Exploring

Chapter 44:

Exploring

After getting their schedules, Richard, Kyle, and Sniffy were finishing with breakfast and clearing the last scraps of food off their plates. The great hall was bustling with activity and students were chatting all over it. The trio stood up, along with many other people, and started walking over to the entrance hall. Before passing through the tall door, they were stopped, though.

"Wait, you three."

Recognizing the voice, all three came to a stop and turned around. Two girls clad in casual muggle clothing were coming toward them. "Good morning you two" Richard answered when he saw Alex and Mia walking towards them, with a smile on his face.

"Hello" "Morning" Came back from both Ravenclaw girls and Kyle and Sniffy also greeted them with enthusiasm. Standing almost in the doorway of the great hall, with people constantly walking out, it was not the best place to come to a standstill and Kyle said with a slight frown on his face while he looked around.

"Hey guys, can we get out of here first? That's not the best place to chat." Understanding what Kyle meant, the group moved forward and found a friendly spot a few minutes away beside an empty classroom.

No hustle and bustle could be heard from here and no one was seen around. Therefore, Sniffy started with. "How was your first night in Ravenclaw? I thought you both would go to Gryffindor. That change was a genuine surprise."

The elf looked like she had a question mark on her head, and she studied Alex and Mia with her eyes. Alex sighed at this and scratched her head awkwardly and spoke. "We both slept superb, such comfy beds. It was hard to not stay in bed today. And the sorting thing is Mia´s fault. She had completely forgotten she wanted to go to Gryffindor with me. Her nervousness won out there. The only thing I could do was to ask the hat to put me in there as well."

"Ah, so that's the reason. How do you like it there Mia?" asked Sniffy. Then Mia told them about the Ravenclaw common room and the group talked about all the differences between their two houses. Apparently, Ravenclaw had its own little library, and no other differences were found out, other than the riddle that they had to answer before entering the common room.

"It looks like I need to step up my studies a bit. I was not prepared for these riddles. I truly do not know how to solve them. Good thing that I have Mia. She is kind of genius with these things." Alex said while she slung her hands around Mia´s shoulders.

Mia turned red at this statement and looked at the floor again. Her long brown hair fell over her face and obscured her red cheeks. "What are you guys up to now? We two do not know where to start in this gigantic castle and we wanted to check with you first." Alex said as she was grinning at her best friend and her embarrassed state.

Both Richard and Kyle wanted to answer, but were both too slow. Sniffys said in an excited voice. "It's good that you found us. We want to explore the castle in the next two days. It would do none of us any good to be too late to a class on Monday, would it? And there surely are tons of secret places to be found."

The eyes of both Ravenclaw girls lit up as they heard that and wanted to start immediately.

"Want to make it a bit more interesting?" Said Richard in a bit of a mysterious tone. "Oh, what do you have in mind?" asked Alex, and everyone looked at Richard with a curious expression.

"Want to make it a race? We two against you three." said Richard, and he pointed to Kyle and himself. "We split the castle into two, and who can explore more of their part of the castle till tomorrow wins?" Richard's words fell into their ears and all of their eyes lit up.

"What does the winning team get?" asked Mia in a not-so-quiet manner and fire was seen burning in her little eyes.

"Hmmm, the satisfaction that they were better than the other team?" said Kyle, and since no one had any better idea, they went with that. "And let's change to who finds out more secret places and shortcuts, to only map out this castle is too monotone." Kyle added to that.

"But we are three people and you are only two. How is that fair?" Mia asked into the group. "That's why you have her, so that we actually have to be serious to have a chance." Kyle said while he pointed at the little elf who was pumped up for this.

Mia and Alex were both completely stumped when they heard this and did not know how to answer. "Yes, ignore them, girls. We show them who is the better team." Sniffy was exclaiming with excitement, practically flying out of her mouth.

"Then it's decided, let's meet up at lunchtime in the great hall." Richard added and after picking a side, both groups separated and went on their ways. The boys picked the side by the great hall and the girls on the other side of the castle.

Walking downstairs from the entrance hall toward the dungeons, Richard got out a notebook and a pen and asked. "Do you want to sketch it, or should I?" Kyle practically ripped the notebook out of Richard's hands while answering. "If we want to use it later to find places, then let me sketch it. Your handwriting is completely unreadable."

Richard pouted a bit at this and murmured. "I may not have the best writing "style", but I am working on it."

"Yeah, then work harder. If I show one of your written texts to a history teacher, then he might think that these are hieroglyphs." Answered Kyle back in an amusing voice. "It's not that bad. I can at least read 2/3 of it."

