A Figment of Your Waking Imagination PV Complete

@Hugh Lowe

It was the early evening. The Great Hall was filled with rowdy students that sat on great benches shoulder to shoulder to enjoy the evening meal -- it was chicken or pheasant, some sort of bird meat. Served as always family-style, great plates piled with more meat than the children would conceivably eat in a single sitting. Large bowls of mashed potatoes with a pair of great spoons. Then another bowl of braised cauliflower. Admittedly, the spread did not seem particularly appealing even if it was vast and plentiful. It was simply white on white on a basic, clean, porcelain plate.

Vladimir had no plans to eat anyways...

This was when the three of them would congregate -- Vladimir, Marion and Victor. However, as of late they had both been delinquent, headed off to who knows where doing who knows what. How could they? How dare they? If the students at Hogwarts knew what they had seen and what they had said, there would be no mercy for either of them. The only people that they could trust was Vladimir, the clever one. The one who always knew best.

Today, like yesterday, they did not show. Vladimir sat on the bottom steps of the dungeon, in sight of the Slytherin Common Room door and rested his chin in his hand. It was no fluke, it was the emergence of a pattern.

An hour later.

Hugh 'Huge' Lowe, part giant from Gryffindor. While the second year might not know everyone, most people knew who he was. He literally stood heads above the rest of the student body. He was everything that Victor needed in a boy, size, strength and likely endurance. There was something intimidating about even the gentlest souls when they stood a foot taller than their contemporaries. But when dealing with a boy that is sized like a man, they are still a boy in the end.

There were several facets of Hugh Lowe that made him particularly fascinating. First, there was his nature-given size, strength and endurance. Second, his house sorting as Gryffindor. While the four houses of Hogwarts broadly categorized students, there was some room for prejudice but the sorting hat looked for the one trait that truly defined someone as it rested on their crown. Victor has always had his wits about him. That is not to say that he was not ambitious, he was dangerously so. He was also fearless, one could even call it cocky. But in the end he was more clever than he was either brave, loyal or ambitious. Hugh was 'brave.' Third, at one time he was a Prefect. Being a Prefect so young only happens for a few reasons -- he wanted to be in control because he was ambitious and liked the power. No, then he would have been sorted into Slytherin. He wanted to help his friends. No, then he would have been sorted into Hufflepuff. He wanted to be in charge to satisfy his pride, to perhaps be the hero or the fixer. That sounded right. He wanted to fix something, because something was broken or he was broken.

Gryffindor was particularly unsettled by Harry Potter's conviction. Potter was convicted of murdering Dolores Umbridge, a real devil of a woman if the accounts about her were true. Another part of this cruel game Vladimir was about to play. Recently some of the Gryffindor students erected a new club -- the Liberation Club. A club that was dedicated to exonerating their hero, Harry Potter. It was utterly heart-warming, enough so to fill the cockles of the Ravenclaw's blue-blooded heart. He was going to help them, just this once.

Hugh Lowe:
There is this itch in your heard that you just could not scratch. That sort of twitchy feeling that goes away only if you ignore it long enough. But this time it does not go away. That feeling would become a slight pain in the head not unlike a migraine headache. The sort that could not just simply be ignored. Rather the sort where you needed to take something to ameliorate the discomfort before your evening is wracked in pain.

Of course that would be when you heard it, the noise that you would not be able to hear over the din of the chatter. Your name.  Not even your full name, just Hugh. The pain in the head would seem to crescendo, as if it was a blaring noise but there was no sound. No single shrill note, just this unending stream of constant pain that was like a facet on full force with a broken knob.

Hugh...

A whispered voice. But still pain.

Hugh...

Your name would be repeated, a faint exhale from what sounded like a woman's soft voice calling out to him. But the blaring pain continued. It was getting hard to see, bleary images like unsettled paint on a canvas left in the pouring rain.

Hugh.

The voice was getting more abrupt and louder. A direction could be localized. It was beckoning you away from the Great Hall and down a corridor.

Hugh.

Again, the same steadfast voice. The blinders were on, it was hard to see anything but a black curtain on either side of the periphery.

Hugh.

It was getting more urgent. Like it needed something. Like it needed you.

Not one to deny the call to adventure.

Hugh.

Or an urgent call.

Your hand would meet the door, not that you could even see it but muscle memory and instinct told you it was there. Your blinks were getting longer, these periods of darkness that were getting longer and longer.

Hugh!

The voice screamed! It would rattle the contents inside your head. And you would blink one last time for a very very long time.

It would seem like only a minute but in truth over an hour would pass. Standing over you was a boy about your age. He was a lot smaller than you, but that was normal in this setting. He was shaking you by your shirt. "Hey. HEY!" He was moderately powerful, not strong enough to list your torso from the ground. The uneven, sloping, lumpy ground. Yes, you were on a set of stairs.

"Hey man, you OK?"

You were starting to stir.

"Dude! Wake up! The hell?!"

You were for the most point fine, less a gash on your head where the pain you felt earlier was. How queer.

"Man, you just came down these stairs like you were on a mission and then, BAM! Your knees buckle and you drop like a sack of rocks. You've only been down a little bit, I was gonna get some help if you didn't rouse. You scared the ever-living shit outta me!"

Vladimir would back away from the part giant and wait for him to rise, offering his hand if necessary knowing that it would be almost no help to him as he extended it.