The secret passage was everything he expected it to be... it was, a passage. WEEEE! Zeke continued down it, not looking back a single time. His wand was in his hand, and he used it to light his way better than with the glow from behind.

What was up here?

Or down here. He felt as if he was descending.

Arriving to a door, Zeke rattled the handle, testing it. His fist - with her wand on the door, he gave it a gentle-ISH shove, and to his absolute delight the door creaked open. And oh did it creak. When was the last time this place was used? Was he the first in a century? A millennia? EVER?...

No, not ever.

As Zeke stepped in, he realised what it was, a bathroom. Though it could have easily been mistaken for a storage space what with all the boxes.

"Cooooooool," he mused to himself as he slid a finger through the film of dust covering the box nearest to him. It was orange, and had W on it. It kinda looked like WWW. WAS IT WWW???

Suddenly too excited for words, Zeke - open mouthed - opened the box in front of him, carefully at first, an then with more fervour.

U-NO-POO!!! IT WAS A BOX OF U-NO-POO'S!!!!!!

....

He was already devising plans, he could think of a few people that would deserve something like this.

Just casually gliding through the corridor on one of his usual bouts about the castle, Sir Nicholas' pearly white and slightly transparent ears perked up when he heard noise coming the other side of a door.

How peculiar. Had this door always been here?

There was something familiar about it. Memories lingered somewhere in the back of his mind, precious ones at that, that was unable to come to the surface just yet.

Still, when the ghost heard exclamations of 'cooooooool' he simply HAD to go and investigate.

Floating right through the door, Sir Nicholas hardly registered that Zeke was in the room when he was reminded just what this room had been.

"Merlin's beard...."

How could he have forgotten so easily?

GOOD MERLIN.

The passage was ridiculously dark - though Natalia didn't know what else to expect; it was a secret passage, after all. She had followed the younger boy all the way here from the Gryffindor Reading Room. When they arrived to what seemed like a door, Natalia waited silently for the younger boy to open it. First the creaking sound, then the light from the other side pouring into the passage. THIS WAS EXCITING WHEEE.

Natalia waited for the boy to step out. When he did, she was finally given a good view of the room that the passage had led them to: a bathroom.

Well, to be honest, Natalia had expected something a lot more than this. Perhaps, she was hoping for an ancient suit-of-armors room, or a secret chamber for a secret Hogwarts society, or-or...even the Chamber of Secrets!

That was when Natalia noticed the orange boxes with 'W'adorned on the front. What were these? They appeared quite familiar, but she couldn't recall from where...

Just when Natalia was about to step out of the passage way, she noticed a pale figure floating into the bathroom.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

A piercing scream arose from Natalia's throat and reverberated throughout the chamber. It took her a couple moments to register the image in her head and recognize it as Sir Nicholas, the Gryffindor house ghost.

Natalia had completely forgotten that there were ghosts in this castle.

He was still standing and examining the goods, very tempted to rip open all the other boxes and claim their contents for himself, when there was a soft exclamation from a familiar voice. Before he could even GREET Sir Nicholas, the Gryffindor girl gave a VERY LOUD and UNNECESSARY scream.

Hazel eyes wide and bright, he stared at the Gryffindor girl who'd managed to keep up with him. Did she have to? "Keep your skirt on, no need to go all scaredy cat on me," jeeeeeeez.

And as for the House Ghost.

"How's it going Sir Nicholas?" Hhhhmmm? He didn't seem quite his ghostly self. "Something the matter?" Aside from of course the loud one over there that did all the RUDE screaming.

Taking the sight in one memory at a time, Sir Nicholas was pleased he was already dead so he could not drop dead from a heart attack. Not that a brave soul like himself could be taken down so easily. It had taken forty-five hacks, after all.

"Yes. Please do," he nodded, echoing Zeke's words.

Eyes on the same boy, Sir Nicholas rubbed his ears with his hands and softened his expression. "You mean besides being please that I no longer have functioning eardrums that can be ruptured?" he half teased half lamented while casting a quick glance towards Natalia. Looking past the Gryffindor for a moment, his eyes fell on one of the orange boxes and his expression softened still.

"How did you find this room?" he inquired. He had not seen Zeke go through the door he had floated through and had been too distracted to notice where Natalia had appeared from.

Natalia eyed the boy who had just told her to keep her skirt on. That was just a little goofy to say, wasn't it? Please, Mr. I'm-an-annoying-little-Gryffindor-twit, Natalia could take care of herself alright. She didn't have time to respond to that ludicrous comment. Instead, the Lioness silently stuck out her tongue at the boy and crossed her arms. BLEH.

Now, even the GHOST was echoing the boy's thoughts. "Don't take his side!" Natalia complained, stomping her foot fiercely. She thought ghosts were neutral! Especially to the members of their own houses!

The Lioness rolled her eyes at Sir Nicholas's comment about his indestructible eardrums. Well, it sure looked like those two were starting to team up against her. GREAT. It just wasn't her day. It really wasn't.

"We came from Mars." Natalia responded to Nick's inquiry before the boy could react. "We found a secret passage in the Gryffindor Reading Room that took us aaaaall the way to Mars..." Natalia exaggerated her narration by widening her eyes and demonstrating crazy hand movements. "...and when we walked through one of the craters, we found this bathroom instead." Yeah, that was EXACTLY how they came across this uncanny chamber.

"So now I am very confused." Natalia leaned against one of the stall doors, pretending to observe her surroundings in an inquisitive manner. "Are we in Mars still or are we back on Earth?"

Annoying girl was annoying... why was she hear again??? Sheesh.

Zeke returned the tongue-poking, but didn't stoop so low as to do foot stomping and arm crossing... that was for children, and he was practically a man now. B'sides, Sir Nicholas understood, so it wasn't just him... it really was HER.

