Harry Potter and the Gwydwyn Book

Harry Potter and the Gwydwyn Book

Chapter One: Christmas Mystery

Harry Potter and his two friends Hermione and Ron walked out of the fireplace facing the road on Diagon Alley. They had just finished their nightmarish mid-terms and were taking a much-needed break from Hogwarts over the weekend. It had already been an eventful fourth year for the three friends. Two boys from their first year class in Gryffindor, Chris Conner and Will Hamilton, had been thrust into prominence in Gryffindor. Harry had met Chris some years back, but Will was a seemingly newcomer. But right now, though Harry had the weight of the second trial in the Tri-Wizard Tournament hanging over him, the three friends thoughts were on a potion contest being held by the town council of Hogsmeade. Harry and Hermione, as well as Chris and Will, were going to enter, but Harry hadn't given nearly as much thought to the contest as Hermione had. They walked into the comforting, musty interior of Flourish and Blots Bookstore and they had begun to look through the comic books that were for sale with their moving characters on the covers.

"Harry, do you really think that you can win the potion contest?" Hermione asked him sceptically, thumbing through a worn copy of Potions for the Intermediate Wizard. Beneath it lay Potions for the Advanced Wizard, and several other new and used books on various exotic and difficult potions.

"No, Hermione. I think you'll win as usual. Did you talk to Will recently? He's been acting rather strangely," Harry said, munching on Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

"Yeah, he has been, hasn't he? He's in the same dorm with that other kid, Chris Conner, right?" Ron asked, flipping absent-mindedly through a copy of Ogre Slayer VI. He flipped a few Knuts to the old wizard behind the counter and walked out. Harry handed the man a gold Galleon to pay for the two books he was buying, Runes and other Ancient Writings, and An Annotated History of Hogwarts. Hermione quickly settled her accounts with the storekeeper and left with her friends.

Back on the street, they slung their purchases into knapsacks and headed back toward one of the Floo powder fireplace junctions that allowed young wizards to travel to Diagon Alley from almost anywhere in Europe. They quickly slid back to Hogsmeade to pick up more magical sweets and climbed onto their brooms which they kept in the now empty Shrieking Shack.

"Has anyone seen Neville recently?" Harry said thoughtfully from his Fireball.

"I don't think I have," Hermione said, egging her antique Silver Arrow on to keep up with Harry. Ron sailed far behind on his old Cleansweep.

He called up to them, "Are we almost there yet, Harry?"

"Hermione's navigator. Ask her, I'm only going along with what she says." Harry yelled into the wind. He slipped back behind Hermione's broom.

"We'll be there in a few minutes, guys," she said, and then she looked down through the misty clouds and saw the pointed rooftops of Hogwarts' many towers. They dove down into the massive courtyard and halted in front of Gryffindor Tower.

They looked around at the empty courtyard, which had been full only a week ago. Ron had managed to convince his parents to allow him to stay here with Harry. Hermione's parents had wanted to take a cruise in the South Pacific with a bunch of other Muggles, and so she was here at Hogwarts for the Christmas season. It seemed to be that time when everyone thought of themselves.

"So, as I was saying, has anyone seen Neville?" Harry asked again. Ron hopped off his broomstick, panting from the work of controlling the ancient broom.

"Neville?" Ron asked, "No, and I didn't see him leave either. Maybe he slipped out while we weren't looking."

Hermione had a faraway look on her face. She said, "I haven't seen several people recently who should have been here."

"Oh well," Harry said, "Let's go into the common room. It's too cold out here."

They walked down the long corridors and hallways until they reached the picture of the fat lady. She was asleep, so they yelled to wake her, and hurriedly gave the password. The large portrait swung away from the entrance and they walked into the Gryffindor common room. The fires were blazing with massive Yule logs and greenery was strung up over the hearths. More than one person had been caught under the hovering sprigs of mistletoe that floated over the hallways. Will Hamilton walked in from one of the cold dormitory hallways, dressed in dark blue robes trimmed with gold. This was unusual at Hogwarts, where the dress code was generally black robes only. Will had his thick, dark brown hair held up with a black samite-cloth band. He was followed by Chris Conner, who wore the usual black robes. They were fast friends since the first year. They sat down next to the three friends.

"Have you noticed anything odd around school, Chris?" asked Hermione, looking at him coldly. She was coldly mean to Chris, and Harry never understood why, but then Hermione was mean to a lot of people she didn't know.

"Not really, other than a few missing people, but that almost seems normal, doesn't it?" said Chris with a forced laugh.

Harry gave him with a look that said how serious the situation seemed.

"I could look into it, maybe," Will said. Will had come from America just to go to Hogwarts, and his parents, both Muggles, had taken him out of the American school called Malfoy Academy for obvious reasons. Draco's father, Lucius Malfoy, had dipped his hand into American wizardry, and had moved all of the schools and wizarding communities there to Wyoming, which any American, Muggle or wizard, can tell you is the most boring, and also the most remote and best place for hiding, you can find in North America.

"Harry, haven't seen you since our last Quidditch match. That was an excellent save against Ravenclaw." Chris smirked at Harry, who had been thrown off course by Professor Snape in a particularly nasty trick by the Potions master.

"Funny, Chris," Harry said. Chris liked to drive wedges into the social structure at Hogwarts, Harry couldn't fathom why he and easygoing Will were friends.

* * *

Will walked back down the hall to the dorm he shared with Chris and a few other fourth years. Harry and Ron shared a room, as did Hermione and Lavender Brown. Will didn't often admit it, but he liked Lavender. Lavender seemed to have no idea, but secretly she sent him all kinds of notes through all the classes.

Chris had been taken in by the school when his parents had been killed by an Egyptian Curse which they couldn't counter-curse. His mother had once been a powerful member of the ruling committee in the Irish Wizarding State. Professor Dumbledore had taken him in, and he had shown great potential.

"Will, I found this on your side of the floor. It was in your hand, but I couldn't make it out," Chris said to Will, waving a paper with smudged emerald and sapphire ink written in stick-like characters.

"Oh, that. That's my recipe for the potions contest. It allows you to levitate things. I wrote that in Runes. Wait 'til you see the other kids faces when they see what it does."

Chapter 2: Will's Discovery

One week later in the Gryffindor Common Room:

"Hallo, all you saps who 'ere trapped 'ere. How was Christmas?" A second year, James Ashleighs from Manchester, walked into the warm common room. He was followed by a wave of students, including Fred, George, and Ginny, Ron's little sister, and Chris's sister Sandra.

"Hey all of you, good to see you," Harry greeted everyone as they walked in, his two friends beside him. Will was nowhere to be found, and Chris never liked meeting people.

"Hey Harry, anything happen to you this year?" asked one sixth year, almost mockingly.

"Yeah, I found out you came here," Harry retorted. It had been a long break, and the fact that several people, both students and teachers, had disappeared over the Christmas holidays hung over the otherwise jovial atmosphere of the holidays.

Later that day, after a delicious feast and the incredible ball thrown for the visitors from the three major schools in the world of European wizarding, who were competing in the Tri-Wizard's Tourney during the year, in the banquet hall with its wonderful ceiling filled with stars and deep blue sky, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Chris were sitting around the Common room in a semicircle. Other students, mostly first and second years, chatted around them, happily unpacking, setting pets free to stretch themselves.

"Chris, we need to know. Have you seen Will recently?" Hermione asked him, eyeing him cautiously. Chris still didn't understand her edginess.

"Will, I thought he had gone off into the library to research the disappearances. Will can get himself lost in the library, kind of like you Hermione," Chris said, glancing at Harry with a smirk. Harry smiled and shook his head.

"There could really be something strange going on, here," said Ron, looking around the room. He continued, "We should check in other houses and find out if they've been experiencing any troubles like Gryffindor."

"Good idea, Ron," Chris said, smiling warmly. Chris turned to Hermione, "Don't tell the Profs, got it?" He looked at her icily.

"Right then, who's up for getting some sleep before classes resume tomorrow?" The new Prefect, Jiharra Gnanadoss, a British-Indian boy, clapped his hands down on the back of Ron and Hermione's armchairs. The friends went to their dormitories to go to sleep in the big, comfortable four-poster beds that Hogwarts provided for all the students. In Chris's room, after he slid the wall back into place on his way back from Harry and Ron's room, Chris was surprised to see a swirling ball of light that flashed for an instant before disappearing into nothingness. A book dropped onto the floor, blowing open in a cold draft that sprung out from centre of the room.

"What is going on in here? Will, this isn't funny!" Chris yelled into the vaulted room. He pushed back the curtains around Will's four-poster bed. He saw the glow of a reading globe that Will had picked up in Hogsmeade that fall, flickering over the bed. It looked as if Will had got up in a hurry and walked away...

"Will? Where are you?" Chris looked around, his hair standing on end. Just then Will fell through a magical door just like the one that Chris had seen only a moment earlier, pouring out amid sparkling liquid of blue and clear colour. The liquid, which was magical crystal, quickly froze Will in it up to his waist.

