Chapter Twenty-Eight

The Field Trip

After breakfast on the last Tuesday of term, the third years stayed behind in the Great Hall when everyone else went off to lessons. A handful of teachers – those who taught the six third year options subjects – stayed behind too, as well as some sixth years.

Professor Hawksworth, the only Head of House present, called for silence. "When I call out your name, please go and stand with your subject teacher," he said. "Ancient Runes: Alexander Abercrombie, Cassie Andrews, Vicky Baddock, Mia Dursley, Ben Finch-Fletchley..."

As Professor Hawksworth continued calling names – first the rest of her Ancient Runes class, and then those who usually had Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures and Divination at the same time – Mia went to stand with elderly Professor Babbling, who taught Ancient Runes.

Once everyone had been sorted into their groups, Professor Hawksworth spoke again. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you that whilst we are in London, you are representing Hogwarts to the wider wizarding community. As such, anyone exhibiting behaviour which is not in line with the exemplary standards we expect from Hogwarts students will be sent back to school immediately and miss the rest of the trip. It will be up to Heads of House to decide on additional punishments, but I can assure you that any Slytherins who have to be sent back to school will be scrubbing out bedpans for the rest of the week."

"Right, everyone gather round," Professor Babbling commanded the class, holding up a silver platter, like the ones which had been piled high with bacon on the house tables just a few minutes ago. "Everyone hold onto the portkey – we'll be departing in a few minutes."

"Portkey?" Mia sighed. "But the best part of school trips was always the coach trips..."

Alexander grinned at Mia across the platter. Then he looked around. "Are we really the only ones who went to muggle primary school?"

"Looks like it," Mia shrugged, accidently letting go of the platter momentarily, and then grabbing on again quickly, in case she was left behind.

Professor Babbling began counting down: "Three... two... one."

On 'one', Mia felt the familiar jerk behind her navel – she'd travelled by portkey over Christmas. Suddenly, they were all spinning through nothingness, and all Mia could make out were the faces of her fellow students, gathered around the portkey. Then they landed, with a knee-jarring thud, and Mia blinked and looked around.

They were standing towards ore end of Diagon Alley, the huge white marble building which housed the headquarters of Gringotts Wizarding Bank looming behind them. Around them, witches and wizards going about their daily business largely ignored the group of Hogwarts students who had just arrived in their midst.

"Right, everyone," Professor Babbling said, stowing the portkey away in her handbag, which didn't look nearly big enough to accommodate something of that size. "No wandering off please, and no touching anything unless you've been given express permission by myself or a member of Gringotts staff. Follow me."

The class followed Professor Babbling up the marble steps and through the front doors. Professor Babbling's sixth year helper, who Mia thought was called Kiera, brought up the rear. Once they were all inside, Professor Babbling gathered the class to one side.

"This morning we are going to have a talk by some Gringotts curse breakers," she told them.

"Bet it's my dad," Louis muttered.

"Then," continued Professor Babbling, who was slightly deaf, and hadn't heard Louis, "they will provide some puzzles and activities. Ah – here they are."

Mia looked up to see a man and a young woman walking towards them. She quickly recognised the man as Louis' dad, Bill Weasley.

"Hi, Dad," Louis sighed.

"What, not pleased to see me?" Bill grinned.

"I can listen to you talk about Egyptian Mummies' curses anytime," Louis sighed. "I had hoped it'd be someone interesting."

"I'm interesting," Bill fake-pouted. "Anyway..." he turned away from Louis and towards the rest of the class. "Welcome to Gringotts. My name's Bill, and this is Flo, and we'll be your guides today. If you'd like to follow us."

The class followed Bill and Flo through the main atrium, but instead of heading down towards the vaults, Bill led them up a marble spiral staircase. They went up two flights of stairs, along a corridor, and into a long room which was filled by a large oak table.

"Take a seat," Bill said, waving his hand over the table. He and Flo sat at the head of the table, and Professor Babbling and Kiera at the foot. The class spread themselves out down the two long sides of the table. Mia found herself between Cassie and Louis, who'd deliberately sat himself as far away from his dad as possible.

Bill and Flo each spoke for about twenty minutes about their work as curse breakers, and Flo told them about her first trip abroad to work in the pyramids of Egypt – she'd only left school three years ago. Then they asked the class if they had any questions.

"Do you really need Runes to be a curse breaker?" Alexander asked. "Isn't everything in the Egyptian tombs in hieroglyphics anyway?"

"Not all of them," Flo explained. "Some Egyptian Wizards would intersperse hieroglyphics with Runes to make their curses harder to break. When I was Egypt, I needed a good knowledge of both."

Alexander sighed. "Curse breaking sound interesting, but Runes... isn't."

"Dad, tell them that mummy story," Louis said.

Bill laughed. "You do realise I made that up?" he asked.

"What?!" Louis exploded. "That was my favourite bedtime story as a kid, and now you're telling me it was all made up?"

"I thought you knew," Bill laughed. "It was believable enough when you were six, but now..."

"So... you never fought an escaped mummy in an Egyptian tomb...?" Louis asked tentatively.

Everyone laughed. "Unfortunately not," Bill said.

