Jail Break

Jude shook his head. There was no way he was just going to give away the information he'd gathered. It had taken him months to build up the collection he had, and he wasn't about to just give it away for free. "What's in it for me?" he asked.

He wasn't surprised that she liked the boys. They were only 11 but she already seemed to enjoy the subtle art and science of flirting. "Quidditch," he replied without hesitation. He couldn't wait until he could join the team. He just hoped that he didn't get some sort of injury that would prevent him from playing. That would be embarrassing.

"I'll consider it," Jude replied to her with a wink. He wasn't quick to give in about things that he put a lot of hard work into, especially if there was no guarantee of some kind of reward.

He saw her look of distaste at his mention of Quidditch. He could see not wanting to play it though, if she really didn't want to. It also wasn't very surprising that she was willing to watch it for the boys, since boy watching seemed to be her activity of choice.

"I will, obviously. Both the beaters are graduating this year, which means there's two opportunities for me to get in," he said.

Jude snorted. "As if. It would never happen," he smirked. It was obvious that she had not seen him practicing on the field ever. True, first years weren't allowed their own brooms, but that didn't mean that they couldn't borrow them from the broom shed. He was still very good, even on a crappy, outdated school broom.

"Listen Princess, I'll show you sometime why that's complete rubbish."

They continued to walk along the tunnel until they came to another door. He stood back to let her go first in a gesture of politeness. "Ladies first," he said.

Jude rolled his eyes. "Just trying to be nice," he said. "But I suppose if you don't want me to be nice, I can be mean."

He shrugged, then looked around. It was a bit dimmer, but it was obvious that they were in some sort of room. It was smallish, probably about half the size of the Slytherin Common Room, and was decorated with very old fashioned furniture. A thick layer of dust lay on every surface.

"What do you think this place is?" he asked.

Jude made a face of disgust, then pretended to vomit. He even felt a little sick. "I'd rather be Avada'd than be known as that," he said truthfully. If anyone took him for anything other than a snake, he was liable to hex them right then and there.

"I've got no clue," he replied.

He stepped further into the room, small clouds of dust floating upwards from where his feet landed. "This is disgusting. Don't the house elves clean here? Someone should tell them to do their jobs properly," he said.

Jude was still truly disgusted by the room. Nothing in his house ever looked anything even remotely close to this. His father made sure that the house elves did their jobs, like they were supposed to.

He walked around the room but touched nothing. He didn't particularly want to get some kind of disease from whatever might be lurking in there. "What am I looking for?" he asked.

Jude glared at Aurora. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a proper response," he said haughtily. "If you're so interested, look harder."

Nevertheless, he moved to the other end of the room to look. He couldn't see any sort of papers or anything, although there was a desk. He opened each of the drawers in turn but they were empty. "Anything on your side?" he called over his shoulder.

Jude felt much the same as Aurora did. "Come on let's get out of her. Just being in here makes me feel sick," he looked around the room in disgust one last time before going back into the tunnel that had taken them there.

"I can't believe they ever thought such a thing would work," he remarked.

"It doesn't matter, whoever it is is dead now," Jude replied, shutting the door to the awful room behind them. "Let's just get out of here, I'm sick of being down here."

He remembered that there was still one tunnel that they didn't explore, but he didn't know if he would ever be able to go down there again. They walked away from the room, back up the tunnel to where the mirror was, then down the other tunnel that led them to the fork. He stopped where the four tunnels met.

"Your choice, leave, or look in the last one?"

Jude nodded and walked alongside Aurora, although he was getting quite bored with the tunnel, as well as still feeling a little sick from the thought of being forced together with the Gryffindors.

There were more rats along the tunnel. "Think there will be anything worth seeing down here?" he asked; he very much doubted there would be but he was interested to see what Aurora thought.