Ella
When we got back, I had an idea as to where we could find the location of the other two artifacts.
"If they played a part in the war, they'd be in the archives that Aunt Teddy has," I said to my circle of friends.
"She locks them up in the Room of Requirement every night," Rowan said. "I did a stakeout once."
Gavin, Tip, and I all stared at him.
"Rowan, why have you been out late so often?" I asked. "We found you during the Knights of Walpurgis incident, and now I hear you had a stakeout for a teacher. Is something going on that you'd like to tell us about?"
He sighed. "I've been using the Room of Requirement to practice spells and get ahead a bit. It's just that I haven't really made any friends in Gryffindor. Acquaintances, sure, but all my friends are in Ravenclaw or Slytherin."
"I'm sorry," I said immediately.
"It's not your fault," he replied darkly. "I sometimes wonder if the Sorting Hat mis-sorted me."
"Well we don't care which house you're in, do we, boys?" I asked. Gavin and Tip shook their heads.
"We need to figure out what room she's conjuring up," Gavin interrupted, getting back on topic.
"Count me out," Tip said. We all stared at him.
"This is the Knights of Walpurgis we're trying to race against," he protested. "Don't you know what they're capable? Haven't you heard what they did to some of the muggle-borns? I would've thought you, Rowan, would understand why it's dangerous to speak out against them."
"Fine," Rowan snapped. "Just leave if you don't have the guts to do something to go against the Knights of Walpurgis."
Tip glared at him and stormed away.
"Okay, now that we've got the cowards out of the way-"
"Hey, just because he's scared doesn't mean we need to bad mouth him," Gavin insisted. "He's got some solid points."
"Not you too," I groaned.
"Relax, I got this," Gavin said. "I'll be with you two. Someone's gotta keep you from killing yourself, don't they?
"Too true," Rowan admitted. "So what's the plan?"
"Easy," I interrupted. "What room do you think she's conjuring up?"
"Maybe the old base in the Room of Requirement?" Gavin asked.
"Sounds about right," I said.
"Or maybe the Room of Hidden Things," Rowan suggested. "That room's a complete mess, perfect for hiding things."
"Both sound like likely candidates," I admitted. "Let's start with the old base first."
After our classes for the day, we met up in the corridor where Rowan said the Room of Requirement.
"Let's pace now, and we'll see what happens," Rowan advised. "Just think that you need to find the HQ of the Spark."
I nodded, and the three of us paced the length of the wall three times, until big, foreboding iron doors appeared on the wall. I pushed open the door hesitantly. I'd get to see a piece of my history and heritage. The base of operations for the Barricade on Hogwarts, and the place where the Spark took on the Death Eaters by themselves.
I opened the door to reveal a large, mostly empty room with rows upon rows of hammocks in yellow, green, red, and blue, and hangings of the four houses everywhere. There was a large bathroom, stocked with showers, and a flame surrounded by a circle was spray-painted to the walls, along with the phrase, Fire is catching. There was a big wireless on the back wall, as well as a painting the size of a door that was an empty meadow landscape with a path in the distance, as well as a door to another room.
In the center was a funeral pyre, and names were etched on the floor around it, some of the ones she remembered from history class, like Luis Hernandez and Eileen Anders and Wesley Diggory. Kids who died in the war, I remembered. Some of them my age or slightly younger.
I couldn't imagine the horror they lived through, day in and day out. Fighting against maybe some of their old friends, like Mum did with Jacen's godfather. Suddenly, the threat of the Knights of Walpurgis seemed greater, seeing the old rebellion against their former version, the Death Eaters.
Oh, yeah. I'm sure we both can imagine it now.
They were just kids, fighting a war, I realized. Is that why no one wants us speaking out against them, at least the adults? Because they remember this excuse for a childhood?
Let's talk about what happened to us, why don't we?
Shut up, Jay. No spoilers.
Why not?
Ugh!
"Here's the files," Gavin said, and he approached a rack of archives. "I think we're looking for the May 2nd entry."
"What's over there?" I asked, seeing the doorway, an arch leading into a room of concrete, from what I could see.
"Who knows," he replied with a shrug.
"I'm going to check it out," I decided.
"I'll come with you," Rowan said quickly, and he pulled out his wand, and I pulled out mine.
We slowly approached the door, and I peeked in quickly, hiding behind the doorframe for anything that might attack us. Rowan then darted out, and hid behind the stretch of blank gray wall that led in a small corridor to the bigger room that was within. He peeked over, and gestured for me to come. I peeked over his shoulder, and saw a hug hangar. Burned-up, destroyed hunks of metal lay in several docking areas, and there was a large section behind with tools, lots and lots, and sheets and sheets of metal. There was a table along the section of the wall parallel to the one the two of us were leaning against.
On the table were blue sheets of schematics in white chalk, from what I could see. I walked over to the table and began reading handwriting that was straight and angular, with O's that looked like the center of cogs and gears.
I sensed Rowan come up behind me.
"I think these are the machines that Mum mentioned that were used in the Battle of Hogwarts," I said. I saw two initials, an E and an A at the bottom of each diagram, schematic, and manual that was laid out on the table.
"Looks like they dragged them back to the Room of Requirement after they got destroyed in the fight," Rowan said, observing the hunks of metal, some of them burned, crumpled, and there were some bloodstains.
People died in this ship, I realized as I placed a hand over what was once a cockpit. Instantly, I could sense when it was last used (eighteen years ago), who was piloting it (the same person who'd built it), and what had happened to it. I felt a wave of anger and fear and pain coming from the metal.
The creator was killed by her own machine, I knew it as I'd made contact with the wreck that remained of it. A crash that was so severe, that it would've disfigured its pilot permanently with burns and scars and. . . The loss of limbs?
I'm sure that felt great to discover.
Yeah, it was. I eyed the machine with new respect, when I saw a name carved on the hull, in the writing of E.A.: Deryn.
"You're the Deryn?" I asked. I know, stupid, but I felt like I could almost communicate with the ship. I could sense a sort of yes from the Deryn.
"You can communicate with it?" Rowan asked, as he touched it and closed his eyes. "I can't, that's for certain."
"I don't know how it's happening," I protested.
"Maybe it's a special ability," Rowan suggested with shrug.
"What's taking so-" Gavin burst in and gasped in a particularly girly way. "What are these? Or more, what were they?" He walked over to us.
"Battle machines from the Battle of Hogwarts," I explained. "I'm trying to get her story."
"Who's story?" Gavin asked.
"The Deryn's," I answered. "That's this ship's name." I closed my eyes. "Her pilot and creator was Eileen Anders, who was eighteen when she died, losing her arms and legs due to a crash in this. Wait, I remember her."
Oh, yeah! One of Mum's friends that she lost in the war.
"She's my namesake. Ellie, she was called. She was a leader of the Spark, and died in the Battle of Hogwarts," I recalled. "She built and designed all of this." I gestured around the hangar.
Gavin whistled. "What if we fixed these up?"
"You think we could do that?" I asked.
"Sure, if a girl of eighteen could do it, couldn't three eleven year-olds-" I glared at him "-excuse me, two eleven year-olds and a twelve year-old do it?"
"But we know nothing about auto repair or computer programming," I protested.
"I know a bit on programming," Rowan said with a smirk.
"And my Da owns an auto shop," Gavin added. "We'll teach you all we know, and then we'll all learn from there. Besides, it sounds like you might have some instinct for this."
The idea sounded right, felt right. I nodded. "Let's get started."
So that's how you got all those war machines!