The Tale of a Gaunt

The Undercroft

Arabella, Charlotte and Dylan were sat in the Slytherin common room a few days later, when Dylan spoke up.

"You know, I reckon that was a success" He said, stretching his arms out.

"Yeah, but we still need to find a place to actually do it" Charlotte said.

"I might know a place" Ominis' voice came suddenly. The three of them jumped and looked at the fireplace to see Ominis' head there, smiling.

"Ominis!" Arabella and Charlotte went forward, Dylan closely behind.

"Hi" Arabella said.

"Hello. How are you?" Ominis asked.

"I'm fine, well, apart from the whole Umbridge situation, I'm alright" Arabella said.

"Excellent. And you, Charlotte?" Ominis asked.

"I'm good too, thanks" Charlotte smiled.

"Good" Ominis said.

"This is Dylan, by the way, Dylan Peters" Arabella introduced.

"Huh, well it is a pleasure to meet you" Ominis smiled.

"It's nice to meet you too, sir" Dylan said.

"Please, call me Ominis" Ominis said.

"Anyway, back into the topic, what are you going to do with this location for your top secret defence club?" Ominis asked.

"Wait, how do you know that?" Charlotte asked.

Ominis chuckled. "You need to come up with better places to have secret meetings" He said.

"Well, to be fair it wasn't us who decided to meet there. Harry, Ron and Hermione decided that" Dylan told him.

"Oh, alright then" Ominis said.

"Wait, did you say that you might know a place when you first appeared today?" Arabella asked.

"Yes, I do, I believe the room is big enough to fit all of you" Ominis said.

"What and where is this room?" Charlotte asked.

"It's called the Undercroft. Me, Sebastian and Sarah used to spend time in it, practicing spells or something completely random. To get there, you must approach the stairs leading up to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and go down the little space just next to the stairs. Go down that and you will find a little clock thing. Open that and you will have access to the Undercroft" Ominis explained.

"It sounds good but it's so close to Umbridge's classroom. Wouldn't we get caught?" Arabella asked.

"That is a good point. But me and the other two managed to get in and out of that place for six entire years without getting caught. Not even the professors know about that place. Well, they didn't when I was in Hogwarts" Ominis said.

"Alright then, we'll try that. Thank you, Ominis" Arabella said.

"No problem, let me know if there are any obstacles" Ominis said, before vanishing.

After that, the three of them ran to their dormitories and slept, ready to find this room tomorrow.

Once they had woken up, they got changed and met outside the Slytherin common room.

They then ventured down towards the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and went down the space beside the stairs.

After a few seconds, they reached the end and saw a big, brown grandfather clock on the right hand side.

"This is it, the entrance to the Undercroft" Arabella said.

"Off on another adventure, are we?" A voice came, and Arabella's insides dropped.

The three of them turned around to see Amari, which relieved Arabella a lot.

"We think we've found a place for the defence club" Arabella said.

"Ooh, can I see?" Amari asked, and the other three nodded.

The four of them looked at the grandfather clock. Charlotte tapped the clock with her wand, and the front of the clock swung open. The four of them entered.

They went down the passageway until they approached a door which looked very medieval. They opened it and entered the Undercroft.

The Undercroft looked like a dungeon. It had pillars scattered around the room which arched at the roof, the light was dim but it was light enough to see what you were doing and there were crates and barrels everywhere.

"This place is perfect" Amari said.

"It definitely is. All we need to do now is just clear some of these crates and we should be good to go"  Dylan said.

And so they got to work, they vanished the crates and moved other things, such as training dummies and an unexpected Pensieve which was in one part of the Undercroft. No one could figure out why that was there, along with the triptych on the wall above it. They also increased the lighting in the room a bit until everything was done up and good as new.

"Alright, that's us done. Amari, go and find Harry, Ron and Hermione and tell them to come here" Arabella said.

"Ok" Amari said, leaving the Undercroft and heading to wherever Harry, Ron and Hermione were located.

About twenty minutes then passed, and then they heard voices from the short passageway between the entrance to the Undercroft and the grandfather clock.

The door to the Undercroft opened and Harry, Ron, Hermione and Amari entered the room.

The other three looked around. "What is this place?" Harry asked.

"It's called the Undercroft. Ominis found it back when he was a student here and thought it might be useful for this club. So what do you think?" Arabella asked.

"I think it's perfect" Harry said, the other two nodded.

"I wanted to give you these, by the way" Hermione said, pulling four golden coins out of her pocket and handing one to each of them.

"Just a random coin?" Dylan asked.

"Oh, not just a random coin, this coin will alert you when a meeting is about to take place" Hermione smiled.

"Brilliant. The only problem that I see with these now is that one of us could accidentally spend it" Arabella said.

"Fat chance. I haven't got any real Galleons to confuse it with" Ron said.