Chapter 4 - Tunnels - preview

Lotte

“How did you find this?” George asks.

“Well, there’s a hidden door in our closet. Chantal found it.”

“Hm. Guess there’s no surprise there.”

“What? Why?” Chantal exclaims.

“You’re the girl who practically knows everything about everybody. You’ve got the ears to hear what everybody’s saying and the eyes for both normalities and abnormalities. As far as we know, nobody has ever found that door. Not even the previous owners of that room. If anybody was to find it, you would,” Fred explains.

“Um, thanks?”

“But where does this tunnel lead to?” Hermione asks.

“This is really only one tunnel in the network of tunnels. That network leads all the way through the lower part of the school, so basically everywhere the school is build underground. There’s a tunnel leading to the other building, one to the locker room, one to the gym. You get the point. This tunnel is one of the tunnels to the dormitories. Not all rooms – ” Fred says.

“ – have hidden doors, by the way. Basically the doors are in specific rooms, like yours, the largest on this floor. There’s a door to the smallest room on this floor as well. The same is one every other floor of the dormitories. Every largest and smallest room have a doorway into the tunnels. But rarely anybody can find them,” George finishes.

“So, is there a door in your room?” I ask.

“Yes, we’ve got the smallest room on the minus fourth floor.”

“Okay.”

“Hey, we wanted to ask you guys something!” Chantal says enthusiastically. “We’re planning on throwing a party sometime this weekend, and we were wondering if you’d like to come. It’ll probably be mostly fourth years and some fifth years, but it could be fun.”

“Sure, we’ll be there,” George says.

“What’s a party without us?” his twin laughs.

“Is there anything we could bring or help organizing?”

“I don’t know yet. We just decided we’d give a party,” I answer.

“Well, let us know!”

After that, they turned and walked on.

Chapter 3 - Warm Welcome

Becky

The door falls open, the lights turn on and we look into the room. The room before us was completely and ridiculously huge, and surprisingly empty.

We walked inside and the door slowly close behind us.

“Oh, I’ve read about that! The doors are sensitive for larger organisms. They open whenever an animal or a human being wants to leave. They don’t open to the people outside, unless the owners of the room have given them permission to enter. That’s so incredible! And completely safe!” Hermione shrieks enthusiastically.

Okay, she’s nice, but obviously studies the majority of her time, I think.

We walk on and look around, trying to picture living here. It actually doesn’t seem too bad. It seems pretty awesome.

In the back of the room there are two doors. We open the left one first and see a huge bathroom with an enormous shower, four dressing tables, a toilet and a round bath in the middle of the room, which is almost completely lowered into the ground. Above the dressing tables, the entire wall is covered with mirrors. The room itself is very light and white, but it still had a homey feel to it.

When I look at the others, I see that they already love this place.

We leave the bathroom, open the other door and step inside.

The room is entirely empty, but still huge.

Once we had a look around, we leave the room and re-enter the main room, only to find we’re no longer alone.

Someone’s standing a couple feel away from where we stand near the second door. It’s a small creature, barely one meter tall, with huge bat-like ears, eyes the size and colour of tennis balls, a pencil-like nose and who’s wearing a red sweater, green shorts and purple socks. All of which makes him the strangest house-elf I’ve ever seen, but a house-elf nonetheless.

“Hello madams! Dobby is very happy to meet you, very happy indeed!” the house-elf exclaims.

“Hello, Dobby, we’re glad to meet you too. How are you?” Chantal says. She’s always the first one to speak to someone none of us know.

“Dobby is feeling wonderful, madam. Dobby is glad to meet such kind people and very glad to help them.”

“Well, thank you, Dobby. And what are you helping us with?” I ask.

“Dobby is helping you with your room. Dobby is assigned to help you settle.”