"So... you never warded it off with just an old rune book and a wedge of mouldy cheese...?" Louis sounded incredibly disappointed, and was starting to go slightly pink with embarrassment as everyone laughed at him.

"I didn't know you were so gullible, mate," Theo grinned at Louis across the table. Louis made a rude hand gesture at him.

"Sorry, son, Bill grinned. "I could still tell the story..." he suggested.

"Tell us, tell us, tell us!" Alexander started chanting.

"If you dare tell them, I'll... I'll... I'll eat your birthday present!" Louis told his dad.

"And, on that note, I think it's time for your Runes challenge," Flo said decisively. "If you could get into two teams – each side of the table will do – and then I'll hand out the Runes."

Mia, Louis and Cassie were joined in their group by Vicky Baddock, a Slytherin girl who was one of Ilonka's 'sheep'. Flo handed each group a bound scroll of parchment.

"In these scrolls are some runes which you need to translate. This will then give you clues which will lead you to a shop in Diagon Alley, and a password to give the shop owner. They will then give you a prize. If you can locate your prize and bring it back here by ten to eleven, you may keep the prize."

"And word of caution," Bill said. "Each team's Runes, and therefore their destinations, are different. So there's no point trying to copy each other."

Flo checked her watch. "You have just under an hour. Ready... steady... GO!"

Cassie's fingers fumbled as she unrolled the scroll.

"Hurry up!" Vicky snapped. "The others have got theirs open already!"

"I doesn't matter what the others are doing," Louis told her shortly. "It's not a race – we just have to be back here within the hour. Let's get cracking."

The four of them poured over the Runes. But they weren't Runes like Mia had ever seen. The recognisable Rune figures were interspersed with pictorial figures.

"Dad, are these hieroglyphics?" Louis demanded. Bill just shrugged and smiled at him. "But we don't know hieroglyphics!"

"I don't think they're real hieroglyphics," Mia reasoned. "Just pictures – look, that one's a cat."

"Why don't we write out the runes without the hieroglyphics in?" Louis suggested.

"Okay," Cassie nodded, copying out the runes, minus the hieroglyphics onto a separate piece of parchment. Whilst she did that, the others studied the hieroglyphics, finally declaring the mall to be some variation of cats, owls, mice and frogs.

"Right, runes!" Louis said, once Cassie had finished copying.

"I think the first one's school'," Cassie offered shyly.

"Yeah, or 'education' or 'teaching' – the rune means something like that," Mia agreed, writing the word down beneath the list of animals on her sheet of parchment.

"This one looks like... words... writing...write...written," Louis mused. Mia wrote that down too.

"And this one's dress...robe...dress robe? Dress robes!" Vicky said. "It's Madam Malkins!"

"Hang on," Louis said, "that doesn't fit with the other clues we have so far-"

"You can wear dress robes at school," Vicky pouted. "Come on – you want to win, don't you?"

"To win, we need to get the answer right," Louis said firmly. "Stop being-"

"I think we should translate the rest of the runes," Cassie said.

"I agree," Mia said quickly, wanting to avoid an argument between Louis and Vicky. "What's this one?"

They all poured over the fourth rune. Across the table, Theo and Alexander were arguing about the correct translation of one of their runes. They didn't seem to be quite as far along as Mia's group.

"I've never seen that Rune before," Louis said eventually, after the four of them had been staring at the rune for a full minute.

"Let's try the last one," Mia said. Louis, Cassie and Vicky all spoke at the same time.

"Next to," Louis said.

"Beside," Cassie said.

"Nearby," Vicky said.

Mia wrote down all three variants. "Okay, so we've got 'school', or something similar; 'writing', or something similar; 'dress robes'; and 'next to'/'beside'/'nearby'."

"And the pictures," Cassie reminded her.

"And this rune we don't know," Louis said. "It looks a bit like the rune for 'need', but it's not... what word's like need?"

"'Feed'?" Vicky suggested.

Louis rolled his eyes. "I meant that they mean the same thing, not that they sound the same."

"Well you didn't say that," Vicky retorted. "Just because you're in Ravenclaw, you think you're better than the rest of us!"

Louis snorted. "No I don't," he scoffed.

"Let's not argue," Cassie said quickly. "It's too different to be anything like 'needed' or 'needing', isn't it?"

"Mmm..." Louis nodded. "No, it's gotta be a different word... what other word means you need things?"

"Necessary?" Mia suggested.

"Could be," Louis nodded.

Mia wrote it down.

"I still think it's Madam Malkins," Vicky insisted. "Dress robes, and you wear robes to school."

"What about 'necessary'?" Louis asked.

"Robes are necessary," Vicky shrugged.

"And 'next to'/'beside'/'nearby'?" Mia asked.

"Madam Malkins is like two shops down from here," Vicky said. "C'mon!" She got to her feet.

"What about 'writing', though?" Cassie asked.

"That's the password!" Vicky said. "Come on!"

Mia, Louis and Cassie looked at each other.

"It's worth a try," Mia shrugged. "We can think on the way."

"Alright," Louis conceded.

The four of them gathered up their sheets of parchment and ran out of the room.