Richard's voice came back, but Kyle only started laughing at this. "Let's forget this and get started on mapping out this area. We should be at the bottom of the castle already. At least there are no more stairs down anywhere near here." Richard's words echoed in the empty dungeon corridors. On their way down here, they had seen many things adorning the walls. Most of them were normal trinkets with no actual value.

There were swords, other weapons, shields, and really old stuff hanging around. Old pictures with or with no one in them were in between, and the few torches all around gave the dungeons a pretty gloomy look. The floor was a stone floor but no actual coldness was emanating from it and it was pretty cozy down here.

Kyle drew on the notepad, and when Richard glimpsed it, he could only hide his surprised face. Kyle was actually fantastic at drawing and the map was very accurate while taking shape. Richard knew that there was the Slytherin common room down here somewhere and other secret passages should be found throughout the entire castle. He just did not know how to find them, but other students had found them, so he was sure that they could do so too.

Both boys used the revealing spell a couple of times but could find nothing. They concluded it was not as simple as that and they would need to change their approach.

While Kyle was busy sketching the map and writing the names of the rooms they were passing by, Richard thought about what to do. Frustrated with the revealing spell as it revealed nothing to them, he then calmed down and tried to feel the surrounding magic.

Coming to a standstill and closing his eyes, he then focused on his surroundings. Around him appeared blue spots that floated everywhere. These spots were a lot more inside the castle and its surroundings than at his home. What stumped him was that everything had magic inside here. The walls, floor, pictures, and even the ornaments on the walls. It was like everything in this castle had magic inside it.

It took Richard a few minutes to differentiate anything in this state. He had never seen this much magic around himself other than in the Everlasting City, but not that concentrated there either.

The things with the worst number of magical particles were the normal items, like ornaments, with no use. The next thing was the torches and the moving pictures had a large amount of magic inside them.

Now, being able to see the world with fresh eyes, he followed Kyle around and soon found the first anomaly. Richard stopped when he saw that the wall in front of him looked different.

All the walls were suffused with magic, but this wall had a much higher amount of magic inside it than everything around, and the most peculiar thing was that there was one place where no magic was found.

Kyle also stopped when he could not hear Richard's footsteps anymore and looked back with a questioning look on his face.

"Let's see." said Richard, and he was opening his eyes and walked slowly in front of the wall and pushed one spot on it.

"Click" a very tiny sound could be heard as the stone on the wall gave in about a millimeter and with no sound, the wall gave way to some unknown place. It was a dark pathway that appeared in front of them.

"That's number one." Kyle was jutting down the position on the map and both waited for the wall to close itself. Kyle needed the exact position of the stone button and after waiting for 10 more seconds, the wall closed itself with no sound.

Showing Kyle where to push, they activated it again and walked in. At the exact moment when both were inside the pathway, the wall closed behind them and they stood in total blackness. Not hindered by it, they both walked on and were soon at the end.

They found no wall blocking their path and only saw light shining inside the dark corridor. Getting out of it, the duo was standing in the corridor where they chatted with the girls earlier on the ground floor.

"So, this is a shortcut to the dungeons, neat." Richard voiced and looked at where they came out of the wall.

A burly old chap with a gun was looking at them like the two had killed his mother. "What the hell boys, just walking through me with no prior warning? That is not nice etiquette." He was practically shouting at them, and both boys could only wryly excuse themselves while they scratched their heads in embarrassment.

Who could have thought that they would get out through a painting? Kyle was taking notes of this in his notebook and both apologized again to the burly chap and walked through the picture again.

The man in the picture was ranting on for a bit and startled some students who walked by it for the next few minutes.

"That was quite interesting. Going through a picture and not feeling a thing sure is weird." Richard said, and both came out in the dungeons again. The complete walk down here, through the shortcut, took them only about half a minute at most.

"Yeah, did not expect that either. We can truly save much time with this, and it definitely is not the only shortcut in this entire castle." Kyle answered, and both went on with their exploration.

Richard was thrilled that he could train his magic sensing in this way and tried to get more in sync with his surroundings. In the last few years, he could not catch up to Sniffy in this area and she could sense the surrounding magic without concentrating too much. He did envy her natural inclination with this and tried to get better at it, but he gradually got lost in his routine and completely forgot about it.

Having the chance to get better at it, he channeled some magic into his clothes and they formed a blindfold around his eyes so that he could concentrate more on the magic surrounding him.

