 Wowza!
It was a steep way down and Levi did not go about it gracefully; the last few steps were particularly rough. Somewhere along tumbling down the stairs, the sixth year lost the invisible shield, and something warm trickled down his chin. Standing up took a moment and some effort, and he allowed himself to courtesy to groan. Dark as it was, it was difficult to spot if bruises were somehow appearing faster than humanly possible, but it felt like it did. His tongue darted out, licked his bottom lip and the boy tasted blood again; no doubt the scratch from before had turned into a full blown split lip by now.
Blindly, he reached for his wand and pointed it what he hoped was his face. He thought of tissue coming together to seal and heal, and muttered, "Episkey." Whatever pain there was began to dull and Levi didn't think it would be incorrect to assume that the spell had been successful.
Lumos was cast afterwards to light the way, and the walk to what he could only assume was the Shrieking Shack felt quite eternal. There was no point on imagining what he was supposed to find in the ancient structure other than mots and dusts and maybe even a boggart or two. Neither of which were particularly exciting options, to be sure, but all were easily dealt with. Or perhaps that was it; perhaps finding the Shrieking Shack signalized the end of the second task and inside there'd be a Ministry official with a portkey to instruct him to use to get to the stands.
Surely dreaming was not a sin.
But the end of the tunnel was near and Levi could see what appeared to be a door. For whatever reason, his heartbeat sped up and he reminded the traitorous organ that after a dementor and a murderous tree, anything else would be as easy as stealing a cauldron cake from a toddler. Not that he would or had any experience on the matter, but.
Well. If he was sufficiently hungry and left with no other choice, he probably would still half of it.
Anyway.
Instinctively, he looked over his shoulder and pointed his wand at the darkness he was leaving behind. That he couldn't see anything was irrelevant; a Ministry official had fooled him with an impressive disillusionment charm for the first task. But there was some comfort to be found here, at least--for one, he didn't feel like he was being followed or watched.
With his empty hand, he grasped the ancient door knob and pushed, hoping it would open, revealing what waited for him inside.
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