"Chris, go get Professor Dumbledore, now!" Will was breathing heavily. Harry popped through the wall into the room as Chris slammed the heavy carved oaken door.

"Will, friend. What happened?" Harry asked, standing next to Will who was crouched, breathing heavily, on the floor in the centre of the room.

"Harry, have any other people disappeared?" Will looked wildly up into Harry's bewildered face.

"Hermione's gone! I'd just come to tell you and Chris, since you were doing an investigation and..."

"Shut up, Harry. -Sorry- I know that more people are going to disappear..."

Ron ran through the passage in the wall, followed by Lavender Brown in her fancy night shift. Will stood to his full height and tried hard to regain composure. Ron asked excitedly, "What's going on?"

"I've come back from where everyone's disappearing to. It's horrible! I barely escaped, and I had to use a travelling charm. We've got to get the teachers. They have to know. It was a group of dark elves!"

"You're not serious, Will! Dark elves were something we had to write about for History with Binns, not now. Everyone said that they've been gone for three-hundred years now. How could he possibly..."

"I'm telling you Ron, it was them. He didn't look at all like our History books described, either time they're in there. There were two, I think, -yes, there were two dark elves. It was so strange!" Will began to calm down, slowing his laboured breathing, and he sat on the side of his bed. Ron and Lavender stared at each other with absolute disbelief. Chris ran in, Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape in tow.

"Will Hamilton, what happened?" asked Professor Dumbledore with his kind, warm voice. Snape stood back, haughtily looking at the dishevelled boy sitting crouched on the tall four-poster. He would hardly be surprised if the boy was lying.

"Prof- Professor Dumbledore! It was so strange! I was sitting in bed, trying to discover something about the disappearances that seem to have recently plagued Gryffindor. I had finished my copy of An Advanced Wizard's History of Hogwarts, and I was about to read the Tome Hogwartania to see what the older book had to say. I had been walking back to my bed when I turned and found the page on the disappearances," Will paused to sip from a vial of Crystal Falls Wizard Water, "I read some of the entry on Hogwarts' disappearances., and there was something linking the earlier disappearances here to a boy named Fredegar Planar who had caused them before. I was about to check on him when I felt a cold wind blow up around me. I held tight to my wand which I- tend to fidget with when thinking, sir, and I saw a blinding flash and I was trapped in a sea of sticky ruby coloured liquid that felt like it was hardening around me. If you won't expel me sir, I think I aparated. It was something I had picked up from an American witch named Amanda Fitzgerald. Don't expel me, sir!" Will looked pleadingly at Dumbledore and McGonagall.

The two teachers were wide-eyed and looked at Will. Professor Dumbledore smiled, knowing full well that Will couldn't have aparated into or out of Hogwarts, though his smile disappeared when he thought of how then Will had gotten back to the castle. Professor McGonagall stood up from her knees, her face unmoving, then looked questioningly at Snape.

"How can you believe the boy! He must simply want to make a scene!" Snape yelled.

Will looked Dumbledore in the eye, sweat running down his face. He said, "I assure you, sir, I'm not lying."

"I believe you, boy! It's just all to fantastic! Imagine, you escaping the clutches of dark elves! I don't believe you could of aparated into Hogwarts, but just the same, what you did is remarkable for a fourth year!" Dumbledore looked excitedly at Will. Lavender cringed in horror at the mention of something evil.

"I think that someone needs to go and find out more about this, Professors," Harry said, seeming far more responsible than he normally was. "Hermione's gone, as is Neville Longbottom. I think, however, that in this situation," Harry paused, deep in thought, "sir, that we should send a team of students to combat the dark elves in this situation."

"Neville Longbottom? Oh, I was wondering that uncoordinated squib had gone," Snape said, looking into the air thoughtfully.

"When did I tell you about the dark elves?" asked Will, almost defensively.

"Oh come, boy! You think this has not happened before?"

"Well I had thought..." Will shrugged. Ron stood behind Harry, facing the assembled Professors.

"I'm with Harry. I want to rescue as many people as possible, too. Could we bring a few of the witches and wizards who are here for the tourney long with us?" Ron asked, thinking of the large group of wizards from the two other leading schools of Beauxbaton and Durmstrang.

"I'm sure Viktor would be enthralled to see Hermione after he swept her off her feet at the ball," Harry said.

Professor McGonagall spoke up, "We don't know how to 'disappear' on purpose yet. Also, Will, can you think of any way that you could have actually gotten out of the crystal?" she asked, looking around the group. Her gaze rested on Snape, who was deep in thought, still with his ever ready haughtiness.

"What do you want me to do McGonagall?" he growled when he saw her look.

"Snape, you are the leading expert on crystals and potions this school has. Can you perhaps inspect the crystal liquid that has soaked into Will's cloak?" She looked at him expectantly.

"I suppose so, McGonagall. I'm doing this for the school, not for any of these kids who come here. I'll be giving you four boys an extra test on the potion that I discover so be ready for it," Snape said, staring icily at Harry, Chris, Will, and especially Ron, who had much trouble in his class.

"Yes, sir!" Chris said, standing at attention like a Muggle Marine. Everyone, except Snape, of course, laughed and went back to their rooms.

Chapter 3: "What makes it work?"

Harry stood next to Ron in Herbology watching the kindly old Professor Sprout explain how to repel the Tenacious Tupper Weed of the Upper Amazon. Chris and Will were whispering off near the back of the group.

"Where do you expect to get mandrake and athelas, Will?" Chris asked in a hoarse stage whisper.

"Professor Sprout already said she could prepare a few mandrakes and I can get the athelas from Hagrid who's allowed in the forest. I can buy all the other ingredients for my potion for the contest at Hogsmeade over the weekend. Do you have any idea if they carry powdered hyacinth?" Will asked, his charmed pen scribbling down the class notes furiously.

"How should I know? I am not a Potions' major this year!" Chris said in a whisper almost louder than his regular tone. He told Will, "Can you leave me alone? I don't want to fail this class."

"I'm not a Potions' major either, I'm going for three other subjects, too. I-

"Pipe down, Will!" Chris shouted at him. The whole class turned their heads and stared at the two friends.

While Chris and Will were having their somewhat trivial conversation, Harry and Ron were discussing the mission to rescue the missing students from the dark elves' clutches. They were situated on the opposite side of the pack of kids. Ron was trying to talk to Harry and still take notes from the class at the same time.

Harry was saying, "How are we supposed to disappear if this whole thing seems to be random?" Harry may have been a gifted wizard, but he wasn't much good at logic and such things. It was times like this they wished Hermione had paid more attention with her investigation and left something to help them. She had been so infatuated with Viktor that all her marks had gone down.

"I don't know! Ask Will if he has any ideas, he was the one who got back!" Ron scribbled onto the muddled up notebook with his metal-point pen his father bought him on his summer vacation.

"Not a bad idea. Can you speak any other languages and tell those students from Durmstrang and Beauxbaton to come to our room over the weekend?" Harry looked questioningly at Ron.

"Don't they speak English?" Will asked, smiling.

"I guess they do! Well, anyway, this trip was your idea, anyhow. Ask them in English then to come to my dorm room. I'll figure out a way to get Neville out of the way, and Seamus won't care.

"What do you think, Harry? I barely pass my own classes. I'm sure we could ask Her- Oh yeah. Talk to Will again, he's supposed to be good with languages, too." Ron turned and tried to catch the final portion of the lecture.

Chapter 4: Gryffindor International Weekend

"Will, over here! I'd like you to meet Genevieve Ste. Jean. She's one of the French students from Beauxbaton watching the contest," Harry called to Will over a busy throng of people in the small room. He and Ron had convinced Chris to shrink down the four-posters. They only hoped he could get them back to size again.

Will walked over to meet a beautiful fifteen-year-old girl with dark brown hair streaked softly with blond. He reached awkwardly for her hand to shake it. She put it out, and without hesitation he kissed the back of her hand. Will turned beet red and walked off to find the place where Harry and Ron had put the butterbeer for the party.

"You'll have to excuse Will, he's not usually this shy," Harry said to her. She smiled and looked for Will in the crowd. In one corner of the room, over the chatter of foreign voices, Viktor Krum and Ron were discussing Hermione's disappearance. The awkward Viktor was shouting angrily at Ron.

"You mean Her-my-o-knee has just disappeared? How could this happen? At my school this would never have happened!" He shouted not without his thick Bulgarian accent. The seventeen-year-old was violently red and stared Ron in the face.

"Calm down, Viktor. She's just disappeared recently, in fact..." Ron walked over to Harry and whispered something in his ear. They both searched for Chris.

They found him reading a novel by Filius Lexicogerton titled Muggle Magic?. A classic book in wizarding circles.

"Chris, can you transfigure one of the beds into a podium?" Harry asked excitedly. This was one of the first parties they had thrown in their fourth year.

"I suppose I could... Ok!" Chris shoved back the billowing sleeves on his custom-tailored robes and raised his wand. He said, "Podio Riso!"

The tiny four-poster that had been shoved in the corner rose up and formed into a blue and green polka-dotted podium. Ron looked contemptuously at Chris, who shrugged, smiling weakly at the outrageous colours.

