Rain tapped against the dormitory windows while Adrian searched his bag for the Transfiguration essay he and Cedric had finished over Christmas.
He found it tucked between his creature notes, flattened a bent corner and slid it into the correct book.
Cedric was already dressed, checking their timetable beside the window while Adrian hunted beneath his bed for his other shoe.
“We’ve time for breakfast if you’ve found everything,” Cedric said.
“Go ahead.
I still need my shoes.”
“I’ll save you some toast.”
Adrian found the shoe behind his trunk, where it had somehow acquired a sock that wasn’t his.
He left the sock on Cedric’s bed and hurried downstairs before breakfast disappeared.
By the time he reached the Great Hall, Cedric had been intercepted by Fred and George and was sitting at the Gryffindor table.
George had spread their staircase sketch beside Cedric’s bowl, while Fred leaned over the parchment with a quill, arguing about the position of a doorway.
Adrian squeezed onto the bench and reached for the toast Cedric had saved him.
“You guys started without me.”
“Good thing, too.
George’s drawn the staircase going through a wall.” Fred tapped the parchment, narrowly missing Cedric’s breakfast.
“The opening was on the other side.”
“Then draw it yourself.
You were the one standing on it.”
Fred accepted the quill without hesitation.
Adrian ate while watching him correct the upper landing, which now appeared in two positions: one where it normally met the corridor and another against the opposite wall.
They had discussed the staircase on the train back to Hogwarts.
The twins had gone to look at it again after supper the previous evening, and judging by the additions to the sketch, their investigation had been eventful.
“Did you get into the passage?” Adrian asked.
“Nearly.” Fred extended a line across the page.
“Peeves started dropping bits of chalk on us.
By the time we’d got rid of him, the stairs were going back.”
“Fred threw one back,” George told Cedric.
“Straight through Peeves.
Hit the portrait behind him.”
Cedric paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth.
“The woman with the dogs?”
George nodded, and Cedric put the spoon down to laugh.
The portrait had apparently spent much of supper shouting at passing students after somebody brushed her frame.
“Yes, well, she’s had plenty of practice now,” Fred said, pushing the corrected sketch towards Adrian.
“There was definitely a doorway at the top, but I couldn’t see past it.”
Adrian turned the parchment towards himself.
Three steps near the bottom had been marked with small crosses, and a fourth mark indicated where Fred had been standing when the upper flight began to turn.
“What are these?”
“Places we tried,” George said.
“It moved when Fred stood on the third one, but it wouldn’t do it again afterwards.”
“You kept stepping on and off, didn’t you?” Cedric asked.
He moved his bowl out of Fred’s reach before the boy could drag his sleeve through it.
“Perhaps you ought to have waited until it had come all the way back.”
Fred opened his mouth, then looked at the drawing instead.
Adrian traced the route with one finger.
If the upper flight swung the way Fred had drawn it, they should be able to see the hidden opening from the opposite landing without setting foot on the moving staircase.
“I wanna watch from over here while somebody tries the step.” He marked a spot on the sketch and passed it back to George.
“After lessons, then,” Fred said, reclaiming his toast.
Cedric checked the time and began gathering his books.
Adrian took one last piece of toast while Fred tried to persuade George that the chalk incident did not need to appear in their records.
George added it beneath the sketch anyway.
Charms went well enough to make Adrian suspicious.
Professor Flitwick had set out trays of blue glass beads and was teaching them to change the colour without cracking or clouding the glass.
Adrian managed to produce an uneven green patch on his third attempt.
The bead looked as though somebody had pressed a thumb against wet paint, but it was a start.
Cedric, seated beside him, had already changed his bead completely and was returning it to blue when Flitwick reached their table.
“Very cleanly done, Mr.
Diggory.” Flitwick turned the bead between his fingers.
“You have a good sense of proportion.”
Cedric’s ears reddened.
“Thank you, Professor.”
Behind them, Fred leaned towards George.
“A sense of proportion.
Did you hear that?”
“He’ll be unbearable now,” George murmured, inspecting Cedric’s bead over his shoulder.
Cedric turned around.
“I’m sitting right here, you know.”
“That’s what makes it so difficult,” Fred said, drawing his own bead closer before Flitwick could inspect it.
The professor smiled as he moved on.
Cedric tried to hide his amusement and returned to his work, while Adrian held his bead closer to the window to examine the patchy colour.
The surface was intact, but he had been concentrating on forcing the green through the glass rather than allowing the change to settle evenly.
