Chapter 36
Secretsss
A couple of weeks passed without any real news about the war. This was most likely a good thing, as it meant that nothing terrible enough to be considered newsworthy had happened. As it was, the Daily Prophet did their best to exaggerate whatever did happen to make it more terrifying, though it didn’t quite have the same effect.
Unfortunately nothing new had happened with the Half-Blood Prince either (with the exceptions of Hermione finding a new book on Godric Gryffindor and Ron coming up with a couple new hare-brained theories on how Wulfric Gryffindor could still be alive), which only meant more confusion and frustration for Harry. He hadn’t been back to visit the hidden Astronomy Tower room where Rowena Ravenclaw’s third diary supposedly was hidden since before the Christmas holidays. He knew that if he did so it would get his hopes up only to have them dashed to pieces as he realized, yet again, that there was nothing there.
Despite the frustration caused by the missing third diary, Harry found the brief lull in the war refreshing. He was even able to relax slightly. He was doing well in most of his classes (which was surprising as getting good marks had been pretty low on his list of priorities this year), and was thrilled about the progress most of the members of the DA were making. This was a source of no small amount of personal satisfaction to him, and the one thing that truly made him feel like he was doing something to fight Voldemort. One of the students in whom he was most proud (and baffled by) was none other than Theodore Nott. Ever since the first day Nott had shown up he had practiced with a dogged determination evocative of Neville the year before when he had found out that Bellatrix Lestrange had broken out of Azkaban. It was as though he were preparing himself for an anticipated, real-life encounter with a Dark Wizard, not just for some hypothetical, what-to-do-if-this-ever-happens type of scenario like the rest of them. Some of the other students (primarily Ron, Seamus, and Dean) still didn’t trust Nott and repeatedly questioned Harry’s wisdom in letting him join, but he paid them no attention.
While he didn’t think Nott was spying on them, Harry was still immensely curious as to what his real motives might be. Consequently he paid more attention to Nott whenever he saw him around school. He noticed, just after the altercation with Malfoy in the hallway and after Nott had first joined the DA, the rest of the Slytherins seemed to have ostracized him from their table in the Great Hall. He sat alone at the end of the table, several feet from his nearest classmate and spoke to no one. Similarly he walked through the corridors alone and sat alone in every class. Malfoy and a few of the other Slytherins whom Harry knew to be especially proud of their pure-bloodedness would occasionally shoot him dirty looks or make a snide comment or two as they passed him, but for the most part they left him alone. Interestingly enough, he had been completely indifferent to this treatment and almost seemed to prefer it. As time went by a few other students had joined him at his end of the table; a second year whom Harry had never noticed before, a tall, slender girl with curly blonde hair, and Thadius Rentley, the short, husky boy they had Defense Against the Dark Arts with. They seemed to be joined by one or two new students every week. It was apparent that a division of sorts was occurring within Slytherin House.
In addition to the time he spent with the DA, Harry also began playing Quidditch again. While he hadn’t rejoined Gryffindor’s team (Harry doubted he ever would while Voldemort was still around), Ginny had convinced him to join an inter-house group of students who played a couple times a week just for fun. Persuading him hadn’t been easy. He had returned to his dormitory after class one day to find a strange letter on his bed. Upon opening it he realized it wasn’t a letter at all, but a ransom note.
‘If you ever want to see your Firebolt again meet me at the Quidditch pitch. Alone. Right now.’
Unamused, he jogged out to the pitch to find Ginny, Gryffindor beaters Jack Sloper and Andrew Kirke, Seamus, Ravenclaws Terry Boot, Eddie Carmichael, and Stewart Ackerly along with a couple younger Hufflepuffs Harry didn’t know all flying around on their brooms playing a makeshift game of Quidditch. As he came to the outer boundary of the pitch Ginny swooped up to him with a cute, innocent smile and called out, “Hey everyone, look who’s wants to play! It’s Harry!” The rest of the players called out for him to join in and a short argument ensued about whose team would get him. Though he was reluctant to join at first, once he had found the Firebolt (Ginny had stuffed it in a bush on the other side of the pitch and acted completely surprised that it had been in there) and flown around the pitch a couple times (Ginny suggested he ought to try it out, just to make sure it was ok), he couldn’t resist. He spent the next couple of hours playing and felt quite disappointed when it was time to go in for dinner. Ginny knew him all too well.
Harry knew inside, however, that this temporary lull in the war wouldn’t last forever, that it was only a matter of time before Voldemort again engineered some horrible tragedy. He was right.
They had been sitting in a rather uneventful Transfiguration lesson, Professor McGonagall lecturing on the intricacies of turning an inanimate object into a living creature (she demonstrated by turning Neville’s book bag into a small hedgehog), when they heard a strange noise coming down the corridor just outside their classroom. It sounded like someone was running down the hall, yelling. As the noise grew louder they stopped listening to McGonagall’s lecture and strained to hear what the person was yelling. Once the boy was just outside their door (it turned out to be a young, male student) they heard it in chilling clarity.
