Chapter 73: Chapter 73. The Cabal

Dinner was brought to my room by Stugg and after he came to retrieve the empty plates, I was left all alone again.

I had checked out the room I was given earlier and found out that I was a couple of floors high off the ground.

Escaping was futile though, where exactly could I even manage to go?

Aurors were still after me, and I was on the run.

It was ironic that the only safe place for me was in the house of the man who murdered my family.

Sleep came by at a high price, I needed to rest but I couldn't relax enough to.

I was up at dawn, showering early to clear the blurriness out of my eyes.

A familiar knock at the door rapped out not long after I finished dressing up for the day.

"Come in." I invited, only Stugg knocked that way.

Just as I predicted, the shabbily dressed House-Elf with a balding head walked in balancing a large tray in his hand.

"Breakfast is ready, Audric sir." He announced heartily, placing it on the table.

I usually ate by the reading table and chair provided in the room. It worked just fine.

Stugg had also taken up the habit of adding sir to my name even though I dissuaded him multiple times.

"Master has also requested your presence in his study." He informed me, his expression free of his trademark scowl. "Stugg will lead the way there after I has cleared out your breakfast tray. "

I raised a brow at this, Carleton wanted to see me? What for?

It would be redundant to go through the trouble of getting me and then putting me under the Imperius curse only to keep me in his mansion eating his food.

I would be finding out more too, it was also to my advantage. 

Stugg reappeared after taking away my tray like he said he would, I was already beyond ready for him.

We started the long confusing journey from the servant quarters to what I assumed had to be the Master Wing.

Stugg deserted me as soon as we got to the door of Carleton's study. It was clear that there was no love lost between the House-Elf and his master.

I knocked and received the directory to come in.

Carleton was behind his desk as usual, in maroon red robes this time.

Was that all that he had in his wardrobe?

He got up as soon as I walked in, stepping around his desk.

"We are going to be making a trip." Were the only words he said before taking out a pocket watch.

"Step closer to me, we will be making the trip by means of a Portkey." He explained.

"Yes sir." I managed to say in a voice devoid of my true feelings. 

I had never traveled before by means of a Portkey but I knew that it was quite uncomfortable.

"Hold on, we will be leaving in a minute." Carleton checked the time and then held out the pocket watch.

The pocket watch ticked loudly in the silence of the study as the seconds counted down till the minute would be up.

After that happened, I felt an invisible hook behind my navel violently yank me. Colors flashed by and then I was pulled to our destination. 

It was by sheer luck that I landed on my feet and even then, I stumbled a bit but Carleton handled it like a champ. 

He landed firmly on his feet and kept walking like we hadn't just been transported miles from our original position in the space of a few seconds.

I straightened up and followed after Carleton. Even though I was keeping a constant watch on his thoughts, I didn't dare to delve deeper.

The gig would all up if Carleton became suspicious of me, I would be fine because I could turn to my Animagus to save my ass but then I wouldn't get to learn the full story of the Gem of the Abyss.

The gem that Carleton planned to use me to get.

We had landed on an arched corridor, it was more of a vault. There were pillars to my left and beyond it a wide open space filled with black earth.

From what I could see, it looked like a square building with an open space at the center.

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The vaulted corridor ran through all four sides and I couldn't see and exit out of the building.

Was there one in the many rooms?

It was really big and covered in a weird mist which made it difficult to get a good look at anything that was beyond a few feet from me.

Where was this place? Were we still in Britain?

Carleton marched resolutely forward and I had no choice but to follow behind him.

He finally stopped when we got to the end of the corridor that we had shown up on, right in front of a slab of wall.

I also noticed when we first got here that while on my left side, I could look past pillars and see the open center which opened up to the dark sky.

It probably wasn't that dark but that strange mist was so thick that I couldn't clearly see the sky.

But to the right, there was nothing but a wall stretching throughout the corridor. It made me wonder if there were truly rooms behind it or if this side of the corridor was just walled in.

I couldn't confirm if the other three corridors had this same design because the mist made it hard to see.

It was like being in an old abandoned church with a poor choice of design.

Carleton leaned forward and whispered something to the wall, a low rumbling started and the wall started to part.

A password huh? To go through this many steps just to get to a place, who were we meeting?

If I wanted to guess, I would say that it was a cult filled with high-ranking and very important Wizards.

We entered an empty room, not just of people. There was not a single object in the room, there were no windows either.

It was claustrophobic.

The walls were made of stone and it smelled damp, like it hadn't been used in many years.

That strange mist made its way inside this room as well, covering the edges of the room.

It was lighted but there was no source of light, the light also didn't penetrate the edges of the room and the ceiling where the strange mist was the thickest.

Carleton walked assuredly through the room till we got to the far wall, then he repeated the words he said at the first entrance.

Or it could be a different set of passwords, I had no idea, I couldn't pick up the password no matter how hard I strained.

Was it charmed? Because that would be ingenious. A password that no one around you could hear no matter how close they stood to you.

There was that low rumble again and then the wall started to part open.

It seemed like this room was just an antechamber, the main hall itself was being slowly revealed before us.

That strange mist was in this room as well, blurring out the outer edges of the room that made it seem like the long table set out with gilded chairs around it was in the middle of nowhere.

The walls and ceiling were invisible, as well as the floor. It was still there, it was just a little hard to see through the fog.

There was already a couple of people seated at the long table but their features were indiscernible. 

As we got closer, I realized why I couldn't clearly make out their features even though burning candles placed on golden candelabras were lined up down the table.

They all wore masks.

I wondered if it was because I was here that they were hiding their identities or if it was a routine occurrence with them.

Carleton did not mask his face for one, which made me deduce that this wasn't the usual with this meeting.

Everyone seated got to their feet when Carleton walked up to the head of the long table. They were all dressed in similarly voluminous crimson robes.

They didn't resume sitting till Carleton was seated while I remained standing behind his much larger chair, pretending like I couldn't see all the masked faces turning to stare at me.

So Carleton was the leader, somehow that wasn't surprising.

"We are waiting on a few more people." One of the masked faces informed Carleton.

"Very well, we will commence once we are all complete." He decided, pouring himself a glass of wine that he charmed out of thin air.

It was most likely summoned from his mansion as conjuring food, drink inclusive was one of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration.

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