Will marched up behind the platform. He pulled out thin green glass bottle and tried to quiet down the crowd.

He said, "Thank you, thank you all for coming. Before we get down to business-

"Let's get down to business NOW!" yelled Viktor from the back.

Will continued, "I would like to show you a new potion I have discovered for the potion contest!" Will smiled as a few people groaned in the crowd and looked at him skeptically. The girls giggled and pointed. Will pulled the wrought-gold stopper from the bottle and drank the bubbly dark contents of the bottle.

He motioned for Ron to hand him a MagiBall from Dervish and Bangs in Hogsmeade. He was about to grasp it, when it floated over his wrist. The crowd gasped.

Smiling, Will said, "It's called a Fabulous Levitating Elixir! And now Harry Potter to talk about the situation at hand." Will motioned for Harry to stand up at the podium and stepped down.

A third-year witch from Ireland said to him, "Will, that was wonderful! What did it have to do with the 'situation at hand', though?" She looked at him quizzically.

"Ah- nothing, nothing. It was just to put everyone I good spirits. Listen to Harry and maybe you'll understand."

"Harry stood up in front of the assembled students and flushed bright crimson. Then he began to talk, "Hi, everyone. I asked all of you out here for the party to tell you guys about what's going on. Apparently, several students have disappeared, and we were hoping that some of you..." Harry stared blankly at the back of the room as he spoke. He paused frequently.

"some of you would help us in our quest to end the disappearances." One of the Durmstrang students raised his hand.

"How vais dthis a problem, Harry? Surely a couple ov teashers could set zem vright?" he said, he was a seventeen year old who had already been set in the accent patterns of his country.

"Not really, Mikel. They wanted us to, I think. I don't understand them sometimes, either. Does anyone know about dark elves in here?" A murmur rose up from the witches and wizards assembled in their room.

"Dark elves! What kind of a trick iss that?" asked a Scottish first year from the back of the group. The group looked questioningly at Harry. Harry hesitated and looked to Will. Will nodded and Harry stepped down from the podium. Will passed him on his way up.

"I saw them through the crystal that I was held in. It was definitely a shock for me, too. I need three people to join Ron, Harry, Chris and I.

The group looked at one another and then one of the Beauxbaton girls raised her hand. Victor had already shoved his way through to the podium.

"We need one more person. How about you, Ginny Weasley?" Will looked at her icily until she hesitantly stepped up. "Thank you for showing up, and take some of the food with you. Please leave now." Will stepped down and let out his breath.

Chapter 5: To Disappear on Purpose

The seven students gathered right before curfew and crept slowly through the darkened halls. Chris had enlarged the invisibility cloak to hold everyone and they walked cautiously down the hall. Filch's cat Mrs. Norris looked strangely ignorant of them, which discomforted Harry, who had had several run-ins with her and her master, Filch, the school janitor.

"I can't see anything!" screeched Priyanka Bhatia. Ron shushed her.

"Do you think we can get to the lost common room anytime soon?" asked Chris in a low whisper.

"Lost common room? I've never heard of- Harry started to say in a loud whisper.

"I would have thought you knew about it," said looking at what he thought looked like the outline of Harry. He continued, "I did not know about until recently. It is always hidden except for one place. We can get in..."

"Borrow the Marauders' Map, Chris!" Will nudged him from behind. Will was quietly whispering the details of what had happened to the two girls. Ginny couldn't contain her giggling over sneaking around with Harry Potter.

"Chris looked at the map. He saw there tiny figures walking down the passageway near the Hufflepuff tower. Chris hissed directions and looked down a the map. It was difficult to see because of the lack of light in the halls.

"To your right Harry!" he called. Everyone felt the cloak pull to the right and they slipped down another passage. Chris checked to see if any of the teachers were prowling about. He saw that Mrs. Norris, the cat, was in an adjoining hallway. Chris said, "Stop!"

"Why? We're in the middle of nowhere!" Ron hissed back through clenched teeth. Priyanka had just stepped on his heel.

"Exactly," Chris said mysteriously. He slipped out from under the cloak, and, looking to the right and left, uttered a single word facing a large picture of a scholarly-looking witch in front of him.

"Mercatoria!"

The picture swung away and the group whipped off the cloak and ran through as the secret panel slipped shut. They were in a torch-lit hall that led down around a corner. A cozy heat blew around he corner at them. They walked slowly down the corridor, looking into the high vaulting. They walked around the corner into a large common decked out in purple and green with a large owl in the center of the banners.

"Welcome to Athenalia House! I found this last year, but then, before I borrowed the Marauder's Map. I couldn't find it again. It seems to have been started by a witch who was obsessed with owls, kind of like her mythological namesake," Chris said with a flourish of his hand. They sat down on a circle of large, soft throw pillows.

"So, now that we're here, what are we going to do about getting disappeared?" Ginny asked, bubbling with enthusiasm.

"I don't know!" Harry yelled. The group looked taken aback at the outburst. Ron understood what was going on, though. The year had been very long and trying up to this point and this whole crisis was only making it worse.

Chris was the first to break the heavy silence. "Think about it, guys. Every time one of us has disappeared, we've been looking for the cause of the disappearances. Maybe if we..."

Priyanka broke in, "look for zee cause of zees situvation!"

"That's true! We could try it!" Will said, excitedly. He looked at the tall bookshelves that lined the walls of the lost common room. He slid a book with a shimmering copper-cloth-bound cover out and thumbed through the pages. He stopped in and stood reading. Everyone watched as he traced he words, slowly fading until he became a ghost-like reflection. There was a bright light and he was gone. Seconds later he reappeared, gasping for breath.

"Vell, zere you goh. Eet vorks!" Priyanka shouted excitedly. Ron glanced at the map. A tiny dot marked 'Aljabr Vector' the Arithmancy Professor, faced the picture of Amanda Athenalia. Then walked on. Harry looked at what happened.

"Keep it down, guys!" he said in a hushed voice.

"This is too terribly exciting!" giggled Ginny.

"Stow it, Ginny," said Ron rudely.

"Vell zen. Vee vill simply go through the disappearance and vee vill hrescue zuh ozer vitches and vizards." Priyanka rose from the cushions and whipped out an ebony wand.

Will brought out his teakwood wand and crossed it over Priyanka's. The others followed suit. Ginny nervously touched hers into the circle. A shimmering swirl of magic rose and lit the cozy room.

Chapter 6: Dark Elves and Disaparation

"Professor Dumbledore! We've discovered what to do!" Will said excitedly. He wore his best robes and had his hood pulled over his head. The rest of the group had been excused from classes early to go and rescue all of the Hogwarts students from the Dark Elves.

"Excellent, Will. I assume that you understand the implications of dealing with Dark Elves. You will, if absolutely necessary, be allowed to perform the Imperius curse on the elves, if you can work it correctly. Chris will have the greater power with magic. Use your instincts. Dark elves are often unpredictable." Dumbledore smiled kindly, and rather

weakly, Will noted.

"Good. I assume that the Durmstrang students know all the Unforgivable Curses then?"

"I should think so! Priyanka used the Crucio on one of the rats in the hallway the other night- He was interrupted when Harry clapped his hand over his mouth. Harry smiled wanly at Dumbledore.

"Vee aht Durmstrang arre tout zee Dark Artz in zee furhst year. I can protecht my zelf!" Priyanka said, darkly eyeing the others in the group.

"Well then, we shall give you the Crystalline Dissolving Potions that Snape has prepared for you to use upon entering the dark elves' stronghold. Use them quickly, and if they don't work, use a transfiguration spell to get out," Professor McGonagall said., handing each of the seven children crystal flagons of an off-pink colour that gave off a strange smell even through the bottle.

"Knowing Snape, they're probably poison," Ron whispered to his little sister. She giggled and put her hand to her mouth when she saw Snape's dark stare.

"Will do," Will said to McGonagall.

"Let's go then, everyone!" Harry said. They marched to the library, yelling "Huzzah," and whistling loudly with excitement. Heads popped out of the classroom doorways and passing Professors stared quizzically at them.

"Here we are! Ah the library, how I-- Chris began to say.

"Shut up!" Everyone said in unison. Chris smiled sheepishly.

They walked inside the cavernous dungeon that housed the library. Rumor had it that the dungeon once held dragons and giants from the olden days of the wizarding world.

"Everybody find a copy of An Advanced History of Hogwarts or the Tome Hogwartania. That should get us there," Harry said, looking around reassuringly at the group. They had all suddenly felt dread through the pit of their stomachs. Will tried to feign confidence.

"Well then, I've got a copy in the old rucksack!" Will said, trying to cheer everyone. Inside he was just as scared as any one of them.

Ginny giggled and broke a brooding silence that had shadowed the group. They all stood in a semicircle and passed around the portkey. As each of them began to fade upon touching the thin, yellowed pages, they passed the book to the next in turn until Priyanka touched the page. The book fell to the floor and closed with a quiet thump, seeming to seal them within the port. They were traveling through the magic to the castle of the last clan of the Dark Elves, the Jinnajin Tagrump in Eastern Lingolinglot. The students swam violently around in the crystals, still not breaking the silence that laid heavily on the sweltering castle keep.

