//------------------------------// // Chapter 9 // Story: The Gate // by computerneek //------------------------------// “Ahem.  Just a few more words, now that we’re all fed and watered,” Dumbledore announces, having stood up after the desserts disappeared. Bonbon looks up at him, grinning slightly.  “Like Nitwit and Blubber?” Bonbon mutters quietly, drawing chuckles from the nearest few Slytherins. “Nah,” the second-year she’d sat next to answers.  “This is where-!” “I have a few start-of-term notices to give you,” Dumbledore continues. “That,” the second year states, while Bonbon nods. “First-years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils, and a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.” Bonbon groans while Dumbledore looks towards the Gryffindor table.  “Just like the Everfree. We never could keep people out of it, even though anyone that went in very far seldom came back alive.” “I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.” She sighs, turning to the second year next to her.  “I take it magic happens in the corridors all the time?” Shrug.  “Not quite…  all the time, but it does, and it’s not supposed to.  The teachers don’t care about it, but I think Filch is a squib or something, so…” Nod.  “He doesn’t like being overshadowed,” she states. “Yeah.” “Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of the term, anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.  And finally, I must tell you that this year the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.” Bonbon slams her head down on the table.  The dishes rattle all down the table, and across all three other house tables. Dumbledore blinks, looking around the hall. “What?” the second-year asks. “How stupid can he get?” Bonbon asks rhetorically.  “He’s supposed to be smart- but with a statement like that, he just guaranteed that just about every Gryffindor will be peeking behind that door within the next couple of months, plus a good number of students from each of the other houses.”  She leans back against her seat. “Come to think of it, Slytherin will probably have the second-most students taking a peak.  Gryffindor’s the adventurous one, but we’re the competitive house.”  She raises her hand to her walkie, and presses the button.  “Volunteers?” she asks. “Me!”  Lyra. She smiles; she’d known that one was coming…  and expects a majority of the volunteers will be the ones sorted to Slytherin. “What-?” Lucy, the second-year, asks; she’d assumed correctly some two hours ago that it’s a communications device of some sort, and fully functional.  “You’re not even going to wait for a Gryffindor to try?” “No, I’m not,” she answers, as more volunteers come back over her headset.  “They might get themselves killed- and besides, I expect most of the volunteers to be Slytherins, with the next greatest number out of Hufflepuff.”  She looks back at Lucy. “Duty calls. I’m putting together a team to scout it in force before any of the Gryffindors have a chance to do that on their own.  There’ll be very little that can penetrate our combined defenses to hurt us as a group, while a lone Gryffindor would likely be easier to beat even than a lone Slytherin.”  Sigh. “You wanna come too?” Right on time, Dumbledore continues.  “And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song.” Bonbon glances up; the other teacher’s smiles had become rather fixed. “Uh-oh,” Lyra’s voice comes on the headset.  “Vinyl, Minuette, Octy, Songbird, Bonnie, you ready?” Four “Yep!”s follow shortly, while Dumbledore conjures lyrics. “Yep,” Bonbon states into her radio, turning to her bag. “Everyone pick their favorite tune,” Dumbledore states.  “And Off we- What?” Bonbon had turned away from the table, and just struck off her kickdrum before tapping out a beat with the hi-hat.  She hits the kickdrum again, and the hi-hat three more times, denoting the rhythm a second time- while Lyra conjures sheet music behind Dumbledore’s lyrics, forming the lyrics to them.  She glances up- and moments later, the entire school is singing in tandem to the instrumental support. Even the staff joins in, after a few seconds- right about the same time the Equestrian music magic comes in and turns the singing in tandem into singing in harmony. The song isn’t very long, even with a couple short pauses for instrumental solos.  