Harry Potter and the Hall of Echoes [COMPLETED]

Chapter 5

After a few minutes of searching, Harry found a rusty-looking can sitting under the shade of a beech tree. He pulled over his trunk and his broom, and also Hedwig in her new cage, and he stared at the can intently.

According to Hermione, he was supposed to just touch this thing, and he would be transported straight to Dartford College. Harry glanced around quickly, to make sure no-one was watching, then he slowly placed his finger onto the can of beans...

A strange sensation suddenly came over Harry, as if he'd been launched out of a potato-gun into the air. He was surrounded by a mix of colours that vaguely resembled those of the park, but soon enough they were the blue and white of the sky up above. The can of beans seemed to surge ahead at an impossible speed, and Harry was unable to let go of it, even if he wanted to. His trunk and the cage were tailing along behind him, but a moment later —

THUD! THUD, THUD!

Harry's belongings crashed violently onto a dark marble floor, followed by Harry himself, who was feeling distinctly nauseous.

He looked up to find that he was now in the antechamber of a large and very dark castle. Sitting behind a desk towards the back, and staring at him quite boredly, was a house elf dressed in pinstriped suit. The elf had large, floppy ears, and spectacles which looked like small magnifying glasses, and she did not seem surprised in the slightest at Harry's sudden appearance.

'Your name, please?' the elf asked Harry, who had still not managed to get up from off the ground.

'Er, Harry Potter.'

The elf stared him up and down, before flicking through a large, leather-bound book. She then kept glancing at Harry suspiciously as she turned each page.

'I don't go here,' Harry explained to the elf, as he stood up and walked towards the desk. 'I'm from Hogwarts — I've come here on exchange... Have Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger arrived yet?'

The elf did not have a chance to answer his question, however, because another voice suddenly came from the other side of the antechamber.

'Harry?' said the voice. 'Is that you?'

Harry turned around to see that it was the tall boy from Diagon Alley, Blake Hopkins. Blake was dressed in a thin, black robe that Harry assumed was the Dartford College uniform.

'I isn't seeings a "Harry",' the elf told him, as she searched through the book in front of her. 'I have a Harriet,' she then added. 'Harriet Pobler.'

Blake shook his head at the elf. 'Nima,' he said to her, 'this is Harry Potter — the Boy Who Lived... Don't you know who he is?'

The elf named Nima clearly did not know who Harry was supposed to be — nor did she seem to care.

Blake then approached Nima's desk, which was less than half the size of a regular one. He bent down to inspect the book in front of her, then he pointed at one of the pages and sighed. 'I think you need to get your eyes checked, Nima, ' he said to her. 'That's his name right there — look —'

The old elf adjusted her large glasses, peering more closely at where Blake was pointing. 'Ah,' she said, nodding. 'I see...'

Blake shook his head at Harry apologetically, before turning back to Nima. 'And remember what dad was telling you last week?' he prompted. 'About making sure you do the security spell on everyone?'

'The spell?' she said, sounding somewhat begrudging. 'Fine, fine...'

Her eyes focused on Harry, she snapped her fingers, and a strange and wobbly object began to materialise in mid-air. It looked like a white ball made out of liquid.

'There is no needs to worry,' said Nima, as the white ball zoomed towards Harry, 'there won't be pain, unless you is struggling...'

Before Harry could even try and escape it, the white ball hit him square in the chest; the swirly liquid then began to spread over his entire body, until it was covering him like a skin-tight bodysuit.

Nima snapped her fingers again, and with a loud POP! the white liquid was gone. Or rather, the liquid was floating slowly back towards Nima — she proceeded to scoop it from out of the air, before placing it in a little flask she'd taken from her desk drawer.

'Come on,' said Blake, who seemed to be enjoying the sincere look of alarm on Harry's face. 'Your friends are already here.'

X

If Harry had not known that Dartford were currently in their school holidays, then he would have sworn they were in the middle of a normal term. He walked past what appeared to be a large ballroom, filled with leather chairs and sofas, where older students were sitting together and talking.

'That's the Common Room,' Blake pointed out. 'But it's only for Fifth Years and above. And that's the Duelling Chamber — and that there's the Barker-Morgan Library — and my dad's office is at the end of that row of offices over there... he's the school's Headmaster —'

'There's a Duelling Chamber?' Harry asked curiously.

'Eh?' said Blake, as he and Harry went down a winding staircase together. 'Oh, well, that's only what it's called,' he then explained. 'It's not like anyone actually duels in there... I think the guy who used to own this place used to duel, though. There's lots of paintings of him on the walls.'

And Harry did indeed notice many old-looking portraits around— most of them depicting a man with slicked-back hair and a monocle over his eye.

'All right,' said Blake, as they arrived at a narrow stone archway. 'Boys' dormitories are through here, then a left, and a left.' He took something out of his pocket and handed it to Harry — a piece of copper in the shape of a hexagon. 'This is your Finder,' he explained. 'It tells you where all your next classes are gonna be... Your friend Hermione's signed you up for a pretty tough course load, to be honest, so that Finder's going to come in handy.'

'Er, great,' said Harry, not bothering to hide his lack of enthusiasm. 'Hey — thanks, Blake —'

'Don't mention it,' Blake shrugged. He was about to turn back the way he came, before he said, 'Hey, you're a Quidditch player, right?' He was pointing at the broom Harry was carrying.

'Yeah, I am,' said Harry. 'Why?'

Blake paused for a moment. 'Well, I was thinking,' he said hesitantly. 'You wouldn't be keen on joining a training session, would you? It's not like our school team is particularly good or anything — I mean, they're really, really not... but we do this "exhibition game" on the last day of the Summer Program: Dartfords vs the Exchangers. It's always pretty fun.'