Small Thrills PV Anatole Evans Finished

Sorry, I've been trying to speed through class homework so I have more spells I can use in the maze! I'm basing this reply off of this article.

Lucy grinned and grabbed him by the arm, tugging him into the stairwell after her. She started walking up the straight, narrow staircase, letting go of his arm and trailing both hands on the wall to figure out the width of the staircase and to keep balance. Even though she had only climbed eight steps, it was already much darker than before. It wasn't quite pitch black, but if Anatole closed the door behind them, it would be very dark indeed. This passageway seemed completely internal. She looked up and thought she could make out the top of the staircase, so it didn't seem too long, but she also couldn't be certain of what she saw. She could feel from her ascent that it was quite steep, though, so she had already gained a decent amount of height. She had heard of students using secret passageways before to shorten their trips around the castle, but this was her first time finding one. It was exhilarating. 

She turned to look back at Anatole as she continued her slow ascent, pausing on every stair, savouring the moment. She smiled, her eyes dancing. She didn't think she was breaking the rules, seeing as she hadn't heard any forbidding them to travel within the castle, so she was rather excited about finding a relatively unknown secret. Well, it was unknown to her, at least. Anataole seemed much more knowledgeable about the castle and many other people. Didn't he say that he had a best friend? Lily sighed. She had found lots of decent acquaintances, but she hadn't found someone that she really clicked with yet. She would have envied him if she wasn't so optimistic about finding a perfect companion for herself. After all, she was a Hufflepuff. How hard could it be? She shook her head, returning to the task at hand.

"This is so cool! Did you know about this?" she called down to him softly, but the sound travelled easily in the close stairwell and it sounded louder than she had intended. She took another step, still looking back at him, when her foot suddenly dropped out from under her. She pitched forward with a scream, her left foot sliding farther down the staircase while her right leg and hip slid into an indiscernible gap. Up close, it was obvious that there was no stair, but from farther away - about 4 feet from the ground - it looked completely normal! A trick stair, her mind registered, before she screamed again as she started sliding forward into the unknown abyss below.

She struggled to use her back leg as leverage, which was still on the steps beneath the gap, but that cause her to shift her position and slide further into the gap. She threw out her hands, bracing her body and stopping the slide. Her right hip was contorted so that it pressed against the upper set of stairs while her left knee dug painfully into the stone on the lower stairs. Her hands were planted on either side of the gap, taking a lot of her weight and keeping her from shifting further into the abyss. Her breath came hard as she tried to recover and figure out what to do, but she couldn't gather her wits about her. Lucy froze completely, trembling, and trying desperately to keep herself from falling further into the treacherous gap of the trick step. Who knew what lie beneath this staircase?

"Whoa!" Anatole laughed as she yanked him into the corridor. It seemed dusty, and of course, it was secret for a reason. Dusty, beaten up. The stone even seemed to cave in on them at some points. Were they supposed to find this?

Lucy dashed in front of the scrawny Gryffindor boy, first one to hit the stairs. She stopped for a moment, turning her head every sort of which way before advancing to the next stair. Was this normal?

He tried to be courteous and move at the same pace with her, keeping behind the girl as he held up his robes to keep himself from tripping and falling up the stairs. Good thing he had already soiled his first impression with her. If he let go, would this odd staircase catch him?

Anatole wished she could go faster, but didn't have the courage to say. Maybe there was a reason she took her time?

Yes, clearly, Anatole was filled with questions he couldn't ask, either from sheer fear of being rejected by this cheery girl or just because they were self-explanatory. All he did was hope they could be answered, inching up the staircase with Miss Lucy O'Sullivan. "No, actually. I've never explored much myself."

Crack! Anatole gasped, jumping back onto the stair below as the line leader plunged into the darkness. He clenched his teeth together, unsure of what to do. Of course, he would have to get her out somewhere, but did he have the resources to do it? Likely not.

"Uh...hang on! I'll find out something!" He jumped over the pit, peering for another source of light to help them out.

In one fell swoop, just as Anatole stepped behind her, Lucy's precarious position gave way and she fell through the gap of the stairs. Because of her previous bodily orientation, she was falling with one leg down in a sideways fashion, not at all ideal for a safe landing. This thought barely had time to cross her mind before her right hip cracked against the cobblestone ground, the rest of her body crumpling to the side in a heap. While her fall had been eerily silent - mostly due to her shock - this jarring impact caused her to scream. 

