“Lumos!”The pitch darkness was pushed aside by a stream of light from Freddy Shrike’s wand. Five years of training had strengthened it considerably since his first attempt in Professor Flitwick’s charms class, but it still carried a pinkish tint around the edges. “That’s better,” Freddy breathed, then he glanced over his shoulder, reaching for the cloaked shadow behind him. “Here, Pudgie, give me your hand.”
Kevin Grahame groped for him in the dark, caught a handful of sleeve and worked his way down to some fingers. “I hope you know where this goes,” he murmured, following his darling into the narrow passage.
“Don’t worry; if we get lost, we can blame Irene’s brother. He’s the one who knew about this tunnel. Apparently, he’s taken up with some rather wild friends; Irene’s not terribly keen on them. Typical Gryffindor troublemakers, by the sound of it. But they’ve got some project going to map all the secret rooms and passages in the castle.”
“Gosh, they’re only Second Years, how far have they gotten?”
“You’d be amazed, she says. Watch your step here,” he warned, as the light played over the rough floor.
It took them about ten minutes to follow the tunnel down then back up, before they emerged into a niche in the castle wall, and came to an iron grate set in the stone. “Perfect!” Freddy gave a sigh of relief, as they looked out onto the grounds of Hogwarts. They were only a few yards from the greenhouses, which were dim and deserted in the moonlight.
“Looks like we’re not the only ones out,” Kevin noted, observing perhaps a dozen pairs of older students meandering about the grounds.
“Excellent,” said Freddy. “Precisely why I wanted to do this tonight. If we get caught – which we won’t – we can always say we wandered out from the Ball.” The annual end-of-term ball for the departing Seventh Year students was well underway, judging by how many of them had already abandoned the Great Hall for a stroll in the summer night.
“Never mind that we’re not wearing dress robes,” Kevin indicated the black cloaks tossed over their usual clothes.
“The House Elves lost our dress robes in the laundry.”
“Not to mention that we’re not allowed at the ball without Seventh Year dates for the evening -- Oh, gosh,” Kevin blurted all at once, his gaze having been snagged by one of the wandering couples. “Daisy, look – is that who I think it is?”
“Looks like Jane,” he pegged the tall, thin, female figure at once. “But – oh, Great Merlin, you’ve got to be joking!” He sputtered with laughter. “It’s not!”
“It is,” Kevin decided, as they both regarded her husky companion, his yellow hair shining in the moonlight.
“Bludger-head Bagman!” Freddy grabbed Kevin’s arm and stifled his cackles in the stockier boy’s shoulder. “Oh, this is too rich! Look,” he giggled, pointing, “they’re holding hands!”
“I thought she was going to the dance with Llew Jones,” said Kevin.
“I knew there was something dodgy about that,” Freddy remarked. “Everyone knows Llew’s been joined at the hip with Lorelei Lloyd all year; I never believed for a moment they’d broken up just before the Ball. And even if they had, why in a million years would he ever have asked Jane, of all people?”
“Well, she is Quidditch Captain, and he’s the Keeper, it’s not as if they don’t know each other well enough,” Kevin pointed out.
“And Lorelei plays Chaser for Slytherin, and Ludo’s their Captain,” Freddy calculated, “so obviously she knows him well enough to bring him along as a date. If you ask me, it was all a clever plot from the start, to get those two together,” he nodded at Jane Tweedy and Ludo Bagman, who were walking off toward the Quidditch pitch, still hand in hand. “And I suppose it was inevitable; they’ve been making goo-goo eyes at each other even longer than you and I have.”
“Gosh, I think he’s kissing her.”
“Yes, and she’s hitting him,” Freddy snickered.
“Not very hard, though,” Kevin pointed out, and they both grinned at each other. “So,” Kevin slipped an arm around Freddy, making some goo-goo eyes of his own from behind his glasses, “I hope that’s not the big surprise you dragged me out here for.”
“Hardly,” Freddy snorted, pulling the hood of his cloak over his head, and motioning for Kevin to do the same. “Come on.” Pointing his wand at the grate, he muttered a spell, and it creaked open enough for them to slip past it. Free of the castle, they broke into a run for the nearest greenhouse, landing, one after the other, against the glass. The soft thumps they made in doing so seemed dangerously loud in the darkness.
“Shh!” “Shh!” They hushed each other simultaneously, which prompted a mutual exchange of stifled laughter. Muffled in their long, shapeless cloaks of black, they were nearly indistinguishable. Equal in height, the only difference was that Kevin formed the thicker shadow and Freddy, the slighter. Skulking along the wall of the greenhouse farthest from the castle, they poked their heads out on the other side, decided the coast was clear, and made a dash for Greenhouse 3. Freddy aimed his wand again, hissed, “Alohomora!” and the lock of the greenhouse door gave a click. Once they were inside, he locked the door behind them, and both boys paused to breathe and toss back their hoods. Their eyes met, and they exchanged an eager, guilty smile before Kevin reached for Freddy.
“Come here, Daisy,” he attempted to pull him in for a kiss, but Freddy held him off.
“Not yet, Pudgie. You have to see your surprise first.” Laying hold of his hand, Freddy led him through the narrow aisle between the work tables, back to the farthest end of the greenhouse. A dense curtain of vines hung over one corner, dotted with trumpet-shaped flowers in several shades of yellow, pink, and orange. “Once upon a time,” said Freddy, “some lovely chap kissed me here.”
“I hope you’re referring to me,” Kevin smiled.
“And, since no one else was using this little corner for anything important, I asked Professor Sprout if I could have it, to work on some extra projects, preparing for my O.W.L.s. She tried to put me in Greenhouse 1; that’s where she holds most of her N.E.W.T.-level classes, but I told her no, I wanted this particular spot.”
