Sanctuary

Chapter 35

March 12th, 1972

Remus was standing in a corridor on the fourth floor, facing a blank stretch of wall, and wondering if his friends were playing another joke on him. A moment ago, Sirius had vanished beneath the invisibility cloak with an excited twinkle in his eye, and Remus was certain that didn't bode well.

'Okay, Remus. For your birthday surprise, we present you with...' Sirius' disembodied voice paused dramatically, and a doorway appeared in the wall directly in front of him. '... a mystery! What is this place? And why is it here?'

The light from Sirius' invisible wand shone through the opening, illuminating what appeared to be an ordinary corridor. Or it would be ordinary if he'd come across it in the muggle world. Finding it behind a door at Hogwarts made it an incredibly out-of-place corridor. Remus' stomach fluttered. He loved mysteries.

The floor of the hallway was varnished wood, unlike the stone floors the rest of Hogwarts sported. And instead of bare stone and tapestries, the walls were plastered and painted in pale blue. As if all that wasn't weird enough, there were electric lights on the ceiling, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.

'This part of the castle hasn't been used for a long time, whatever it is,' Remus said. 'How much have you looked around?'

Sirius had pulled off the cloak and was watching him closely for his reaction to the surprise.

'Only this floor. There's a main staircase that goes up to the seventh floor and down to ground level. We thought exploring and figuring out what this place was used for would be the perfect activity for Remus day.'

Remus smiled at how well they knew him. 'I love it. Thank you.' He stepped into the hidden wing of the castle and glanced up and down the corridor. 'So what's on this floor?'

'Dormitories,' James said. 'Five of them, with ten beds and a bathroom each.'

'Weird,' Remus said. 'Why would they need more dormitories outside of the Houses? Those spaces magically resize depending on how many students there are.'

'Do they?' Peter said. 'How do you know that?'

'I read it in a book about Hogwarts,' Remus replied at the same time that James said, 'It's in Hogwarts: A History.'

Everyone stared at James in astonished silence.

'What?' James said, going red. 'I read.'

'Only when you have to,' Sirius said.

'I wanted to be prepared.' James' tone sounded a little defensive.

'You're adorable,' Sirius said, chuckling and wrapping his arm around James' shoulders. 'Do you want to see the dorm rooms, Remus? Or explore the other floors?'

'Explore,' Remus said. They would have to come back this way to get out, so he could look at the dormitories then. 'Let's go to the bottom and work our way up.'

It only took five minutes to make it all the way down, and the staircase ended in an open space a quarter of the size of Hogwarts' Entrance Hall. Directly opposite the stairs was a door, considerably larger than the others they had seen.

'Looks like the access from the grounds,' Remus said, trying the handle. It was locked, so he pulled his wand out and pointed it at the lock. 'Alohomora.'

It didn't work, and he turned back to the others in defeat.

James shrugged. 'Who cares about going outside, anyway?' He pointed at another door, to the right of the entrance. 'Let's see what's in there.'

Sirius bounded over and tried the handle. The door swung open, and they walked through, shining their wand-lights around the interior. It was obviously a dining room, but it was nothing like the Great Hall.