The next day, I was awoken by Lily bustling round our circular dormitory, getting herself ready for the day ahead.
‘Come on, lazy bones!’ she sang in an annoyingly happy voice.
‘S’morning already?’ I mumbled blearily, struggling to open my heavy eyelids as Lily threw open my hangings, blinding my tired eyes with the golden sunlight that streamed through the window opposite.
‘It is indeed,’ she replied. ‘Come on, or else we’ll be late. Olivia and Amelia have gone down already, with Michael and Frank I expect. Ceres is in the common room with the boys. Come on, get up!’
She pulled back my sheets and I cursed the fact that she could be so bright and bubbly in the mornings, whereas I struggled to even pull back my covers.
‘I’m up, I’m up!’ I said as I fought my way out of the tangle that my bed sheets had become. Lily seemed to be channelling my mother’s spirit, I thought ruefully.
‘Merlin, you look pale,’ Lily said, peering closely at me. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I replied as I pulled my new robes out of my trunk. ‘Well, to be honest, I didn’t get much sleep.’
‘The vision thing?’
‘Yeah.’ Lily had guessed it in one.
‘Hmm. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. It’s probably because you were feeling a bit full and heady,’ she said. ‘Or maybe there was something wrong with the pumpkin juice, I thought it tasted funny.’
I let out a small chuckle as I pulled my hair into a rough pony tail.
‘Well, let’s hope I have no more funny visions today,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ she said as we descended the steps down to the common room. ‘If you do, you can use the free periods to recover!’
‘Ooh, yes,’ I replied smiling broadly, my mood brightening at once. ‘I’d forgotten about them!’
My mood soared as I thought lazily about the time I would be able to spend stretched out in a comfy armchair in the common room.
‘What have you forgotten this time?’ Ceres asked, interrupting my daydreams as we descended the final steps. She was perched on the back of the sofa near the fire, chatting to the boys.
‘That we have free periods this year,’ I told her, smiling happily.
‘Yeah, won’t it be brilliant?’ Murray smiled. ‘Whole hours to do absolutely nothing. It’ll be great.’
‘Today maybe,’ Ceres said with a warning tone in her voice as she ushered us out of the portrait hole. ‘But I reckon after that we’ll need them for work.’
‘Oh, don’t be a spoilsport,’ Tristan whined, pulling back a tapestry to reveal a shortcut that would have us in the Great Hall in no time. ‘Let me enjoy the illusion for a little while!’
The Great Hall was filled with the same level of start of term chatter as last night when we arrived a few minutes later, and breakfast was in full swing. Whereas we had been confined to our own house tables for the feast, breakfast was a much more informal affair and we were allowed to sit where we chose. Other students were busy gossiping in various groups, catching up with friends from different houses that they hadn’t seen yesterday. The heads of houses were already working their way up the length of the hall, handing out timetables, so it wasn’t long before Professor Longbottom reached us as we took a seat at the empty end of the Hufflepuff table.
‘So, Clariss, what subjects are you continuing with this year?’ he asked, trying to juggle a stack of blank timetables, his wand, and a sheaf of parchment bearing what I assumed was our OWL results.
‘I want to do Divination, Ancient Runes, Charms, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and Transfiguration, Professor.’
‘Yes, well, let me see... whoops!’ As he tried to shuffle his parchments round, his wand slid out of his hand, and was narrowly caught by Tristan before it could do any damage. ‘Ah, thank you Mr Bowman, sorry folks. Yes, here we go, Clariss Flint,’ he finally found his list and scanned it. ‘That’s all fine. Outstanding in Divination and Ancient Runes. Excellent work.’
He handed me a filled timetable and moved on to Lily and Conor. I glanced down to see that I had double Charms first thing this morning, followed by divination and Ancient Runes later in the day. Scanning it for my free periods, I saw I had one after break, and one before and after lunch.
Not bad for a Monday. Evidently, Murray was thinking along the same lines as he peered over my arm.
‘Not a bad day you’ve got,’ he commented. ‘Though could do without the Divination crap.’
‘Oi!’ I said pretending to be affronted. ‘It’s not crap! When have you got frees?’
‘After break, and the two after lunch.’
‘Not bad,’ I told him. He, like me, was doing NEWT level Charms, so we would have the first lesson together.
As I spread Marmite on my toast, I listened to the boy’s conversation about Quidditch, and when Murray would call tryouts. It allowed my mind to wander freely, since due to the fact that I was not a Quidditch player, my input in the conversation would not be required. I thought back to what had happened here last night. I was certain that it wasn’t a figment of my overtired imagination; everything had seemed so real to me, just like the Great Hall now. I wondered what had caused it, and I almost hoped, out of curiosity, that something like it might happen again.
Soon, it was time for us to be going to our first lessons, and I accompanied Olivia, Tristan and Murray to Charms.
The boys were still in full swing about Quidditch, and Murray was describing some Keeper moves he had seen in matches over the summer. He was leaping about ardently, sometimes only just missing passersby. We arrived outside Professor Flitwick’s room with ten minutes to spare, and so waited in the corridor for the bell to ring.
