staircase swept away, leaving him stranded. Expecting as much, Noah opened the door with a turn of his wrist and entered the seemingly random room.

[Narcissus Drachen]

“Oh my!” The lady exclaimed from her portrait, clumsily tripping to gather up her attire as Noah strode in. She looked from him to Narcissus heatedly. “You lied to me!”

“I really didn’t, my love. But have you met Noah? I’m sure he'll be a gentleman and close his ey –“

“Goodbye, Mr Drachen! I’ll be warning my sister about you.” Shanghai silk stockings hung from the pretty chandelier, and she all but forgot them as she ran tearfully from her frame, her sob softs trailing behind her. Narcissus scruntized the once full portrait, index finger stroking his chin like an appreciator of fine art, and slowly he titled his head back to look at Noah. “I know you don’t like my girlfriends,” He said sedately. “But this was our first date, you know.” He brushed the incident away, and already it was just Noah and Narc. He would dote peachy Lilandra with apologies later.

Noah had walked into one of Hogwarts’ many moving rooms, this time an abandoned panelled study decorated with opulent winged chairs, three empty bookcases and an enormous polar bear skin rug spread out in front of the unlit fireplace. It growled at Noah quietly, deep brown eyes following him as he entered the room. “How did you know I’d be here?” Narcissus asked. “I thought it was time for your weekly dose of Mrs Hubbles.”

[Noah Yves]

"Of course it was your first date," Noah replied dismissively. He nudged a foot against one of the rug's paws and smirked appreciatively as claws flexed. "I've never known you to bother with seconds." He pulled his gaze up so that he was staring at Narcissus, before walking over to the portrait the Slytherin had offended and leaning against it simply.

The surprise of being stranded in one of the castle's room had toned down greatly at finding Narc with him, and Noah only grinned at his comment not inquiring further where he was. "It's never too hard to find you, Drachen - you always manage keep yourself quite readily available." Noah smirked at him and, noticing one of the chairs begin to hover, sat on it gingerly.

His essay crinkled under him and his expression darkened. "Bloody paper has been giving me trouble all night. I was meant to find Echo so she could finish it off for me, but now I'm stuck here with you." Noah's eyes betrayed his cynical look with their usual dancing mirth as he stretched back on his chair, wings reaching over to flicker through his hair.

"And strange room you've chosen, too." He added belatedly.

[Echo Keir]

Echo lays idly across the rungs of a chandelier in Gryffindor Tower, contemplating what she can possibly do to amuse herself--other than one of the many clever ideas Narcissus had given her during Potions that morning--when one of the school's screech owls lands, hollering, on her foot. She unties the parchment from the bird's foot and unrolls the hurriedly scrawled letter:

Echo,
Astronomy essay due tonight, NOT FINISHED! Help? Fourth floor.
Noah

She sighs and shifts her weight backwards against the hanging light fixture, ending up hanging by her knees from one of the bars. She swings back and forth for a moment, then throws her legs off their perch and down, completing a perfect backflip from the chandelier. "Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all semester," she bows to an invisible crowd before skittering away to the stairwell.

"Something... isn't right." She stares at the moving walkways perplexedly. "You there," she points at one of the smaller staircases, "You don't belong there." A wrinkle of confusion forms between her eyebrows. She crosses her arms and starts muttering to herself, "So if he belongs there" she points to different doorways and landings, "then that one should have been there... and that one down there and... aha!" After calculating her way backwards through the movement of the staircases she figures out where they started off wrong. 'And knowing Noah, that's where he'll be.' She hops up onto a nearby banister and slides down it Mary Poppins-style until she gets to the next landing. From there she uses the sliding momentum to propell her over the next railing and onto an empty staircase that runs to the fifth floor. "Not quite..." she murmers, irritatedly. She sits down between the bars of the railing closest to the wall and pushes off; she turns over once... and misses, "Damn!" She thrusts an arm out blindly and catches the lone third floor step where the stairs had just moved from. She glares spitefully at the rogue steps. "Yeah, that's right! Run away! Stupid stairs..."