“Dead! They killed her! She’s dead!”
Looking extremely annoyed that her class had been interrupted, Professor McGonagall swept out of the classroom and into the hallway. Although the door slammed shut behind her, they could hear her harsh, severe voice from inside the classroom.
“Dobson! What the devil do you mean by this, running up and down the halls like a deranged lunatic? Explain yourself!”
The boy named Dobson answered her, though not loud enough for them to hear.
Expecting to hear her shout again, Harry was surprised when McGonagall instead gave a small gasp, followed by an incredulous, “No!” A pause. “They couldn’t…how do you know this?”
Another brief silence, followed by McGonagall ordering, “Fetch me Professor Sprout,” then two sets of footsteps walking in different directions. They were left alone to guess what had happened. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t good if it had kept McGonagall from scolding a student who had disrupted her class. Within a couple minutes Professor McGonagall returned, followed by Professor Sprout, who had a very sad, compassionate look on her face.
“Susan? Susan, dear, will you come with me please?”
Every head in the classroom turned around to face Susan Bones, who was sitting towards the back of the room. Harry couldn’t recall ever having seen such a look of absolute dread and fear on someone’s face. She stood up slowly, trembling, and made the long walk to the door where Professor Sprout put her arm around her and escorted her away. Harry was fairly sure he knew what had happened. His suspicions were confirmed that afternoon.
MISTRESS OF MAGIC MURDERED
It is with the deepest regret that The Daily Prophet reports the killing of Amelia Bones, acting Mistress of Magic. Mistress Bones had served in this capacity ever since the public ousting of Cornelius Fudge, assuming control of Wizarding government at a chaotic and tumultuous time. Mistress Bones quickly became known for her clear and down-to-earth thinking, as well as her efforts in winning back the alliance of the goblins and establishing new diplomatic ties with the Centaurs and Giants.
Little is known about the demise of the Minister, though it is expected that she was killed by the group of You-Know-Who supporters known as the Death-Eaters, who…
Harry put down the special edition of the Prophet in disgust. “It is expected that the Death-Eaters killed her? Of course the Death-Eaters killed her, that’s the damn Dark Mark floating over the house, isn’t it?” Unlike the rest of the students who reacted to the news with fear and shock, Harry felt only frustration and a strong desire to strike back at Voldemort.
The entire school had been gathered in the Great Hall for a special assembly called by Professor Dumbledore. The meeting had been quite short and to the point. The headmaster confirmed what had happened, spoke about the importance of unity and courage in the face of opposition, then informed them that classes would be cancelled for the remainder of the day. With that he dismissed them back to their common rooms and swept away.
“I still can’t believe they killed her,” said a distraught Parvati Patil as she took the paper from Harry.
“Yeah, you’d think if anyone was safe it’d be the Mistress of Magic…” began Ron.
“If they want to get you, they get you,” Seamus said darkly. “That’s all there is to it.”
“That’s not true,” said Ginny defiantly. “I know someone they’ve been trying to ‘get’ for years. He’s still around.”
Harry wondered briefly who she was talking about, then realized, as everybody’s eyes turned to him, that it was himself.
Hermione was about to say something when Professor McGonagall’s voice rang out over the Great Hall.
“We are done here, return to your common rooms immediately. Dinner will be served at the usual time. Now return to your common rooms!” she said sternly. “Prefects, I need to speak with you.”
The Gryffindors slowly rose from their seats and began to file out of the Great Hall. Ron and Hermione made their way through the crowd to Professor McGonagall while Ginny went off to comfort a couple of crying first years, leaving Harry to walk back through the corridors to the Gryffindor common room alone. As he walked he pondered over what it all meant.
Obviously this would be a pretty serious blow to the already fledgling morale of the wizarding public. It was just as Ron had said “ if the Mistress of Magic wasn’t even safe from Voldemort, what hope did the rest of them have? There would be more articles, discussions, and speculation in the Prophet on the immense power of Voldemort and how helpless the Ministry was to protect the wizarding public. This would be followed by even greater fear and hysteria, which was exactly what Voldemort wanted. On top of all that, they would also need to find a new Minister.
It was with these thoughts running through his head that Harry returned to the common room. Most of the Gryffindors had returned already and were talking in worried voices. A few motioned for him to join them, obviously wanting to know his take on what had happened, but he brushed them off and slumped down into an empty chair on the far side of the room. He felt restless.