A roaring pain ripped its way through her hip, seeming to rattle her to her bones. She sucked in breath between her tightly clenched teeth, eyes clenched shut in agony. Tears sprang to her eyes and fell, unnoticed, down her cheeks. She released another scream which deescalated into a chesty groan. "Ahhhhhhh," she whimpered, slowly curling her body into the fetal position. All of her limbs responded, so it seemed that she really hadn't done too much damage.

She attempted to take inventory of her injuries. The fire in her hip burned too hotly to be ignored, but once she started mentally searching for other injuries, little complaints quickly sprung to attention. Her elbow had received a nasty bruise as well as her right shoulder, the next two body parts to hit the floor after her hip. Despite the pain, which she admittedly had a rather low tolerance for, she didn't think anything was broken. She really hadn't fallen that far. It was possibly a little over three, perhaps 3 and a half, meters. She didn't really know. She didn't exactly count as she was falling.

"Anatole?" she called, whimpering slightly. "Are you still there?" She slowly realised that this chasm was even darker than the staircase above. She didn't know it was possible to get darker than dark, but it was almost true blackness in... where was she? Under the staircase? How would she get out? She felt her heartbeat and breathing increase, imagining being trapped her forever. "Anatole?!" Her final call had a note of frantic hysteria, made worse by the pain in her hip and the complete darkness that seemed to swallow up everything, even the sound she was producing.

"No, actually, I've never explored myself." His mouth gaped open as he moseyed his way up the passage, narrowly following back on her tail. His dark eyes graced the ceiling and then the walls, but didn't dare to touch the floor. His hand traced the lines of broken stone, and he remained completely oblivious to what happened in front of him. At first, he swore the sound was a scurry of a rodent, so he didn't mind it, but once he heard the piercing feminine scream, his eyes had no choice but to spot the floor where his new friend lay: crumpled and, well, stuck. In a pickle.

As Anatole moved toward her, she suddenly fell closer to the bottom of the pit. Slowly, she curled up slowly. She must have been in intense pain, and frankly, Anatole had never been the best in dire need, but he kept pondering upon what his gut told him. Prince.

He clutched what he could of the wall, looking down into the pit to try to peer through the endless darkness that engulfed whatever lied under the stairs. He wished he could do something, but if he reached down there to grab her, he was sure he might fall down too. Well, there was a small chance.

She fell down there, didn't she? Girls just didn't vanish.

He swore he heard a whisper of a voice, but he couldn't make out what it said. It was not close to familiar, just some sort of lost echo in the void.

Shutting his eyes and tossing his scarf over his shoulder, he turned around, peering into the pit again. "Lucy? Luuuucy?"

Anatole's voice rang down toward her, filling the cavernous space with sound. It sounded close and yet far away at the same time as the echo bounced off the close walls of her newfound prison. As her name reverberated in her ears, she felt more settled. She had not fallen off the face of the planet at the very least. She slowly shifted into a kneeling position, gasping in breath at the pain of the movement. She quickly put all of her weight on her left leg, giving her right hip a break from the pressure. I've never broken a bone before. Can humans even break hips? briefly crossed Lucy's mind as she sat there for a second. 

"Uh... What... what do I do?" Lucy called up, her eyes probing the inky darkness. She couldn't see a blasted thing. She attempted to stand up and hissed as her hip protested at every movement. Come on, girl, get up, she coached herself, and found her way to her feet. She had to put more weight on her left leg yet again, but she was at least standing now. 

There was no way to tell where she was or how she would get out. Surely she could not be the first to fall into such a pit, but she hoped that she would be the last. "Should... should you go get a professor or something?" she called, her voice reluctant. She didn't want to be left alone. And she didn't want to be caught taking a stairwell she obviously had no business being in. But she didn't know if they had another choice.

Oh God.

Anatole couldn’t stop thinking about what had went wrong and what he could do. He was afraid he would fall into the pit himself if he got to close. The wood could break as well, and there he would go, scraping his knees on the bottom of the pit. Two helpless students at the bottom.

Thankfully, the Gryffindor picked up on the tiny whisper before, noting it was his newfound friend, Lucy O’Sullivan. Slowly, the boy ascended the stairs, careful to not trip into the pit, yet at the same time, pinning his ear as close to the hole as he could. Her whispers of words trickled up toward the surface and he could understand her phrases. She was concerned, curious as to how she would get out. ”What should you do? Uh...well...I’m not the best at these situations.” He clutched the wood, propping himself up. Looking behind him, he was concerned she might have left the entrance cracked open slightly, for any bypasser to enter and stumble upon the troubled girl.

