Open Your Eyes

Chapter Twenty-Three

Cole Black's Point of View

Dumbledore was so angry, the twinkle in his eyes had vanished in a split second after he read the article by Rita Skeeter. A minute later he stormed out of the Great Hall and off to his office no doubt. I knew he would try harder now to get not only myself but all of the other students back under his control and manipulations but today wasn't the day for that, today we would celebrate Kaelie's birthday. 

The other day I asked the house elves to prepare a nice picnic for our group so we could have lunch today outside near the edge of the forbidden forest. They made white chocolate raspberry muffins, chicken and cucumber sandwiches, oat and honey biscuits, an array of biscuits, cheeses and dips, and a tray of roast beef and other vegetables. The picnic was going to be even better as the sun was out and warming up the grounds. We hadn't told Kaelie yet of this, we wanted it to be a surprise but I knew she is just going to love it! 

It wasn't long before Kaelie, Draco, Emrys, Pansy and I left the Great hall, Luna joining us along the way to just wander the Castle for a while trying to find any hidden passages that weren't already in the Marauder's Map. While we were walking around the fifth floor I felt pairs of eyes on us and so I pushed my magic out a little to detect other people's magical signatures and auras. Finding two almost identical magical signatures just around the corner I smirked. They had figured it out.

'Hello boys, you can come out now' I called out to them telepathically. I heard shuffling before the two twins came out of their hiding place behind the suits of armor looking quite disorientated. 

The others had stopped hearing the noise from the twins and Draco had come up behind me, wrapping his arms around me protectively. 

"So you are the famous son of Padfoot" George said and I nodded smiling. Both of their eyes seemed to widen even more. 

"Well come along then, we're on the hunt for hidden passageways." I beckoned for them to follow and they did, comfortably falling in stride with the rest of the us. Emrys was quick to start up a conservation with them and their use of magic with pranks. 

"Are you sure you can trust them love?" Draco asked deciding to entwine my hand with his to keep me 'close'.

"Yeah, the twins are harmless in the aspect of betraying or being evil, their pranks on the other hand, best to just keep an out out in case they get bored" I laughed and Draco seemed to accept this, his posture becoming a lot relaxed then before. 

"Hello boys and girls, fine day isn't it?" Turning my head I saw an older man in a portrait of what looked like a flower garden. We nodded and smiled at him before continuing down different corridors. 

"Hold up guys, I think we've found something" Pansy and Luna called out as they were a little more ahead than the rest of us. When we had all stopped just next to the two girls I realised we were in the same corridor as the Charms classrooms. 

"What are we looking at?" Fred asked inspecting a wooden bench in front of the stone wall. 

"Not the bench silly, underneath the bench" Peering underneath we saw the bottom of the wall wasn't fully connected with the ground, also there wasn't any dust in front of it like there was off to the side. 

"Do you think-"

"Only one way to find out" Pansy felt around the wall for a bit before stopping at one near the middle and pushed it inwards. A quiet groan was heard as the wall moved inwards to reveal a lit up passageway which seemed to have 6 different turns offs leading different directions. 

"Well should we spell this section onto the map and then split up to find out where the other six ways go?" We all agreed and I waved my hand adding the passageway to the map. The groups were going to be Pansy going down the first one, Emrys going down the second, Kaelie going down the third, Fred and George going down the fourth, Luna going down the fifth and Draco and I going down the last one.