Harry Potter & The Thousand Mysteries

‘Quills down!’ barked Professor McGonagall at four thirty on a swelteringly hot summer afternoon. The long exam hall, in the east wing, was filled with a cheer as all of the third year students in unison congratulated each other on the end of the OWL exams.

Harry had never felt as tired as he did when he gave that cheer. The Transfiguration Written Exam had been the last exam of twenty four exams he had sat in the past two weeks. Everyone in the room had huge bags under their eyes. Every one in the room looked a complete mess- Parvati and Lavender, who usually wore a great deal of make up, were completely bare faced. Hermione’s hair was bushier than ever before, Malfoy had never been paler and Neville looked close to a nervous breakdown.

The weeks during and leading up to the exams had been very hard work. Hours of memorising complex spells, ingredients, coordinates and charts. Spending lifetimes in the Library checking through huge thick books, then returning back to the common room to read more by candlelight well into the morning. Harry remembered waking up on the morning of an exam to find himself resting on a textbook, a small puddle of drool seeping through the pages.

So when Professor McGonagall barked at them to put their quills down at the end of the final transfiguration exam, Harry felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders, as he joined the cheering.

It was one of the few times that all the pupils from every house had exactly the same feeling about something- everyone was glad the exams were finally over. Harry had been surprised to find groups of Slytherins and Gryffindors working together in the Library, and every evening people would display less and less animosity towards each other- they were all in the same boat, and regardless of all family ties and disagreements, they all had exactly the same problem to overcome. Eventually, every one in fifth year ended up sitting around the same table, helping each other with revision, all being perfectly civil and polite, and, yes, friendly.

People were moaning and groaning, however, when they left the hall and made their way down the carved stone staircase.

‘I didn’t have a clue how to explain the question on cross-gender transfigurations,’ moaned Lavender.

‘I know,’ agreed Evan Davies. ‘That threw me as well.’

They all made their way down to the Entrance Hall, and through into the Great Hall, where the specially prepared End-of-Exam buffet had been prepared for the fifth years only.

The house tables had been dispensed with, and a single table stood in the centre of the hall, covered in nibblers and party food.

Harry took a plate and put on it some sausage rolls, some chipolatas, and some small fruit cakes he had never tried but looked interesting. Around the rim of every plate was written:

CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2002! YOUR OWL EXAMS ARE NOW COMPLETE!

After the small buffet was over (no one felt like hanging around the great hall much, when their warm, soft beds were waiting for them), everyone left and made their way up to the dormitories silently. Nobody was in the mood for talking, and also there was nothing to talk about- the exams had consumed them entirely over the past five weeks that everyone had failed to notice anything that was going on in the outside world.

As Harry crawled between the sheets of his bedpan warmed bed, and drew the hangings, he felt very calm and serene. As he lay in his warm bed, enclosed in his hideaway from the big, bad world, he wondered how the war against Voldemort had been going, how Sirius was, where Sirius was, how Julian Jenkins and Cedric Diggory had felt after they had finished their exams. Both of them were now buried in the cold, hard earth, thanks to Harry, indirectly or directly.

The exams had given Harry a chance to forget about everything going on in his life, the traumas that seemed to target him, and provided him with a distraction. Hopefully it was for the best he had thrown himself into revision, but it just meant, as Dumbledore had said almost a year ago, that it made the pain harder to feel when he finally felt it.

But the tiredness washed over Harry, and soon he had succumbed to the waves of sleepiness that had washed over him.

***

’Harry, Harry! Wake up, Harry, wake UP!’

‘Wha…’ stammered Harry as he opened his eyes. Everything was in perfect focus- he had left his glasses on overnight.

‘Harry!’ said Ron. ‘Get up! There’s a party in half an hour!’

‘What?’ Harry looked at the alarm clock beside his bed.

20.28

‘What?’ he said again.

‘Harry,’ said Ron calmly, trying to make everything clear. ‘There is an end of exam party at nine o’clock. That’s half an hour.’

‘What?’ Harry rubbed some sleep out of his eyes.

‘Just get into the shower,’ said Ron, pushing him out of bed.

Harry’s feet slapped across the tiled bathroom floor as he pulled a fluffy white towel from the rail five minutes later. Wrapping it around his waist, he walked back into the dormitory.

‘Harry!’ said Ron. ‘About time!’ Ron, Neville, Seamus and Dean were all dashing frantically about, looking for robes, shaving cream, deodorants, socks…

‘What’s happening?’ he asked, feeling like Crabbe or Goyle.