As he says that, I look around the room. All of a sudden, the room is being furnished. Four huge double beds each fly to a corner. Out of the wall with the front door, bookshelves appear, followed by a huge amount of books flying over there to settle on the shelves. And even with all these books, half the shelves are still empty. Between the doors in the back, near where we stand, there’s now a small kitchen complete with a huge American fridge, only lacking a furnace. In the centre of the room, a huge table materializes. The table is about three meters wide and five meters tall, and it’s completely surrounded by comfy-looking chairs.

The entire room is completely overdone, but it looks awesome. I already love it. And looking at the others, I see that they love it as well.

“Dobby want to show you your dressing room. You nice girls are sure to love it,” Dobby interrupts my thoughts.

The dressing room? Is that other huge room a dressing room? Oh my god, that’s so awesome!

We all follow Dobby to the other room. For some impossible reason, it’s even more amazing than I’d imagined.

Almost every centimetre of the walls are covered. The wall between the bathroom and this room is completely covered in mirrors. Every other wall is covered in closets. Only four sofa’s stand on the floor in between, nothing else.

“Dobby has something for you, madams,” Dobby says, while meanwhile extending his hands to us. In each of his hands we see two remotes, one for each of us.

You’ve got to be kidding me! I think. Those remotes remind me way too much of a film I once saw, The Princess Diaries 2, wherein there was a dressing room with closets that were being controlled by a remote.

“Are those what I think they are?” Chantal says.

“I think they are,” Lotte answers.

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s seen the film.

“What are you talking about? What could a remote control possible have to do with anything like a dressing room?” Hermione says, uncomprehending.

“Everything,” I answer her.

She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. Well, nothing to do about that.

“Dobby would like to explain how the remotes work– ” Dobby says.

“Press a button and a door or a drawer opens, right?” Chantal interrupts him.

“Yes, madam. Dobby thinks you know what to do. Is there anything else Dobby can do?”

“No, thank you, Dobby. Why don’t you go get some rest? You’ve helped us very well, you deserve some rest,” Lotte says.

“You are most kind!” Dobby cries, a couple tears falling down his cheeks.

Before we can say anything else, he disappears with a loud bang.

It’s quiet for a while after he disappears.

But then we look at the remotes.

“So, who’s going to try first?” Chantal asks.

“Me!” I shriek. There must be sparkles in my eyes, outplaying that I’m seriously excited and enthusiastic.

I run off to a huge closet, pushes the key into the lock and turns.

“Name, please,” a calm female voice speaks from the lock.

“Um, Becky van Leeuwen?” I answer, unsure.

“Welcome, Miss van Leeuwen. Enjoy your time in here.” The door opens.

Behind the door, a huge rack of clothes appears. Dresses, trousers, jeans, shirts, sweaters, blouses, and more. In various colours.

“Um, awesome?”

“Oh! I want to try!” Lotte says.

She walks to another huge closet and unlocks the voice.

“Name, please.”

“Lotte Beeker.”

“Welcome, Miss Beeker. Enjoy your time in here.”

The door opens, revealing a huge amount of shoes. From high heels to boots and from sneakers to slippers.

“If you need another size, we’ve got all your sizes in a storage room behind this closet,” the voice says.

“Yay! Oh, I just love this!”

“Chant, you try the next!”

“Okay,” she says while walking to a door.

She fits the key inside, turn, and speaks her name.

“Thank you and welcome, Miss Lamark. Please enjoy your time in here and be careful with the belongings.”

The door opens just a crack and she sees light pouring out. Then they open completely and she sees a complete jewellery store inside. Golden and silver necklaces, beaded ones, pearls, diamonds, arm jewellery, rings, hairdressings, and more. So much more.

The three of us join her and together we look at the jewels.

“Is this all for our use?” I mutter, stunned.

“Yes, so long as you return it. They are spelled so that if you let anybody else wear it, it will burn their skin,” the voice answers.

We continue on to the rest of the room, until Chantal open a door with clothes and when she turns, she hears a sudden click.

“Guys? I think I might have found something,” she calls to us.

We join her just when she steps into the closet.

“What are you doing?” Hermione says.

Chantal doesn’t answer and we wait just outside the closet.

