"Magic?" Roger glanced at Snape's old textbook, still not entirely certain what had tugged at his thoughts. The urge to sneak into the Restricted Section had risen too suddenly, too cleanly, and the very neatness of it made him wary.
"Take it easy," he told himself, forcing his attention back to the stag-horn moss. "We'll go to Moscow at Christmas. Patience is a rare virtue."
He repeated Professor McGonagall's favourite sort of advice under his breath and obediently remained in the dungeon, processing the potion ingredients one careful cut at a time. The cold pull of Dark magic still lingered in his fingertips, but the steady rhythm of work helped push the dangerous impulse down.
Night deepened, and the moon climbed high above the towers. By the time Roger finally straightened, his shoulders ached from sitting too long, and his fingers felt stiff from hours of delicate work.
"Snape, you're exploiting child labour," Roger muttered, stretching his tired body with a grimace. "And you haven't even paid me."
The originally messy pile of stag-horn moss had been processed into neat one-inch sections. Each piece was bundled and stacked with almost obsessive precision, and the final result looked pleasing enough that even Snape might have difficulty finding something to sneer at.
"Aren't you afraid of having nightmares after staying here all night?" Roger looked around the office, where the walls were lined with biological specimens in glass jars. The dim light made them look especially unsettling.
Large and small jars contained swollen animal limbs, the brains of unidentified creatures, and pale eyeballs that seemed to twitch and roll when he looked at them too long. The air itself smelled of damp stone, old herbs, and sharp preservative fluid.
"He has a proper office, but he insists on living in a dungeon," Roger said, shaking his head. "Spend all day with this sort of thing and of course people start calling you an old bat."
He tucked the Herbology book into his pocket and left the classroom. Because the dungeon was so remote, he had to take a long detour to return to the Slytherin common room, and the castle felt much larger when every corridor was dark.
Roger pulled out Daphne's pocket watch and checked the time. It was nearly midnight.
"Wonderful," he murmured. "Now I have to avoid Filch and Mrs Norris too."
With his heart full of caution, Roger slipped into the castle proper and looked carefully in both directions. He did not see Filch, which was reassuring, but the empty corridors were somehow worse than crowded ones.
"Oh, what was I thinking?" he muttered. "I should have learned the Disillusionment Charm on my first day."
Hogwarts forbade Apparition and Disapparition inside the castle, but the Disillusionment Charm was permitted. After all, Filch was a Squib, and if Roger used it well, the caretaker would have no way to detect him at all.
Hogwarts was lively during the day, but the ancient castle truly came alive at night. Musical instruments floated through the corridors playing softly by themselves, portraits visited one another's frames, and painted figures occasionally greeted Roger as he broke curfew with as much dignity as possible.
The suits of armour standing along the corridor were even worse. During the day they sometimes fought each other with stiff punches and clanging kicks, but at night they became entirely unrestrained.
The fighter on the left wore ornate German Gothic plate armour, smooth and sharp-edged, with elegant curves along the steel. It gripped a two-handed cruciform sword in iron gauntlets and slashed fiercely at the figure beside it.
Its opponent was an English suit of white plate armour, equally unwilling to retreat. It raised a warhammer to block the greatsword, then answered with a brutal punch that rang through the corridor like a struck bell.
Though the knights who had worn them were long gone, the fighting spirit remained inside the steel. Under Roger's silent witness, the German Gothic armour successfully dismantled its opponent piece by piece.
"Precise German craftsmanship, even in the magical world," Roger said, applauding the winner.
The victorious armour bowed humbly to the young wizard. Unfortunately, the defeated armour's scattered pieces crashed to the floor with a deafening clang, and the echo rolled from the corridor into the hall.
Roger's expression changed. He turned and fled the scene at once.
"The little wizard isn't sleeping," Peeves sang suddenly, appearing out of nowhere and floating around him with loud, gleeful laughter. "Up in the middle of the night, wandering around. Peeves is going to tell!"
"You little devil, get out of the way," Roger hissed.
"No chance," Peeves said, pulling a face. "Not unless you say it properly."
From the floor above, Filch's footsteps were growing louder. Roger could already imagine the caretaker's twisted smile, and he wished he could bind Peeves with a spell and throw him straight to the Bloody Baron.
"Please," Roger said through gritted teeth.
Peeves landed curiously and stared into his eyes. "Why didn't you say, 'Please move aside'? How did you know what Peeves wanted to hear?"
"Can you move aside now?" Roger asked.
Peeves looked deeply unhappy, but he drifted out of the way. Just as Roger lifted his foot to leave, the poltergeist threw back his head and shouted, "Filch, come quickly! There's a little wizard out for a night stroll!"
"Damn you, Peeves," Roger snapped as he ran. "Sooner or later, I'll feed you to the Baron."
