With 15 minutes, they were all congregated in Snape's office while Pettigrew cooled his heels down the hall. There were a number of safeguards in place to keep Pettigrew from getting out, changing back into a rat, or using magic at all. In addition, they had left Crookshanks as a sort of guard. Really, he was more for the intimidation factor. Now, they were filling in Snape and Hermione. Harry looked significantly at Snape, and he nodded his head.

"All right. All of you but Harry will go back to what you were doing. Harry and I will be speaking to Pettigrew. We want to keep this as simple as possible so the Obliviate works effectively."

The rest of the group looked dissatisfied to not be included in the interrogation but not mutinous. They were all mature enough to see the logic of having Pettigrew not come into contact with them too much and to accept being excluded.

#

The interrogation had gone quite well. Snape had sufficient time since realizing Wormtail might be around to cook up a new batch of Veritaserum so they didn't need to rely on the iffy power of the life-debt.

"So, he knew nothing useful about the Horcruxes?" Dumbledore looked disappointed.

"No, Albus. He didn't recognize the word. He visited no places of interest on the trip back from Albania before the resurrection and nothing since. He also has no memories of objects that the Dark Lord thought significant."

"Well, I suppose we will have to do it the hard way."

"But he did have some useful information."

"Indeed?"

"It seems that in the absence of another scapegoat, young Nott is getting punished for the failure at the Ministry at the end of last year. Lucius was the leader, but Draco and Narcissa are now out of his reach. Nott Sr. was stunned by Hermione in the battle and is currently in Azkaban. Nott Jr. is dedicated to the cause and relatively clever, so the Dark Lord is taking advantage of his desire to be accepted by telling him he must prove himself first. It seems that during the Christmas holidays, he was given the task of getting a contingent of Death Eaters into the castle without raising the alarms. The Death Eaters are hoping to kill you, kidnap Mr. Malfoy and myself, and generally spread panic and chaos."

"Isn't that rather a large task to give to one so young?"

"Yes, but if he fails, the Dark Lord will only have a better excuse not to spring his father from prison and punish Theo. He will be made an example. Plus, someone who is here every day is more likely to learn how to breach the protections than someone like Wormtail. Pettigrew, apparently, has been tasked with the job of checking up on Nott every month or so. He takes those opportunities to sniff around and find out anything else he can while he is here."

"Does he know how young Mr. Nott hopes to get his companions into the castle?"

"No, Nott is being stubbornly close-lipped at this time. However, Mr. Malfoy and Mr. Weasely had already begun watching him closely because he was acting suspiciously. They report that he seems to be doing something in the Room of Requirement. Unfortunately, that hardly narrows things down considering the Room could be anything for him."

"Yes. That is distressingly open-ended." Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a few minutes.

Harry had been quiet before this and just watched the adults discuss the issue. Suddenly he had an idea. "What if Nott is using the Room the way that young Tom Riddle did — as a place to hide something?"

"If he is, whatever he is working on would be in that towering room of trash. How could we possibly find the object of interest?"

"There must be a way, gentlemen. Or rather, I think you two should try to figure out a way. Ask for help from the rest of your group. This is more pressing than the Horcruxes at this time. We must keep Hogwarts as a safe haven."

"Yes, Headmaster."

"We'll get right on it, Albus."

"Before you go, I wanted to let you know that the Board has reluctantly agreed to the summer school plan. I know you won't have much free time, but you should let Ron and Draco know that they can begin recruiting people with confidence."

"That's great news, sir. I'll let them know."

#

"Hermione, do you think there's a way to make the Map tell us whenever a certain person goes down a certain hallway?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. What specifically are you looking for?"

"Have you heard about Nott?"

"Ron told me he was up to something, but he and Draco aren't sure what yet."

Harry looked at Snape and continued once he got a nod telling him he could go forward. They had called a meeting of their full group, and Snape seemed content to let Harry explain the information they had gotten out of Pettigrew. "Well, we now know what he's up to in general terms."

"Pettigrew?"

"Yup. Nott's been told by Voldemort that if he wants to regain Voldemort's favor for his family, he'll figure out a way to get the Death Eaters into Hogwarts so they can kidnap Professor Snape and Draco."

Hermione gasped. Ron stiffened. But Draco betrayed no outward emotion. "Has he taken the Mark yet?"

