Their blood blazed with excitement, with ambition, with a feverish hunger to topple the world beneath their feet.
Fred bent low, diving without hesitation into the dark passage.
George followed close behind.
Once both were inside, the stone door disguised as a portrait slid silently shut.
The air inside was thick as syrup, laced with damp earth and a moldy chill that seeped from cracks in the rock.
Each step landed in unknown darkness, soft dust beneath their shoes, only their strained breathing and rustling cloaks breaking the silence.
Five minutes.
In that absolute dark, time stretched endlessly, five minutes dragging like a century.
At last — a glimmer ahead.
A faint light, as small as a tarnished Knut, pierced the gloom.
Yet it was enough to ignite desperate hope in both boys' hearts.
Fred crouched, squeezing through the narrow exit first. Cold, fresh air rushed into his lungs. He gulped it greedily, shaking dust from his red hair.
George scrambled out after him, on hands and knees, gasping with relief and triumph.
"I told you, that diary—"
The words cut off.
His smile froze.
Then cracked.
Then fell away completely.
Yes, they had made it out.
Yes, this was the third-floor Charms corridor — exactly as the diary had promised.
But that crucial word it had written… safe…
Now sounded like the cruelest lie of all.
The corridor held no moonlight, no starlight streaming through windows.
The only illumination came from a single lonely oil lamp floating in the center.
Its flame was no bigger than a bean, casting a feeble yellow glow onto the ancient stone bricks. The flickering circle of light only made the surrounding darkness seem deeper, more suffocating, as though it could swallow everything whole.
Beyond the edge of the glow, at the end of the shadows—
a figure stood in silence.
A figure they would rather stumble upon a colony of Acromantulas in the Forbidden Forest than encounter during a night-time escapade.
Argus Filch.
Hogwarts' caretaker, like a gargoyle born from the castle's darkest corners, stood there wordlessly. In his arms, his scrawny Maine Coon, Mrs. Norris, stared with her bulging, lamp-like eyes, glinting red in the gloom, mirroring her master's malice.
Filch did not speak at once.
He only looked at them, the wrinkles of his weathered face contorting into a twisted grin. It was not the gleeful grin of someone catching students red-handed. No—this was something darker, crueler. The smile of a predator savoring the fear of prey moments before the kill.
He had been waiting. For a long time.
A chill shot from Fred's soles straight to his crown. His first instinct was to retreat, to dive back into the safety of the hidden passage. He and George spun around sharply—
Only to have the last of their hopes shattered.
The painting of the "Snoring Fat Friar" they had just crawled out of had vanished.
In its place stood a cold, seamless wall of stone. Not a single crack of light seeped from between the bricks. It was as if the secret passage, the entrance itself, had never existed.
Their escape—cut off.
"Heeheehee!"
At that moment, from the other end of the corridor—the direction leading back to the Gryffindor common room—a shrill, gleefully malicious voice pierced the dead air:
"Caught the little night-wandering rats!"
Peeves.
"Caught the two red-headed Weasleys! About to get hung up and spanked!"
His jeering cries echoed through the corridor, bouncing from wall to wall with that peculiar sharpness of triumphant mischief, ensuring the entire castle would hear.
This was a trap.
Not a suspicion. Not a hunch. But a hard, undeniable truth.
It struck them like a frozen iron hammer, smashing into their skulls, leaving their vision blackened, their ears roaring.
That diary.
That mysterious, omniscient, talking diary—
It hadn't helped them.
It had betrayed them.
Every single piece of intelligence it had provided, every secret of the passage, every assurance of "safety"—all of it had been part of this elaborate snare. Each hint, each breadcrumb, had served one purpose: to lure them, like mice chasing cheese, perfectly, precisely, into this carefully crafted dead end.
"Good evening, young masters of the Weasley family."
Filch's voice finally rasped through the silence, as dry and grating as sandpaper against bone. Each word was sharp, sinister, terrifying.
"It seems luck is with me tonight."
He raised the oil lamp.
The wavering glow stretched his shadow—and that of the cat in his arms—into grotesque, looming shapes across the wall, monstrous forms that crept closer with every sway.
He began to walk.
One step.
Then another.
Slowly, deliberately. His boots scraped against the stones with a grating shhh… shhh…, a sound that set their teeth on edge. He savored their terror, the sight of their faces drained of blood, frozen with dread.
Cold sweat slid from their temples, soaking into their hair.
Their hearts hammered inside their chests—not from excitement, but from primal fear.
A hunt with no escape.
A chase steeped in despair.
Had officially begun.
~~----------------------
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