JPATNM ~ Chapter 14: In Which Rose's Curiosity Will Hopefully Be Sated

Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
- Henry Ford

Chapter 14:

In Which Rose's Curiosity Will Hopefully Be Sated

~ Rose ~

A whole new chapter opened for Rose with the new semester at school. At first, it felt easier to slip back to the good times she had cursing all her housemates, the moment they looked like trouble. She knew though, that this was not the kind of person she would have liked to become, or her family would be proud of. She was glad that Albus had given her that lecture, knocking some sense into her before she took it so far. During Christmas, she vaguely discussed with her Mum about ideals and competition at school, without admitting to any of the things she had done or the fact that Scorpius Malfoy might, at some degree, perhaps, kind of pose a bit of a competition during classes.

“Well, as far as studying went, I was alone. There was one class I wasn’t the best in class, D.A.D.A. Harry was better when it came to the practical side of it. Harry wasn’t someone I saw as competition though,” Hermione had said.

Ron, who had been poking at the fire across the room had turned, and said, “Of course you didn’t, you were the competition. It’s leviOsa, not leviosA!” he had mocked and Hermione had thrown a cushion in his face.

“What I mean is, use competition to elevate yourself, as a reason to learn more and be better next time. Under no circumstances do not try to belittle others to look better.”

Rose had felt a pang of guilt in her chest. Her mother’s words had hit straight home. “Not even a little?” she had asked, looking for a reason to excuse herself if possible.

“If it truly is just a little. But remember that the more you do it, the more disliked you’ll be.”

“Finally learning,” Ron had said under his breath.

Things felt quite different back at school. Everyone was cheerful, relaxed by the holidays and probably come to terms with their sorting, if they were in doubt or unsatisfied with it. Things were becoming… normal.

“Are you sure they’re not visible?” Albus asked, fumbling with his face. “They feel visible.”

“It’s just your idea because you know they’re there. Stop doing that.” She smacked his hand away with her wand.

“No wands in the hallways, Weasley!” Mr. Crubs called at her. He was mopping an orange puddle on the floor, that was spreading around his legs and sliding away from his mop, as if it had a will of its own. The caretaker’s helper cursed under his breath and changed after the slimy substance.

“Fred and James must be back to spreading panic around the school. They do it so much it’s practically a full time job.”

“That’s expected, after all the plotting they did during the holidays. It’s nice though, that they’re talking again,” Albus said.

She raised her eyebrows, as the slime rose a few inches from the floor, forming something like a mouth and hissed at the assaulting mop. “They’re doing more than that.”

Albus’s fingers went again to his face. “So you can’t see them, right?”

“No. Chill, they’re invisible, my charm works like… well, a charm.”

Rose had seen Albus in his new glasses, only because he could not avoid it anymore. His sight had improved so much with them, that after two days it was practically impossible for him to even go to the bathroom without them. The reality remained though, that he did not want to be seen wearing glasses in school. The two of them had pondered on it and Rose had considered a few solutions, none of which was very easy, or practical. They concluded that an invisibility charm was the best thing they could try.

Rose practiced a charm from a book Hermione had bought in her fifth year and even with her talent for them, it took her a few tries to make it work right. Once she managed to make only one half of the glasses invisible and another time they flickered insanely, visible and invisible and visible again, but until they were on their way back to school, she had absolutely mastered it. The spell though lasted for approximately seven hours and then she had to cast it again.

Albus was so paranoid about anyone finding out about his glasses, that he slept with their case below his pillow, so none of the other first year boys would see them on his nightstand if anything went wrong. All the nervousness and disbelief in the charm’s effect excluded, he was satisfied. Soon, he grew used to it.

“Are we late?” Rose asked. It felt as if they were waiting for hours at the edge of the fifth floor, until the stairs turned to come in front of them.

“Hagrid said at six. It’s five to six.”

“We’ll be late,” she said desperately.

“It’s just Hagrid! I think it’s okay to be a little late. He doesn’t have such a tight schedule.”

The stairs finally came, stopping somewhat abruptly and a small piece of marble was chipped off the edge from the impact. They trotted down quickly, past students walking around lazily, finally done with the classes of the day. They treaded warily outside, avoiding the paths created by other students in the snow; once night came, all of them became sneaky traps of death, as Albus dramatically called them, as they froze and slipped more than engorged seaslugs.

The giant smiled as they came in, shivering from the cold, with palms snuck underneath their green, Slytherin scarves. “There ye are! Thought sumthin’ came up, ‘nd ye wouldn’t make it!”

Albus smiled. “No, we wouldn’t do that again. We’ve cancelled enough times already.”

Hagrid bobbed his head back and forth, dark hair and beard shaking along. “True ‘nough, true ‘nough. Sit, sit, I’ve already got the kettle goin’.”

They chose two of the ginormous chairs on the table and as if in sync, they searched in their cloaks for the presents they had gotten Hagrid for Christmas. With this and that, it was February and they still hadn’t given them; they wanted to do it in person instead of sending them by owl.