‘Uh!’ said Ron. ‘Harry, there’s a party in…’ he checked his watch, ‘twenty minutes. We have to leave in like five minutes! Hurry up!’

‘Where’s the party?’

‘In the room two floors below the exam hall,’ said Ron. ‘Justin Finch-Fletchley stole the keys from Filch earlier, and they’ve got all the alcohol and stuff up there.’

‘Why is there a party tonight?’ asked Harry, as he opened the wardrobe door.

‘Harry, this is party season!’ said Ron. ‘Everyone know that!’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Neville. Dean and Seamus nodded as well.

‘What?’

‘Harry,’ said Ron. ‘Harry Harry Harry.

‘Every year, in the period between the end of the exams and leaving for home, the fifth, sixth and seventh years have no work at all. So, in this gap, there always are tons of parties, sometimes five or six a night.’

‘Really?’ asked Harry.

‘Haven’t you seen all the older pupils?’ asked Dean. ‘They’re never up in the morning, and then they leave the common room at nine or ten the next evening!’

‘I’ve never seen that at all,’ said Harry.

Ron tutted. ‘My dear fickle friend,’ he said. ‘How very sad.’

***

‘Hey, Harry,’ said Cho Chang, walking up to Harry in the party room below the exam Hall. In her hand she had a bottle of Zusammenleben Bier, a German beer the seventh years had brought back from their field trip in the Black Forest.

‘Hi, Cho,’ said Harry. ‘How’re you?’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘You wanna dance?’

‘Sure, absolutely, yes,’ said Harry. He felt his heart thrill- Cho Chang wanted to dance with him!!!

‘Okay,’ she took him by the hand and led him onto the dance floor in the centre of the room. The hall was large, and was lit only by once chandelier, which flickered with the music blasting through the space, filled with exam weary students.

Harry and Cho began to dance to a heavy metal song that was being played in the centre of the room, with the rest of the dancers. Everyone was happy, relaxed, carefree- finally they could be teenagers again. Harry pushed his troubles deep inside him and enjoyed himself thoroughly.

‘You wanna get a drink?’ asked Cho.

‘Sure,’ said Harry, and they walked up to the makeshift bar, which was just a load of alcohol shoved onto an old desk.

Where’s Ron?’ asked Harry, looking around.

‘Hmm, don’t know,’ said Cho icily. Harry had forgotten she and Ron had gone out a while ago. It was so hard to keep track of whom Ron was going out with these days. He already had been out with Lavender, Cho, Alicia, some Hufflepuff girl whose name Harry didn’t even know, Padma Patil (again), Parvati Patil, and again some Ravenclaws whose name Harry never even bothered to ask.

‘So, how’re you?’ he asked Cho.

‘Oh, well, glad the exams are over,’ she said. ‘And you?’

‘I was worrying about the exams, and now I’ve got to worry about the final.’

The Quidditch Final was in two weeks, between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor.

‘Oh, I know. At least Slytherin can’t win,’ said Harry. ‘That was amazing the way you beat them last month.’

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what we’ll do for the Final, though. Half our team will be out on injuries or something- they always are.’

‘We both worry too much,’ said Harry.

‘I know,’ said Cho. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

‘Utterly,’ agreed Harry.

They stood in silence for a while, before Cho piped up.

‘Can you keep a secret?’ she asked.

‘Sure, what?’ asked Harry.

‘Come with me.’ She walked across the room, and Harry hurried after her.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked, as she shut the door to the exam hall.

‘Just come with me. Be quiet, though.’ She hurried along the corridor, and down a narrow, rickety wooden staircase that led to the lower South corridor.

‘Where are we?’ asked Harry, as at the bottom of the staircase was not the lower South corridor but the top of the West corridor, five floors above where they should have been and on the other side of the school.

‘It’s a Friday,’ said Cho.

‘Does this go here on a Friday?’ asked Harry. He had never noticed that before.

‘Shh!’ she hissed, as they came upon a statue of a massive stone eagle, wings outstretched.

‘Palaeontology!’ Cho whispered the password, and the eagle’s left wing moved, showing a tunnel cut out of the wall.

‘Come on!’ She led him into the tunnel, which was a set of steps. At the bottom of the steps, Harry and Cho found themselves in a large, domed room.