Professor. Professor. Professor! That’s who could help them! They had the magic to help out Lucy, and...and...what else did they have? He didn’t know, but it was somewhat of a last resort. ”I’ll get one, stay here! If you need anything else, just shout up!”

The Gryffindor grabbed his cloak and ran down the stairs, looking both ways before entering back into the Small Hall. The paintings chuckled, watching this boy dash through these halls, frantic like he needed something (which he did). As usual, he was not watching where he was going, but only watching for a familiar face such as Ackerley, Sorrel, or even Sergei.

Something hit his shoulder. Strange, unfamiliar, and oddly fleshy. He twisted, barely stopping himself from falling. ”Sorry, Miss!”

The figure turned around, his narrow, golden eyes and pointed ears running a chill down Anatole’s spine. His hair draped down, highlighting his partially elven features. Anatole, flabbergasted, stood back. Who was this man? He hadn’t seen him here before, or even, ever. ”Oh, I mean, sorry Sir.”

Dang it. He had apologized to a peculiar stranger out of all people.

Even I could admit the basic truth behind the mystery that is my gorgeous presence within the walls of Hogwarts. I had so far been absent from any and all semblance of merriment or social interactions that the school seemed to derive much pleasure from undertaking. It was not because of any such fault as an aversion to ingratiating myself into social settings or even being against fun and all that it entailed, but there had simply been too much to do. There was little to no structure to the classroom that I had been tasked with overseeing, and it had taken me the better part of the short month that I had been here to set everything in order and make it my own. A late arrival into a school as large as this one tended to add a certain layer of extra workload to the evergrowing pile.

I am perfect, however, and so naturally I had managed to set all my affairs in order in prodigious fashion, and even completed all my lesson plans for the remainder of the year so as to not be found wanting by year's end. My work spoke for itself, and the students would do well to display even half my work ethic, for only then would I give them the time of day. Currently, I found myself perambulating through the corridors of the Small Hall in my quest for appraisal of the school and the memories it invoked. Before long I heard hasty footsteps making their way closer to where I stood, and with a slight twist of my head, I noticed the small figure running towards me, clearly not paying attention enough to see where they were going. With a purposeful pause, I stood statuesquely and allowed the boy to slam into me from behind.

It did not hurt, though I dare say I took umbrage at the unorthodox physical encounter. Further still, the boy addressed me as miss, a thing that I had never had even a slight problem with at any point in my life. I was used to it, knowing that I was quite prepossessing to everyone who laid eyes on me. Upon the second apology and the correction of genders, I prettily reached for a few loose strands of my curly hair and brushed them from my eyes, maintaining eye contact with the intensity of my piercing, platinum gaze. "If you have the good graces to apologize twice in one breath, then I am safe to assume that you should have had enough foresight to watch where you were going." Was my tone too harsh? It was nothing out of the norm with regards to how I spoke to just about everyone. I shot the boy an expectant look, but when it seemed he had nothing more to offer, clearly stunned by my breathtaking visage, I snapped my fingers sharply.

"Your name child! And a skillfully woven explanation as to why you were in a mad dash down the hallways without a full grasp of your faculties, deficiently so as to set yourself on a collision course with your professor." Depending on his answer and the state of my quickly declining mood, I would indulge or eschew action on the matter. Was this possibly one of my students? I possess superior memory, but even I could not be expected to remember the face of every regular Joe that crossed my path. The capacity was better used for more germane retentions.

Lucy heard Anatole clamber up the rest of the stairs with a reassurance that he would fetch a professor. She could hear his retreating footfalls for only a few steps once he exited the stairwell, and then all was quiet. Quiet and dark. Lucy shivered involuntarily, feeling much colder all of the sudden. If she had thought this pit was creepy before, it was even more so now that she was completely and utterly alone. The darkness pressed on her from all sides, and she found that she had trouble drawing breath.

Luce, you're an idiot. You can breathe. It's just dark. There's nothing to be afraid of, she told herself, struggling to take deep breaths and expel them slowly. Her ears strained for sound. She knew Anatole hadn't been gone long, but she already yearned for him to be back. To be down here by herself was maddening. She thought back to what had happened. Had the stair given way? No. She was carefully evaluating each step before stepping on it. So, what, then? She swore there had been a stair there. 