Noone seemed to realize that Lyra’s sheet music- and Dumbledore’s lyrics- had disappeared a few seconds after everything harmonized, yet absolutely noone missed a single beat nor lyric. “Ahh, music,” Dumbledore states, having been the last of the staff to join in, while he wipes his eyes.  “A magic beyond all we do here.” He heaves a sigh. “And now, Bed time! Off you trot!” Bonbon chuckles and turns to Lucy as everyone starts getting up.  “So, you wanna come, or no? I’ve got enough people already I can just about guarantee your safety.” Lucy glances up towards the Slytherin prefect.  “Uhh…” “Oh, don’t worry.  She’ll never realize we’re gone.” “She won’t?” “Yeah, she won’t.  Will she, Lyra?” She glances to the side. Lyra sticks her head out of the invisible portal next to bonbon.  “Mm? Ah, no, she won’t. I got a spell for that. So, you coming?” Lucy could hardly believe her eyes.  Bonbon had almost casually slipped her and some twelve other communications-device-wearing Slytherins out of the line going to the Slytherin common room, before one of them took over to lead the group through the passages.  Now, they’ve just met up with a team of six Gryffindors and eleven Hufflepuffs, all waiting in the Charms corridor- and are now waiting for a group of three Ravenclaws to arrive. Peeves had arrived shortly after the Slytherins.  Lyra- a Gryffindor- had quickly solved that; Peeves has been tied up and attached to a torch bracket near the ceiling.  “Filch will find him,” Lyra had stated, “after we’re gone and he forgets about us.” Apparently, she’d even spelled him to forget all about them as soon as they left his sight.  Which she’d also done to Mrs. Norris when she passed- and, apparently, Filch himself. It had been amusing to watch the caretaker blink and wander off again, wondering aloud why he had been so angry a moment before, as soon as he turned his back, having ordered them to follow him to his office. “That…  That spell,” she mutters to Lyra, who’s in range mostly because she seems to like sticking with Bonbon.  “Will we need to worry about that?” Lyra shakes her head.  “No. My invention- and most even Equestrians don’t have the capability to do it at all.  The ones that do…  haven’t a clue it exists.  I won’t be using it to cover up Gryffindor excursions- even my own- only business ones like this.” “Got it.” “Oh- and it looks like Moondancer’s here.  Welcome to the party, girls! Run into anyone?” “Nope,” the red-and-two-tone-purple-haired girl states. “Awesome!  Now that everyone’s here, I can apply our stealth spells.”  Lyra closes her eyes and spreads her arms slightly, concentrating on something. Suddenly, a cold shiver runs down Lucy’s spine.  She shudders, looking around alarmedly- and stops, when she notices that noone else is trying to hide the feeling; their expressions look uncomfortable…  but they all seem used to it; not one, no matter the house, looks worried. So she forces herself to calm down. Then it’s gone, just like that. She blinks.  Something seems…  off about the world now.  Almost like… She looks around at the various people around her.  Almost like they’re somehow more real.  She tries looking down at herself- for the same effect. Bonbon suddenly puts an arm around her shoulders.  “That’s the spell,” Bonbon informs her. “It’s a group stealth spell- we’re completely invisible and silent to the rest of the world- even metaphysical to anyone that happens across us.  We feel more concrete to ourselves because without that linkage in the spell, we’d be all the above to each other.”  Sigh.  “Yeah, it’s a weird feeling- but it makes it very difficult for us to get caught.”  She glances at Lyra. “And like the memory thing, Lyra’s one of very few that can pull it off.” “Alright,” Lyra declares.  “Stealth is up and working.  That door at the end of the hall is the first line of defense against intrusion- how good is it?” Moondancer trots casually up to the door, looks at it closely, and draws her wand.  “Alohomora!” Then she blinks, and facepalms, before turning to the rest. “In about three months, all first years will be taught a basic unlocking spell that can get through this door.” “And we can assume everyone above that level already knows that spell,” Lyra nods, trotting forwards.  “So, what’s behind it?” She pulls the door open, peeking in- and closes it again. “A Cerberus. Though…”  She tilts her head, then takes another peak. “Standing on a trapdoor. So, he’s guarding something- any taking-out we do, we want to be very temporary.  