Of Monsters, Of Men

Chapter 16

Better to be caught by Filch than Pringle.

"Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner," Filch crooned to Mrs. Norris. "The naughty student has to be here somewhere, probably hiding." He scratched her ears and stood up.

Harry gulped silently. If he cast the muffling charm now, the light of the spell would give him away.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," Filch crooned, the cat several paces ahead of him and staring at Harry's eyes, as if it could see through his cloak. His skin crawled.

Harry changed his direction yet again, running through the corridor. Please don't let them catch me. It wasn't that he didn't fear the punishment of getting caught, rather, he feared getting caught with an invisibility cloak. If he wasn't wearing his cloak, he wouldn't have cared—that was an amateur but excusable mistake for a Slytherin. But with an invisibility cloak, not only would he lose his most cherished item (invisibility cloaks were explicitly banned at Hogwarts), the incident would also spread like wildfire.

If exposed, they had no way of explaining how they, dirt-poor orphans, could have been able to legally obtain an invisibility cloak, which usually fetched at least ten thousand Galleons. Because of this inconceivability, Harry and Tom were able to get away with much more than they should have, lacking the intense scrutiny the Slytherins placed on others with the financial means to obtain such an item. Namely, casual after-curfew explorations would become virtually impossible to carry out.

Worse, the Slytherins would assume they'd stolen the cloak from one of them, which was incorrect, but Dumbledore surely would learn that Harry had stolen the cloak.

Nothing boded well for his future prospects.

Fuck, I just need somewhere to hide. Fuck! I can't let them find me with an invisibility cloak! I need somewhere to hide! he thought.

As if out of a film, a huge, highly polished door appeared in the wall. No time to bask in his discovery of the room, he reached out, seized the brass handle, opened the door, and rushed into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He pushed his back against the door, prepping his body against the door for the inevitable opening of the door. His heart rapidly beat in his chest. He willed his body to calm down, scared the thump-thump-thump of his heart would give him away. But the pounding on the door never came. Outside, he could hear the cries of Filch and Pringle as they realized he was gone, but he heard no banging. If anything, the shouted curses became fainter.

He peeled himself off the door and took the sight before him in.

He was in a place the size of a cathedral with the appearance of a city, its towering walls built of objects hidden by thousands of long-gone students.

The room was cluttered to the high heavens. Desks and cabinets teetered precariously on top of one another, forming mile high structures. When he opened a cabinet, he found that it was stuffed to the brim with junk. Stacks and stacks of books compiled atop one another reached to the ceiling. Stools and chairs were pushed into one corner, stacked messily. He guessed that if he pulled a chair out, all the chairs would come crashing down. Trunks were scattered throughout the room, posing a large tripping hazard. Everywhere he looked was a mess.

Gilded owl cages, battered textbooks, cauldrons of all materials: gold, silver, pewter, brass, copper, a Snitch, beater bats, school broomsticks, expired foods, broken wands, piles of unused and used quills, half-empty ink bottles, illegal books, unopened joke items, scuffed gobstones, potions of various colors and consistencies, half-melted candles, dirtied runestones, unfinished homework assignments dating back months, years, decades, mostly-unused packets of parchment, intricate masks, eccentric baubles, bent chocolate frog cards, empty and filled schoolbags, small and large globes, ornate magnifying glasses, tiny cigarette packs, ripped and pristine robes, a granite mortar and pestle, and even a chipped lavatory seat.