It seemed fitting that l’Hotel Déguisé where their journey began was a place that reminded Will so thoroughly of Hogwarts (and no, he wasn’t counting the disappointments of Craperdyfi Passage as the first step of their once-in-a-lifetime adventure). The walls were comprised of great stone blocks and the chilly stillness of the place certainly put one in mind of the school dungeons, though with the airs and graces of the above-ground castle. Ambiguous relics and trophies lined the walls, perched in custom-cut crevices where one might have expected torches, were the lofty reception not already lit by understated, silver-wrought chandeliers that hovered freely over their heads.

“Donc, l’hotel, c’est vieux, n’est pas?” asked Will of the porter, as he guided them to their rooms, the others shortly behind them.

“Oui.”

The trail of decorative artefacts, now evenly spaced between numbered doors, followed the students, or, rather, the students followed the trail, down a corridor, as led by the sullen porter, who was utterly wordless apart from his curt responses to Will’s attempts to communicate. The corridor described a curve as it listed leftwards and, until he adjusted herself, Will’s awkward footsteps betrayed a brisk decline: if the whole hotel itself wasn’t underground, its guests’ rooms certainly were. He made a mental note. This would be useful information if they, as he expected at least some of them might, were going to toast the beginning of their adventure in raucous style.

The group shuddered to a sudden stop. The porter stopped, so Will stopped, and the rest stopped, apparently, by bumping into their backs, so abrupt was their arrival. Will could hear somebody mutter something that sounded like “fuck’s sake” from somewhere behind him.

“Voila,” said the porter, after the fact. He handed over four keys and disapparated, just like that. The students briefly quibbled about who might share with whom, and Will was grateful that his roommate was to be Ross. Will got on well with Darren, but Ross, a typical Ravenclaw with a good head on his shoulders, was calmer: after an hour and a half of Darren and Beck verbally jousting about basically nothing in the Bow and Truckle in Aberdyfi, Will had been on the verge of hitting his head off the table. And Kyle remained sullen as always.

He thrust the key in the lock and opened the door. Everything seemed in order; two four-posters lay at opposite ends of a rectangular, stony room that had presumably been bewitched not to be icily cold, alongside a couple of chairs and a writing desk. Not a doxy in sight. A few seconds after they both stepped inside, the room worked out who they were, and Will’s black leather briefcase and the green trunk that must belong to Ross appeared at the foot of either bed. 

It wasn’t too terribly grand, but it was a damn sight better than the Crippled Kipper and it certainly wasn’t bad considering, as far as Will could tell from the letter he’d been sent a week or so ago outlining the precise itinerary of departure, O’Lustrum had paid for the hotel out of his own pocket. The students hadn’t as individuals had to part with a knut to stay in the hotel, and nor had it, as he had checked, affected the balance of at least his own bursary. He’d struck Will as a funny sort of man, that O’Lustrum, on the few occasions they’d briefly actually met, but he was respected and seemed respectable.

“So,” he said to Ross, as he opened his briefcase and removed an old guidebook, “Ever been to La Place du Fourmilier before?”