Comrades & Courtyards, Pals & Passageways PV

Amadea followed Ami up to the castle and upon entering, turned to see her friend leaning against the frame of a window, posing as if on the cover of Vogue. She smiled, nodding. About to respond to the question about the lighting, Amadea was about to open her mouth and speak but Ami moved on too quickly, leading them through the corridors to the courtyards. 

There weren't many students in the small area at this time of day; most of them were probably still sleeping. Amadea watched as Ami performed a cartwheel, doing a spectacular job of being clumsy. Amadea laughed and clapped as Ami finished, sticking the landing. Ami certainly had loads of energy at this point during the day; Amadea wondered if she had been drinking coffee or something of the sort. Amadea herself was quite tired from the flying race still, though maybe that was just because she wasn't used to flying. 

Turning around to take in the view of the courtyard, Amadea listened to Ami make a plan to search the courtyard for some entrance to the passageways. It seemed as good a place as any and Amadea agreed. She definitely wanted to check out this courtyard. She hadn't had much time to do any exploring and she hadn't ever seen this courtyard before. She wanted to check it out. 

"Okay, I'll head to that area," she said, pointing to the far end of the area. "Yell if you find anything..." she trailed off, remembering Ami's maniac banshee screams. "Well, maybe not yell, just get our attention," she amended, directing her phrase at Ami. "Ready?"

"Yell if you find anything..."

"NO!" he yelled when Amadaea said that to Ami. "I mean dear god please no don't yell my ears can't take it." He laughed and smiled at the girls. He set off to the far wall and began brushing his fingers along the way. He could usually tell if a brick was off. If the brick was off set then it was quite obvious something had to be behind it. He didn't feel anything and kept walking along. 


He knew if somebody were to walk in on them it would seem funny. He was rubbing his hands all up and down the wall. The thought of someones reactions caused him to laugh. Just at that moment he felt a brick wobble under his palm. "Hey Guys I got something!"

Now came the hard part. He had to figure out how to open the passageway. He knew it was right here but he had to find out how to open it. He thought back to all the previous entrances he found and sighed. He knew this was going to be a hard one. 

"We need to find out how to open it now. Finding the opening is the easiest part the hardest is figuring out how to open it."

Ami couldn't help but giggle along as Amadea and Kyden both expressed their extreme dislike for her yells. She couldn't help but be loud when she got scared, but she knew that the volume of her surprise could scare others, too, and that wasn't very good. But still, it was kind of funny.

The three split up and ran to different parts of the wall, feeling around for anything out of place. After a couple of minutes, faster than Ami expected, Kyden called out to the other girls, saying he'd found something. Wasting no time, she hustled her bustle over to him, leaning in to examine the loose stone. Kyden explained the difference between simply finding the opening and actually opening said opening. That certainly made sense, the whole difference-thing.

"We could try kicking it," Ami suggested, and as if to prove her point, she kicked the wall with her foot. Nothing happened, as she expected, but her toes did sting a little bit now. "Nevermind, that didn't really work, did it?" 

Tapping her chin, Ami tried to think of something else that would work. How else could you open a secret passageway? Well, the other ones had either been opened from the inside, but the one in the passageway had opened via a switch.

A switch! Was there a switch? "Is there a switch, or something?"

After confirming that there would be no screaming when the passageway had been found, the trio split up in search of an entrance. 

Amadea headed to the far corner of the courtyard where there were no people and began searching. She pressed her fingers against the stone wall, wondering what exactly she should be searching for. Would the wall give out? Thankfully, she didn’t have to determine that, as Kyden called out that he had found it, sans banshee scream. Amadea hurried over, listening to Kyden being the downer and telling them that there was a difference between finding the entrance and actually opening it.

Amadea resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smiled brightly. “Don’t be a downer Kyden,” she said jokingly. “We found the entrance! Now we just need to figure out how to open it. No big deal!” She hoped she wasn’t speaking too soon.

She turned to Ami, hoping she had some ideas. After suggesting kicking the wall, she was out of ideas. Amadea winced; hitting the stone wall must have been painful.

“I really don’t think violence is the answer,” Amadea said hesitantly. “Maybe there’s a secret code! Like the one to get into Diagon Alley?”

At the same time, Ami was suggesting a switch, which was also a good idea. Amadea went closer to the wall, both ideas in mind. Turning back to Kyden, she hoped he might be helpful as well. “Got any ideas Kyden?” she asked.

"Okay so I get it. You like to scream and kick things." Kyden said to Ami. He turned to looked at Amadea and shrug and he really did have no ideas. 