‘This is our Common Room,’ said Cho. It was a circular room, with lots of small offshoots, recesses and alcoves. The ground floor was full of wing-backed armchairs, elegant couches, several cheerful fireplaces, and some more stylish furniture. At different levels on the bookshelf-covered wall, however, were platforms that encircled the room, all lined with bookcases as well. Some wrought iron fencing held up the six or seven levels, each growing steadying smaller as they went higher up, and more sophisticated reading chairs or desks were dotted about these levels as well. On each level were two or three doors, which Harry guessed must lead to the dorms. Instead of a room, there was a magnificent glass dome, which allowed the starry heavens a peephole into the tower. At the moment, the room was completely deserted.

‘This way,’ said Cho, and they hurried across the blue carpeted floor, towards a wide sweeping oak staircase. Rather than twist and turn, as most Hogwarts staircases did, this staircase was full of spacious half landings. At each was a rather comfy looking chair, a small reading lamp on a table, complete with a jug of water. Magnificent stained glass windows allowed gentle summer night breezes in.

‘This is such a nice common room,’ said Harry.

‘Whatever,’ said Cho, as they continued to ascend the stairs. Here and there, not specifically at half landings, were elegant doors lading off into other rooms. Each door had a small plaque on it. He spotted a Music Room, a Stargazing Room, two Reading Rooms, an Art Room, a Gymnasium, a Turkish Baths, an Owlery, a Yellow Drawing Room, a Red Drawing Room, and a Pet Room, along with plenty of doors without names on them.

‘Here,’ said Cho, as they reached the top. They stepped onto the seventh level, and Harry leaned over the balustrade to peer onto the common room floor below. From here, the whole place looked very grand and elegant. Of course, it was covered in bookcases.

‘Is that all Ravenclaws do?’ he asked. ‘Read?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Cho, ‘but most of us are academically inclined. There are chess matches all the time, and most people can speak several languages. A lot of people play instruments as well. I play the harpsichord.’

‘Wow,’ said Harry. You certainly didn’t get that in Gryffindor, although this place seemed slightly boring and stifling.

‘Come in,’ she said, and pushed the door to her dorm open.

As with the rest of the Ravenclaw area, it was very grand and elegant. Mahogany wardrobes and fine art decorated the room. The floor was peach, and the walls were gold and cream stripes. Two massive glass doors opened onto a balcony, through which a cool breeze was flurrying the white voiles. The four deep-blue velvet four-poster beds had their own individual bedside tables, washstands and a chaise lounge at the bottom.

‘Harry, you’re the only person I can trust with this,’ she said, sitting down on one of the chaise lounges.

‘I share this dorm with Alexandra Smith, and a few weeks ago I found this under her bed, while I was looking for some lippy.’ In the posh surroundings, Cho’s use of “lippy” sounded terribly coarse.

 She reached under her mattress, and pulled out a crumpled letter. The waxen seal was bright green, and it was lined with black.

Harry took it and read;

My dear daughter Alexandra,

I am so pleased you have decided to join me- it means so much to me that we, as father and daughter, shall serve our master and his cause together. Your mother, god rest her, would have been so proud. She herself, as you know, died in Our Masters service.

I will send word when we are next to meet with our Kind- but in the meantime, I have a task for you.

I need you to search the castle, looking at the security measures. Ask Snape or McGonagall for help- but do not go to the stupid Muggle loving fool. He is too cunning and will guess what you are up to. Our Master wants to know the castle’s weak spots, so as our attack will be most effective.

Make haste, my child, and do this well, and our master may move you into the third Circle.

Farewell, my love,

Daddy

NB- Destroy this when you are finished.

Harry looked up at Cho. She looked anxious and nervous.

‘When did you find this?’ he asked. ‘About three weeks ago,’ she said. ‘At first, I thought it was a joke, but then I saw her arm- she has…’ Cho paused, almost too afraid to speak, ‘it’. She gulped, overcome with emotion.

‘We need to speak with Dumbledore,’ said Harry.

‘No!’ said Cho. ‘Then she’ll know it’s me that said!’

‘How will she know …’

‘NO!’ said Cho again, more forcefully. ‘I already told all the teachers not to discuss it with her, and then I told her that once I read that the castle was so strong nothing could get inside.’

‘Did you read that?’

‘No,’ said Cho, hurriedly, her bottom lip trembling. Although Harry was very worried and alarmed, he couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she was.

‘I told you because I know I can trust you about… well… things like this.’ Her eyes flicked this way and that, like a rabbit, waiting for the eagle to swoop.

‘Harry, what can we do?’ she asked.

The dark haired boy sat on the edge of her bed for a minute or two, pondering his decision, before finally telling her his plan.