From his seat he had a full view of the entire common room and all the students in it. If the reaction of his fellow students were any indication of how the general public would react to the news, they were in big trouble. They were all gathered together, talking in rushed, anxious voices, asking each other questions like ‘How do you think You-Know-Who did it?’, ‘Who’s next on his list?’, ‘Are we even safe in this school?’, ‘How big do you think his army is by now?’, and ‘Do we even stand a chance when he does attack?’. These were stupid questions that accomplished nothing except causing worry and increasing the dread and fear of Lord Voldemort. His frustration at not being able to strike back at the Dark Lord increased as he sat there, listening to the other students discussing their own destruction. Soon it became unbearable. He had to do something. It didn’t matter what, anything was better than sitting in here listening to the other students.
His mind made up, Harry practically jumped from his seat and fled the common room.
He made his way down the moving staircases and into the main corridor. He walked straight past the Great Hall, across the second floor corridor, and off towards the Northeast corner of the castle. The hidden room in the Astronomy Tower. He knew it was useless, knew that he would only be greeted by the same old boring, infuriatingly empty bookcase, but at least it was something.
As he drew nearer to the tower he passed a smaller, side corridor that intersected with his own. As he passed he caught a sudden flurry out of the corner of his eye, as if someone had just ducked around a corner to avoid being seen. Brushing it off he continued down the corridor and came to the large antechamber that opened up into the base of the tower. As he walked he tried to recall the words of conjuration Ravenclaw had given at the end of the second diary, the words that supposedly held the power to make the third diary appear and continue the trail of the Half-Blood Prince.
Arcana Fateorus.
He had said the words so often that recalling them wasn’t hard at all. Just as it occurred to him that he had no idea what they meant, he came to the bottom of the long, spiraling staircase and his attention was diverted. Too anxious to simply walk up the stairs Harry broke out into a laborious run, arriving at the top a few minutes later sweaty and panting. He went halfway up the small staircase that led to the observation deck and stopped. Making his best guess at where the hidden room was he removed his wand from his pocket and pointed it at the wall. Using the outside entrance took much too long.
“Dissipio!”
White, watery smoke shot out of his wand, bathing the hard stone surface of the wall and causing its surface to melt slightly. Making sure he had formed an opening large enough for his entire body, Harry stepped through the wall and into the hidden tower room. It was a strange feeling, moving through what had once been solid rock, and for a brief moment Harry feared it might harden while he was in it, trapping him in the wall. He came through without any trouble, however, other than hitting his shin on a small wooden stool one the other side and knocking it over.
“Lumos.”
He was in the hidden tower room, completely dark other than the light coming from the tip of his wand. Finding the small glass globe on the wall he tapped it and muttered, “Accendo”. Immediately the room was bathed in light, causing the familiar criss-cross of the wooden rafters to appear. He looked down and to the right.
The bookcase.
It was a short, plain, wooden bookcase, about waist-height and set against the wall so its open back showed the rough stones behind. It was just as he had left it “ dusty, empty, and full of cobwebs. If it hadn’t been for the fact that it held the key to stopping Voldemort’s army, Harry never even would have given it a second glance. As it was, however, he couldn’t help but feel a small wave of awe as he looked at it. Rowena Ravenclaw had been here.
Taking a couple of deep breaths he walked up to the bookcase, waved his wand, and said the words that were supposed to trigger the appearance of the third diary.
“Arcana Fateorus.”
Nothing.
“Arcana Fateorus,” he said again.
Still nothing.
“Arcana Fateorus!” he commanded, tapping the bookcase sharply with his wand.
The only movement in the room was the small flicker of light in the globe.
He tried different wand movements, different inflections of the word, tried tapping different parts of the bookcase in an effort to make the diary appear. Nothing. The all-too-familiar frustration began to set in.
Next he tried summoning charms.
“Accio book!” “Accio diary!” “Accio.” “Accio!” “ACCIO!”
No response.
Harry tried everything else he could think of. Revealing charms “ nothing. Negating jinxes “ nothing. A variety of anti-concealment spells he had read about in his personal study “ still nothing. He found himself becoming angrier and angrier despite the fact that he had known he wouldn’t find anything. He had been at it for nearly half an hour. Soon he found himself cursing Ravenclaw.
If she was looking out for the welfare of the school when she hid the diaries, then why hadn’t she left some sort of clue? Was this her idea of a joke? Why had she put together this whole stupid treasure hunt in the first place? They needed Wulfric Gryffindor and they needed him NOW. Feeling helpless and frustrated, Harry did the only thing left to do “ he aimed a heavy kick at the bookcase and let loose.
His foot smashed into it and merely glanced off, as if it had been made of stone. His toes crushed painfully in the process.
Enraged and smarting from the pain, Harry took a couple of quick steps backward and jabbed his wand angrily at the bookcase. The spell on his lips was about to destroy hundreds of years of tradition, but he didn’t care.
“Reducto!”
A dull, low, clunking sound. A cloud of dust in the air, the cobwebs cleared, but the bookcase itself remained completely unchanged.