Hagrid noticed them on the table, where they pushed them his way. “Ye shouldn’t have!” he said, smiling visibly beneath his thick beard. “Ye’re such adorable thin’s.” He brought a plate full of muffins in the middle of the table and took a seat, to open them. Albus had gotten him a mixture of seeds for differently coloured pumpkins, red, orange, yellow, green and purple, some with speckles and some with lines. Rose had chosen a whistle that was audible only to thestrals. “Useful stuff, thank you.”

He tried the whistle, which made no audible sound, but after a while a whine was heard from outside the hut and on the window it was as if a warm breath removed the frost on the windowpane, but no one stood there. Hagrid took an apple from a sack by the sink and opened the window. “There ye go.” A crunch was heard and an invisible set of teeth bit down on the fruit, retreating in the darkness of the forest with it. “Heh, so glad it works; half o’ those thin’s are such scams!” Rose smiled satisfied. She wouldn’t know if it worked even if she tried it; thestrals were invisible to her.

“I’ll plant the seeds come spring, so make sure ye come see how they turn up, Al,” he said to him. He placed the bag of seeds in a wooden box on the mantelpiece. “So, tell me how ye’ve been. Are thin’s okay in Slytherin?”

They shrugged. “Better than expected. But we’re not quite part of the Slytherins. We’re somewhere in between,” admitted Albus.

“We have friends in other Houses though. Some also play Quidditch with us… or, well, against us. Sometimes we split by Houses in teams, some other times not,” Rose explained.

“So ye’re likin’ Quidditch then?”

“It’s nice,” Albus said.

“What positions?”

“I’m a beater,” Rose said proudly.

Hagrid’s eyes grew huge. “Ye wee thing a beater? For Dumbledore’s sake, are ye serious? Does yer Ma know of this?”

“She didn’t take it well at first. But Dad reminded her Uncle Fred and George were beaters for many years in their teams and they never got badly injured.”

“You should come watch us sometime.”

“Will do, will do. What days are you practicing?”

Albus thought; Professor Bazel had changed the schedule after the vacation. “Saturdays at four and every second Tuesday at six.”

“‘kay, I’ll make sure t’ come then. So this Bazel guy is good, huh? The professors didn’t like th’ idea at first, hiring a squib for a teaching position an’ all. Silly prejudices I say, all of ‘em fitting us into categories. The Giant, the centaur, the squib… DeMolay is trying to take it down a notch with all the foreigners. Dumbledore and McGonagall used to hire people they knew, all British bred an’ born. I like the Headmistress’s ideas, just wonderin’ where they’ll lead the school.”

“I am glad he’s teaching here,” Rose said. “If DeMolay hadn’t brought him here, I wouldn’t know squibs could fly a broom.”

“Not all of them can. Depends on how much magic they got in ‘em. But he’s a nice lad, young an’ hopeful.” A low whine came from somewhere; Rose’s eyes flicked straightaway to the windows. “That ain’t no thestral,” Hagrid said. He swallowed a sip of his tea and stood up again, heading to the back of the hut. The children tensed on their seats, and leaned to that direction curiously. “Ye can come see, but careful, slow movements.”

The sight expecting them was the most adorable thing they had ever seen. Rose let an aww and knelt down on the floor on the right of Hagrid, while Albus peeked from his left. It was a baby unicorn, thin and silver, its legs curled beneath its abdomen and a small bump on its forehead, like the tip of a horn.

“Found tis one wonderin’ the forest fringes; he’s orphaned. Grubbly Plank speaks all gibberish about unicorns wantin’ female attention, but I don’t see her ever comin’ to nurse ‘em if needed. That little fella and I get along just fine without her.”

“Are you going to keep him?” Al asked.

“Only ‘til spring. After most o’ the frost is gone, he’ll be able to look after himself.” The foal whined again in protest. “Anyone want to feed it?” he asked.

“Can we?” Rose asked, trying to keep herself from bouncing on her heels.

“Get a carrot each.” They did and the foal shied away from Rose, but happily ate the carrot Albus was holding. “See? It picked the boy! Grubbly Plank’s got it all wrong about unicorns! I hate this woman!”

“Is she so bad?” Rose asked, while Albus enjoyed watching the unicorn munch on the carrot.

“Not so much now that we’ve split classes. We’re makin’ sure we don’t see each other too much. She got the third years this time though, so I haven’t had Freddie in my class yet. Maybe it’s for the best; I’m getting old and that boy’s a menace!” The children nodded in agreement. “Comes by a lot though, asking me this and that ‘bout dragons. Feels like he’ll be off to Romania with his uncle at this rate.”

“You think so?”

“He does read about them a lot. I saw a book about them in his room at the Burrow,” Rose confirmed.

“He’s gotta get more serious if he wants that; they’re not joking in Romania, they’re doing hard work and they won’t let him off the hook like they do here. They don’t appreciate the humour when it comes to their dragons, ye see.”

