Step 87 - A Hiding Place
Step 87 - A Hiding Place
You didn’t know who or what was coming. You only knew you could not let them find you. There was too much happening, and if they were worth knowing, you needed to find them on your terms, not theirs.
In your pocket, the small vial pulsed faintly with its own kind of urgency. It might’ve been a potion or it might be contraband. Perhaps what was in your pocket was nothing more than a black ink laced with too much sugar. It was impossible to tell, but something inside your heart told you that it was something relevant. The liquid shimmered when the light hit it just right—like it was something alive and it was trying not to be noticed.
What you did know, what you could not ignore was the pattern, one that you could not quite see. Had you a more global purview of it all, you would see a trail of strange, unaccountable events. Memories were feeble, students were forgetting names that they used to whisper. People were getting unexpected gifts and they were quite dangerous. There were visitors and members of the Hogwarts staff that were keeping secrets. There were doors that opened to places that shouldn’t exist.
And that was broad strokes, there was a creeping sense of something more unfolding beneath it all, threaded just out of sight. Secrets nearly a decade old that were unsolved.
You had no answers. Only direction. A pull. A weight in your chest telling you to move. Just not yet, not while danger or at least the unknown prowled the hallways. So you slipped into an abandoned classroom, the door just ajar so you could see what passed you by.
Then—the sound of footsteps. Soft at first, then they grew sharper and louder. The steps were not hurried, just persistent. They drew closer, as if they knew you had run this way.
And then, from the crack in the doorway, a figure passed into view—
A house elf.
Small, hunched, but moving with purpose. The house elves' eyes were focused and they were carrying something wrapped tightly in cloth. The house elf did not look lost. It looked like it knew exactly where it was going.
They looked towards the room you had ducked away in.
This adventure continues on April 26.
You didn’t know who or what was coming. You only knew you could not let them find you. There was too much happening, and if they were worth knowing, you needed to find them on your terms, not theirs.
In your pocket, the small vial pulsed faintly with its own kind of urgency. It might’ve been a potion or it might be contraband. Perhaps what was in your pocket was nothing more than a black ink laced with too much sugar. It was impossible to tell, but something inside your heart told you that it was something relevant. The liquid shimmered when the light hit it just right—like it was something alive and it was trying not to be noticed.
What you did know, what you could not ignore was the pattern, one that you could not quite see. Had you a more global purview of it all, you would see a trail of strange, unaccountable events. Memories were feeble, students were forgetting names that they used to whisper. People were getting unexpected gifts and they were quite dangerous. There were visitors and members of the Hogwarts staff that were keeping secrets. There were doors that opened to places that shouldn’t exist.
And that was broad strokes, there was a creeping sense of something more unfolding beneath it all, threaded just out of sight. Secrets nearly a decade old that were unsolved.
You had no answers. Only direction. A pull. A weight in your chest telling you to move. Just not yet, not while danger or at least the unknown prowled the hallways. So you slipped into an abandoned classroom, the door just ajar so you could see what passed you by.
Then—the sound of footsteps. Soft at first, then they grew sharper and louder. The steps were not hurried, just persistent. They drew closer, as if they knew you had run this way.
And then, from the crack in the doorway, a figure passed into view—
A house elf.
Small, hunched, but moving with purpose. The house elves' eyes were focused and they were carrying something wrapped tightly in cloth. The house elf did not look lost. It looked like it knew exactly where it was going.
They looked towards the room you had ducked away in.
This adventure continues on April 26.
There is something about ambition, how it not only propels you but also defines you.