From her precarious position she manages to get her other hand up to help her hold on... and then, out of no where, she's pulled up onto the step and into a... provocatively decorated room, with a mostly empty picture frame, holding only a pair of silken stockings, a swinging chandelier, and a victorian couch with some... suggestive stains on it. She looks around, wondering what strange form of magic brought her in here and then, "Ha ha, well hey guys. How's it hangin'?" of all times, this was the one she couldn't resist a pun.

[Narcissus Drachen]

Narcissus shrugged proudly. “I try and make room for seconds, but I’m just too in love with you. It’d have to be a threesome or nothing, I’m afraid.” He grinned imploringly.

Their attention now turned to the room and Narcissus narrowed his eyes scrupulously, focusing beyond the volumptuous decor. “I didn’t choose it, actually. I was going to Astronomy ahead of you and got tempted in. It wouldn’t let me leave, but that turned out not to matter.” He eyed the empty portrait indulgently. “It’s quite a luxurious prison we have here. Try the door, I dare you – you won’t get out.”

At that moment it opened from the outside, an echo reaching their ears. Narcissus raised his hand to stop her, but the door had already swung shut of its own accord with a soft click. It made sure they could hear it sealing them in. He winked at it challenging before looking at Echo, patting his lap invitingly. “We’re hanging against our will, since you ask. Do you think we’re about to play a most dangerous game?”

[Noah Yves]

Noah waved away Narc's grin, though sent him a devious smirk in return. "Don't let her hear you say that." His thumb pointed sharply in the direction of the portrait, though a funny turn of events had him gesturing to Echo instead. She'd chosen quite the moment to enter the room. Noah continued anyway. "Or you'll never manage to woo her."

Turning to Echo, Noah smiled brilliantly. "Glad you could make it, but I'm afraid that my essay is no longer of importance." He reached behind him, catching the crumpled parchment between his fingers. Later that night, he would feed it to the hungry rug. His head tilted to Narc inquisitively, and he leaned forward as if sharing a secret with him. "How does she always manage to find us?"

His eyes darted back to the portrait and he had to bite the inside of his cheek from laughing. A pretty-faced girl peered from the edge of the portrait frame, clearly trying to be discreet. Noah looked from Echo to Narc, his lips slanting upwards. "I think your girlfriend's a bit jealous; perhaps she was looking forward to a second date." His voice was an exaggerated whisper.

[Echo Keir]

Echo watches dazedly as Narcissus and Noah finish a conversation... seemingly about her--Noah was pointing at her enough, anyways. She rolls her eyes, "Narky, how many times do we have to go over this--you need a bombshell with low self esteem and a superiority complex that you can break, and I need a guy that doesn't look better than me in heels and skin tight leather pants." When both boys stare at her in an awkwardly silence, and then exchange muffled giggles, she realizes that they hadn't been talking about her at all. "Cute..."

She lifts herself up off the floor and settles comfily into Narcissus' lap, his starchy designer pants crunching crisply under her weight. She winds a lock of his hair around her finger as she takes in the surroundings and makes an assumption of their situation. "So, the castle is screwing with us, and the only way to get back at it is to screw each other?" she asks airily, staring boredly at the ceiling. "Lovely." A hideous screech reverberates from the picture frame, which Echo only just notices is reinhabited by a vistorian lady in nothing but a pair of pantaloons, which were obviously hurriedly pulled on. The lady wrinkles her face angrily and huffs out of the picture. Echo rolls her head over to look at Narc. "Seriously?"

"You know..." she says thoughtfully, looking around. "This is actually a kind of spiffy room... We should use it for something. Not that kind of something, Narcissus... And don't you start with it either Noah," she wags her finger at both boys. "I'm serious though. It's comfy, reclusive, and less conspicuous than the Room of Requirement, which is somehow the popular place to hide dirty little secrets now," she shakes her head and groans dramatically at how all the secret places in Hogwarts get discovered and blown to smithereens as rendezvous points and hangouts and whore houses. "We could make it a club... Not that kind of club. Something... something... that took skill... NOT THAT KIND OF SKILL! Come on guys, work with me here?"