“Hagrid! He let me touch him!” Albus exclaimed happily. “Can I name him?”

“I dunno if unicorns answer to names. But do it if ye want.”

Albus sat down, in deep contemplation. In the meantime the foal shifted and got on its feet, nudging the small of Albus’s back with its muzzle. “Wait, I’ll get you more in a second…” he murmured, but was forced to turn around after a series of persistent pushes. “I said…” he trailed off, seeing the foal’s legs. Below the knee they began fading, and the hooves were completely invisible. “Hagrid? Is, is he well? Seems a little…”

“Ah, yeah, don’t mind that. I think he’s got a bit o’ thestral in him. Also the tail. Ah, forgot, you can’t see them. I might ask for Grubbly Plank’s opinion someday, if I feel like it.”

Albus let out a nervous laugh. “It’s like you’re half ghost…” he said, petting his head. “What about Casper? Sounds good?”

“Good ‘nuf for me. Seems to suit him.”

“Casper then.” Casper whined happily and licked Albus’s ear.

Rose nudged the giant with her elbow. “Don’t tell Grubbly Plank this one prefers boys more, she’ll blame it on Casper’s thestral side.”

* * * * *

Rose snapped Flights with Dragons and Wanderings Beyond shut, having finished copying what she needed about the description of the valley where the first Conference for the Agreement of Wizarding Secrecy was thought to have taken place. All that was Binns’s assignment, as expected.

“When will you let me have a proper look at them?” Rose whispered to her cousin. “It’s already been a month!”

“We need to find a safe place where no one will disturb us, I told you!” he replied in a hushed voice. Madam Pince was strolling between the tables, making sure the rules of the school library were not overlooked. She was unnerved by the presence of a Potter and a Weasley in her domain, result of previous experiences with another pairing of the two families.

“I’ve told you the perfect place already. Hagrid’s hut,” she protested.

He shook his head and ran a hand across his face, pushing up the bridge of his nose his invisible glasses. “And I’ve told you why I don’t like it. What happens when Hagrid asks what you’re reading and decides it’s too dangerous and takes the diaries away?”

She leaned her head against her palm. “I don’t know all that many hiding places… Mum wasn’t big about sharing all the secret passages at Hogwarts. Maybe she was kind of worried we’d turn out like Fred and James and not use the knowledge for particularly noble purposes.”

“But those two do! We’ll go ask them!”

“They’ll ask for the reason,” Rose noted.

“We’ll say we want it as a trap for someone! To make a joke!”

“They’ll want in.”

Albus’s face fell, disappointed. “We can just distract them with that thing that Flint did the other day; they’re sure to forget about it.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go find them.” They collected their stuff, and hurried out of the library. If someone was watching at the librarian, they’d see her exhale in relief.

* * * * *

“So let me get this straight. You need us to tell you of a good hiding place,” James said, hands crossed over his chest. Fred leaned thoughtfully with one foot resting against its gilded frame of a portrait of a bespectacled, annoyed wizard,

“Not quite a hiding place… Simply a location hard to reach, where not many students or teachers pass by.”

“And what are we going to earn for this piece of precious information?” Fred asked. The portrayed wizard above him tried to cast a spell at their cousin’s head, but the spell bounced back and as if reflected, it hit the wizard's arm It turned into a wooden log, the weight dragging the wizard off his armchair.

“What do you want?” Rose asked. It was a dangerous question. Those two could ask for the moon and stars and then some.

The two of them exchanged a look. It was peculiar how they had a whole conversation, without anything actually being said. James turned back to his brother. “Well, here’s a quick quiz. How do you get a magical map to reveal its secrets?”

Albus raised an eyebrow. He wrinkled his nose, making a grimace. It was a gesture he had picked up to lift his glasses slightly, without bringing his hand to his face, since that would be a giveaway for their invisible presence there. “Are you talking about the Marauder’s Map?”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Rose asked back. “That’s practically common knowledge.”

Fred’s face twitched slightly. The wizard in the portrait had recovered in the meantime and was shooting shoes and books and all sorts of things at him, exasperated. Maybe Fred felt them. “Then it won’t be too difficult for the two of you.”

“Do they mean the thing that you do, where you tap and say ‘I solemnly swear I’m up to no good’ thing?” Albus asked her, perplexed. Way too simple, Rose thought. All of them must have heard about a million stories about things their parents did with that map.

“Ding! And the answer is… correct!” James said, grinning impishly.

Rose tapped her foot, annoyed by James’s inexplicable excitement. “Alright, so what is it that you want in exchange for telling us about that place now?” The two of them had again one of those wordless conversations. Rose’s fingers itched for her wand, resisting hard the impulse to jinx them both. She held back, knowing if she did, they would never give them any answers.

“I’m good if you let me borrow those self-tying shoelaces from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes next Monday.”

“And?” Rose asked suspiciously, this sounding even simpler than the question.

“Tell us if it was Quincy Goyle who made the hole in the wooden corridor leading out of the castle,” he added.