And we’re gonna need to post guards here, but that’s later. Um…” A third peek, though she looks for a few seconds this time. “Looks like he could use some music, might be able to distract him with that.  Who wants to hold guard duty here- make sure noone follows us in?” Two Hufflepuffs raise their arms.  “We will!” “Got it,” Lyra states.  “You can hold the door closed- or use magic.  You’ll also be able to block them physically if you want to, or speak to them- but I’d caution against that.  The less they realize there’s someone here, the better. And if it’s staff, we let ‘em pass. We’ll be locking this door behind us, same as it was before?”  She looks at Moondancer. “Regular deadbolt,” Moondancer states.  “No magic at all. Pitiful, really.” “Right.  Ready?” “Ready,” the entire group choruses. Lyra opens the door, walking in calmly as a lyre appears out of nowhere in her hands.  She starts plucking out a tune- and within seconds, to Lucy’s astonishment, the massive, three-headed dog is snoring.  Even Lyra seems surprised. “Wow,” Bonbon mutters.  “That’s… quite a weakness.”  She glances at Lyra. “Good thing every musician anywhere near as good as you that made it to Hogwarts is one of ours, isn’t it?” “Yeah,” Lyra agrees, strumming her lyre mindlessly.  “He started going on the very first note- and it probably didn’t hurt the song was designed to put him to sleep.  I suppose we just have to hope that everyone that knows about the weakness is allowed to- and keeps their mouths shut.”  She glances at Lucy. “My lips are sealed,” she states immediately. “Wingardium Leviosa,” Moondancer mutters next to Lucy- and the massive, snoozing, three-headed dog floats up and to the side, setting down gently, leaving the trapdoor completely clear.  “Another first-year spell,” Moondancer states, in response to Lyra’s raised eyebrow. “One I expect they’ll teach within the first month.” Then she glances at the dog. “It has some decent magic resistance, so the average pupil would have to get a couple helpers- or climb over his legs.” “But not you?” Lucy asks. Lyra chuckles.  “Lucy… You may have noticed, we’ve all got radios?” “Yeah?” “That’s because we’re all Equestrian Secret Service.  We’re all exceptional- extremely powerful, and very skilled.  You’ll see us doing a lot of things in mere moments that would take just about anyone else hours, days, or even weeks.”  She glances at the dog. “That’s why we’re watching everything we’re doing, and calculating everything.  That way, we get a good estimation of exactly how good these defenses- that is what they are, apparently- are.” “Oooh, darkness,” Bonbon states, looking down the opened trapdoor.  “Light?” A green-haired Gryffindor trots forwards.  “Got it!” She takes a peek down into the blackness.  “Oooh, seven hundred thirty-one and a half foot drop to concrete, though there’s a plant of some kind moving around down there.”  An image floats in the air next to her, showing a plant moving around as if in a corridor. Moondancer steps forwards, looking at the plant, and nods.  “Devil’s snare. Deadly plant, but at least it’d stop the fall.  Is there another way down?” “Not visible, but I’m not picking up any antimagic wards either.  We should be able to drop down with an ethereal elevator and avoid it entirely.” “Alright.”  Something shimmers blue beneath the trapdoor.  “Everyone in.” She looks up at Lyra. “A first year- five months- would know a fire spell suitable to ward off the devil’s snare, but they’d have a very limited time after landing to recognize the plant and cast the spell before it constricted their wand arm.  A very deadly trap to fall into- good thing this dog’s here, with a weakness no one knows about.” Lyra nods as everyone files down the short, translucent blue staircase down from the trapdoor to the similar-looking fenced platform.  “Yeah, good thing.” Once everyone is on it, and the door is locked, Lyra closes the trapdoor and disappears her lyre.  A thunderous bark is heard from above, and Lyra glances up as the platform begins to descend. “Just like I thought,” she states.  “Wakes up as soon as the song ends. At least I don’t have to worry about waking him back up again.” “Do you…  normally do this?” Lucy asks Bonbon. Bonbon shrugs.  “Yeah. I thought attending Hogwarts would be a nice break- but nooo, Hogwarts has to be even more full of monsters than Equestria!  Not even day one, and we’ve already got our first mission. Given to us- however unknowingly- by the Headmaster himself.”