Hidden Wings - Part II

Wolves

"Do you think Jess is alright?", asked Levinia with a pale face as they walked to the Great Hall.

"You mean Mioha", Astoria corrected her, then sighed miserably. "I don't know. I only know that she's alive...but I know she's not doing well."

"Course not", muttered Erica, "she's a prisoner."

Daphne remained silent as she walked along with them, obviously caught up in her own thoughts. She and Astoria had been at Malfoy Manor until Snape had locked the Carrows and the Slytherins, that were on You-Know-Who's side, away. After that, she and Astoria had returned to Hogwarts.

"Daph? Hello?", Astoria's voice ripped her out of her thoughts.

"Sorry, what?", said Daphne and blinked.

"Ethel just said that the corridors seem...different", said Astoria and looked around. "And I think she's right."

Daphne followed her sister's gaze and realized, that the corridors had changed. They were longer. And wider. And...there were more doors. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
Had Hogwarts grown over night?

"Look!", said Erica and pointed at a circular staircase in a niche, leading downwards. "That hasn't been there before."

"There's one over here too", Levinia said quietly and pointed ahead. Every few meters, they found more staircases in the walls, leading somewhere down below into a place filled with the golden light of torches.

"I thought there's nothing beneath the dungeons", said Astoria perplexed. "So what's down there?"

No one could answer that, so all they could do was hurry along to the Great Hall. When they got to the entrance of the hall, they stopped short in surprise.

"Wow", whispered Ethel. "This is-"

She searched for words.

"Epic", Erica finished with a big grin.

The Great Hall looked different. Not only larger than before, but completely different. If they thought it had been big before, then now it was even bigger. The term 'Great Hall' didn't seem to fit anymore; something like 'Colossal Hall' or 'Ginormous Hall' would have been far better suited.

In the center of the Great Hall, a large square hole had formed. It's sides were at least fifty meters long. The Great Hall had expanded into all directions, so that there was more than enough space to accommodate the tables and the gawking students around the large square. A staircase led down into the square in a wide spiral. Every twenty meters, it connected with another level that had the same width and length as the Great Hall. And deep, deep down, at the bottom of the long staircase and many floors later, the students could make out a floor out of black marble. Golden lines were running across it, forming a phoenix.

What only Ginny Weasley knew, was that it was the floor of the Magnus Antrum.
The layers of stone between the Great Hall and the Magnus Antrum had shifted to form a tower-like structure that held at least twenty stories, each story the size of the Great Hall.

"This is so cool", said Ginny and bumped her elbow into Parvati's side. "What do you think?"

Parvati looked doubtfully into the hole.
"It's pretty deep", she admitted.

The crowd of students chattered loudly as students tried to come up with an explanation of what exactly was under the castle.

"Attention", said a sharp voice that cut through the loud voices.

Heads turned to find Professor Snape at the High Table, as well as the rest of the staff.

"Yes, you have all noticed the unmissable hole in the floor", drawled Professor Snape. "As you can see, Hogwarts has created more space to accommodate the arriving guests."