Rose shook her head, finding them all absurdly strange and simple questions for such a thing. “It was him, of course. I wonder if anyone else at school has the proper size to break those boards.”

“I think Hagrid does…” mumbled Albus.

“Well, here we go then, little Slytherins. Prepare yourselves for the greatest hideout you have ever heard of. It is a little risky. But it is definitely out of the way of all indiscreet bypassers,” Fred said with a grin, removing his shoe from the frame. The wizard behind him huffed quietly and stood up, to head over to a counter where a potion was brewing.

“Oh, you’re not talking about…” James started.

Fred nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Fred assured him. “Only the best for my favourite cousins.”

“You need to be very careful with this one though, Al, because if anything happens, Mum will…” James shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about it.”

“What is this place?” Rose demanded.

“To make a long story short it’s… the Giant Squid’s nest,” James said.

“The Giant Squid’s what? Squids have nests?” Albus asked, his mouth slightly agape.

“I believe that the term lair is more appropriate, but nest sounds more friendly, doesn’t it?” Fred asked, awaiting confirmation.

“And how do we get there? I’ve seen no islands in the Black Lake.” Albus complained. It was the strangest thing they had ever heard about the castle; rooms that gave you your heart’s desire and tunnels leading to Hogsmeade sounded more plausible. But if they weren’t fooling them, that place would be just perfect.

“It is not on the lake, it’s in the lake. I’ll explain the route just once, so listen closely.” Rose leaned forward a bit. “We know two ways in and out. We only suggest the one I’ll tell you about next, but we should warn you there are more. You can go in and out of it swimming, but you have to be crazy to try this in that weather and the nest is really deep, deeper than your little Slytherin common room.

“The other way is to pull a root of the big oak that’s growing next to the shore of the lake. You’ll know it the moment you see it, because it is loose and doesn't plunge itself in the ground. Don’t freak out at that point, the soil will give in, revealing a passage that leads under the lake and to Giant Squid's nest.”

“Better use Lumos and be careful because Nifflers often dig under the school's grounds and show up unexpectedly,” James added. “And which side of the cave you came in from, because there are two more passages, but they’re dead ends.”

“So you’re saying, that we put a root and we get a tunnel to the Giant Squid’s bed,” Rose said, somewhat disbelieving.

“Yes, that’s it more or less,” Fred agreed. “Actually, better pull the root using a spell, it doesn’t give in too easily. Stubborn little thing.”

“And how do you know how to find this place?” Albus asked, scratching the back of his head.

Fred placed a finger over James’s lips before he could reveal anything too crucial. “Those are secrets of the trade.”

“Al, careful with the squid. It probably won’t care for you if it’s there, it sits in the only spot with water in the cave, but you never know.” James looked serious.

“I will.”

“And don’t try to steal anything from the cave, you greedy little things. The myth says that if you do, it will collapse,” Fred warned ominously.

Rose nodded, but discarded the notion as one of their usual theatrics. As if caves have anything worth stealing, she thought. “I hope the cave is there. ‘Cause if not…”

“No shoelaces,” Albus finished the sentence. “And it would be best not to get on Rose’s bad side,” he whispered the last part to them as Rose walked away.

She spun around abruptly. “You’ve also promised me a blue pigmy puff, Fred! I haven’t forgotten!”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t expect you to!” he called back.

Rose and Albus smiled to each other in delight for the hiding place they had been taught about. Little did they know, what the answer they thought was so obvious had offered to Fred and James and what an equal exchange of information the whole affair had been.

“When should we go?” Rose asked impatiently.

Albus thought of the hour. “We missed lunch with all that! Actually, we must already be late for D.A.D.A.!” They ran down the hallway, their joy replaced with the terror of stepping into Orianna Cemola’s classroom late. And so, the adventure was postponed. That couldn’t keep Rose’s eyes from grazing the still frozen lake though, her mind dreaming of the secret cave it hid in its depth.

JPATNM ~ Chapter 13: In Which Hidden Things Are Dug Up in the Burrow

Don’t trust anyone over 30.

- Pat Boone

Chapter 13:

In Which Hidden Things Are Dug Up in the Burrow

~ James ~

Besides the fact that Teddy had not joined them at the Burrow, this was the best part of James’s holidays. Endless hours of plotting and scheming with Fred, consuming endless quantities of Grandma Molly’s cooking and Quidditch in the snow against the rest of the family. It was pure bliss.

“We need to find it,” James insisted, tapping his finger on the notebook. On the page he had drawn a square with dashed lines and an X, to symbolise the Marauder’s Map.

“But we have looked everywhere we could think of!” Fred complained. He wanted it equally as much, but that subject was old as dust. The Map was hidden better than Rowenna Ravenclaw’s diadem. “Maybe they hid it in a vault in Gringotts, with a dragon and an army of Cornwall pixies guarding it,” he offered.

“I hope not. It sounds a bit farfetched though. It is just a map after all.”

Fred raised his arms in defeat. “I’m open to suggestions then!”