Will broke the seal on the flagon, acrid liquid swirling into the hardening crystal, creating a clear liquid that instantly dissolved the crystal into air. Will tore off his heavy, dripping cloak and looked around the room...

* * *

Harry tried to break the seal on the flagon, but Snape had sealed it wickedly tight. He felt the viscous crystal hardening around his heated face. He opened his eyes wide and groped through the gelled crystal for his wand. His feet locked into a stiff position. He barely snatched the wand from his flowing black cloak before the folds of it hardened seemingly forever. His struggling lips formed the spell to transform the crystal into a small peppermint humbug. He caught the candy expertly then threw it into the swirling dust on the floor before he gazed across the room...

* * *

Priyanka's deep black hair flowed through the sticky crystal as she broke her flagon, dissolving the liquid in a matter of seconds. She stepped down from the pedestal that had held the faceted cylinder of the crystal. She stared across the room, calculating with each look...

* * *

Ginny's squeals were silenced by the overpowering simmering ruby and emerald-coloured crystal liquid that she hung suspended in. She broke the flagon late, barely before the crystal had frozen her fingertips forever. She stood up from the platform the crystal had stood on and slowly turned, looking across the cavernous...

* * *

Viktor awkwardly grappled with his wand that tried to float through the crystal facets. He saw a tall, thin figure through the hazy sapphire and amethyst-coloured goo that was rapidly disabling him. He remembered his flagon and broke it open before it was torn from his hands. He looked up, choking from the viscous goo that had almost locked him in its grasp. He saw the figure holding up a gnarled wand...

* * *

Ron looked cautiously around, as cautiously as time would have allowed. His flagon wouldn't open. Ron let it float suspended in the liquid as he extracted his wand and mouthed the transfiguration into a teacup. The flagon fell through the air. Ron caught it in one hand. He tucked it back into the folds of his cloak, slicking back his flaming red hair with the goo from the crystal. He saw the vaulted ceilings and dark grey stone columns of the room as he turned around on the crystal's pedestal...

* * *

Chris whipped out the crystal flagon as soon as he had fully entered the crystal, expertly breaking the stopper and melting the angry ruby-red crystal he had been brought into. He hopped quickly off the pedestal, and, without stopping to look around, walked along the rows of crystals, each containing a man, woman, boy, or girl in them...

* * *

Ron ran down the long rows of crystals, each holding a person, searching for any sign of his friends, or the people captured by the dark elves. He saw down one of the rows, a figure in a swirling pair of black robes and cloaks. He ran down, whipping his wand out to defeat a dark elf, but found he had almost transfigured Chris.

"Ron, I'm glad to see you! I was waiting to find someone," Chris said, looking around the expansive vaulted chamber. A stifling, muggy heat weighed heavily on the crystal dungeon. They looked around the chamber, trying to see some of the others in the crystal bank. They saw, blurred through fourteen crystals, an ungainly, skewed image of Viktor bent on his knees in front of a tall reedy figure with glistening black hair.

* * *

"Where is everybody?" Will wondered, looking around the dim chamber through row upon row of crystals, most containing a person. He sneaked around the room, until he reached one of the walls. He decided to follow it, as would anyone, after all. He arrived at a tall dark-wooded door, carved with angry looking scimitar shapes and broken circles formed into squared-off characters. Will racked his brain for the translation of the weird writing style, called Dark Arts Script. He stood facing the thick door, pondering the symbols, mentally cursing the heavy heat and the dust of the strange castle. He was deep in thought in the silence of the chamber, not paying attention to his surroundings. He didn't notice the soft footfalls of two approaching figures...

* * *

"What are they doing to 'im?" Chris asked Ron, with false bravado.

"I don't know! That could be him and Priyanka. Maybe he fell," Ron said nervously.

"Well then let's go over there and get them!" Chris said almost relieved.

"Are you crazy! I mean, we'd better not, in case someone sees us. We're probably causing enough of a disturbance. Let's find a way out of this stuffy chamber," Ron said decidedly. Chris followed him to along the rows of crystals. Chris kept an eye out for the dark inhabitants of this particular castle, mentally whipping through his notes and readings on Dark Arts. Ron was stolidly staring ahead. He walked past rows of people frozen in surprise, others in positions of struggling. One girl had hair flowing wildly around her face, her eyes closed tightly, robes billowing in an undisguised attempt to escape before she had been completely frozen in the crystals. The crystals themselves were swirls of rich gemstone colors. Ruby and chalcedony, sapphire and emerald, diamond clear and deep amethyst purple.

"Where are we heading, Ron?" Chris asked, stopping next to a ruby, amethyst, and citron coloured crystal.

"I don't know, heading for one of the walls. Maybe we could-

Chris excitedly interrupted in a whisper, "Someone's coming!"

Chris and Ron ducked behind the column. They waited for the approaching figure to come closer to them until they recognized Priyanka. They hissed under their breath to her, but she walked on, not seeing or hearing them. Priyanka continued walking, until she had gone past three more columns, looking as if she already knew her intended destination.

Chris and Ron continued waiting for someone else to pass them, hearing more footsteps. It was then they got their first look at the dark elves. Tall and thin, with a long face and thick black eyebrows covering startling washed-blue eyes. This one wore a light gray tunic that stopped at the waist tucked into black pants that fit loosely on the elf's leg. He had on an unfastened cloak of hematite-black leather that blew back as he walked regally down the row. Chris and Ron looked at each other resolutely and stepped out behind him, each waving his wand and using a fairly simple curse.

"Iridio!" yelled Ron, firing a rainbow stream of magic that wrapped around the elf.

"Kashkalican!" Chris shouted, his voice becoming dark and evil for a moment.

The two beams of magic swirled around the Dark Elf's shocked body. Chris could see him muttering something, and the rainbow beam of Ron's Iridio Curse disappeared, as did Chris's curse. Chris used another spell, this one, an object transfiguration, he had found in a thick book in the forbidden section of the library.

"Ir'histh'kepher Jes'senektet!" Chris shouted. He pointed his wand at the dust that rose off the floor in thick carpets. He yelled to Ron, "Climb onto one of the crystal columns!" Chris muttered a quiet incantation and rose from the floor as the writhing blue magic of the dark incantation hit the dust and began to dissipate into it.

Ron heard a snickering and clacking as hordes of shiny beetles, each the size of an unpopped popcorn, dark green and black, rose around the Dark Elf. He cried out as the beetles rose up his body leaving nothing behind them, not even bone. He looked terrified into Chris's eyes, looking with shock and horror before he was engulfed with the beetles. Chris quickly performed the countercurse and the beetles dissolved in a wave of orange light.

"Don't ever do that again!" Ron grabbed Chris by the shoulders...

* * *

"Will!" Harry said excitedly.

"It's you, Harry. Ginny! You got through ok! I'm trying to decipher this Dark Arts Base Glyph. I think it's the opening charm, but I can't be sure. I wish I had my rucksack from school."

"Let me see what I can do about that," Harry said, getting his wand out of his robe. "Accio Willis Rucksack!" Harry said. Will scanned the room, looking for a window for the rucksack to come through. Sure enough, the rucksack was streaking in through the one opening in the entire room, built high above the floor in the brown-grey stone. Will grabbed it out of the air where it slowed to a hover over his shoulder. Will unclasped the silver Celtic knot that held it closed and extracted a red leather-bound book with gold writing in an Arabesque script. Will opened the book from what looked to Ginny to be the wrong side of the cover, and flipped through pages of symbols and the backwards text.

"Here we go. The Kepher-ra-e Opening Curse. Sometimes used to open people, generally a simple Egyptian doorknob summoning spell." Will stepped back from the door and leaned against a column. He pulled out a strange wand from the rucksack. Harry gasped a short breath when he saw the wand. Will read the translation while he raised the wand, "Kepher-ra-e aph-keneph!" Ginny squealed when a stone block began to rise out of the blank door frame and three blocky stone hinges jammed onto the side of the door. Will repeated the charm and the door opened, slow and foreboding, revealing a dim, low-roofed room, dust and mist rolled out along the floor. Lying on a stand in the centre of the room, with a single beam of light shining down on it, was a book.

Chapter 7: The Gwydwyn Book

The book was bound in dark green leather inlaid with gold and glinting with tiny sapphires. A layer of dust coated the ancient cover. Harry, Will, and Ginny walked into the room, cautiously looking behind them. As Ginny passed through the tall doorway, the door slammed shut behind her. The dust seemed to disappear around their feet and they saw that the floor was inlaid with deep, blood-colored stone, with snake shaped obsidian twining across the bloodstone tiles. Will walked up to the book carefully.

