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Sirius Black SI Ch 16 How's it hanging? Part 1
🕑 Added 2023-02-26 11:57:10 +0000 UTCSirius was falling down very quickly but his intuitions promptly took over and he instantly transformed into his Beerus form mid-air, and while he was disoriented for a moment and it took him a few tries he was eventually able to use his steel-like claws to carve into the walls, they immediately slowed down his descent while producing loud irritating scratching noise until finally, he came to a stop.
He kept his body still like that for quite a while, just hanging there with his claws in the wall and breathing heavily. A few minutes passed before his drum-like heartbeats started to calm down and he could think clearly.
'That devious old witch. She created a bloody muggle trap!'
Sirius didn't want to think about it anymore as he didn't believe he would be able to control himself from hitting something so he focused on getting himself out of this position.
He did the first thing that came to his mind and started slowly crawling over the wall using his powerful paws, and while it was slow going, it was working and that was all that mattered to him at the moment.
It took him more than 15 minutes but he eventually crawled out of the hole, and the whole time the only thought that circled around in his head was, 'Don't look Down! Don't look Down!'.
He didn't want to think at all about what would have happened to him if he had fallen to the depth which didn't seem to have an end in sight and while he was 70% sure that Beth wouldn't create something that would be fatal, 'But you can never be sure with that crazy old witch,'
"I should have expected something like this from her..." Sirius mumbled as he lay on his back beside the hole, now back in his human form.
And there was a reason that Sirius wasn't on the lookout for any muggle traps. Most of the tombs or ruins that were discovered in this age were, either those created by Witches and Wizards who were at the end of their life with their life's wealth buried with them or were some kind of lair of a Dark Wizard.
So the chances of them having any kind of mundane trap was close to nil as most of them would consider it beneath themselves but there were of course exceptions. There were those select few Wizard or Witches who leave the outer protection of their lair to their muggle slaves, who would then scramble their brains to come up with crafty contraptions to impress their master.
So while you would be safe as long as you were cautious against anything even remotely magical most of the time, there was that one-in-a-thousand chance that you would encounter the aforementioned exception which would mean that you would be screwed like Sirius almost was.
"I'll be even more careful this time..." Sirius swore to himself and started his journey again.
This time making liberal use of all kinds of necessary and unnecessary detection spells, even that rare one that miners use to detect things in the soil in their vicinity.
But if it was that easy then it would be too boring for Beth.
As time slowly passed Sirius decided that Beth must have taken some kind of course in how to play with someone's mind or else he couldn't fathom how she could get so good at it.
Beth had the traps placed in such a way as if they were designed to make you as miserable as it was possible.
There would be long stretches of walks in which Sirius would encounter nothing, but a plain path that would leave him frustrated at his slow pace due to his need to cast detection spells every few minutes.
And then there would be opposite cases where he would encounter simultaneous traps of different kinds there weren't far apart from each other which would leave his senses stretched thin as he searched around himself with his wand in paranoia for if he missed some.
But fortunately for him, he was able to take ample breaks in between which was immensely helpful for his mental recovery.
"Thank Merlin, I thought ahead this time..." Sirius mumbled to himself gratefully while biting into a cold sandwich.
After the last time Beth had trapped Sirius in that unfortunate situation he made a promise to himself that he would prepare for situations like those in advance. And he didn't forget about it as he prepared a tiny handbag with an undetectable extension charm on it that he carried around with him at all times, tied around his neck.
It was filled with food of all kinds that wouldn't go bad and it was coming in very handy at the moment as it kept his stomach full which was very useful for keeping his morale high, he just didn't anticipate that he would be needing it so soon.
Many more entrapments came, some were simple while others were complex. Some looked complex on the outside but were simple at the core and vice versa. But Sirius had raised his awareness to the peak by this point and had gone into a kind of zone where he was able to find the solution spell very quickly no matter the problem he encountered.
About six hours passed like that as he cleared each of the obstacles that came before him methodically and unwaveringly and before long he came to a place that looked as if it was the final hurdle.
In front of Sirius was an elaborately decorated pedestal that was about a meter tall, and behind that was nothing but a dead end. There was a shiny emerald brooch placed on a cushion on the top and it was shown in such a way as if it was a prize for the winner.