“Where’d she go?” Lotte asks.

“Hey, why are y’all standing out here? Come on!” Chantal tells us when she reappears for a second.

This time we follow her into the closet. When I’m inside, I see an opened hidden door.

“What’s this?” I ask.

“Well, it seems like this is a hidden passage,” Chantal answers. “I wonder where it leads to...”

“It leads pretty much through the entire school,” a voice speaks behind me.

“Hello to you too,” I say.

Behind me, two redheaded guys nod their hellos.

Chapter 2 - Good luck

Chantal

I rise from my seat and join my friends who are already moving towards Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, Professor Sprout and Professor Snape, who are handing out the right lists to the right students.

Together with my group I join the queue in front of Professor McGonagall.

When I’m up, she hands me my lists. “Welcome back, Chantal, how are you?”

“Thank you Professor. I’m fine, thank you. Glad to be back and start a new year,” I answer.

“Very good.”

I walk on and again join my friends, who are busy checking their schedules and discussing who they’d love to have as a teacher and mentor.

“I have Dumbledore,” Lotte says.

“I have McGonagall! I’m really glad about that!” Kayleigh mentions.

“I have Tonks! That’s seriously great!” Becky exclaims.

I look down at my list once I’ve joined them. My schedule is actually okay, I have an awesome Thursday with only English. Then I see the name of my mentor and I burst into a chuckling mess.

“What? What’s so funny?” Lotte asks me.

“I hope she doesn’t start laughing like a hamster again,” Simone sighs.

“That’s funny, that laugh of hers I mean,” Becky counters.

“Whaha, oh, that’s just good, haha. My mentor is Voldemort. Whahaha!” I tell them, while still chuckling.

And now they look at me like I’m crazy, before bursting into laughter themselves.

At that point Liza, Kyp, Jos and Matthijs join us, wondering what’s so funny. When the laughter has ebbed away some, we explain it to them.

“Genius! I heard he wanted to kill nearly all his mentor students last year. Good luck!” Liza tells me. “Anyway, Kayleigh, you’re still rooming with me and Kyp, right?” Kayleigh is doubling her fourth year, which explains the roommates. Otherwise you’d be roomed with someone of your own year.

As Kayleigh checks her list, I start wondering who I’m rooming with, so I pull out my list and start searching.

“Yeah, Liz, I’m still rooming with you guys,” Kayleigh answers just when I found the names of my roommates on the list.

“Beckett! Tubbs! I’m rooming with you two! Yay! And we have our room on the minus fourth floor, where the rooms for the girls are biggest! That’s awesome!” I nearly yell.

“Really? That’s great!” Becky answers.

“Yeah, but we do share our room with Hermione,” Lotte says, while looking at her list. Then she looks up and asks: “Who’s Hermione?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hermione Jean Granger. She’s that girl who aced all her tests last year. You know, that girl with a bunch of brown curly hair who hangs out with that red-headed guy, Ronald Bilius Weasley or Ron, that guy with the messy black hair and glasses, Harry James Potter, and that red-headed girl from the third year, Ginevra Molly Weasley of Ginny, sister to Ron,” I say.

“Chant, you know too many people,” Simone tells me.

“Oh, her. I heard she was nice, although mostly focused on school,” Lotte remarks.

“Well, we’ll see, won’t we?” Becky asks.

“Sure!”

“So who are you guys all rooming with?” Matthijs asks the rest.

“I’m rooming with Kyra, Simone and Lisanne,” Laura answers.

“Seriously?” Simone shrieks, surprised.

“Who called me?” it sounds from behind.

“Sirius!” Becky, Lotte and I yell.

“Hi,” Professor Black answers. He is one of our professors, but seeing as he’s actually one of our friends, we always call him by his first name.

“How are you?” I ask him.

“I’m great, it’s wonderful to be back! And how about you guys?”

“We’re good and really glad to be moving into school!” Becky answers.

“Well, that’s good! So, who’s rooming with who?” he jokes, knowing that’s what we were talking about.