Of course! she though, smacking her forehead with her hand. A trick step. Something that looks like a step, but is actually just a hole to catch trespassers. She groaned, and the sound echoed in her small space. I'm going to get in trouble for sure. Hot tears burned at the back of her eyes. She hated getting in trouble, and her hip hurt, and she was alone in this dark scary place - and what if Anatole never came back? She would be trapped here, and she would die here, and no one would ever find her body. No one would probably even notice.

"Stop it!" she demanded to herself aloud, pressing her hands against both sides of her head and squeezing, trying to force her out-of-control thoughts to slow down. A few renegade tears streaked down her face while Lucy desperately tried to blink them away. "Let's explore while Anatole is gone." She continued to talk to herself aloud, finding some comfort in the sound. 

She slowly limped half of a metre, wincing every time she put pressure on her right leg. Hands held out, mummy style, she managed to find the wall with her hands first rather than her face. Despite this comforting discovery, she felt like she had to take the pressure off of her hip. The discomfort grew with every step. She slowly turned her back was against the wall and slid down it so that she was in a seated position, curling her legs up to her chest.

She wrapped her arms around her knees, ignoring the pain in various parts of her body, and settled in to wait, trying her best to think of absolutely nothing at all.

The boy’s feet almost coaxed him to trip, almost falling backwards as the golden eyes watched him carefully. Everything the man did seemed calculated, precise to some sort of degree unmatched by most simple humans. Who...even...was he anyways? He surely didn’t seem similar to any other being in the school, nothing close to anything he had ever seen before. Was this all just a strangely lucid dream?

He brushed his approximate shoulder-length hair behind him as Anatole steadied himself. He had fallen into a conversation he couldn’t get out of. There was nothing worse than mistaking someone’s gender the first time you met them.

Leaning against the wall, Anatole mimicked his movements, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and reluctantly conversed with this new...fellow. Were those elf ears he saw? ”Yes, yes, I’m sorry about that…” He apologized through gritted teeth. ”You’re not wrong, Sir, I didn’t see where I was going, uh…” Anatole’s chocolate eyes began to wander, attempting to find some other focus mark instead of the man’s piercing pupils.

Like a whistle to a dog, Anatole’s focus snapped back towards the man when he elegantly caught his attention with the snap of his oddly slender fingers. ”My name?”

Oh God. What was his name? Had he forgotten it all of a sudden?

Anatole sighed a breath of relief as the panic was soothed. He did remember his name. ”Anatole Evans, and....and uh...I was running to find myself a Profess--” His voice wavered off as he noted the last part of the man’s reply. Professor? Wait, he said...your Professor. Oh God. ”A...um...Professor. You’re one? Well, my friend kind of collapsed into some enclosure in this secret passage, and uh…” He hated his brute honesty when it came to times of stress.

"Oh woe is me!" With an Oscar-worthy performance, I turned away from the boy and put my hand to my forward, feigning a dizzy spell that threatened to floor me. My form had dithered ever so slightly, and it had seemed as if I was truly about to fall. But at the eleventh hour, I caught and righted myself, looking back to the boy with a look of seemingly genuine concern. "Mr. Evans! How clumsy this friend must be. And you're certain this is the company you wish to keep?" I raised my index finger in the space between us before he could answer, silencing whatever it was that he might say in response.

"Never mind all that. You said you had been in search of a professor? Well? Are we to stand here and soak up the scenery or were you planning to lead me to this fleet-footed friend of yours?" I didn't mean to snap, or maybe I did, but the idea that they had been casually strolling before this friend fell into a hole or slipped between a few cracks in the wall did not sit well with me. Did they not have eyes? Could they not see? "Do they have cognitive deficiencies?" Upon realizing my Freudian slip, I quickly shot Mr. Evans a look that said 'hurry up! I don't have all day' in hopes that he wouldn't bother with any of the mundane questions that might be flitting through his simple little mind.

It never occurred to me that my appearance, gorgeous as it may be, might have startled the boy even slightly, as by now I expected that all and sundry had heard of the aesthetically pleasing half-elf of a Potions Master that was me. It also never occurred to me that these sheltered kids might not have ever heard of an acclaimed actor by the same name in the Muggle world. How odd it was to enter a place where no one knew you. That would all change, however, and quickly. Anon was not a name I wished upon myself. When he felt it prudent to lead the way, I would follow Mr. Evans in the direction of his friend. Surely all it would take is a simple flick of my wand to see them safe and sound. Lead on, Mr. Evans. Lead on.