He blew the dust off and coughed, his cough seeming to echo and grow louder with each echo. "Be quiet!" shrieked Ginny, her words doing the same. She shrieked and then sat on an emerald bench. It was then Harry noticed the strange layout of the room. Nine torches lit the room, balls of flame hovering at the sides of the small bookroom. Harry looked at an arrangement of golden crystal spheres on each corner and in the center of each side of the pedestal. He saw an azure stream of magical power wrapping around a silvery strand and flowing through the crystal orbs before flowing into the book. Three deep black stone steps led up to the pedestal. He saw Will about to open the book. As Will opened the silver clasps holding the book shut he walked up to the side of the pedestal. He saw Will about to open the book. As Will opened the silver clasps holding the book shut he walked up to the side of the pedestal. Burned into the cover like a brand were three words in brightly-coloured, animated, wizard calligraphy:

The Gwydwyn Book

Etched into the side of the pedestal were words in the English alphabet and five other languages. He heard the slam of the cover with the strange echo making it louder until it disappeared. Will extracted a book from his rucksack.

"Will, get down from there!" Harry said.

"I jus' got it open! This is incredible. The book seems to take in a strange magical power from those orbs, or wherever that magic is coming from. It's almost like a magical computer one of those things that the Muggles use!" Will said, continuing to translate the Dark Arts Base symbols of the book as fast as he could. Just then, they heard footsteps outside the wall where the door had been...

* * *

"Well, it's one of the only ways I know how to kill without using Avada Kedavra. I couldn't use the Unforgivable curses, so I used something I picked up from my tutor from Arabia. He taught me lots of Dark Arts spells and curses that he said were Egyptian. I guess they really do work," Chris said with a laugh. Ron looked at him incredulously and then shook his head. Chris stood up, looking down toward the corridor to where they last saw Viktor. They ran past the crystal containing Hermione, not noticing her frozen form in the crystal. When they got near the door to the bookroom, Ron paused when he heard the echoes of his friends voices. He looked at the outline of the door, and the symbols. Chris looked especially at the Dark Base Glyphs. He couldn't understand them, anymore than Ron could.

"Ron, do you think they're in trouble?" Chris asked, hearing the sound and turning from the wall to look toward Ron.

"I don't know. Better not risk calling for them, though. One of the well, You-Know-Whats!" Ron said, looking around the chamber.

"Don't start fearing another name, Ron! I do think you're right, though. Let's see if they come out. They didn't sound like they're in trouble." Chris said haughtily.

"If you say so," Ron looked back at the doorway and then walked on with Chris toward the next wall...

* * *

The footsteps, which after all were only Ron and Chris, moved on past the door. They all let out their breath at once.

"That was close," said, Ginny. She had flopped down onto the floor and was watching the magic power flow through the crystals. She was waiting for the boys to finish whatever they were doing.

Will was entranced by the book, and was whipping through the translations as fast as he could. He said, turning his head momentarily back toward Harry, "This book is full of all the Dark Arts Spells and the history of the Evil Magic. I can't think what would happen if Voldemort got his hands on this book."

Harry looked at him seriously, "Then we should destroy it!"

"You're joking, right? Do you know how much magic this thing has in it?"

"So it holds magic, it couldn't do much to the rest of the world."

"Funny, Harry. There's a lot of magic going into this book, that might be dangerous if we destroy it. Somehow the magic is stored up, like in a dam, and if we destroy this book, I can't think what would happen."

"Will, come off it. If Voldemort ever found another way to come back, he would come here instantly and seek the aid of the Dark Eves as well as all the other evil creatures in our world."

"You destroyed Voldemort, remember? Then you destroyed him again, so he probably won't be back again!" Let me finish reading the next few pages and then we can see about freeing these other people. We can't destroy this book."

Ginny piped up, "What if it's the only way to free the people?"

"Yeah, Will. Just because you think it would 'overflow' magic, you don't know that. I say we should destroy the book now before the Dark Elves find us."

"There's got to be some other way to destroy the Dark Elves, and rescue the trapped people. Let's leave this room and find the others first."

"I think Harry's right, Will. If we destroyed the book, we could see what would happen. I'd like to leave it and go find the others first, then we can come back and decide what to do with the book. Let's find out more about this whole place before we do anything stupid," Ginny suddenly spoke up, offering the first rational word of the adventure.

"That's really brilliant, Ginny!" Harry said excitedly. He turned from Ginny to Will and said somewhat forcefully, "Will, let's be rational. Ginny just offered the obvious thing to do, and we've been sitting here arguing over the silliest ideas for the past half-an-hour! I say we go find the others."

"I guess you're right. I still think we shouldn't destroy the book, though."

Ginny once again interceded before Harry could bluster his return, "How do we even know that the book is what holds the captives in the crystals?"

"We don't, which is my point, Ginny. I think we should look around and leave it -

"Will, let's just get out of here. Something's causing everything to turn upside-down. Since when (no offence, Ginn) did Ginny have brilliant ideas, or were you and I against each other like this. Let's get out of here now!"

"OK, I agree with you there. I can't seem to think rationally anymore, either," Will turned to face the door and uttered the "curse" to open the door in the wall, "Kepher-ra-e aph-knesset!" The countercurse to reopen the door created the door and they walked through before it shut itself back into an outline on the wall.

"What just happened back there?" Harry asked...

* * *

Ron and Chris, meanwhile, were walking through the gallery of captives, looking at myriad of colours and hues of crystals, while they searched for any adjoining rooms that led out of the crystal chamber. While the others wear arguing in the bookroom, Ron and Chris had found a small ebony doorway etched with rich green and white swirls, standing in the wall as if it didn't go with the current evil purpose of the castle.

"Should we go through?" Ron asked.

"It's the first door I've seen. There's no other way out that I can see, although you can't see much through these distorted crystals. Let's just go through," Chris said decisively. He stepped up to it and pulled on a shimmering obsidian handle, opening the door.

The two boys looked into the long hallway leading from the door. Ron peered around the corners of the archway before he stepped cautiously into the hallway. He stared up into the expansive ceiling, broken by hundreds of jutting carvings and bracing arches with small windows blowing a cold wind into the otherwise stifling hall. Chris stepped into the hallway and stood next to him.

"Where do you think it goes?" Chris, too, was looking up toward the faraway ceiling of brown-green stone.

"How should I know that?" Ron said. "It must lead somewhere. Anywhere to get out of this heat!" After that the two boys walked down the corridor, looking at the tapestries hung on the wall of beautiful scenes from the magical past. A beautiful young witch was picnicking in front of what must have been the castle, in the process of transforming the flowers next to a cool-looking brook into a large, dessert-heavy meal.

Without warning, the tapestry changed from the image of the beautiful lady to an old hag, about to kill a young wizard after an epic duel. Chris and Ron quickly hurried on from that tapestry and walked, no, more like ran, down the corridor to the far end, which seemed far longer than it probably was, judging by the powerful magic twined into the foundations of the castle.

They now stood in front of the door into the next chamber, apprehensively looking up at the carved black ebony and ivory white arch over the wooden door showing a scene of a battle between good and evil wizards, elves, and every other kind of magical being. "That was strange! Did you look at any of the others on the way down here? I saw one with a strong white wolf that changed into the Grim!" Chris said excitedly. He turned around to look down the hallway again.

"I didn't want to look at some of the ones that went Dark. Let's just get ou' of this hallway. The farther we go, the sooner we can leave this place." Ron looked around the room, tying the collar of his black cloak tighter and pulling his hood over his head. Chris cast a strengthening spell on himself quickly before they opened the door.

Chris gasped softly when he looked into the next room. The battle between the two sides that had ruined the tapestries in the hall was even more prevalent in the next room. A forest of statues in glass columns filled the room. Each statue was in the form a different person. The statues were often beautiful, and all had an air of dignity and power. But they were going horribly wrong. Every few seconds, some of them would change into statues of evil creatures and dark, haughty wizards.

Ron looked at them and the strange transformations taking place, "This must have been an awesome castle at one time!"

Chris almost didn't hear him. He asked, "What, oh, yes, they are breathtaking."

Ron said back, suddenly snapping the room back into focus as he turned to face Chris, "Well, I wouldn't say that, but they are pretty awesome." This is all very weird, and cool and everything, but this isn't going to help us in our quest to rescue everyone, including Hermione."

"No, you're right there. Maybe we could try to hover up to the ceiling and..." Ron interrupted Chris quickly.

"No way. I don't fly without a broom. Let's just go straight through the room. Keep your eyes on the door, and I'll go ahead. You wouldn't have any string would you?" Ron asked.

"I know what you're thinking. Hmmm. I don't have any with me. Maybe this will work," Chris said. He changed stance and began to quietly whisper some magic words.

"Teud!" he whispered, using a Gaelic conjuring charm and pointing his wand toward the ground. Every language could be used in magic, after all. Gaelic was even said to be particularly magical. A shimmering green snake of light slithered out of the tip of his wand, winding into a writhing ball. The small knob of light at the start of the green light changed into a spiked tip on the end of a gossamer cord.

"Chris, you're beginning to scare me. Just how much are you really learning here at Hogwarts, I mean that you didn't know before?"

"Ron, do you really want me to answer that? Ok, let's just say that Hermione and I are not on speaking terms because I corrected her on a Potions lesson. It happened to be a sixth year skill potion."