“I’m rooming with Becky, Chantal and Hermione,” Lotte says. “By the way, do you know anything about Hermione?”

“Hermione? Oh, that’s easy, she’s one of the best friends of my godson.”

“You have a godson?” I ask. “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I was just wondering.”

“Haha, that’s okay, Chantal. Yes, I have a godson. You might even know him. Harry is his name, Harry Potter.”

“Really?”

“Yup. He’s the son of my best friend, who died when Harry was a year old.”

“I’m sorry, Sirius,” Becky says.

“Thank you. But back to your question, Becky, Hermione is really kind. She’s very smart and likes to follow the rules, but she’s very loyal to her friends and breaks the rules when they do, even though it might cause her trouble. She’s a very good person. I’m sure you’ll like her.”

“She sounds like someone who could belong with us outsiders,” I comment.

“Yeah, she does. I think it’ll be great to have her as a roommate,” Lotte says.

“Well, that’s good. Anyway, I’ve got to go. I have to see to it that everything for the first year students is organized. I’ll see you girls later. Maybe we could have tea, then I could introduce you to my godson,” Sirius says.

“Sounds great!” Becky answers.

“Okay, I’ll let you know when and where. Bye for now.” He turns and leaves.

For a couple more minutes, our group keeps on chatting, but then we go our own ways.

Becky, Lotte and I start towards the minus fourth floor.

As we walk down the first pair of stairs, we’re greeted by loud and happy barking.

“Good morning to you too, Fluffy!” I say to the three-headed dog that guards the lockers and the stairs in the first basement, minus 1. I walk to him and stretch out my hand.

For a second or so, Fluffy sniffs my hand before licking it. Then he moves one of his heads underneath my hand , and his other heads under the hands of Becky and Lotte, who’ve also extended their hands towards the dog.

“Hey, be careful!” a voice yells behind Fluffy. A few seconds later a red-headed guy appears and yet another few seconds later another red-headed guy appears. The two of them look so much alike they could be nothing but twins.

“Hey, look, Fred! It seems like Fluffy made some new friends!” one of them says.

“Seems like it,” the other answers. He’s the one who’d yelled at us to be careful.

“Fred and George Weasley, right?” I ask them.

“That depends on who’s asking,” the guy who I think is named George answers.

“My name is Chantal.”

“Chantal? Fourth year, right? You’re the girl who apparently knows everybody and the girl most people seem to know very little about. Anyway, my name is Fred, and my twin here is George,” the first guy answers.

“Hi. As I already said, I’m Chantal and these are Becky and Lotte,” I say while pointing at my friends.

“Very nice to meet you,” George answers.

“So, how did you manage ...” Fred starts.

“... To get Fluffy to like you?” George finishes.

“We’ve all got dogs at home and Chantal’s mom is a dog listener and a dog trainer,” Lotte answers.

“Which means she learns people to treat their dogs in such a way that is understandable for the dog, for it is the same treatment a wolf in a pack gets,” Becky explains.

“Okay, well, well done then,” George says.

“Thanks, and now, if you don’t mind, we’d like to go downstairs and get settled before dinner,” Lotte says.

“We’d be more than willing to help, had it not been the case that we have to make some preparations for the first year’s introduction tomorrow.”

“Bye.”

I look at Lotte while I follow her and Becky past Fred and George and down the stairs.

What is up with that girl? She acted kind of harsh for the situation, I think.

Once we’re out of hearing distance, I ask her what’s up.

“I just wanted to start getting settled, instead of talking to popular people,” she answers.

“Do you even know anything about them?”

“Not really, I’ve just heard about some of the people they hang out with.”

“That explains a lot, seeing as how they’re not really the typical popular people.”

“I don’t really care.”

“You know what, maybe you should get to know them. They’re not as bad as they might seem.”

“Maybe.”

“We could throw a party and invite them,” Becky options.

“Sounds nice,” I answer.

“Very well,” Lotte agrees.