Tired and utterly defeated, Harry leaned against the wall opposite the bookcase and slumped to the floor. What more could he do? He didn’t even care about making the diary appear, all he wanted was to see the bookcase react in some way to something he did. Yet it denied him even that simple satisfaction. There it stood, straight across from him, mocking him with its stubborn emptiness.
He sat for a few minutes, head in his hands, staring numbly at the wall. An idea came to his mind.
Why not? He had tried everything else. He pointed his wand at the bookcase.
“Dissipio,” he muttered.
The white smoke shot out, engulfing the bookcase and the wall behind it. Sure enough, the bookcase remained completely unaffected by the spell. The wall behind it, however, seemed to melt under the influence of the dissolving spell. Harry picked up the stub of a burnt-out candle that had fallen on the floor not far from him and flung it at the bookcase, just to see if the wall behind it had indeed become permeable. Surprisingly it went straight through the stone, presumably into the thin air on the other side and plummeting to the bottom of the tower.
Amused by this paltry victory, Harry crawled across the floor to the bookcase and stuck his arm through the hole in the wall. While the stone was almost two feet thick his arm was long enough to reach completely through it. He felt his hand emerge through the other side into the cold, winter air. It was a most peculiar sensation. He put his other arm through, thinking how strange it would appear to someone walking by outside to see an arm protruding from the stone. As he thought this the stone around his arm began to harden. Not wanting it to get trapped in the wall he quickly withdrew it and watched as the rock solidified.
As he watched this, something peculiar in the rock caught his attention. The stone that Hogwarts was built out of was mainly a dark grey color with the occasional fleck or vein of some other, lighter colored stone in it. While the stone just in front of him had many of these lighter colored flecks, there was one spot that seemed lighter than the rest. It also had a peculiar, curving shape to it, quite unlike the rest of the markings in the stone. It was placed right in the center and a few inches down from the top shelf of the bookcase, in a spot where Harry wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been sitting on the floor directly in front of it. He was about to brush it off as nothing when he looked closer and realized that the shape of the marking was too perfect, too deliberate to be in the stone naturally. Someone would have had to etch it in by hand, or put it there with a spell. As he ran his fingers over the small marking (it couldn’t have been even an inch tall) he realized it was indeed an indentation in the wall, a small, curvy ‘S’ shape that almost looked like…like…
A snake.
As he thought this he was reminded of a similar symbol, one he had seen during his second year in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. He had spoken to it and it had revealed a secret passage, something that someone hundreds of years earlier had tried to hide. This particular marking seemed much cruder and less obvious than that one had, but what if he tried talking to it anyway?
Knowing he was being stupid but past the point of caring, Harry began to weave his head back and forth, mimicking the motion of a snake. He looked at the small etching in the stone and spoke.
“Show me your secrets.”
Silence. Nothing happened.
Not sure he had spoken in Parseltongue, he decided to try again. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and did his best to clear his mind of all emotion. He pictured the boa constrictor he had seen at the zoo when he was younger, the one he had set loose on Dudley. He saw it “ pictured its smooth slithering motion, the hypnotic movement of its head. The forked tongue flitting in and out of its mouth…
“Show me your secretsss.”
There was a low whooshing sound as if a breeze had just swept through the room. As he opened his eyes Harry found that the small snake marking had changed. It seemed to be glowing a pale, ghostly white color. His mind already resigned to the fact that the bookcase was a dead end, it didn’t quite register at first that something had just happened. He looked down.
There was something on the bookshelf.
Now it registered. His breath caught in his throat. His eyes grew wide. Was it real? Had it really worked? His heart began thumping in his chest.
There was something on the bookshelf! It hadn’t been there before
As he stared numbly at it he realized it wasn’t a book, but a small sheet of yellowed parchment with harsh, black writing on it.
THERE WAS SOMETHING ON THE BOOKSHELF.
He continued to stare with an awe that bordered on fear. It was several minutes before he dared to move. Then slowly, hand trembling, Harry picked up the ancient parchment. It appeared to be a note of some kind.
Victory!
Our battle won
the spoil plundered,
the Traitor’s seed never
to be discovered!
Should ye desire the path to Slytherin’s Captive,
seek thou the place where our dead brethren slumber.
Within the Defender’s cold embrace thou'llt find
the next key thou needest to find our plunder.
But friend of Slytherin beware,
lest the enemy thy purpose discover.
Our noble design foiled, the battle lost
and nature’s true Order again perverted.
Wand in one hand, cryptic parchment in the other, Harry left the hidden tower room the same way he had entered and flew down the stairs towards the headmaster’s office.
Harry Potter and the Legacy of the Founders by VoldemortsPatronus
Chapter Notes: Here you go. One of my favorite chapters. I hope you like it.