"Ok, that's more than I wanted to know. Let's just get through this castle, now, ok?"

"Sure. Now let me hook this up around the doorpull, and then we can get going." Chris tied the cord through the ivory and gold ring, and slung the ball over his shoulder. Ron began to walk slowly down the colonnade of statues...

* * *

"Something weird. I couldn't think straight." Will said. He shook his head a couple of times then looked up at the ceiling of the crystal room. He turned to Ginny, "But if that wasn't an accident, Ginny, that was great thinking on your part. Let's try and find some Dark Elves, so have your wands ready."

"I don't know, though."

"Oh come on, Harry, just go with him. I want to get out of here!" Ginny said, shaking in her green robes. They walked away silently, following along the walls until they reached an unusually placed statue against the wall. They stopped in front of it, and looked up at the sculpture, which had been painted black on one side, and white on the other. The strange statue was of a man named MacCullagh Elwinson. He was staring out at no particular spot, his finger raised up to an off-grey spot on the wall, that one would never see unless they were looking at the statue.

"I suppose we're going to press that? But how will we reach it?" Said Ginny, thoughtfully running her finger along her wand.

"You guessed it, Ginny. We're going to have to, somehow. Ginny, do you think that you could climb the statue if Will and I hoisted you up onto the platform?"

"I guess, oh, I don't know. It's so very high."

"Come on, Ginny. You're lightest, and we must get that thing somehow. I'm sure Hermione would know the right charm. She'd probably have us out of here already. Oh well. Here we go!" Harry said, crouching down and holding Ginny's black-shoed foot in his hands. Will followed suit and lifted her other shoe.

"Oh! I can almost get it! Can you just lift me a teensy bit higher?"

Harry and Will were both straining to hold her up as it was. Will got a few words out through his clenched teeth, "You're heavier than we thought! Just grab the statue and climb on to the head. Then I'm sure even you could reach the spot!"

"Oh! That would work, I see. Well then!" She giggled and climbed up onto old MacCullagh Elwinson's bald head. Ginny reached for the spot on the wall, but stopped short. She looked back down at the boys, who were whistling and looking along the crystal avenues. "What's going to happen when I press this?"

"Oh, come off it Ginny! We need to get into the chamber, and we need to get there quickly!" Harry said, also about to drop her, "I can't hold you much longer!"

Ginny hesitated a few more seconds, to the anguish of Harry and Will, and pushed the spot in with her wand. The Olivander's creation turned into sparkling blue sapphire, then returned to normal. Ginny scampered down off of the statue, for it was easy to get off of. Then, as her heels hit the stone floor with a quiet clack of shoes, the statue slid up the wall, and then slid back into the wall of the castle.

Chapter Eight: The Passages

"Will, Ginny, come on, we've got to get through before it shuts!" Harry said fervently. He had already run into the pointed archway in the wall. Already the statue was slowly sliding out of the wall again. Will and Ginny wasted no more time. They ran through the arch, stopping next to Harry.

"Impedimenta!" Harry said, firing his wand at the statue. It would stay open, but not for too long.

Will looked around hurriedly and said, "We've got to find something to block the statue from completely closing. I think I can open it if we can keep it open."

Ginny had a good idea, this time it wasn't magical, but then, everyone has good ideas sometimes. She said, "What about one of the books from your sack, Will? Just wedge it under the statue and everything should work!"

"Brilliant Ginny!" Will said, snapping his fingers. He reached into his sack and pulled out a battered, two-year-old copy of Gilderoy Lockhart's book, Gadding with Ghouls, which Will had been reading and trying to learn more about the truth of the stories, which Gilderoy had made to seem like his own adventures, though they were really deeds of far more powerful wizards than he. Will spun the book across the smooth stone of the floor, wedging it under the dropping statue.

"So now where are we, Will?" Harry asked, putting his wand into his black school robes. Will gave him a "you-can't-be-serious" look, and turned from the nearly closed statue to the hall where they now were. They looked about the hall, but found nothing on either side save for tall glass windows, also pointed-arched, which looked out over a misty mountainside. Despite the incredible heat of the castle, snow glistened on the peaks across a misty valley from the Dark Elves castle. The sun was setting gloriously behind the snow, turning it into a field of rubies, diamonds, and frozen flames.

A crooked black tree, stunted by the cold winds, and by the evil power of the castle, shivered on the hillside, touched by the low, rolling mist on the mountainside. Will wondered if Durmstrang was anything like this, although he had heard that the design of Durmstrang was much lower ceilinged and a good deal colder. Harry walked into the hall, and was hit with the bright, snow-reflected sunlight.

"Well, where are we going?" Ginny asked, also looking to Will.

"I leave it up to Harry. We can go down this hall and try to find the others, or we can go back into the hall of crystals. It's wholly up to Harry," he said, walking over to one of the windows made of circles of glass held together by dark lead.

He pulled off his black robes, for that day he had decided to where the usual Hogwarts clothes, though still with the samite headband. He had on a pair of khaki trousers and a burgundy Muggle tee shirt from America. He changed the robes into a long green hooded cloak, and pulled a metal brooch which he saved for cloaks out of his pack.

"Well, if we're going down, let's get going, because the longer we stay here, the more time we have for something to happen to Chris and Ron and Priyanka. Come on, guys," Will swept the cloak back and walked down the Gothic-esque hallway. Though the castle now was a home to evil, it seemed that it had once been much like Hogwarts, though Harry had no idea whether there was ever a school here or not. They walked down the hallway slowly until they came to a sharp right-turning passageway at the end of the well-lighted corridor, where the high ceiling ended abruptly, turning into a torch-lit, low-ceilinged passageway. But the torches, like the tapestries which Ron and Chris had encountered, changed from a regular flame to a cold blue light

"Well, we're going to have to go down here or we're going to get nowhere. I'll go in front, Will," said Harry, sliding in front of Will. He got out his wand and said, "Lumos!" A small flame sprang out of his wand-tip and added its light to that of the torches in the passage.

"All right," said Will. He too lit his wand and got behind Ginny, who was looking furtively down the corridor, almost like a subterranean tunnel of beautiful yellowish stone. The sconces shifted shapes with the torchlight, going from a screaming, wide-open face, to a swirling golden form.

They walked down this passage, until they came to wooden doors which lined the walls of the corridor. It was even darker in this part of the tunnel, for the windows of the previous passage were long gone, back down the strange, shifting tunnel.

"Let me have a look through the cracks in the doors, Will," Harry said, stopping and bending down to look into one of the rooms through a chink between the door and its stone frame. He described what he saw inside, which went something like this. There was a bed, more like a cot, really, a hovering mass of wax and wicks which was lit like a candle, a small bedside table, and a barred window through which the snow-washed light shone. No one was inside thankfully.

"Perhaps its a Dark Elf's sleeping room," suggested Ginny, trying to manoeuvre her way to the crack to see for herself.

"That's probably it. There's also a pile of books on the bed, written in that language you told us about in the bookroom." Harry stood up, and when he did, Ginny peeked in while he and Will talked.

* * *

Ron and Chris had wound their way through the labyrinthine hall of statues and columns, keeping the magic string tied to each the other and to the doorpull. Just then, Chris and Ron were nearly bowled off their feet when there was a great tug at the cord.

"Somebody's just walked in here!" Ron whispered worriedly. He pressed his back against a nearby column.

Chris did the same. He whispered back, "Well, we've got trouble then. Are you willing to risk another encounter with a Dark Elf?"

"No! I don't want to--

"Shhh! Somebody's coming close!" Chris said, signaling to Ron to keep quiet. He peered around the tall column of grey basalt to see who was approaching so quickly. He saw that it was Priyanka, the Durmstrang girl they had brought along to help free the people in the Dark Elves crystal prison. She walked right past the column they were hidden behind, and continued on, weaving her way through the forest of stone.

Chris and Ron snuck out and followed her quickly through the hall. They followed her rapid pace for quite a while until they found themselves at an archway in the stone block walls of the castle. They looked into a dimly lit hallway, both sides of which were covered with epic paintings, beautiful yet at the same time, echoing of dark deeds, though they showed scenes of what Ron could only assume was this castle, and scenes of mounted knights, their gleaming armour covered with wizard's robes, clashing with goblins, giants, and other horrible magical creatures. On one part of the wall, which they saw as they continued to follow Priyanka, they saw a battalion of unicorns in the heat of battle, fighting beside centaurs holding bows with flaming arrows. But they were jolted back to the task at hand when Priyanka turned into a side tunnel, taking them out of the gallery and down a narrow, high ceilinged corridor lined with doors with small barred windows in them. Priyanka paused in front of one, looking behind and ahead of herself before pulling the ring on one of the wooden doors. Ron and Chris melted into the heavy shadows of the corridor until she had closed the door to the chamber behind her.

* * *

"Who is that?" asked Ginny excitedly. She was pointing to a tall, black-haired figure dressed in dark robes, much like those of Hogwarts, though lined with dark fur of real sable.

