Spirals || Mattheo Riddle

Chapter 47 ~ As the Castle Walls Shake

"X marks the spot," I say as I march up to the statue. 

"We're clear," Blaise calls, checking once more behind him before coming to stand next to Theo, Pansy and I.

The corridor was cleared, all the students having left for dinner. Each movement we made caused an echo of noise to come floating back to us in the empty hallway.

In front of us sat a large statue of a bearded man. He held some sort of staff and had a passive expression, but that didn't matter.

What mattered was the passage way behind him.

"You guys set?" I asked hesitantly. After we went through here, there would be no coming back. I had made sure of that. The statue wouldn't open again until morning, courtesy of my charm work.

It was still operable from the inside of course, but it wouldn't re-open from the outside. No one could follow us.

"Think so," Pansy muttered, checking herself over again and checking the boys too.

They both shrugged.

We wore coats with warm clothing beneath. Mostly muggle attire, seeing as robes weren't really a common fashion trend in the no-magg world.

"Right then." I took a deep breath, shoving down every screaming thought that cried out, "danger, danger".

My wand was steady in my hand as I reached out, tapping the nose of the statue twice.

For an antagonising moment there was only silence. It drowned me in my own panic before a sharp crack sounded and the statue swivelled.

It opened somewhat like a door, pulling out a section of wall with it as it turned to reveal a human sized hole.

Pansy, Blaise and Theo all grinned at each other, the only sound being Pansy's hands lightly clapping together.

"Come on then, we have a town to hit," Blaise exclaimed, moving forward.

The hole was just large enough to fit him and his tall frame as he stepped into it and ducked his head.

Theo followed, drawing his wand to provide light and offering Pansy a hand to help her step through.

She rolled her eyes but took it with a small smile, turning back to flash a cheeky wink at me before climbing into the tunnel too.

Finally I stepped forward. The corridor was still empty but I checked around to make sure no one could see us before tapping my wand on the statue again and entering the tunnel.

...

Theo's wand provided a dull light, so the rest of us lit ours too.

The tunnel was concrete to start with, with engraved lines running down the length of it. As we walked, it slowly turned to clay and dirt.

"You'd think there would be more spiders down here?" Blaise mused.

I hummed. "I don't think it's very well used, maybe a bug repelling charm?"

Every now and again one of our feet would knock a stone or a clump of dirt, causing a skittering noise to disrupt my thoughts.

"I'm just glad there's nothing to bloody bite me down here." I huffed a laugh at Pansy, the girl who's afraid of shit-all.

"You know how long this is supposed to be Rave?" Blaise asked.

I frowned. The map had shown a pretty long tunnel, but not one that would take us hours to get through. By the change in the walls and the density of the air we were breathing, I would say we were now below ground level.