Kyle was in his own little world at the moment and was sketching the hallways in detail. It was looking like he had found another thing that he liked.

Going through the dungeons, they were able to find another few secret places. A couple of them were just storage rooms that were hidden and only junk was kept in there. They had found the Slytherin prefect bathroom. It was a big bath and looked more like a pool than a bathtub. No password was needed by them. It was a backdoor entrance through a trapdoor beside an old rusty armor.

You just had to tickle the armor's right knee, and the trapdoor would swallow you. Richard was freaked out when that happened as he was completely focused on the surrounding magic and it was a very disconcerting feeling to tumble down like this.

Luckily, he did not tumble into the water and came out under the sinks. Kyle was rolling in a few seconds later and Richard laughed at Kyle's appearance and both got back out after making fun of each other. What was weird was that they were also swallowed by a trapdoor again, under the sinks, and came out beside the armor.

Physics made no sense at this, and Richard could only forget it and be more careful about their next findings.

"Hey, it's almost lunchtime. Let's get something to eat up there." Kyle said after they came out of the bathroom. A look at his mechanical clock spoke volumes, and Richard nodded his head and answered.

"Mhmm, I completely forgot to look at what will be served today." Walking to their shortcut, they then got straight up and stood in the great hall in mere minutes. It was almost noon and a few students were already sitting at the tables. Looking around, they found Sniffys group sitting at the Ravenclaw table and walked over.

"Hello girls, how is it going?" Richard said while both he and Kyle were sitting down next to the girls. Richard was now back with his normal eyesight. A few students who have seen the duo in the dungeons had looked at them strangely when they saw blindfolded Richard walking around. But Kyle and Richard ignored them and went on with their lives.

The three girls were so engrossed in their talk to each other that they did not notice both newcomers.

Richard was dumbfounded by that, as he had said that in a normal tone, but was completely ignored. Changing his approach, he tapped Mia on her left shoulder, which shrieked at that sudden touch.

"Ahhhhh"

The shriek got them out of their zone and they got aware of them. "Sorry for that, but you ignored us completely." Richard was surprised at Mia´s scream and apologized.

After that, they talked about their findings with each other and even shared both maps. Mia was the one who was painting it on their behalf and it looked no worse than Kyles and had more of a girlier feeling. With a few doodles all over it.

Both complimented her on this and she blushed yet again at this. A few minutes later, more and more students filled the hall and food appeared in front of them. Chatting through the entire meal about their findings, both groups were now sure that there was so much more to find in here.

A few Ravenclaws were stunned when they saw 3 non-Ravenclaws sitting at their table, but said nothing and looked in curiosity at the group.

The most interesting shortcut that the girls have found was from the corridor next to the Gryffindor common room to the greenhouses outside.

Anyway, all of them were done with their meal and both groups separated again. Walking back down to the dungeons through the blokes painting, who ignored them by now, they resumed their search.

It took them another four hours to find another big secret door other than the few secret cupboards that they found.

It was the entrance to the Slytherin common room as someone walked outside when they examined it for a bit.

"What are you two snooping around for?" came from a stunned Slytherin student who should be a 4 year or above. No one from the other houses had ever found their common room, or at least that was what he thought, and he was very surprised when he saw both of them standing in front of their common room. And more surprised him it was two first years and one with a blindfold over his eyes.

"Oh, hello there. We were just exploring the castle a bit. It looks like we found the Slytherin common room. Nice." Richard answered in a calm tone while Kyle was sketching away.

"Hahaha, yes you have found our common room, but you cannot get inside it. Only Slytherins can. You can try, though." The Slytherin student said in an arrogant tone while he walked away and shook his head while murmuring. "The first years get stranger from year to year."

"Ohhhhh, that was a challenge wasn't it?" said Richard and went in front of the wall. It looked like your everyday stone wall with no difference and only looked completely different with magical sight.

Feeling the wall with his bare hands, he was sure that they could not pass through like this. When the guy came out of the wall, some changes could be felt from the magic in the wall and it kind of reacted to him.

Richard was trying to simulate the same thing with his own magic as he channeled it into the wall. He only needed a few minutes to figure out what to do and kind of added his magical signature and Kyles to the magic inside the wall. Supposedly, the magic was scanning people who were keyed into it.

This entire keyed-in process should happen when people get into their houses and their cloaks change colors. It should scan the clothes of the people and allow them entry into the common room.

Feeling that they could now go through the wall, Richard turned himself toward Kyle and said. "Want to surprise the snakes in there?" Kyle was more than happy for such a thing, and both activated their invisibility enchantments.