He tried again, keeping his wand movement smaller and easing the spell into the remaining blue.
The colour spread farther this time, though the lower edge remained noticeably darker.
Cedric glanced at it as he reached for another bead.
“That’s closer.
“Yeah.
I think I’m putting too much into the first part.”
Adrian returned the bead to blue and tried once more.
By the time Flitwick came back, the colour was reasonably even, and Adrian could reverse it without leaving a green stain at the centre.
His next attempt was better still, although Fred’s bead briefly turned an alarming shade of orange when George nudged his elbow.
Flitwick made both twins repeat the exercise before allowing their table to pack away.
Adrian slipped his completed bead back onto the tray, satisfied that he could now reproduce the result without spending half the lesson correcting his first attempt.
After lunch, Adrian entered the dungeon classroom with Cedric and recognised the ingredients waiting on the benches.
Snape had written Cure for Boils across the blackboard, with instructions beneath it to leave their textbooks closed.
The Slytherins were already settling at their stations.
Across the aisle, Cassius Warrington moved a pile of ingredients away from his partner’s elbow while two other boys argued in low voices over which set of scales they had been assigned.
Adrian set down his bag and checked the empty cauldron in front of him.
“Today’s assessment will establish how much you have forgotten over Christmas,” Snape said once the room had quietened.
“You have brewed this potion before.
I shall therefore expect fewer mistakes and fewer questions.”
Adrian put his textbook away and examined the ingredients more closely.
He had rushed the preparation when they had first made the potion, paying too much attention to the changes inside the cauldron and too little to what went into it.
“The finished potion should treat boils,” Snape continued, looking along the benches.
“If yours produces them, you will have failed.
Whatever sentimental attachment you have formed to your efforts will not alter that assessment.”
The method remained on the board, but they were to prepare their ingredients and manage the brewing without another demonstration.
Adrian opened his notebook to a clean page and checked that his quill was ready.
Snape stopped speaking.
“Is there something you require, Mr.
Clarke?”
“I’m keeping track of what I do, sir.”
“How novel.
Most of your classmates appear determined to leave no evidence of having thought at all.
Put your previous notes away.”
Adrian turned the notebook so Snape could see the blank page.
After a moment, the professor resumed his instructions.
Beside Adrian, Cedric quietly arranged his ingredients in the order he would need them.
Once they began, the room filled with the scrape of knives and the grinding of pestles.
Adrian crushed his snake fangs thoroughly, checking the powder for fragments before transferring it into a small dish.
He measured the nettles, laid out the porcupine quills for the final stage and adjusted the burner beneath his cauldron.
Across the aisle, one of the Slytherins tipped too much powdered fang into his mixture and reached hurriedly for his notes.
His partner caught his wrist before he could add anything else, whispering something sharp enough to make him put the spoon down.
Adrian returned his attention to his own work.
The smell of the nettles changed as the mixture heated, and he watched the surface carefully before reducing the flame.
He recorded the adjustment, keeping the note short enough that he could look up again before the potion began bubbling along one side.
Snape reached their bench while Adrian was finishing the sentence.
“Why have you reduced the heat?”
“It was starting to boil harder along this side.
I turned the flame down before it spread.”
Snape inspected the surface, then Adrian’s prepared ingredients.
“Your explanation would be more impressive if you watched the cauldron while delivering it.”
Adrian put down his quill.
Snape remained beside him, which made the next minute considerably less comfortable than the previous ten.
Adrian continued working at the same pace, resisting the temptation to hurry simply because the professor was waiting.
When the time came, he removed the cauldron from the heat before reaching for the porcupine quills.
Snape’s eyes followed his hand as he added them, then returned to the potion’s surface.
The colour settled as it should.
Adrian allowed himself a small smile.
“Something amuses you, Mr.
Clarke?”
“No, sir.
I’m happy with it.”
“That is a notoriously unreliable recommendation.”
Snape took a sample and held it against the light.
Adrian watched the professor’s face rather than the vial, hoping for some indication of what he had found, but Snape set it down without comment.
“Bottle it.
For once, there is no reason to prolong matters.”
Adrian reached for a clean vial.
“Can I put that in my notes?”
Snape turned back towards him.
“You may write that an adequate potion does not excuse an impertinent tongue.”
He moved to Cedric’s station before Adrian could answer.
