Luck of Nines

69

Theo was long gone from the room now, and so he dragged himself up and from the confines of the blankets to take a look at his new surroundings.

            It was a small room, with six rounded corners and a dome like roof that let in plenty of sunlight from what he assumed was a glass ceiling. The light fell from above in scattered rainbows of shimmering color to dance about the room in a way that he'd never seen before but almost instantly put him at ease to the extent he wondered if there really was no magic involved, it also caused a small, distracting, urge to pounce on all the colorful light.

There was a fireplace on one side with an empty wall beside it and a door on the next, while the other three contained actual windows each with different cozy ledges to sit upon and curtains which were drawn back to let even more sunlight pour through, while he had his suspicions that the rooftop one was fake, these windows seemed real enough.

The largest of the ledges was filled with cushions on the wall which sat on the other side of the wall which had the door. The ledge housing this assortment of cushions could easily make a bed for his wolf form the otherwise uniform walls, curving slightly around it to create a small nook. On the other hand, the smallest ledge was just barely large enough for his cat form to sit on and was located across from the wall.  The remaining window sat in the middle space, showing where the window of the latter ledge, which showed a forest bled into the largest ledge's window which showed a well maintained garden. This final, middle, ledge was large enough to sit on as a human, although just barely he imagined.

      An armchair sat next to the fire, facing the door, although positioned so he could still see that it was empty since the back was practically to the wall, a round rug at its feet, a rocking chair next to the window with the smallest ledge facing the other way, so that it was nearly looking straight at where he was. 

       He sat by the smallest ledge, which sat beside the fireplace, placing him away from the door and giving him a perfect view of it. He wasn't on a bed frame like those at Hogwarts, a small platform with no space beneath it separated the mattress from the floor, four sturdy wooden poles led up to where a canopy hung above his bed, unlike the pale yellow curtains which hung near the windows, this was a dark, rich color of off-blue much like those in the Slytherin dorms, although these were not velvety, but instead soft and smooth. They seemed heavier too. He eyed the canopy above him with consideration, it would be comfortable to curl up there to sleep. Harry caught his still sleepy mind wandering and returned his focus to his exploration of the room.

The whole room was just so... peaceful.

His senses which had been cooled tightly around him, almost afraid of whatever lied beyond him relaxed, and he let himself reach out and let everything slowly sink in. It was almost overwhelming, everything had been dull, rough yet all so monotonous, a dampened feel to it. But now, here, it was not. Everything was vibrant, pressing down on his senses in a practically overbearing, yet still somehow pleasant, way.

Carefully, Harry crept from the blankets, his feet touched softly to the warm, wooden floors. He frowned at it, shifting his feet and staring at this new enigma when the cold jolt he was braced for never came. It really was warm. Not at all like the frigid impact of Hogwarts' stone ones or the strength sapping chill of the prison.

He moved soundlessly as he looked about. The room was just ever so slightly warm, so that he barely noticed the temperature at all. The smell too was pleasant. For a brief moment he simply relished at the feelings. He stretched his senses feeling the naturalness of the way sounds ebbed and flowed around him. Azkaban had eaten sounds. Even the loudest screams had sounded as such only from a meter or two away before seemingly abruptly cutting off. Smell had been limited to stone and damp mold, combined with the haunting smell of death and rot, paired with something he could never place but hated all the same. The only touch was coarse, cold, and rough. Cold, rough stone. Cold, rough metal. Cold, rough food. Nothing but a foul taste to anything that lingered on one's tongue and in your mouth polluting every crevice available to it, reaching deep as if to taint even one's organs with the same bleak, soiled tint.  No color anywhere, just shades of grey. Dark grey, grey, near black grey.