James glared at him. “I’m thinking, alright?”

Things had gotten better between them. James’s anger about Fred’s past unkind remark had been quelled and adding to the fact that Albus had forgiven Fred… he wanted his friend back and after all this time, he only needed the slightest excuse to accept his apology. The silent agreement of never speaking of the events of that night again hung in the air between them.

“Where would I be, if I were a magical map that has been used by the most notorious pranksters to ever set foot on our school?”

“After us,” Fred corrected.

“After us,” James agreed.

They were in Fred’s room, at the Burrow. Uncle George and Aunt Angelica lived there with their two children together with their grandparents. How Grandma Molly could stand having the most impish of all her sons under the same roof all year round, was something James could not understand.

“If I were a magical map…” he continued. “I would be someplace out of reach from the likes of you and me.”

“That’s quite obvious.”

“So what if your Dad had it instead? To keep it so I wouldn’t find it?” James asked. He already knew it wasn’t any of the probable, or in some highly improbable, hiding spots of 12 Grimmauld Place, since he turned the house upside down for one more time the day after Christmas.

“And who would keep it so I wouldn’t find it?”

James nodded miserably. “How about Grandma Molly’s room? Maybe they’d think we’d be afraid to look there; Grandma Molly would be scary as Cemola if she found us snooping around.”

“If you thought it, they thought it. Can’t be this.”

He sighed. “If that’s the case, it will be nearly impossible to find it.”

“I’m afraid that was the point,” Fred retorted. He fell back on his bed disappointed.

James’s eyes grew huge as an idea came to him. He scrambled to his feet and snapped the door open, nearly hanging over the wooden railing of the Burrow’s unusual staircase. “Lils! Lils!” he called down. His sister’s head peeked out from two levels below. “Come here for a sec.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked at him seriously. “I will. But if you even think of doing anything to my hair, James, you’ll regret it. Grandma just braided it for me.”

He nodded solemnly. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining your hair. Now come.”

Lily joined them, her eyes darting from her brother to her cousin as they led her in, suspiciously welcoming. They urged her to sit on the bed next to Fred. “We have an important question for you. We want the first thing that comes to your mind.”

She nodded. “So,” James said. “If you wanted to hide something from our reach, where would you put it?”

She frowned. “There are too many places in the world. It’s a difficult question.”

“What if we narrowed it down? Home or here?” James urged.

“Easy. Here. You spend less time here and you’ve searched every nook and cranny of our home anyway.”

Fred nodded approvingly. “But I live here. So isn’t it the same thing?” he asked.

“Not quite. If I really didn’t want you to find it, I would go for Mom’s old bedroom. It holds no interest to you two whatsoever, nobody sleeps in it anymore and it isn’t suspicious either.” The boys looked at each other. This could be it! They didn’t have to speak out the words, they thought the same thing.

James grabbed his sister and kissed her cheek. “You’re a genius, Lils! Definitely Ravenclaw material!” He let her go as suddenly as he had hugged her and with Fred on his heels, he stomped down the stairs. His fingers itched when they reached for the doorknob. “Maybe we should wait. Go in the middle of the night?”

“And do what until then?”

“Go sit down and act inconspicuously?” he offered.

Fred shook his head. “There is nothing more suspicious than the two of us not acting suspiciously.”

“You’re right. Let’s go now.” He turned the doorknob and the door gave in.

“It is a fact that I have never gone in Aunt Ginny’s bedroom. But I’m surprised Lily had noticed that.” Fred looked around curiously. He hadn’t even wondered how Ginny had decorated her room as a teenager.

“I think it’s just because she is here a lot. That’s how she knows we are not,” James explained.

“Where do we start looking?” Fred took out his wand, apparently considering which spell would remove everything from the shelves faster.

“Put that in. We need to be subtle. If we don’t find it, we don’t want them to suspect we searched and move it, or then we’ll have to start all over. We’re right on top of the kitchen, so be quiet.”

James calculated the possibilities. The room was small, but there were plenty of places to check, cupboards and shelves, drawers beneath the bed and on the nightstand, as well as a closet, of which the upper section was shaped like a frowning face. He hoped it wasn’t a talking wardrobe, because that could get them in a lot of trouble. The window over the bed had a great view of the orchard, completely covered in snow, where they had played Quidditch. The walls were a shade of pink that James found somewhat nauseating, but the posters of Gwenog Jones, a former Beater and Captain for the Holyhead Harpies and another of the Weird Sisters, made it slightly better.

Fred took the drawers beneath the bed, where he chuckled at the sight of old panties with hearts and pajamas with kittens, while James pulled out books and flipped the pages one by one. Sometimes old notes exchanged with classmates came out the pages, but nothing that resembled a map.

“Are we sure it will look like a map? For all we know, it could be in a picture frame.”

“The map doesn’t reveal itself to everyone. So it might just look like a piece of paper.” James said.

“But I’ve ignored a bunch of pieces of paper already!” Fred exclaimed.

