A Dash in the Dark! closed

Attire: Usual school day attire: robes, shirt (buttons mismatched), tie (knotted around his left knee), kilt, neck ring, no shoes.

Reducio

12 May 2023, before dinner

Colin had scooted right after his last class and headed to the --- secret place. Colin had sniffed around and made sure to look everywhere most suspiciously. No one seemed to be here now, and no one seemed to have been here recently. The flask was there in its place. With a smirk, he unstoppered it. It had been a while since he tasted the inky stuff within. It had a bit of a pungent aroma and an odd flavour. Kind of planty, with strange herbs. And kind of sickly sweet. A quick nip and the flask was placed in a new location.

Colin hurried through the emptying corridors as quickly as he could. Today, he felt the keenest desire to be surrounded by darkness and coolth! Only the dungeons, deep under Slytherin's already dank and dreary corridors would do! Up secret stairs and into dusty, infrequently traversed passages Colin made his way. The curious concoction that Headmaster Lear had recently put a name to began its work on Colin.

Colin knew himself as well as any thirteen year old boy can. He was a high energy boy. If he were a motor car, he would have only two speeds: blazing fast and crashed. Before coming to Hoggys, his life, apart from lessons and chores, was spent running wild in the Scottish Highlands with his siblings and cousins. They played at being brave dragon tamers and giant wranglers and troll trouncers; they refought all the major (and minor) battles of magical and muggle Scottish history. And even after the others were tired out, Colin kept inventing new battles and new enemies to fight! Only one boy could keep up with him. Colin was skinny and lanky to be sure, but he could run and play for hours!

And this stuff, this wonderful concoction! WHOA. It just made Colin thrice as much himself! There was no enemy he couldn't conquer, no vision he couldn't see, no length of meadow or dungeon corridor he couldn't outrun!

"YAAAAAAAAAA-WUUUUUU!!!" he called out as he hurtled down the spiral stairs that led to the dungeons! He burst through the bedraggled cobwebs that hung from the derelict stone lintel! He tossed off his school robes into a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Colin turned to the left and shot pell mell along the stone paved corridor. "I'M THE KING OF UNDERHOGGY'S AND NONE SHALL PASS!!" He took off his shirt and waved it about like a battle flag!

Colin tore along the dank passageway. It smelled of damp, mostly, and apart from his echoing voice, there was naught but the sound of silence and the drip of water into some desolate pool that drained into the forlorn corner of rough hewn stone.

He was sure no one had been down here in ages! "WHO GOES THERE!" he cried. Colin stopped short with a squeak of delight! "Ah! Tis me auld chum, Sir Brushagot!" Colin laughed to see a couple old scrub brushes and an empty pail lying abandoned in this dim corridor. In the eldritch light, the brush on its long handle looked a bit like a Roman soldier's helmet top.

Colin kicked the bucket upright, took the brush in hand and began to dance merrily around the old thing.

High, hogh! Look at me! A've got a broom and I shall clean!
Scrubby scrub scrob! Look at thee! Tha bes a besom tall and lean
High, hogh! Here we be! Bock bock bock and we're all clean!

Colin laughed at his silly song as he pushed the old scrub brush along the floor that had, at some point in the last thousand years, had actually been scrubbed by someone! Colin took a quick, deep breath. The scrub brush's long handle clattered against the stone wall, it's echo clicky-clacking down the long length of the corridor.

Colin smirked. He strode along the way. "De ye ken Colin McCoire wi his coat so gay?" he called out into the quiet. "A ken thee! Lurkin in the gloam, in the daaaarkest niiiight!" Colin laughed at his pun. He cast around him, and found something that looked kind of like an old sword stuck in one of the chains along the wall. It could have been a poker or even an old spurtle. It didn't matter! Twas stout --- stout as Colin's heart! "A ken thee! Wicked hearted Liche King! How dare tha come intae Hoggys's venerable walls!"

"OWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Colin drew his wand with his left hand and with his trusty sword, Exclaymore, in his right he charged into the fray against the king of the dark! He slashed his wand to left and right! "Excromify! Rescourgerise! Hahah! Take that, ye auld drumle! Ollpéist! Hah! Decorpify magno! Right in the bloody bullocks!"

Colin swung his sword. ZHING! ZHANG! Exclaymore sliced its foes and diced its enemies and never grew tired to drawing blood! "HOOOOOOOO!! That's a muggle moving pictures and no mistake!" Colin chased the evil liche lord through the long corridors of the dungeons, slaying liches and goblins and orcs and trolls and every sort of vile creature that dared to enter Hogwarts! His shirt, the sleeves now tied around his head and long braids flew along behind him and his green and silver neck tie, knotted on his left knee, bobbed gaily with step of the pursuit!

Coming at last to wide and heavy wooden door, more of a gate, really, he gave that a mighty knock with Exclaymore! "Take that ye bumboozled auld Lichie King! I stab thee in thy arse! I shut thee out! And don't come back!" Satisfied that the Liche King's armies were all routed and sent scampering back into the deeper darkness, at least for now, Colin turned to face the empty corridors of the dungeons that lay the way he had come. The darkness did not scare him. "YAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Victory is ours, oh Hoggy Soggy Snogwarts! Safe from the Liche King again!"

Colin paused for a moment, his chest heaving. He tucked his wand back into it's sheath inside his sleeve and secured on his right arm. He tossed Exclaymore into the air and caught it. Colin smirked. Tucking the sword into his belt, Colin shook himself like a dog. It was funny, he thought. How that wee nip of the black could make him so giddy. The effect didn't really last long, and as Colin thought about it, he didn't really need that stuff to make him giddy. All he had to do was look at Luci or Loops and he could be giddy all day long! He could but think of Clair --- ah! CLAIR! --- and his heart would fly higher than any broom and farther than any magic carpet! He could soar with the eagles just by seeing her sky blue eyes in his mind! Whatever the stuff was, and whatever it did, this darkest night, it clarified his vision of the dark. Aye, it brought him some pain, but he recognised the Liche King for who he was. Not just the imagining of a small boy among older cousins. Even if he never took another sip of the night, he knew with certainty who it was he must fight.

Colin howled for Clair into the darkest night of the dungeons!

And he spread his arms wide and ran!

@Solomon Lear