He shook his head before proceeding to open another box... he wanted more goodies, and he was beginning to wonder if there were any skiving snack boxes in all of this ... stuff. Which was VERY clearly Weasley product stuff. Who left it here?

"We didn't come from Mars, she's being a goof, we came through that door," he informed, pointing back to the way they came. "I didn't even know this was here until Valery told us..." Valery? It was something with V anyway.

Sir Nicholas merely chuckled at the distress of the lady Gryffindor. Honestly, she was the one who had been overly loud just now? It was the same sort of reaction one would have expected from the ghost should Peeves have popped up with his annoying self.

He was loud as well. Obnoxiously so. Natalia was not that terrible.

"Fear thee not, Zeke. I am not daft enough to believe such a tale," he reassured the young man. That is, if the Gryffindor honestly thought the ghost believed her tale. "I suggest in the future to come up with a more believable story. Gryffindor has a long line of on-their-toes sorts."

Floating a bit more about the room while eagerly examining boxes that he could not open. "Ah yes, the lady Valeria Myriadd. She was quite font of the twins," he mused, mostly to himself than to the two Gryffindors with whom he shared present company.

Of course, Natalia never expected any of them to believe in her frivolous story. If she did, then she might as well just drop back into muggle kindergarten. It was just for fun, okay? And besides, none of them wanted to play along with the idea? Well, THEY were no fun AT ALL. So far, Natalia felt like she was the only FUN one around here, and both of THEM - the just-as-annoying Gryffindor boy and the nearly-headless ghost were just too humorless for her liking.

So this boy's name was Zeke. Natalia remembered that name after Sir Nick mentioned it, certain that it would come helpful to her when taking out revenge on that boy in the near future. Why did he have to be in the same house she was? WHY.

"Mr. Nick, Sir-" Sir Nick, Mr. Nick, same thing. "-are you ACCUSING ME OF BEING DULL?!" Because if that was his intention, then he was pretty much mentally belittling his own house! Okay, that was officially IT. Natalia was DONE of these two and their affiliation to go against HER. She might as well get out of this uncanny bathroom and divert her energy on something more USEFUL.

Turning her heels to leave, Natalia lifted her chin up and stomped her way toward the passageway that led back to the Gryffindor Common Room.

BUUUUT... it wasn't everyday that she had the chance to come across a secret bathroom. So, she stayed.

"I changed my mind. I'm staying." The Lioness announced, dragging herself toward the two knuckleheads, just in time to catch Sir Nick mentioning 'the twins'. "The twins?" Natalia raised an eyebrow. "What twins? No, which twins? The twins? THE twins?" Opening her mouth to a large 'O', Natalia examined the surrounding orange boxes again. EVERYTHING MADE SENSE NOW.

"Dull? Merlin's beard, NO!" the ghost exclaimed with an airy chuckle as he floated over closer to the lioness. "I was merely implying that if one wanted to make up a story, perhaps to get them out of trouble, it would be best to practice a bit more tact and make it more believable."

Just a bit of advice to all the overly curious Gryffindors out there.

"And I prefer Sir Nicholas, if you will."

Leaving her with a wink, Sir Nicholas returned to inspecting some of the orange boxes and trying to resist the urge to become a bit misty-eyed.

"The very same," he nodded as a sad smile graced his pearly white features. "Mostly for storage purposes, if I recall, but when that ghastly woman in pink tried to put a stop to everything worth living for around the castle, they moved their business in here for a time. You'll see if you go out through that door over there you'll find yourself in the sixth floor corridor," he explained, gesturing towards the door that had always been a bit of a struggle to budge. "Only those who knew about the twin's business had been persistent enough to pull and team up to open it. Ought to be a bit easier to open up from this side, however."

Of course Sir Nicholas knew that whatsherface was being ridiculous.

In the end he let the two talk it out, because he had better things to do... like filling his pockets with these goodies. Zeke shrunk a few boxes of the Weasley treats and tricks, and stuffed them into his jeans pockets. There was no reason for him to worry about returning to his dorm just yet, the charms would hold long enough, so casually he continued to make his way around the bathroom, examining contents of boxes and generally speaking enjoying the splendour of the secret bathroom HE had found. He was taking credit for this, whatsherface had been nothing but useless in all of this.

His ears did pique however, at the story of the Weasley Twins that Sir Nicholas told.

"Neat," he mused.

And obviously the twins never came back for their things after they were expelled, and then there was the whole Battle of Hogwarts thing, which would have been a massive distraction to everyone at the time. It was no wonder this treasure trove went forgotten... but for THIS long???

"Sir Nicholas?" he queried, "how is it that nobodies been here since? I mean, look at all the stuff here? How can people just forget this place exists?"

Two whole floors before her did not catch her attention. Yeah, there were some things that she could have changed to red, but it just didn't seem worth the energy, you know? She wanted something cool or at least different for her very last object. Just any little ol' thing wouldn't work. Especially not when she was actually putting forth tons of effort and searching the castle. She might as well see this all the way through.

She knew the Transfiguration classroom was on this floor, but even she knew that was a bad idea. AJ didn't want to get eaten over the color red. No thank you. Steering clear of that section, she continued on until she saw a door that she didn't recognize. "That's weird." She had definitely explored the castle a million times over, but this... this she didn't remember.

Of course she walked inside and the first thing she noticed was all of the cobwebs and dirty it looked. Dirt didn't bother her all at. What were those boxes? What did W mean? So many questions and so little time. For a moment she had forgotten why she was even there.

She lazily pointed her wand at a toilet. "Colovaria." Nice and red. Really did something for the unused looking restroom. Now back to those boxes...