"My gosh!" exclaimed Ron, "That's Priyanka! I've been wondering where she had got to! Hwat's she doing down here, alone?" He looked back over his shoulder to Will, who was, too, looking intently down the corridor at Priyanka. She turned her head briefly towards them, so they pressed hard up against the ancient walls of the dark corridor.

They walked down the narrow corridor hurriedly, trying to see where Priyanka had gone. They focused solely on the door where she had just entered, not noticing two figures, one with bright orange hair, also hurrying towards them.

Ron and Chris nearly ran into Harry, Will, and Ginny, who indeed had discovered the same passage as the two boys.

"Ron!" whispered Harry, loudly.

"Chris! Where were you two?" asked Will in hushed tones.

"We've been wandering around this creepy place for what feels like days, Ron!" Ginny whispered excitedly. She ran up to her brother, and reached out to hug him. He hurriedly shook her hands, giving her a reluctant peck on the cheek. Ginny stepped away. Ron hated the often "touchy-feely" nature of his family, but he still loved his sister.

Meanwhile, Harry, Chris, and Will were talking next to the door. The whole time, no one had spoken above a whisper, for they had all gotten so used to whispering, they did it out of habit.

"We just followed Priyanka here, Will," Chris said, pointing with his thumb at the narrow door.

He looked over to Harry, who said, "We found this strange room, with a massive book in the centre. Will seemed to be fascinated by it, but then you know Will." Harry laughed softly.

Will looked at him disdainfully. By this time, Ron and Ginny had joined them.

Ron said, "We should follow Priyanka and get to the bottom of this whole thing right now. She ignored us earlier when we saw her, and now she's wandering about the castle, as if she'd been here before!"

"She certainly was," said Chris, looking again at the door she had just entered.

"All right, I say let's go! Anybody who wants to stay behind is Dark Elf food. Come on!" Will exclaimed, clasping his fingers around the worn, once carved door-ring. He pulled open the door with a muted creak, the others standing pressed behind him in the corridor. It was simply another passage like the one they were in now, save that there were no doors along the walls and it was also a good deal brighter, lit by bigger torches, though the torches still changed shapes and hues.

There was little dust in this passage, which they thought must be used more frequently by the Dark Elves. The corridor they were in before also had far less dust than the rest of the castle they had seen, so Harry knew that they had found the living quarters of the Dark Elves.

They hadn't walked long when they heard voices, some speaking in English with Eastern European accents, others speaking in a harsh, mumbling speech. They heard the voice of Viktor, loudly talking about Quidditch, though in rapid Bulgarian, which was something he would not normally do. They neared a doorway, cracked slightly, with bright yellow torch light shining out through the nearly-closed door. Ron, Ginny, and Chris, looked into the room, then let Will and Harry have a look.

What they saw was this: There were many Dark Elves in the room, which had dark wood shelves around most of the walls, broken by a fountain of water coming out of a wall into a large stone basin, and hundreds of books, potion ingredients, and other curiously shaped magical instruments stacked, piled, and generally laid on the shelves.

Viktor Krum was sitting, untied, in a chair near the centre of the room, looking blankly forward, speaking loudly and in a monotone. Priyanka paced behind him, her straight black hair tied back in a ponytail which reached the waist of her cloak, which was clasped with an obsidian catch of a raven's head devouring a dragon. Chris and Ginny gasped when they saw that she was there. The Dark Elves were listening, though not pacing, and standing behind several low, rough wooden tables.

The light was almost as bright as the lights in the Dursleys house, though Harry could see that it came from three or four large balls of flame, hovering gently up and down and moving around, casting shifting shadows on the walls and following the backs of the Dark Elves. Priyanka was lit up strangely, looking far different than when they had first met her in the Tri-School meeting. Will couldn't remember exactly, but hadn't she danced with a Slytherin in the ball?

One of the Dark Elves spoke, saying in a nasal and sarcastic tone, "Who would you say leads the Dark forces where you come from, human?" The Dark Elf nearly spat the last word.

"I wonder if Snape is part Dark Elf?" Ron whispered sarcastically, hearing the voice of the Dark Elf. Will and Harry quickly hushed him, and turned back, along with Ginny and Chris, to watch what Viktor would say.

"Vell, zat vood be Lord Voldemort, but he iss dead. He vass killed by a small child. Novody knows vhere Lord Voldemort iss, though my teasher, Karkaroff, may know more about heem," Viktor responded, sounding as if under a trance. Chris recognised immediately the signs of the Imperius Curse both from his tutor's instruction, and from the lesson that Mad-Eye Moody had given them in Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"Fight it, Viktor, fight it!" whispered Ron anxiously. Almost as though Ron's words had given him the strength to overthrow the Imperius Curse, Viktor looked dazedly around the room, looking then at Priyanka. He then launched into a rapid invective of Bulgarian, screaming at her until he was blue in the face. The Dark Elves fired off several Imperio's, but to no avail. Viktor sprang up from the chair, and as he did, Ron, Will, Ginny, Chris, and Harry ran yelling into the room, their wands each blasting magical hexes and transfigurations at the Dark Elves standing there.

"Petrificus Totalus!" yelled Will, hitting Priyanka, who was trying to run out of the room. She clattered to the floor like a board.

Ginny and Ron were particularly good with their work, as siblings often are, and quickly had two of the Dark Elves flailing about in the forms of brightly coloured plants that were stuck tight into the stones of the floor. One plant sprouted crimson flowers, the other plant began to glow because Ginny had used the Luminus Charm, which made things give off a sickly blue light.

Chris had used a memory-erasing curse on one of them, which left one each for Harry and Will to take care of. Will fired a particularly powerful Jelly Legs Curse at one, then made the elf's arms harden like stone, which was good, because the elf, thinking quickly, had raised its wand no doubt to destroy Will with a single curse.

Harry used a strange charm that Ron had used in their second year, which cause the last Elf to belch slugs uncontrollably. He also hardened the elf's arms and legs, which left it belching rather helplessly there. Ginny laughed at the sight of the Dark Elves, who were fuming at their humiliation by children.

Viktor thanked them hastily for rescuing him, then he turned to Priyanka, whose eyes were staring coldly at Viktor, since that was all she could move in the Full-Bodybind. Viktor stood her upright, and Chris disenchanted her mouth and throat so that she could speak. She let out a stream of curses in rapid Bulgarian, until finally she screamed for nearly thirty seconds.

"Vell, Priyanka, zis is interhesting to find out vhere you had come from. Vat do you know of zeez Dark Elfs before you came to Durmstrang?" he questioned, pacing slowly in front of her. Her eyes followed his footsteps, cast darkly down upon the cobblestone floor.

Finally she answered, looking from one person to another. She said, "I had come from zis castle, since I vas born vit a human mother, to find out about your human kind, for my fater and zee rest of his kind vanted to find out about all zat you men do. So zat is vhy I vent to Durmstrang, to find out about zee Dark ruler of your countries. We Dark Elves have waited to leave zis accursed castle und conquer a mighty hrealm(which is just how she said it)." After she said this, she closed her mouth and wouldn't say another word.

The five friends turned and gathered together, glancing at Priyanka and the captive Dark Elves over their shoulders. They talked quietly amongst themselves.

Harry said, "Well, that's certainly news that we must tell Dumbledore, if we can get back. How the bloody heck are we going to get back to Hogwarts. We can't aparate, and -

"There is another way," interrupted Will, "We could use whatever I used to get back. I guess it wasn't aparation, after what Dumbledore said, but then I did learn it in America. Right now we first have to rescue Hermione and the others. I don't know about the other people who are trapped in those crystals, but I guess we could help them too, somehow."

Priyanka stayed as a statue, for what else could she do? She looked sullenly at the five, who were just then laughing about the spells they had used on the Dark Elves. The Jinnajin Tagrump were an old race of beings, who had a past much more ancient than Hogwarts. But the five children will soon find out that History.

They walked out of the room, closing the door behind them and tying it shut with a bit of the string that Chris had cut off when he and Ron got out of the column maze. Neal and Harry wanted to know all about what had happened, but Chris quickly quieted them down. They had nearly forgotten that they had a long way to go before they were safe from the Dark Elves. They continued down the hall that they had found Viktor in. He, too, was silent, but then Viktor was usually silent. The hall continued at a slight curve under the ground until they reached another heavy door of stone like the one Harry, Will, and Ginny had found that led to the bookroom.

"What are we going to do?" asked Ron, looking up at the outline of door that stood solidly in front of them.

"Kepher-ra-e aph kaneph!" said Will, aiming his wand at the arch outlined in stone. The hinges slid out of the rock like the Durmstrang ship had risen through the surface of the lake. They heaved it open, Ginny waiting until they had opened it, and surveyed the scene in front of them.

They were standing in a dark corner of a huge, towering room, criss-crossed by walkways of stone that stood only on a few slender stone columns. Dark Elves hurried to and fro along the walkways. Huge braziers, large bowls of flame on pillars, lit the room with bright fire, and, far up at the top of the room, a large crystal was suspended from the conical ceiling on a single column of rock. The crystal was hazy, but nearly clear. Inside of it there was a lot of sparkles, fire, and lights all swirling around like a mad hive of bees. At the very top of the crystal, a silhouette of a person could be seen, trapped like one of the people in the crystals in the huge chamber they had first entered magically into.