“A big piece of paper, I expect. Folded many times perhaps. It can’t be too small if it has all of Hogwarts on it.”

“Oh, the ones I’ve seen were little snippets. We’re good,” said Fred in relief.

“But that frame idea could be good. Hiding it in plain sight. Quite crafty; I’d expect it from someone who has lived with me as long as Mum and Dad.” He placed the book in his hand back and began investigating the picture frames on them. Family pictures since Uncle Fred was still alive, with Charlie and Bill before they graduated and his Mum being still a toddler, one of the students of Dumbledore’s army and one more of Ginny and Harry after they graduated, but before getting married. He removed them from the frames and checked the back, in case something else was hidden behind them. “Nothing.”

Something jingled from Fred’s side. “Do you think it could fit in a jewelry box?”

“Not really. But check, you never know.”

Music came from the jewelry box as Fred cracked it open. A winged pixie was glued inside, frozen but its eyes flicking left and right, a sign she was real and spun in slow circles. “Cool! How do you think it stays that way?” Fred wondered.

James stopped to watch at the pixie. “No idea. But now is not the time.” He snapped out of the trance he had sunk into and returned to searching beneath the desk, for anything taped to its bottom. “I think it kind of hypnotizes you if you stare for too long. Stop looking at it, Fred.”

Fred shut it and looked on the outside. “There’s a dedication. Uncle Charlie sent it to her from Romania. Cool, I’ll ask him to find me one!”

“A jewelry box?” James shot back, disgusted. “What are you, some little ninny?”

“C’mon, it is cool, even if it’s a girly object! Actually I just want the petrified pixie. Do you think they sell those on their own?”

“You can ask him, after we find the map!” James let out a frustrated breath and slumped on the chair. “This is too difficult. Let’s look underneath the carpet.” They lifted it together and discovered all kinds of forgotten filth underneath, but no map. They sat back to back on the carpet, on the verge of admitting defeat. James stared at the door, while Fred faced the window. “This is so disheartening.”

“Tell me about it. And I think I’m traumatized for life! I most certainly did not need to see what kind of panties your mum used to wear!”

“Nobody told you to start from there!”

“Well, excuse me I wouldn’t guess girls put their underwear in their bed drawers! I always put mine in my wardrobe!”

James rolled his eyes. He could not believe they were having a discussion about Fred’s and Mom’s undies. He looked at a little frame hanging at the back of the door. Something was written in little calligraphic letters and there was Hogwarts’s crest printed at the top of the page. As he stood up to investigate, Fred fell back, having lost support. He sounded like a sack of potatoes as he hit the floor.

A strange chuckle shook the bedroom whole. It was followed by a soft “Mmmmm…” and more chuckling. James turned around, flicking his head right and left, searching whom the voice belonged to. It wasn’t Fred. It was a woman’s voice, with quite a lot of bass in it, unlike any he recognized.

“It’s the closet!” Fred whispered, pointing at it.

James took a step back, to look at the closet closer. Its wooden eyes stared back at James’s blue ones, blinking a few times. “My, my, you’ve got the exact same eyes!”

“With whom?” he asked.

“Ginny of course! The other two don’t. One has the voice, the other the hair. None the eyes.” The closet’s wooden lips moved in perfect sync with the sound coming out. Just how was it, that Ginny had never mentioned she used to have a talking closet?

“Thank you,” James said. “What were you laughing about?” The closet knew something. And it liked James’s eyes, so it might be willing to help.

The closet squeaked, as if in complain, and its doors snapped open, giving a glimpse of Ginny’s collection of Hogwarts uniforms and old cloaks. “Why, the map of course!”

“I don’t see a map.” James looked around, somewhat theatrically, looking even more frustrated than he actually was. He had a feeling he could make use of the closet if it felt enough pity for his situation.

The closet squeaked and grunted something to itself and rattled her drawers some. Then she began to hum impatiently.

"Good gracious, those children are so dense!

Apparently they have no common sense!" she cried.

"For this I'll try to give you a hint,

And if you find it on your own I'll bear no guilt,

But this and no more expect from me,

For I'm just a closet made out of a cherry tree!"

James rolled his eyes. The closet said all this willingly, although none made much sense.

"So listen now and listen well,

Because these words only once will be said,

You're seeking left, you're seeking right,

But you are missing what's before your eye!

To find the object of mischief you're yearning for,

You may look in the right direction,

But you look down when it is up,

And you look for white when it is black!"

"If the map has turned black, how would we read it?" Fred complained, his eyes desperate.

James shrugged, trying not to forget the things he had heard so far.

"Oh, heavens, the boys don't get the gist of it,

The metaphor embedded and the mystery!"

"She sounds surprisingly like the Sorting Hat," James commented with a grin.

"Focus, James, she said it is not literal!"

"You're not listening and you'll regret,

The chance you had and have misspent,

So now, the object that you seek,

Is not square and does not gleam.

Errata on it you shan't find,

Only accomplishments of witches' time!"