“You didn’t tell her why, I hope.”
“Fear not, Pudgie; our secret is safe,” Freddy assured him. “Although it really is too bad I’m such a sentimental fool; she had to extricate some poor Firstie who tried fiddling with my Portcullis the other day.”“That’s what this thing is?” Kevin indicated the mass of vines.
“Flowering Portcullis,” Freddy nodded. “Excellent for security; if you don’t know the right way through, it snares you and holds you there until the owner gets you out.” Now, he touched his wand to three seemingly random flowers in succesion and said, “Rosa Dartle.”
Kevin looked surprised, and amused, as the curtain of vines rolled itself up from the bottom to allow them to slip under. “That’s the password? How’d you come up with that?”
“It’s from David Copperfield, you ignorant Wizard! Haven’t you ever read David Copperfield?” The hands of the slight figure flashed out from under the cloak and flew at the midsection of the other, eliciting a burst of ticklish laughter.
“But why – that?” Kevin blurted between gasps.
“Well, I wanted to make it Daisy Loves Pudgie, but I had to tell Professor Sprout the password, and I didn’t want to try to explain that. Rosa Dartle sounds like an exotic plant.” Freddy ducked under the drapery of vines, and his cheeks tinged pink in the glow of the magical bower. “Well, this is it. What do you think?”
“Wow!” Kevin breathed, squeezing in with him. Behind the Flowering Portcullis was a tiny alcove filled with plants. Several blooming specimens, with silvery flames flickering from the centers of their blue blossoms, provided a faint, fairy-like illumination. “What are these?”
“Swedish Dragontongue,” said Freddy, proudly. “I’ve always wanted to try my hand at them. They don’t burn, see?” he demonstrated by poking a fingertip into the shimmering center of a flower. “They just give off light. Someday, when I have my own garden, I’m going to plant a whole row of them along the paths; they’re beautiful at night.”
“Mm,” said Kevin, but his attention was no longer on the flowers. He had just noticed that the Swedish Dragontongue was the same shade of blue as Freddy’s eyes. He listened contentedly as Freddy pointed out some of the other plants in his collection, then said, “I had no idea you were working on all this.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise. Sorry it’s so cramped. There’s hardly room enough to sit down.”
The little workbench crammed into the corner was barely big enough for the two of them. Kevin recognized it as the same one on which they had shared their first kiss, and smiled as he said, “Oh, I don’t mind it cozy.”
“But we can come out here whenever we want – well, whenever we can sneak out,” Freddy corrected himself, “and have it all to ourselves.” A touch of the wand on three more flowers on the inside, and a repetition of the password, and the Flowering Portcullis sealed itself shut again. “So…” putting away the wand, he laid both hands on Kevin’s broad shoulders and rubbed them with a tender longing. “Is it all right, Pudgie?”
“It’s brilliant, Daisy.” Arms from under the cloak enfolded the slighter figure’s waist and pulled the two of them close together. “It’s the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
In the dim light of their enchanted bower, the two of them touched foreheads, then gingerly, bashfully touched noses. They hadn’t had enough chances at this to wear off the novelty of it yet, and it was with an eager, hesitant shyness that they touched lips, once, and once again, before they dared to melt into each other and let the kiss take over.
They had lost all track of the time, snuggled together in their Secret Bower, chatting and cuddling and catching up on what seemed ages of kissing. At last realizing how late it was, they had hastened back into the castle (“Remind me to tell Irene to thank her brother for this,” Freddy remarked, returning through the secret passage) and made their way through the shadowy corridors to the Ravenclaw Common Room.
“Out rather late, aren’t we,” the bronze face at the top of the magic mirror yawned.
“Yes, thank you for noticing,” Freddy hissed. “Xylophagus.”
The mirror shimmered and admitted them to the room. Kevin passed through first, and stopped short, Freddy bumping into him from behind as he followed.
“What’s the matter?” he peered over Kevin’s shoulder.
“Shh!”
A tall, thin figure stood in sharp outline in front of an open window on the opposite wall. It had frozen just as Kevin had, but now thawed enough to whisper, “Who’s there?”
There was no mistaking that grating, Yorkshire bray. “Jane?”
“Kevin?”
“Shh,” said Freddy.
“Who’s that?” demanded Jane.
“No one.”
“Freddy? What are you two doing down here at this hour?”
“Funny, we were just about to ask you that question,” remarked Freddy.
“I’ve been out,” Jane answered him brusquely.
“Anyone we know?” he hinted. “Tall, blond, thick as a Bludger?”
She bristled. “You should talk! You’re sneaking in late, yourselves, and you weren’t even at the dance. You should have turned in ages ago.”
“Well!” Freddy huffed. “Perhaps you’re not the only one who’s been out, Mrs. Bagman.”
Kevin flinched at this and started to hush him, but Jane beat him to it.
“Shut up!” she snapped. “If you say one word about this, you’ll be in trouble, too, remember that. And I hope that, whoever the unfortunate girls were, they did a better job of sneaking in than you two.” With this, she made her way toward the stairs to the girls’ dorm, banging her shins only twice along the way.
The boys passed her as they headed for their own stairs, and Freddy muttered, “And good night to you, too.”
Jane was out of earshot, and they were climbing the stairs, when Kevin said, “Do you think she meant that?”
“What?”
“The unfortunate girls. Does she really not know?”
“Funny thing about Jane,” noted Freddy. “As clever as she is, she can be shockingly blind sometimes.”
THE END
Continue to An Alarming Interrogation