It stays quiet after that, until we reach our room. A girl is standing outside the door. She looks up as we near her.

It’s then that I recognize her.

“Hi Hermione! You can’t get in?” I ask her.

“Um, hi. And no, I can’t. One of my roommates has a key in their folder.”

“Then it’s good we’re here. I’m Becky and these are Lotte and Chantal. We’re your roommates.”

“Oh, hi! It’s good to meet you!”

Meanwhile Lotte, Becky and I search our folders.

“I’ve got it!” I say.

“Well, don’t stand there holding it up, get us inside!” Becky jokes.

I fit the key into the lock and turn the key. Then the door falls open and the lights go on.

Chapter 1 - Everything changes

Chantal

“Beck, I claim the seat next to you!” I shout over the noise.

“Okay,” she answers.

“No! I wanted to claim that seat!” Lotte yells, hurt.

“There’s still room on my lap,” Becky jokes.

“No, thanks. I’ll wait my turn then. For the time being I’ll just claim Laura.”

Laura hasn’t heard a thing, so Lotte pinches Laura in the side. As answer Laura squeaks. And as an answer to that, everybody bursts into laughter, which is pretty much the usual result when somebody pinches her.

“What?!” Laura says, undignified. She’s the only one who’s not amused.

“I’m sitting next to you,” Lotte answers when she has finally stopped laughing so hard.

We are standing in line for a rollercoaster at Walibi World. It’s the last day of our summer holidays. Tomorrow it’s back to school and moving out of our parents’ home and moving into school. Tomorrow my parents and I will part ways. They’ll move to the Veluwe and I will move into school.

Our school is a grammar school with an education program with a duration of 6 years.

So, to honour or last day of total freedom this summer, we decided to go to Walibi, and now, here we all are.

Our group exists of quite some people; Becky, Lotte, Laura, Jos, Kyra, Matthijs, Kayleigh, Liza, Kyra, Lisanne, Simone and me. Most of us are fourth year students, or sophomores, only Jos, Kyra, Matthijs and Liza are fifth year students, or juniors.

“Hey, what are we eating tonight?” Jos yells suddenly.

It’s only 11 o’clock in the morning, but of course Jos is already thinking about food.

“Who cares? We’ll go to a snack bar or pizzeria before we go to the cinema,” Simone answers.

Everybody agrees.

After ten more minutes we finally get on the rollercoaster.

The rollercoaster ride lasts about a couple of minutes, but we don’t care. We get inside and scream just because we can.

And afterwards we continue on to the next rollercoaster and when the park closes at 8 o’clock, we’ve seen practically every corner of the park.

“God, that film was awesome!” Becky exclaims as we leave the cinema.

We’d just seen Despicable Me and are now on our way home.

“ ‘It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!’ ” Kayleigh quotes.

“ ‘Let’s go and destroy another game!’ ” Lotte counters.

“ ‘My caterpillar never turned into a butterfly.’ ” Becky then quotes.

“ ‘You will not cry, or sneeze, or barf or fart. No annoying sounds.’ ”

“ ‘Does this count as annoying?’ ” Becky squishes her cheeks.

“Whaha! Awesome!”

“ ‘I go to the moon, I shrink the moon, I grab the moon, I sit on the toilet…’ ” Kayleigh says.

“ ‘Oh, look at you. A little, tiny toilet for a little, tiny baby… Ah curse you tiny toilet!’ ”

“ ‘When we got adopted by a bald guy, I thought this would be more like Annie.’ ”

“ ‘Unicorns, I love them. Unicorns, I love them. Uni-uni-unicorns, I love them. Unicorns. I could pet one if they were really real, and they are! So I bought one so I could pet it. Now it loves me. Now I love it. La-la-la-la-la,’ ” Lisanne suddenly quotes.

“You know, Lisanne, now that we’re moving into school, you could actually get a unicorn,” I say.

“Yay!”

“ ‘Why are you wearing pajamas?’” Becky starts quoting again.