The swirling colours would flow up into the silhouette and swirl around until they eventually returned into the milling mass below. Silvery metal strands, almost, but not quite like cables, stuck out from the sides of the crystal and went into the wall of the chamber. To see all of this, the six allies had to walk a bit out into the open, but that didn't matter, because the Dark Elves seemed very busy with some highly important task.

Chapter 9: The Truth of the Gwydwyn Book

"What is this place?" Will asked, turning slowly as he stood staring into the sharp tip of the crystal.

"It seems to me zat it is zee main part of zee castle for zee Dark Elves. Zey seem to be everywhere in here, but zey veren't anywhere hardly in zose ozzer rooms. Zees is very strange. Hopefully, vee vill go back to zee school soon, for I do not like ziss place!" Viktor said, not fearfully, but certainly uncomfortably.

Harry, too, looked around in wonder. He said to the others, "Well, this crystal looks pretty strange to me. Those wires, or whatever they are, look like the ones that go into the Gwydwyn Book!"

"They do! Then I guess I was right!" Will said triumphantly.

"What are you two talking about?" asked Chris, Ron also looking at them confusedly. Will had forgotten that they never saw the bookroom.

Ginny spoke first, "You weren't there, but we found a strange room just near the crystal chamber. It had a giant book in it, with lots of writing in a strange language that Will knew. It had the name on it, The Gwydwyn Book. Will and Harry fought over what to do with it, but finally we just left."

Harry continued the thought, "We had no idea what it was, but I and Ginny thought it to be the thing that kept everyone trapped in the crystals. I guess that is true. But what do they use it for?" They watched a swirl of fuchsia light slither out along the wires away into the walls.

"I wonder..." Will said, looking thoughtfully at the crystal. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out another tome. This one was bound in blue leather with cream-coloured bands around the spine. Beautifully Irish letters covered it. They heard Will mumble softly as he read "tá an leabhar agus... bhí siad... ór go maithe" he finally closed the book.

"According to this, that crystal is a spell dispeller. It takes the magic knowledge out of a person, and sends it somewhere. That's all that the book said, but I noticed that it seemed to be missing a section. It was just... blank... like the Dark Elves had taken part of it out." Will looked back down at the book. The words seemed to fade out of focus whenevee looked down.

Harry said decidedly, "Well then, there's only one thing to do. We have to destroy the book, and we have to do it quickly. Let's get out of here and back to the bookroom!"

They all agreed. They looked across the room, trying to find a doorway, and then Chris's eyes spotted an outline in the wall. He exclaimed, "that must lead to the crystal place!"

"Excellent spotting, Chris," said Ron encouragingly. Thankfully none of the Dark Elves noticed them, though they were loud. Will reached into his rucksack and withdrew his wand. Harry got a peek inside and noticed that there were about twenty books, all magically reduced in size.

They went through the door, with a little help from 'Kepher-ra-e aph keneph!" and entered the crystal chamber again. Column upon column upon column, each centred with swirled crystals like frozen waves, receded on down either side. They realised now that the crystal must leave only a ghost-image behind, and that was why there seemed to be so many people. After all, with their magic taken away, the people simply turned into energy. In a sense, there were thousands of people holding up the building. Will pondered it all in his head. Viktor, though he was from Durmstrang, was good-natured and quietly made jokes with them, and for the rest of the trip, they were almost friends.

They looked down along the wall for the statue of McCullagh Elwinson. (The others explained to Viktor, Ron, and Chris what they were looking for.) Far down to their left, they saw it, standing oddly alone against the wall. If the statue was to the left... that meant that the door to the bookroom was down that way. They ran, not caring about the noise they made, stopping with a slide on the slick dark marble floor in front of the blocky archway. "Kepher-ra-e aph keneph!" They saw again the spectacular book, its pages flapping in a wind, which came from no particular direction.

"Behind you," cried Ginny, looking back behind Will. Out in the crystal chamber, there were at least a hundred Dark Elves, with Priyanka Bhatia leading them. In a double line they extended down the row of crystals.

"Just what did you think you were going to do here, children?" she asked evilly. Her cold, real features pierced like ice into their minds. "Imperio!" she said, firing a bolt after them. It missed.

"Put an end to this madness!" said Chris, reaching into the sleeves of his robes to extract his wand.

"Accio Wand!" she said, her own wand pointed at Chris. He watched as the stick flew through the air. She stamped down upon it with her booted foot, smiling horribly at Chris, whose own face was twisted with shock.

"Do something!" Ginny said. Will ran through his brain, hoping to remember something that would help. The Elves had their wands out.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry said, disarming them all quickly. It was one of his best charms. Will turned to the book, as Harry and Ron fired everything they knew at the Dark Elves. Strange shapes cast shadows on the wall in front of Will, Chris and Ginny.

"Chris, what do you know about fire spells?" Will asked, looking desperately at him.

"Not enough to get us out of here, alive!" Chris said, looking wildly around the room, looking for objects to throw.

"That's not exactly what we wanted to hear, Chris!" said Harry. Slowly the six of them backed into the room, a swirling wind pulled at them, whipping their hair around and adding to the confusion.

Will, who had nearly kept his head through the whole meeting, screamed the closing curse and then caught his breath in the dusty, deadly silence of the bookroom. They turned in unison to look at the tome, its pages blown helter-skelter by the mage wind.

"Well, we've got to destroy it, before it begins to take control of our minds," said Harry. Ron took his patched up wand and raised it with the others.

Chris ran through a list of destroying spells, all of them not designed to destroy magical objects, until he found one... "Repeat after me," he said turning his head quickly to Ron and Will on his right, and Viktor, Ginny, and Harry on his left. Their robes playing in the soft breeze, they followed his words.

"Ok, here it is; 'Corincendia Draconis!' and you know the wand motion. I'll try it with my hands, you never know.

They each nodded silently and faced the book. Chris counted down from three.

"Corincendia Draconis!" they said, with all the strength they could muster. From their wands flew streams of shining light, silver from Harry's, rose from Ginny's, navy from Viktor's, dark maroon from Chris's hand, white shot with red from Ron's decrepit wand, and forest green from Will's.

For seconds that felt like hours they stood there, as the pages of the book flipped faster and faster from the open place toward the cover. The massive cover, though it fought like a tiger, slammed down onto the leaves of the book. Soon the Gwydwyn Book was shaking violently. Then they noticed that it was more than the book. But the destruction of the book wasn't complete. The embossed words on the cover suddenly lit up, like there was a trapped power behind them, and the book flew open, shining a blinding light into the ceiling, as the parchment and leather melted away to nothingness.

But the building still was shaking. "It's going to destroy itself!" cried Will, as a chunk of the great stone ceiling fell beside him. Chris called out the words that would open the door, only to find the door itself, and the Dark Elves they had left behind, gone. They ran into the crystal chamber, only to find the crystals melted away like icicles, streams of sparkling light and magic rippling across them. But without the crystals, the columns began to collapse. They saw a girl on one of the crystal pedestals.

"Hermione! Come over here quickly!" yelled Ron. As she ran toward them, her thick hair buffeted by the roaring wind, the stone blocks in the walls suddenly started flying in and in out across the room.

As the columns melted, the walls slid back and forth like a strange puzzle, until they began moving in toward the bookroom. They dodged books as they ran toward Hermione. Through the gaps in the walls they saw now longer the mountains and snow-covered hills, but rather cloudy blue sky. Then the floor began to switch places with the ceiling which was already falling as though in slow motion.

They met up with Hermione and had a yelled conference, "What are we going to do?" asked Chris, his black hair whipping around his face and nearly blinding him.

"We have to get out of here!" Hermione said, "Wherever here is!"

"Harry, Ron, Ginny... Viktor, do any of you know a way out of here?" called Will. The floor around them was falling away, to show them a landscape of jagged mountains and blinding snowcaps. Just then, it came to them like a shot. In fact, it was a tapestry from one of halls, wide enough for all of them. Hermione caught it with her wand, and Chris began to enchant it to make a flying carpet for them.

"Climb on!" he said. They climbed on and flew away from the castle that was now taking itself apart and dropping dust all across the lands below it. Down in the old site of the castle were a few arches and columns that had not suffered the destruction of the airy structure. Light poured out from holes that could only be dungeon entrances, and then the ground rumbled visibly.

They flew on until they found themselves over the cold Atlantic Ocean. Finally they were safe. Everyone had at least one hit from a block, and they all had a thousand cuts and slices. But Hermione was almost unharmed, and she flew the carpet of nearly unconscious friends back to the shores of Scotland.

Somehow, like a dream, friendly wizards and witches took them back to Hogwarts and then they all could remember no more.

Chapter the Tenth: Home at Last

In the dusky embers of the setting sunlight, they rode across the lake in a silver-wooded boat, the lantern flickering like a fairy light. They walked smiling into the school, its ancient stone hallways and stairs a welcome relief from the dreadful grandeur of the dark elves' castle. They were finally home.

The Very End