James skipped to the bookcase, certain he knew where it was. He scanned the spines of the books, until he found a book about magical history. It fit the description perfectly. It spoke of accomplishments of witches’ time alright.

"Oh, you are running out of time,

Think hard, think right!"

"I'm on the verge of calling Lily," James said with a sigh and fell on the bed. The book bounced on the mattress, splaying itself lifelessly on the patchwork quilt.

“There was a thought,

A while before,

Quite right,

But if you stall it will be night,

You know already how this will be,

If you don’t find it long after New Year’s Eve!”

“So we have thought of that place…” James mused. “We just didn’t look hard enough.”

“Could she mean it’s under your mum’s undies?” Fred asked, horrified.

James rolled his eyes. “I think not!” He shot a bewildered glare at his cousin. “But what could it be…?”

An unexpected moment of enlightenment showed on Fred’s eyes. He shook his head and chuckled to darkly to himself, feeling quite brilliant at that moment. For a strange reason the closet joined his chuckling with her own. “Oh, James, sometimes you’re so dense sometimes!” Fred got to his feet and attacked the old frame of Ginny’s diploma from the nail on the door. He cracked it open and at the back rested a tick pack of yellowed paper, distinctively smelling of stale air. “Eureka!”

“But… I can’t believe… talking closets… was so close… It crossed my mind just before...” he fumbled his words. Accomplishments of witch's time… Ginny’s accomplishments in Hogwarts. So obvious! James growled in his head. “I almost had it!” he said to the closet. “You interrupted my train of thought with your riddle!” The closet let out a sound of exasperation. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if the closet talked. Holy rats, they found it! They had it! He cleared his throat, trying to hold back his enthusiasm. He reconsidered, realising he had offended the closet’s feelings. “Thank you, Mum’s talking closet.” James did a deep bow and winked at the closet.

She squeaked again and shook one door. “Oh, stop it you!” she said, letting out one strange, wooden giggle. “Take care and don’t be too reckless. Or be, but don’t get caught!” the closet called behind them, as they left the room.

“No wonder Mum was so shy as a kid. Makes sense, if you take advice from a closet.”

“I bet we’re the last ones to learn about it though,” Fred said. “It knew Lily and Albus.”

James sighed. “Indeed, there is one thing where my siblings were ahead of me.”

They returned triumphantly to Fred’s room and pulled out the map. “Whom should we look for first?” Fred said, his voice dripping excitement.

“We can decide after you make it work,” James said.

“Wait…” Fred looked up. “I thought you knew the words to make it work.”

James shook his head. “Of course not! Dad very conveniently didn’t mention them every time he spoke of the map.”

“Then if none of us knows the words…”

“We’re screwed.”

* * * * *

All the way on the ride back to Hogwarts, Fred had been contemplating asking Roxanne for help with the map. An endless rambling in front of the old piece of parchment had gotten them nowhere and it was for sure that Ginny’s closet would be laughing her drawers off if she knew how much they struggled. They had agreed that the map was safer in James’s trunk for now, because his lock combination was less well-known and predictable than Fred’s; it was the date he had gotten his broom.

“The answer will emerge eventually,” James said hopefully. “We just have to be patient.”

“Yes, the answer emerged from the lips of your little sister last time. I hope we don’t have to wait until she boards Hogwarts to reveal the Map’s secrets.”

“There is plenty to do without the map, just like we planned during Christmas. The map would have just made them slightly better.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Fred quietly took out a handbook about Welsh Green. When Fred read, even if it was about dragons, it was obvious some kind of terrible fate had befallen him and he was in the depths of misery.

It took a few attempts to bring him back to his impish, lively self, which included a slippery floor, a Squib professor, a hedgehog that glowed in the dark and some string, but James succeeded at last. Fred had not been as idle as his cousin thought in the meantime. He had spent his hours of melancholy organizing strategies to evade Filtch and Crubs most effectively once the prank reached their ears, as well as a backup plan in case their unfortunate victim came after them. At times like this, they wished they were not Gryffindors, having to run to the seventh floor to get in their dorm, but to be somewhere around the ground floor, or the basements, like the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins.

“I can’t get it out of my mind that I’m missing something,” Fred insisted as James tried to drag him up, to get going. By the time Fred would calculate everything, everything would be right, except the time, because it would be dark long before he figured it out.

They followed the wooden passage to the gardens, hopping over a recently open hole in the wooden boards. Rumor had it, Quincy Goyle was to be credited for its creation, stumbling as he chased after a Hufflepuff boy. No confirmation had come from James’s knowing sources though, meaning Albus and Rose. The air outside the castle was chilling them to the bone and they stood for a bit, mittens in front of their mouths and shoulders raised as if to push their red and yellow scarves tighter to their neck.

Down along the grounds a little puff of continuous smoke came from Hagrid’s hut and the lake stood frozen, flat and hazy as aged glass. “Come on, before we become breathing snowmen,” Fred called and ran ahead, his feet plunging into the deep snow with each step. James followed, but there was something about the day… The cold, his mind retorted. It was as if there was something, watching him from the forest. Maybe the thestrals… But he wouldn’t know; he could not see them. He pursed his lips together and proceeded.