"Peeves, don't try to fool me," Filch shouted, rushing into the corridor with Mrs Norris at his heels.
He had clearly been chasing Peeves upstairs already, and the poltergeist had been refusing to tell him where the student had gone. Now Peeves had delivered the clue with maximum malice.
"You stupid Filch," Peeves cackled from midair. "You can't even solve Peeves's riddles. Even when I tell you there's a student breaking the rules, you still can't catch him."
He vanished through the wall, leaving only his laughter echoing in the corridor. Mrs Norris, however, seemed to notice something and let out a sharp yowl toward the corner.
"Damn little wizard," Filch snarled, charging after her with his lantern. "Where do you think you're going?"
The corridor ahead led toward the Slytherin common room, and Filch had a fairly good idea which young wizard might be wandering outside at this hour. Roger ran faster, silently cursing the distance.
"Purity and power," Roger said breathlessly when he reached the hidden entrance, reciting the password in a hurry.
The stone wall did not move.
Roger froze, then looked at the pocket watch again. His face twisted into a bitter smile.
"Damn it. It's already Friday."
It was past midnight, which meant the password had changed. He should have known better than to waste time acting as referee for a pair of quarrelling suits of armour.
"Pure-blood supremacy. Heart of the Black Lake. Power." Roger tried every old password he could remember, then began inventing new ones with increasing desperation.
Nothing worked. The wall remained stubbornly solid, and the entrance to Slytherin had become a dead end.
"Time to leave," Roger muttered.
He turned to escape before Filch arrived, but Mrs Norris was faster. The cat came racing around the corner first and yowled at him triumphantly, clearly summoning her master.
"Let me see who's breaking curfew," Filch wheezed as he arrived, lantern swinging in his hand.
He caught Roger red-handed. A grin spread across his face, making him look like some monstrous water ghost crawling out of a filthy lake.
"Good evening, Mr Filch. Good evening, Mrs Norris," Roger said politely, smiling as if this were a perfectly ordinary meeting. "Would you believe me if I said I was late because of Professor Snape?"
"Hmph." Filch grabbed him by the shoulder and dragged him toward his office. "Then you can explain it to Professor Snape yourself."
"I'm going to put you in detention," Filch roared as he shoved Roger into the office.
He pointed excitedly to the iron chains hanging on the wall. They were so carefully maintained that they actually gleamed, which said far too much about Filch's hobbies.
"The Headmaster should let me bring back proper medieval punishments," Filch said, grabbing a whip and yanking it hard for emphasis. "Troublemakers who break school rules should be hung upside down in chains and whipped. That would teach you."
"Mr Filch, I don't think my crime is quite that serious," Roger said with a wry smile.
The caretaker had clearly gone too long without catching a student, because he was practically bouncing with excitement. Roger could not decide whether he looked more like an angry rabbit or a starving ghost.
"Stay here quietly," Filch barked. "I'm going to bring back that other rotten student who ran away."
He left Mrs Norris behind to watch Roger, then slammed the door shut. A moment later, hearing movement outside, he locked it as well.
"Norris, look. Something delicious," Roger said.
The smell of fried fish drifted faintly in the air as he took out some cat food. No wonder Mrs Norris looked so thin under Filch's care, and once again the benefits of keeping an owl became obvious. Roger could always carry cat food without anyone finding it strange.
Mrs Norris jumped onto the table, her fur rising along her spine. She hissed threateningly at Roger, warning the young wizard to retract whatever claws he thought he had.
"You really don't want to try?" Roger asked.
He shrugged and poured a little cat food onto the table. Mrs Norris leapt back at once, then only approached after Roger retreated a few steps.
At first, she remained wary. Soon, however, the scent proved too tempting, and she cautiously tasted a little.
The next moment, Mrs Norris pounced on it. She devoured every last grain on the table, not even sparing the pieces that had fallen to the floor, and when she finished, she raised her tail and rubbed against Roger's leg for more.
"Heh. As expected, there's no cat food that can't conquer a cat," Roger said, sitting down on the stool and patting his knee. "If there is, just try again."
Mrs Norris jumped up, and Roger began petting her with complete ease. He looked far too relaxed for someone who had just been caught breaking curfew.
Roger surveyed Filch's office while stroking the cat. It was dark, dirty, and windowless, with a lone oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling, making the room feel even more oppressive.
He frowned at the stale, damp air. It was cold in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of Azkaban.
"Scourgify," he said, waving his wand.
The grime withdrew from the room at once, but when Roger tried to open a window in the wall, the castle's protective magic bounced the spell straight back. Apparently, even a filthy office was still part of Hogwarts' ancient body.
Carrying Mrs Norris, Roger walked past rows of wooden cabinets. Each one was labelled with lists of confiscated forbidden items, and one drawer in particular caught his eye.
One drawer was labelled: High-Risk Items.
.....
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