"No. According to Wormtail, he wants to, but this task is being billed as a sort of test."

"Did Pettigrew know how or when?"

"No, Nott won't share the details of his plan. Pettigrew isn't sure if Nott has a plan or if he's just stalling for time. Voldemort's given him until the end of the school year, but they don't have a target date as far as he knows."

"So, I guess you're hoping to know when he visits the Room of Requirement so we can try to figure out what he's doing in there."

Harry turned back to Hermione to answer her question. He'd worry about Draco's lack of reaction later when they were alone. "Well, I'd like to figure out what he's doing in there, but you can't get in while the Room is occupied if the person inside doesn't want you to. BUT … if we haven't figured out a way to stop him by the time he figures it out and his plan is based in that Room, I'd like some warning. It could be any time from tomorrow to the last day of school, so I thought that with an alarm every time he went down that corridor, we could at least keep an eye on him. He has no reason to be on the seventh floor for classes, so I doubt he goes there except to visit the Room."

"I'll look into it and try a few things on that practice map we made up when Professor Lupin was here."

"Great." Harry turned to Snape. "Any other ideas?"

"Yes, I thought we could use next weekend while most of the students will be out of the castle and down in Hogsmeade to conduct a field trip up to the Room as we saw it with all of the discarded and hidden objects in it. Perhaps someone will see something or come up with an idea. It is, at least, a place to start."

In response to the puzzled looks of the rest of the group, Harry tried to explain without telling them anything about the Horcruxes. "We were training one day, and I mistakenly conjured up this room full of stuff. It looks like hundreds of years of things that people had thrown away or hidden was all there. We were thinking that if Nott asked for a room to keep whatever he's working on hidden, he might have gotten the same room."

"He could be doing almost anything in there."

"Ron, we have to at least give it a shot. It's better than doing nothing."

"I also want the all of you to try to think of other possibilities. If you had to get a large group of intruders into the castle, how would you do it? Think about it and have some ideas ready for next time if you can. You four can gather in the Gryffindor Common Room next weekend. Wait until everyone has left, check the Map, and let me know when it's clear for me to meet you outside the Room of Requirement. You can use the messaging system on the marks on our palms as you did when you were planning Pettigrew's capture."

"Yes, sir."

#

"OK, let's start with various kinds of magical transportation." The four were sitting in a corner of the Gryffindor Common Room within a silencing bubble, and Hermione, as usual, was functioning as the organizer.

"Broom," Ron supplied.

"We'd see them coming," Draco countered.

"Not if they were invisible. They could land on the Astronomy Tower and creep down from there."

Harry interjected, "If that were possible, why does Voldemort need Nott?"

"True. Well, we'll keep it as a possibility. I'm taking notes, but they will only be visible to me because of the warding I'm using. What's next?" Herminone prodded.

"Apparition. But, we all know you can't Apparate within Hogwarts. I don't think any 6th year could pull down those wards," Draco stated.

Ron continued, "How about Floo. If you told the room you really needed to Floo somewhere, would it provide one?"

"I don't know. I would think the Headmaster would have some way of protecting against that. His office is the only room in the castle that can be Flooed into. The other ones can be used for communication but not transportation."

"Hermione, are you going to tell me that's in Hogwarts, A History?" Harry was surprised.

"No, Harry, but you'd be surprised what you can find out in Prefect meetings — if you pay attention."

"OK, so I'll make a mental note to talk to the Headmaster about that, and we also experiment a bit with the Room of Requirement."

"If you could just call up a Floo, why would he be visiting the room repeatedly?" Ron pointed out.

"Point." Hermione paused. "Maybe he got a fireplace or even a Floo that can be used for communication, and he's trying to learn how to make it into a Floo for transportation."

"That's possible, but if Dumbledore really has some kind of wards in place, he would probably have them set to alert him to anyone making an existing Floo into one that could transport or at the very least alert him if there were any arrivals by Floo," Draco pointed out.

"Yeah, but if it's the second, then we would find out after they were already here, and that's not good enough. The Headmaster told Snape and me to try to prevent this, and that's what I intend to do."

"Hermione, how do you make Portkeys?" Ron asked.

"Well, I haven't researched it thoroughly —"

"Meaning you haven't read every book in the library that covers the topic?" Ron laughed as he asked his question.