A crack of branches made his head snap anxiously. He could not locate the source of the sound.

“Don’t be so jumpy, it’s not that bad of a prank. As a matter of fact, the planning is so perfect that maybe they won’t even know we were there. James glanced at the trail they left, half-walking half-pushing past the snow, and doubted it.

“It’s like there’s someone watching, can’t you feel it? It brings chill bumps to my arms.”

“That’s because of the weather. There’s not a soul here.”

James searched again around them. “I’ll go insane…” he muttered under his breath.

The Quidditch pitch came into view. It looked like someone had been there recently. Footprints and drag marks from the brooms’ tails were written on the snow, but no one was in sight. “Do you think they wrapped it up early?” he asked.

“No, everyone is inside,” said a boy who had come, presumably out of nowhere.

James vaguely remembered the face; he was a first year, and the House badge sewn in his clothes suggested he was a Hufflepuff. He was quite the most ordinary, forgettable person he had ever seen, brown hair, brown eyes, a face full of freckles, short and out of his sight if he looked straight ahead instead of down at him.

“Oh, thanks,” James said. He wondered what they should do to get rid of him; a prank needed no witnesses other than the doers and the targets.

“You came to watch? It’s been a while since older students came for Firsties Quidditch.”

“Yeah, well, just take a look and we’ll be on our way,” Fred said and put an arm over his cousin’s shoulder, steering him away.

The boy turned around and trotted closely behind them, like some lost puppy. “I am also just watching. Flight does not agree very much with me, it gives me a bit of a stomachache. I don’t do well with flying by airplane either really, so I was expecting it. Others are quicker to catch up, and there are already a whole lot of great players amongst the first years, I think that the old players will face quite the competition next year at the tryouts. I’m really glad to hang around and cheer them on. Even if they’re from other Houses, cheering is important, don’t you think?”

“Uh… yeah, yeah it is,” James said absently. He didn’t even hear half of the mumble jumble the little Hufflepuff had said.

“The entrance is right this way,” he continued, taking the lead and standing by it helpfully.

“We know,” Fred said, annoyance tinting his voice. “We’ve been here before, we have family in Gryffindor’s team.” It was a bit of a thorn in their side; they hadn’t made the team that year, because half the applicants were seasoned players, seventh years and with a whole lot more experience, but next year their time was coming; a whole lot of positions would clear out in the team. James wasn’t going to let his broomstick gather cobwebs in a corner for another year.

“Oh, you do? That’s so wonderful! Must be so nice, having family to cheer for, not just regular Housemates. Must make you get really involved.”

“Yeah,” Fred and James said in unison. Just when is he going to leave?

“Can we help you with something?” James said, unable to hold it in any longer. That little leech would be ripped off if needed, because he couldn’t stand him.

The boy’s eyes widened with surprise. He shrugged. “No, I don’t need anything. Just thought I should keep you company until we got here, we were going to the same destination after all.”

“And now we’re all here…” Fred said with a bit of finality in his tone.

It seemed like the boy was slowly taking the hint. “We’re here…” he agreed. “I will let you go on your business and I’ll go to my friends. It was very nice seeing you, James. And you are…?”

James blinked in surprise as Fred offered his name.

“I am Timothy Milton,” the Hufflepuff replied. “Have a nice time!” he called over his shoulder as he skipped away.

“You two know each other?” Fred asked. “He’s such a strange fellow. Somewhat stupid I think.”

James was starting to feel a new kind of numb. He didn’t dare move, for fear his feet would give way, and land him ridiculously on his butt. “Um… uh…”

“You look like Aunt Grizelda while she had her fifteenth stroke,” Fred said. And I kind of feel like it too, James thought, unable to voice the words.

“I sort of do… By name. The name is familiar.”

“Ah. Kids like him, it’s better to know them just by name. Looks like a bit of a leech.”

“He does…” he agreed numbly. I hope being a leech is the worst he can do… He held on to the thought desperately, until he almost believed it. Flashes of the events in Knockturn alley raced back to him, recalling all the things he had by then discarded as a distant memory, or an unpleasant daydream. If they were a daydream though, he would not have guessed the name. The name was the same, that’s the kid… Or is it? He could not imagine him being associated with a shady wizard speaking Snake in the most notorious corner of London’s wizarding marketplace. He’d actually bet his head that Hufflepuff was muggleborn. Or… perhaps not his head, but maybe he’d bet a hand, or just a couple of fingers…

He inhaled deeply, once, twice. The scent of brooms’ polishing wax and hay broom tails filled his nostrils, bringing a sense of calm in him. He could not back down from the prank now, or who knew what Fred would assume. He could not tell him about it, if he didn’t remember… And it was confirmed he had no idea who Timothy Milton was.

Suddenly the second semester of his second year felt considerably more ominous.