[Narcissus Drachen]

Lilandra glared venomously as Echo slid into Narcissus’s lap, her pale cheeks only deepening as the Gryffindor expressed her contempt. “Lily sweetheart, you’re three hundred years too old for me anyway.” He offered less than apologetically, wincing as she called him something rather impolite. “Why don’t you run along and berate me to the Emperor? And do keep out of Mr Wells’ way – I heard he’d treated himself to a new set of brushes.” At this Lilandra looked sharply over her shoulder, eyes sweeping whatever lay outside of her side of the frame. She vanished without another word.

Narcissus stared after her apathetically before putting his attention to Echo. He gave filthy laughs at appropriate intervals, raising his eyebrows boyishly at Noah. “Oh calm down, Echo – we’re only playing!” He reassured her softly as she whacked him impatiently. He pinched her cheek affectionately. “But seriously, a club? We’re not thirteen, what on earth are we going to do? Swap chocolate frog cards? Sorry but I wouldn’t be caught dead, Echo.” He remarked a little harsher than was necessary, screwing up his nose distastefully.

She narrowed her eyes fiercely and he grinned. “But I’m willing to try anything, as you know.” He looked at Noah enquiringly. “Any thoughts, Mr Yves?”

[Noah Yves]

"You don't look a day over two hundred," Noah consoled Lilandra after Narcissus' simple dismissal, his lips tilting into a small smirk. The woman sent him an irritated glare before she disappeared, and the Gryffindor laughed shortly. "I just don't affect Hogwarts decor like you do, Narc." He added mournfully.

Noah's chair shifted closer to his companions as Echo spoke, and he arched a brow in response. "My seat certainly seems to like this idea of yours," he grinned, raising both feet and letting them fall onto Narcissus' armrest. "Why am I the only one that can't seem to charm the furniture?" His voice grew softer at their closeness, eyes glimmering with suppressed mirth.

The wings of Narc's chair gently pushed his feet off the engraved armrest, clearly offended. Noah smiled in response, apologetically, before his gaze was attracted to the hearth where a flames sprouted abruptly in the dazzling fireplace. "Does the room feel alive to you?" He asked quietly, voice muffled by the bells of a loud clock that was nowhere to be seen on the walls.

"Twelve rings." All of the portraits, excluding Lilandra's rushed back into their frames becoming abnormally still. Noah watched them curiously, rocking his chair back on its hind legs. "Midnight."

His hazel eyes lost their mirth suddenly, as there was no room for it beside the shining excitement. "You want something to do, Echo?" Noah glanced at her pointedly, catching her gaze and refusing to release it. "Astronomy has begun, my essay is late and I doubt this little room of ours will be releasing us any time soon." He gestured to the newly roaring fire. "I think we could use a distraction, a game you could say."

Noah leaned in closely, whispering, as if he were afraid the portraits would hear a great secret. He could immediately tell the two of them were beginning to read his mind. "The only question is: How brave do you think we are?"

[Echo Keir]

"I never said anything about anyone being thirteen, now did I?" she queries, though the question is more-than-obviously rhetorical. "Though, to be fair, some in this room are still going through that... awkward phase in life." Echo pats Narcissus' inner thigh gently, and whispers--less than discreetly--"It's okay, we all understand why you have to resort to pictures." She gives the Slytherin a sympathetic nod and one of those 'you'll make it through this, I promise.' looks, then picks the conversation back up where it left off, "And as for chocolate frog cards, I haven't even touched one of those since I stuck Wendelin the Weird and Queen Maeve cards under Noah's pillow one night..." a mirthful grin erupts on her face as she turns to a blushing Noah, "I never did find out if the moaning sounds from the boys dormitory were from the cards, or some twisted dream you were having." After giggles and explanations are shared over this tidbit, a vague sense of seriousness overcomes the trio.

"Does the room feel alive to you?"