Cedric kept his attention firmly on his work until Snape had passed beyond them, then reached over to stop Adrian’s sleeve from brushing the open vial.
Adrian adjusted his cuff and bottled the sample carefully.
Under his final observation, he added a small tick.
By the time Adrian finished his afternoon session with Flitwick, the others had been waiting near the fourth-floor landing long enough for Fred to test three steps and George to complain about all three.
Cedric stood at the opposite railing with their sketch.
“Adrian’s here.”
Fred stepped back, and Adrian joined Cedric where they could see the upper flight.
The staircase had returned to its ordinary position, meeting a broad landing beneath a portrait of a sleeping man in hunting clothes.
George pointed towards the third step.
“It moved from there yesterday.
Now it won’t do anything.”
“Because he keeps getting on it,” Cedric said, handing Adrian the sketch.
“I don’t think it’s finished coming back.”
A narrow gap remained between the top step and the landing.
As they watched, it closed with a faint scrape, followed by a click beneath the stone.
Fred heard it too.
He put one foot on the third step and waited.
The upper flight swung away from the portrait.
“There!” George hurried to the railing, pointing past the turning stairs.
“That’s the doorway.”
From this side, Adrian could see it clearly: a low opening that had been hidden behind the staircase, with a short landing just beyond.
He marked its position in his notebook while Cedric watched the moving steps settle.
Fred was already halfway up when Cedric called, “Wait until it stops.
You nearly missed the last step yesterday.”
Fred reached the top and stepped through the doorway, making a show of planting both feet safely on the floor.
George followed him while Adrian waited for Cedric to join him before climbing.
The passage beyond was narrow enough that they had to walk in pairs.
George lit his wand, revealing dusty panelling and three small portraits hanging slightly crookedly along the wall.
The air smelled of old wood and a fireplace that had not been lit for some time.
An elderly witch looked up from her embroidery as they passed.
“Wipe your feet.”
Fred glanced at the dusty floor, then obediently scraped his shoes on the mat beneath her frame.
Adrian did the same, brushing a little grit from his heel before looking back at her.
“Do you know where this goes?”
“The reading room.
And shut the door if you light the fire.”
She returned to her embroidery, leaving Adrian to hurry after George before the wandlight moved out of reach.
The room at the end contained a cold fireplace, several wooden chairs and a long window looking across the grounds.
Dust lay thickly on the table, but someone had left a bookmark protruding from a book beside an armchair.
A folded blanket rested over the back of another chair, and a little stack of firewood had been arranged neatly beside the hearth.
Cedric went straight to the window.
“We’re above the courtyard.”
Adrian joined him.
Below, students crossed the wet paving in small groups, following routes that looked oddly different from overhead.
He recognised the archway where Snape had interrupted one of his exercises and the sheltered wall where Cedric sometimes sat with a book.
Behind them, Fred tried another door.
“Locked,” he announced, giving the handle a second turn before leaving it alone.
George was examining a brass plate beside the fireplace.
“It says the stairs return when the landing’s clear.”
Fred let go of the handle.
“Which landing?”
A scrape from outside answered him.
They hurried back far enough to see the staircase moving away from the doorway.
Fred reached the threshold first but stayed behind the stone edge as the steps swung out of reach, leaving the four boys looking down into the gap.
Cedric leaned past him and pointed at the wall beside the door.
“There’s a bell.”
A short cord hung in a recess near Fred’s shoulder.
Beneath it, a smaller brass plate bore the words Ring for stairs.
George leaned against the wall and began laughing.
Fred looked from the cord to the retreating staircase, then pulled it with considerable dignity.
A bell sounded somewhere below them.
After a pause, the staircase began its return journey.
Adrian opened his notebook.
“I’m putting that part first.”
“Put the room in first,” George said, looking back along the passage.
“Nobody’s going to bother us up here.”
Cedric waited until the stairs had settled, then tested the first step before moving aside.
“We ought to find out when the room’s used.
Someone left a book, and there was wood beside the fire.”
Fred glanced towards the portraits.
“I’ll ask her.”
He went back down the passage, with George following close behind.
Adrian sketched the bell cord and the narrow landing, then handed his notebook to Cedric so he could correct the angle of the staircase.
From farther along the passage came the elderly witch’s voice.
“No food.
The last boys left crumbs in every chair.”
Fred’s reply was too quiet to make out, but George’s laughter carried easily through the corridor.
Cedric paused with the pencil above the page and looked towards the doorway.
“We should probably find out what else they did.”