He continued searching the immediate vicinity for a way to open the passage way. It was irritating to him that he couldn't find anyway to open it. Kyden sat down on the ground for a minute. He needed to mentally catalog the ways he opened the passage ways he found. None of them opened the same way so a switch wasn't a likely choice as he found one that did that already.

He looked around searching for some type of clue that would help him open the passageway. He thought of ways that he could possible open it and then something dawned on him as if the idea had been pushed into his brain by an unknown source. 

"Noise!" he said excitedly, "I have a strong feeling that this passage way opens with noise." Kyden didn't want to say it right away because he really didn't want to be deafened but he knew it needed to be done. He turned toward Ami and before speaking he covered his ears. Speaking slightly loudly he spoke to her. "Once Amadea is ready you need to do your banshee scream thing okay?"

"Noise?" Ami repeated in utter disbelief. The response was a) completely and utterly random, b) definitely a weird suggestion, and c) what? She didn't say anything, however, not wanting to point out that hundreds of students shuffled by every day, probably making a lot more noise than just the three of them would.

And not even all three of them! Apparently, only she would be screaming her lungs out at a wall that was supposed to move- but no, she wasn't going to complain, because screeching her heart out was fun. "I think Amadea might be on to something, though," Ami suggested timidly, before checking to make sure both Kyden and Amadea had their hands over their ears.

"Y'all good with your ear protection and stuff? Ready? Yeah? Okay." Closing her eyes, Ami took a deep breath, before letting out her best ear-shattering scream. It honestly was a masterpiece, lacing together heartbreak, pain, sorrow, anger, and longing into one intangible noise. And even after she stopped, she could still hear it ringing in her ears, echoing through the courtyard, reverberating off of the stone walls and returning to the trio standing in the corner.

Opening her eyes, Ami asked hopefully, "So... did it work?"

Noise was definitely something Amadea hadn't thought of at all. It was such a peculiar suggestion that she didn't even take it seriously when Kyden first suggested it. After a minute, she realized he was being serious and tried to cover up the laughter that was coming out of her. It ended up not working well, as she let out a weird snort that probably was worse than actual laughter. 

Once she regained her composure, she realized what this meant. Ami was obviously the one that made the shrillest and loudest sounds (Exhibit A: banshee screams) which meant that she was going to be the one screaming. 

Amadea opened her mouth to speak. "Are we sure screaming is the best idea? After all, we don't want to alert the entire school that we are here," she said. Apparently, neither of them cared very much about secrecy as Kyden had already slapped his hands over his ears and Ami was preparing to let out her signature scream. Deciding to just go with the flow, Amadea placed her hands over her ears, hoping it would deafen the sound slightly. 

When it started, Amadea jumped, not able to control her reaction. Even though she had gotten used to the sound after hearing it so many times, it still startled Amadea to the core. It almost concerned her what a noise could come out of Ami's small frame. Thankfully, it ended, though the noise reverberated around the courtyard. Amadea, too scared to open her eyes, whispered, "Did it work?" 

Kyden uncovered his ears when she was done screaming and pointed at the wall. "It worked! Her scream is a certain decibel which sets of some type of trigger or sensor somewhere to open the passage. Besides it seems that this area is sound proof." He pointed and just outside the doorways all three of them could see others walking past without a care in the world. They obviously hadn't heard the scream.

Kyden quickly scrambled into the now open passage way and motioned for the girls to do the same. "Hurry up before someone sees us."

He laughed to himself he knew both the girls had thought he was crazy but truthfully once you figured out the nature of all the passageways it was easy really it seemed they like to play on the 5 senses. That was something Kyden had figured out his 2nd week in the castle. 

He looked at his two friends and smiled again. "Okay so which way should we go left or right?" He left the descision up to the girls and awaited their answer. He looked around trying to get a feel of the passageway and imagine where each path could lead but the truth was he had no idea.

To Ami's absolute and utter amazement, her ridiculous scream actually worked. The stone slid aside to reveal a doorway into the unknown, beckoning for the three students to step through. Wow, who knew that the scream would be so useful someday? 

Still slightly in shock, Ami drifted after Kyden, not quite aware of exactly what she was doing. Glancing back at Amadea with a shrug, Ami stepped through the doorway. No turning back now.

Once all three students were inside, Kyden asked them where they wanted to go. Ami shrugged in response, saying, "Not sure. Where would these passageways lead? If we could go somewhere interesting, that would be nice. Seriously, Ky, let's break the rules a little bit- can't we go to the Room of Requirement?" 

She had been longing to go to the room ever since her mother had told her about it, and she couldn't do it without Kyden's expertise on the passageways. She couldn't do it without Amadea, either, not without her friend at her side to watch her back, to keep her recklessness in check. 

Besides, they had already flown around on brooms, going to the Room of Requirement next wasn't that big of a leap, was it?