"You know, Yves..." Echo muses as she looks around the room, portraits back in their own paintings and watching the group stolidly, fireplace lighting itself merrily, furniture clustering together to be in on the action of whatever is planned next, "It does. It feels very alive."
A chair, much resembling the couch in Lilandra's frame, wiggles its way out of a dark corner in the room, its leg having been snagged on a rug previously, and floats its way over between Narc and Noah's. Echo looks dubiously between her companions, then addresses the seat, "For me?" The victorian chair bobs up and down in the air before settling down. Skeptically, Echo removes herself from Narcissus' lap, and seats herself prettily in the cream-colored, rose-patterned armchair. "Very alive, indeed."

"The only question is: How brave do you think we are?"

"How brave?" she echoes ironically. "The three of us together? Brave enough-" an adventurous smile gleams across her features as she adjusts herself to be sitting cross-legged in her chair, "-for whatever this crazy castle has to offer us." She nods at Noah, their usual sense of adventure and thrill-seeking is passed mutually by their eyes. Echo then turns to Narcissus. "What about you, Drachen? Want to play?"

[Narcissus Drachen]

“I always want to play, anytime, anywhere...” He said in utter seriousness, following Echo’s long thighs as she moved from his lap to the chair’s. He bit his lip thoughtfully before leaping up, moving to the only window.

The firelight pressed itself against the pane but seemed unable to escape it, just as the night stalking on the other side could not find its way in. Narcissus titled his head to one side, adjusting his eyes beyond his lovely reflection and the room behind him, and stared out into the starless nothing. There was no view to be seen, of course, as it wasn’t really a window – this room was a cell. He was reminded grimly of his school bed. Narcissus and his snakes had always found it so hard to sleep in the damp, dripping corners of the Slytherin bedrooms. It had been their only pass time to watch each other’s gleaming dark eyes in the preternatural gloom, their quiet thoughts floating over to one another like hidden messages, dreams turning into ideas, nightmares into dares. Narcissus had fondly named their shared insomnia.

“The Midnight Game.” He whispered softly, humid breath blushing over the glass like frost.

The hour struck its final chime and he turned, Noah and Echo watched him patiently. They knew each other’s vices. “Have you ever noticed,” He said slowly, eyes narrowing at nothing. “How no one in this school ever sleeps? They just wand the corridors like inferi. They’re insatiable...” He moved back to three chairs by the fire, sliding down onto the animal rug, his back against Noah’s knees. “The Forest is about as Forbidden as I am. They need... a distraction.”

He dropped his head back, closing his eyes. “Are we always the ones to give it to them?”

[Noah Yves]

It was a minute past midnight when a dizzying motion overcame their cavern. Noah watched in wonderment as the portraits clung to their frames, expressions wary though not surprised. There was no time to dwell on the inexplainable as the movement became more violent and the room's furniture began to slide toward the walls - including that of which they sat on.

The rug at Narcissus' feet jerked from underneath him, and Noah stopped breathing as it was flung against the flames within the fireplace. A repulsive growl faded against blue fire.

His own chair crashed against the wall opposite to Echo, colliding with the ornate desk along the way. Noah winced as he steadied his hands against stone, and looked back at Narcissus who had - as he should have expected - sought refuge in amongst numerous fallen portraits. His eyes searched worriedly for Echo between wrecked tapestries and scratched floors, though he grinned at seeing her perfectly fine. Her chair, the most intelligent of them all apparently, had chosen to levitate in mid-air, unaffected.

"This is a moving room," Lilandra had reappeared, canvas smugly pressed against Nacissus' thigh. "Though it hasn't shifted in many years."

Noah grinned. "The room is restless," he said at once, adrenaline spiraling in his limbs. "The castle is restless - the students are restless. Everything is restless at midnight."

Disengaging his robes from the splintering wood, Noah located his Astronomy essay near the snapping portrait of a Sphinx. Turning the crinkled parchment over, he spelled his wand tip to spill ink and wrote shakily:

Hogwarts castle hereby invites you to participate in The Midnight Game....