"Ha, very ha. As I was saying, I understand that you need to have a thorough knowledge of the destination. There's a spell, obviously, but it's complicated. I don't think they're easy to make or more people would do it more often."

"Well, the Ministry does regulate them."

Draco spoke up, "Yeah, but Hermione's right. If it was easy or there were no blocks to it, Voldemort would just make a couple for Hogwarts and invade when he wanted. Again, what does he need Nott for?"

"Well, I think this is something else I need to discuss with the Headmaster. Because if the problem is that there is something in the wards that won't allow it, Nott could be working on a way around them. If we don't know about how the wards work, we can't assume that there isn't some advantage to being here when you cast the spell that he is taking advantage of."

"OK. What else?" Hermione said as she made some notes.

"Those are the major means of magical transportation. I mean, you could use carpets or dragons or thestrals instead of brooms; but they have the same drawbacks as brooms, so there's no need to list them." Harry heard Ron's hesitation before he mentioned the thestrals and it appeared he wasn't the only one dealing with painful memories of last year for a minute.

Draco, however, was unaffected by the collective musing of the rest of the group. "Well, I don't have any great insights yet. After all, he just dropped this bomb on us a few hours ago. I might come up with something better after I have some time to think on it or after I see this junk room of Harry's. It's good to get the obvious stuff out of the way so we don't all waste too much on them."

"OK, so should we reconvene to discuss again before this weekend, or should we have the next brainstorming session with Professor Snape?"

"It's only a couple of days. Let's just meet this weekend. 'Mione, can you work on the map again and see if you can get it to alert us when Nott get near the Room. Ron and Draco, I'm counting on your strategic brains to some up with some ideas. I'll talk to Dumbledore about the wards. Everyone OK with their assignment?" Nods all around. "Great. Let's get back to homework then."

#

The trip to the Hidden Things Room — as Harry had started calling it — that Saturday hadn't yielded any new ideas. They walked through the room for close to an hour, but nobody noticed anything significant. Of course, you could walk through that room for two days and not see everything in it.

"Draco, I want to go back up the Hidden Things Room. I know, I know, we spent an hour there yesterday, but I just can't shake the feeling I'm missing something obvious."

"OK."

"I'd like you to come with me, but if you'd prefer not, I can take Ron or Hermione."

"What are you insinuating?"

"You've been … off about this since we found out about what Nott was doing and why. I thought it might be hitting too close to home for some reason. I don't see any reason to rub salt in your wound."

"Don't be silly; I'm fine."

"Draco, I know what I've been seeing. You've been trying so hard not to show whatever you've been feeling that you've been too unemotional. I haven't seen the Malfoy mask this much for months."

"…"

"Draco, you don't have to tell me what's bothering you if you don't want to. I know better than to push. I'd like to hear about it because I think that talking would help you deal with whatever-it-is, but that's your choice. All I want to know right now is if you'd rather I ask Ron or Hermione to go back to The Room with me when I head there after lunch."

"OK." Draco bit his lip and looked down. "I appreciate you not pushing, and you're right, I don't want to talk about it or even think about it. But, trying to figure out what is going on doesn't make it worse. Why don't we head over there now before lunch?"

"You're sure?" At Draco's nod, Harry continued, "This isn't just some Malfoy stoicism thing?"

Draco smiled. "Yeah, I'm sure."

Five minutes later, Harry was walking back and forth across from the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. When the door appeared, he and Draco headed in.

"OK. I had this feeling even before Saturday. So, I'm going to try to remember where I walked the first time I was here."

"Makes good sense."

"Basically, I want you here because I'm going to be using a trance state to remember that day more clearly, and I don't like doing that without someone around to pull me out if something goes wrong. Plus, we can always pretend we came here to snog if anyone asks what we were doing." Harry smirked at Draco. "Just keep quiet and walk behind me. If I stop somewhere and don't seem to come out of it for 15 minutes, try to wake me. If that doesn't work, get the Professor."

"I'm on the job. Lead on."

Harry closed his eyes and sunk into the trance state he used to awaken his magic sense. He tried to picture that day when he was following the trail to the Ravenclaw horocrux. He saw the hallway in his head then opened his eyes and looked for the same landmarks in the real life room and started walking. On and on they walked. Then, Harry saw it — both in his mind and in real life. The vanishing cabinet. He came up to full consciousness with a start.

"That's it. It's the vanishing cabinet."

"But, it's broken."

