A Wizarding Quest
Author Note: Typically, I add constraints at the end, but there are some subtle references that could benefit from a bit of context. This was written in response to a question. A reddit user fancied using an invisible chair in the Harry Potter Universe. They wanted to know how to make a story interesting without the chair having any other noteworthy traits. So the referenced “owner” and “friends” are meant to address the HP Universe constraint while remaining outside of Rowling’s copyright domain.
This was a terrible idea and Addie Arlington knew it. But 'terrible ideas' were hallmark traits when it came to completing her assignments. It wasn't her fault she had been given an impossible task in order to graduate. How else could someone seem to successfully levitate if not standing atop something invisible? It's not like she were part broom.
Addie had an air of lightness about her, always ready to dash in any direction should the need arise, her auburn hair always drawn back as to not suddenly turn and try to bolt with a face full of hair. Inwardly, she winced everytime she recalled the note she had left behind.
'I'm only borrowing it! I'll bring it back when I'm through! Promise!'
She omitted the bit about potentially not returning the Cloak of Invisibility. Heists were no time for long-winded messages, after all. Besides, she was trying to ignore the reason that might prevent it returning, which would be the case should she herself not return.
After evading her persuers and triumphing through several near misses, the cloak's owner and friends blindly groping at the open air around her, she was clear and away, finally standing near the stoop of her destination. Before her stood a tower of stone--one that could only be viewed while wearing the cloak, which was precisely why a visitor required it. For the tower belonged to none other than Mad Menson.
Ole Menson was a curious cur. An outcast and a drifter. Welcome nowhere and with no one. After mastering invisibility, he locked all of his secrets away in his tower and then disappeared. Some believed that he died, but another guess was more likely; he finally became the monster everyone made him out to be.
Addie marvled at the five stories of stone towering over her, which stood up from an out of the way mountain, a loan tower near a loan peak. Its banded-medal door almost seemed compressed by all the surrounding stone.
She set her hand against the cold, grey wall and then removed her cloak to verify what she had learned. The tower was now visible and she could touch it, still. Everything with Menson's invisibility was actually shifted into an alternate plain. It couldn't be seen nor touched, not unless someone did so while within that plain. And once touched, one would always be able to see and touch that object no matter the plain.
She recalled the scroll containing the tower's whereabouts and possible secrets.
'Here, there be monsters.'
"Just don't touch any monsters, Addie," she said. "That or let them see you while you're wearing the cloak."
She took hold of an iron ring in place of a knob, twisted, and then heaved as she hauled open the entrance.
Lit brazers and an inner hearth led her deeper in. The fires and their mounts seemed to be the only inhabitants. There was no furniture nor any indication that anyone had ever been here.
"So how were the fires lit?" She glanced at the cloak which she had wound around her arm. "Oh, right." She looked about.
The hearth's housing protruded away from the wall to form a nook. The firelight was directed away which cloaked space in shadow--a fine place to peek into another plain.
Addie quickly drew herself into the space, merging with the dark as she faced a staircase leading to the next floor. She drew the cloak around her, then donned it completely.
Everything happened at once.
A figure stalked up the neaby steps. Its face was a hidden horror, a shaded hollow where an inset candle shone wherever it faced, which panned to the span the stairs like a searchlight as the creature ascended.
While her instincts forced her tighter into her nook, something shoved her, violently, from behind.
The room lurched and she gasped--sprawling and reaching as the figure turned her direction. She landed in a heap. Other things crashed alongside her.
Suddenly, she was face to face with the stone floor. Everything ached. She squeezed shut her eyes in pain but threw them open again wile recalling the creature. There was a spotlight about her. And the sound of a stamping approach.
Addie clawed herself into motion while wriggling to flee the cloak. She turned and scuttled backwards, spying the housed-candle trained on her as the creature reached the bottom floor.
Her back contacted something. She quickly rolled away from the something, finally coming free of the cloak and poisoning in a crouch, ready to dart in any and all directions, her gaze bounding about in search of a threat to flee.
There were harrowing footsteps... Or at least, she thought there were. But it was only her frantic heart thundering in her ears.
The something she had backed into was a large sofa with a red cloth covering. A matching chair lay alongside it, which she had toppled during her tumble. They both sat atop a rug which had an intricately winding weave of red and black.
Addie felt safe enough for the moment, allowing herself to collapse onto the rug as her waning adrenaline sent her the bill for this latest stunt. Both knees ached. As did her elbows. Her right palm was scuffed. And two of her nails were broken.
She just sprawled with her back against the rug for a time. She needed to regain control of her breathing. Everything she had touched had crossed over just like she had expected. But could the monsters still see those things? She wasn't sure how she could test that. If she righted the chair, they might see it stand up again, and that meant she would be giving away her position. They already knew she was here. She couldn't help that, but she certainly wasn't going to participate in their search.
Addie's fox-like thoughts finally honed in on one detail. "Who the heck shoved me?" The thought sat her bolt-upright to see if something else might have crossed, something that preferred spending its downtime in dark corners.
Finally, she found another piece of furniture. Opposite of the prone chair, something wooden had toppled and broke. It had long shafts and would have been tall when stood upright. It might have been some kind of coat rack, which lay with its base pointed towards the nook.
"Wait... What if I cross where something already exists?" Suddenly, she was haunted by images of emerging inside furniture. Or worse, a wall, forever entombed, trapped in both plains while participating in neither. She shuttered. "Where the heck was that cautionary statement in the reading material?"
Finally, she decided that the coat rack must have been what had shoved her. After all, she had touched it and rather violently considering how busted up it had gotten.
"We were forced apart," she concluded. "Well... This just got complicated. How do I avoid not emerging within a monster or some other impromptu alarm?"
Addie picked herself up and then the cloak. She reconsidered everything she had touched, but there was no way she could haul off the chair, much less the couch. She needed something light. Something easy to carry. Maybe a stool. Or even another chair, granted she could find a smaller one.
After limping to the base of the stairs, she peered up towards the higher floor. "Addie... I think, this might be your worst idea to date."
Constraint 1: Mundane Chair—invisible but no other traits or abilities.
Constraint 2: Harry Potter Universe