‘Watch it!’ I snapped angrily, as one of Murray’s rather enthusiastic moves nearly caught me in the face, and I recoiled from him, clanging into the suit of armour behind me. I cursed as my bag was flung from my shoulder and fell behind the cackling knight.
‘Shut it, you,’ I said angrily, slamming its visor down as I ducked behind its back to retrieve my bag. As I began to stand up, however, my head bounced oddly off apparent thin air. I straightened and stared at the spot, waving my hand across it slowly, but try as I might, I could not touch a particular brick that faced the knight’s back.
‘That’s weird,’ I said as I tried harder to make my hand connect with the stone, but the more I tried, the further my hand was repelled away from it. It was like trying to force two magnets together. ‘Something’s hidden behind here.’
Olivia peeped over my shoulder to see what I was doing. ‘Where?’
‘Here!’ I said, pointing at the brick. ‘Look, I can’t get my hand to touch it.’ My eyes focused on the mysterious place, and as I pulled out my wand, Olivia recoiled slightly.
‘Oh no, Clariss don’t!’ she said anxiously. ‘You don’t know what’s behind there; it could be something really dangerous!’
I made a non committal noise and shrugged my shoulder, but at the word ‘dangerous’, Murray and Tristan’s faces appeared around the other side of the suit of armour.
‘What’s dangerous?’ Murray asked, a mischievous glint in his eye.
‘Whatever could be hidden behind here,’ I told them, and showed them how my hand was being repelled from the wall. ‘I want to know what it is.’
‘Please, Clariss,’ Olivia pleaded. ‘Remember, curiosity killed the cat.’
‘Yes, but the cat didn’t have a wand,’ I told her, slightly irritated by her caution. This opportunity was far too good to miss; I wanted to know what was behind that brick. Olivia had a habit of quoting her Muggle warning about cats at me, but I never really paid attention. After all, what did the saying mean?
‘Oh, lighten up, Smith,’ Tristan said, evidently sharing my annoyance and curiosity. ‘I doubt it’s anything dangerous; this is a school!’
‘Chamber of Secrets a myth to you, then?’ she snapped.
‘No, but that’s gone now,’ he told her. ‘Anyway, there’s never been any rumours about some great dirty chimera or something hidden behind a wall in the Charms corridor, has there?’
Olivia was silent, but a look of disapproving worry crept across her face. She wouldn’t be able to stop us from having a go at the wall, and she knew it.
‘Get on with it, Clariss!’ Murray said eagerly, and I briefly forgot the disagreement with Olivia and pointed my wand at the wall.
‘Revelio!’ I said confidently. Momentarily, the brick disappeared to reveal a shallow hole in the wall where something gold glinted in the light.
If anything could spur us on, it was the lure of treasure. Both Murray and Tristan tried to scramble closer, their progress impeded by the rather solid and unmoving metal statue. Even Olivia leaned back in to see what had happened.
‘There’s something there!’
‘Try finite incentatem,’ Tristan said. ‘It might stop that protective enchantment.’
I tried the spell he suggested, but, rather disappointingly, nothing happened. I reached out my hand to see if it had indeed stopped the spell that the prevented me from touching the place. It had. My fingers brushed solid brick, and I let out a squeak of excitement as I realised that I was one step closer to discovering what was concealed behind.
‘Revelio!’ I tapped the brick with my wand, and, this time, when it vanished, I plunged my hand in. The spell shattered, the image of the brick disappeared to reveal the shallow hole where it had once been. Sheltering in it’s strange cave, the treasure lay silently.
‘What is it?’ Tristan asked as I pulled it out and held it flat in my palm. They scurried round to me for a better look, and Olivia leaned in closer.
I stared down at the object in my hand. It was a bracelet. A bracelet of gold linked Snidgets with red rubies for eyes. It was obviously very old as it was covered in a great layer of dust, and when I blew it off, I could see that the gold had tarnished and that several of the rubies were chipped in places. One was missing all together.
‘Oh.’ The boys appeared crestfallen as their treasure hoard had merely tuned out to be an old and dusty ladies trinket, but I kept hold of it. Strangely, I felt a unexplainable pull to the object, and I did not want to throw the apparently worthless thing away. I brushed most of the dust off, and put it carefully in my pocket.
‘Why’re you keeping that old thing?’ Tristan asked
disdainfully. ‘It’s just a bit of junk.’
I shrugged. I had no idea why, but I did not have the heart to throw the thing away. I was saved from having to give an explanation, however, by Professor Flitwick, who stuck his head around the door at that moment and beckoned us into his classroom. Placing my hand to my side, I checked that the bracelet was still there before entering the room. I would look at it properly later.
Shine a Light by Sapphire at Dawn
Chapter Notes: Thanks once again to my amazing beta Gina/gene24!
Chapter Endnotes: Thanks for reading. Please make my day and leave me a little review!