"So, he's been trying to fix it! How much do you want to bet the matching one is that cabinet at Borgin & Burkes?"

"What were you doing there?"

"I got misdirected on the floo. Then, you and your father came in, and I hid in a cabinet against the wall. It looked just like this. If Nott gets them working, that would be the perfect way to get a large number of Death Eaters in the castle."

"Yeah, I somehow doubt there's a ward against vanishing cabinets. They're really rare. Is this the one that Montague got lost in last year?"

"I assumed as much when I first saw it. How many can there be in the castle?"

"Well, if there is another one, that might disprove your theory about its match being at Borgin & Burkes."

"Point." Harry stood looking at the spot contemplatively. "Well, either way, this was the thing that was nagging at me. Let's go talk to Hermione and ask her to do some research on vanishing cabinets. Then, we'll ask Professor Snape what he knows about the incident with Montague last year. We can at least look into this as a viable option."

"OK." As they headed toward the door, Draco said, "How about you go and talk to Hermione, and I go and talk to Professor Snape. Then, we can meet in the dining hall. It will be a little less obvious if we don't both go tromping up to Gryffindor and then back down to the dungeons and then back up to the Entrance Hall. Just in case we are being watched, we don't want Nott to think we figured anything out."

Harry opened the door and they both stepped out. "Perfect." Harry reached over and grabbed Draco by the collar and kissed him hard on the lips. "Don't be long, love. I'll see you at lunch in just a few minutes."

Draco looked a bit surprised by the PDA. That wasn't Harry's usual style. However, Harry was feeling a bit high on the sudden discovery. He justified it to himself as a way to further their story of snogging in the Room of Requirement. Yeah, that was it.

#

They soon found out that vanishing cabinets were remarkably rare and that Professor Snape remembered seeing a possibly matching cabinet at Borgin & Burkes as well. In addition, Snape confirmed that Montague had indeed been stuffed in a non-functioning vanishing cabinet and disappeared for some time last year. That, at least, was the best the teachers could piece together after he showed up again. Snape was fairly certain that Filch had been told to dispose of the cabinet. They assumed that he had taken the shortcut of asking the room for a place where he could get rid of it and/or hide it and Nott had somehow found out and decided to take advantage. There was a chance that Filch purposefully aided Nott with or without the knowledge of what he planned to use it for, but that wasn't the most important consideration.

They now had a working theory on what Nott was doing the Rom of Requirement, but they still wanted better confirmation before they spent all of their time working on countering this particular scenario. Thus, Harry and Professor Snape took their extra lesson in the room that Friday, and Harry spent some time studying the look and feel of the cabinet both magically and more mundanely. In addition, Harry lifted some perfectly Muggle fingerprints after Hermione looked up the technique and had her parents send a child's toy detective set (much like a magic kit) that included the supplies needed. They would compare them to Nott's after they figured out a way to get him to touch something where they could be certain his would be the only prints on the object. Lastly, Professor Snape set up some magical and mundane 'tells' that would show that someone had touched it or attempted to alter it magically the next time they came to look in on it.

After that, they changed the room they were in by telling the room they now needed something else and went about their usual lesson. Today, they were working on the curses left on the Horcruxes. They wanted to make them safe to the touch while they waited to destroy the bit of soul until they had all of them. They were using some of the more ordinary methods that Bill had showed them to diagnose things as well as Harry's magic sight. They recorded the results of the diagnostics in case they needed to ask for outside assistance. Then, Harry tried to alter the curses using his special skills.

At the end of the shortened session, Harry and Snape were both fairly convinced that the diadem was safe but the ring was still heavily bespelled. Presumably, the younger Tom Riddle did not have a chance to put any heavy enchantments on the diadem since he couldn't linger long in the castle after being dismissed by Dumbledore after the job interview. After all, even the Riddle in the diary mentioned that Dumbledore kept an "annonyingly close watch" on him after the Chamber of Secrets incident.

They put the diadem and ring back in their safe boxes even though the diadem was now safe to the touch. None of them knew the long-term effects of close contact with a Horcrux, let alone a Horcrux with Voldemort's soul in it. They marked the diadem as uncursed just in case and put them back in Dumbledore's secret hidey-hole. Harry would do a little research and thinking about the curses on the ring and see if he could some up with a solution before their next meeting. In the meantime, he had to get to Transfiguration.

#