“ ‘These aren’t pajamas, this is a warm-up suit,’ ” Lotte answers.

“ ‘What are you warming up for?’ ”

“ ‘Stuff.’ ”

“ ‘What sort of stuff?’ ”

“ ‘Super cool stuff you wouldn’t understand.’ ”

“ ‘Like sleeping?’ ”

“ ‘They are not pajamas!’ ”

“Guys! Please! I know we just saw the film, but could you please stop talking about it!” Simone practically yells.

“Sorry!” Becky says.

After that, it’s quiet for a little while.

“So, guys, when is the next train leaving?” Laura asks.

“We have about half an hour to get to the station. We can easily make it in about 15 minutes, so we’ll be one time,” I say.

“Okay, thanks.”

“So, are you all looking forward to tomorrow?” Matthijs asks.

“Yeah!” all of us fourth year’s yell. We are all really excited about moving into school, although some of us will really miss home.

After that, on the way home, we spent talking about school and laughing about nothing in particular.

By the time I go to bed that evening it’s about 3 o’clock.

“Everybody please be seated,” it roars through the auditorium.

Looking at my friends, I sit down and turn my focus to the front of the room.

Professor Dumbledore and all the other teachers are seated in half a circle on the stage.

Once everybody is seated and has gained enough sense to shut up, Professor Dumbledore rises, walks to the front of the stage and starts talking.

“Good morning, students. Welcome back at the Coornhert Gymnasium. You’ve all successfully finished your first three years. Right now, at this exact moment, nearly every aspect of your lives will change. The last three years you’ve begun to form a basic ground of knowledge. Right now, you’re going to start making the decisions that will influence the rest of your lives. So take good care to make the right choices.

“Furthermore, you will all move into this school. You will start to get used to living like a college-student. You will get more responsibilities for your actions, so that you learn how you’ll be able to manage life outside of this school. In this we will guide you. Living inside this school will also give you more opportunities to ask questions, get help and build a bond with your fellow-students and the professors. Another pro is that you will have full-time access to all the school’s facilities. Use them wisely.”

Lotte, Becky and I look at each other, already knowing what the next three years will mean for us: fun!

“Furthermore, every month, you’ll be given a trust fund. This money is for you to spent on food and school-stuff. To make sure you can’t misuse the money, we’ve made is so that you can’t use it outside this building, for it doesn’t look anything like the Euros. Be careful on how much you spent, for you will only get a certain amount of money each month, and nothing more. Let this be a warning to you all.

“Then a couple of standard rules. First up: Every weekend and every day after school, you’re allowed to leave the school grounds to visit family and friends and go into town. The only rule being you’ll be back on the grounds at eight o’clock on school days and ten o’clock in the weekends. After ten o’clock on school nights and ten o’clock in the weekends, all students are to be inside the main building of the school. Celebration days and Fridays count as weekend. During the summer holidays, the schools are closed. During every other holidays, the students are allowed to come and go, so long as they are back before the lesson commence again. Also, boys and girls are not allowed to be in the room of one of the other sex. They’re also never to spend the night together. The rest of the rules have been explained to you in the years before. However, because some students tend to be forgetful, you’ll all get a list of the rules along with a list with the specifics of this school year, a list of the rooms and roommates and your schedules. But before you can get those and leave, I have one more thing to say. The next three year you’ll have the same mentor. They’ll be your personal guides through the oncoming years. Any questions you might have, will be answered by your mentor. The mentor who’s assigned to you will also be mentioned on your schedule. And now, off to your rooms and the studying of yet another year. Off you go now!”

Logo for the Fanfic

Hi!

I decided the fanfic could use a logo, so I made one.
I hope you like it!

Greetings

Hamster!

Introduction

Hi everybody!

Welcome to my new blog!
As is written in description, this is a prequel to a story me and my friends Beckett and Tubbs made up. It stages our school in a fantasized manner.

I hope you like it, and if you've got any suggestions for the story, please let me know and I might add those to it.

Greetings,

Hamster