Happy Holidays, everyone!
I sincerely hope you have all had a wondrous time with loved ones and merriment. I myself am still nursing my poor fingers from crocheting a queen size blanket in under a month as a surprise gift for a friend XD
Thank you to everyone for their lovely reviews, as usual. I love that folks are so invested in my story.
I've taken some suggestions into mind and decided that Nesme will NOT uncover the secret of Tom Riddle with her anagram game. It would be too easy and coincidental. What she did was just a silly little game that managed to make a few of you hold you breath for a moment in anticipation and for that I am pleased.
This chapter should answer some confusion about the diadem and it's unusual attributes that Simone and Thea felt. It is not the Horcrux itself causing the strange sensations they experienced.
If Someone Cared Enough
Chapter Thirty-Five: Fess Up!
"Tell me."
"No."
"Tell me."
"I said no!"
It was in an empty classroom an hour before dinner that Severus found himself locked in a very pointless argument with the ever so stubborn Simone. All week Severus had attempted to wring out of her just what she and Thea were so intent on hiding from their walk back to the dorms on Halloween night. Every time Severus inquired or hinted or flat out demanded an answer the pair would clam up and find some piss poor excuse to skedaddle like the hopping pot was hot on their tails.
After exhausted nearly all his options, Severus decided the best course of action was to bring in more people so that Simone would have more interested and curious minds to contend with. Which is why he wrangled their rag tag group of friends into an unused classroom.
Lily and Mary were easy to convince, as wherever Lily went Mary was sure to follow these days and since Lily never turned down an opportunity to spend time with Severus, she readily agreed when he asked her to meet with him.
Nesme was more than happy to stop by, that girl was up for pretty much anything, and she carried the added bonus of dragging a reluctant Davis with her, prying the studious boy away from his review sheets.
Severus had considered getting Lupin involved, if only because the boy seemed to grate on Thea's nerves for some reason and might make her more incline to let something slip in anger. However, Severus still didn't fully trust Lupin to keep his mouth closed around his friends and on the off chance Simone's secret was something of truly importance and discretion, Severus would rather not have such information fall into Potter or Black's hands.
Severus had considered asking the rest of his study group with Simone to come, such as Paul, or Ermina, but opted out of doing so because he frankly wasn't as close with them. Nice as they were, they were his "school friends", the type you sit next to in class and wave at in the halls, sending perhaps a letter or two over hols but otherwise having no contact over the breaks. They weren't regular friends that you always want around in and out of class, like Lily had always been and the group before him were slowly becoming. So he left them out of the meeting, figuring if the nature of Simone's secret concerned them in any way he could always let them in on it later.
It took a great deal of convincing to get Simone to meet up with him, as his constant questioning of her silence had left her very suspicious of him and any attempts to get her on her own. In the end, it was Simone's never failing protectiveness of Thea that worked. Severus simply said someone's pet rat had injured itself and was holed up in an empty classroom and Thea was off like a rocket, Simone left with no choice but to follow.
Sever may have solved the problem of getting Simone to the meeting point, but that didn't mean getting her to open up was any easier.
"Just tell me," Severus said exasperated.
Simone put her hands on her hips, glaring at him, "How many times do I have to tell you that's it's NONE of your business, Snape?"
"What about me? Can I know?" A smiling Nesme asked from her seat on the teacher's desk.
Simone fixed Nesme with a bland look, "No."
"Oh well," Nesme shrugged, the girl going back to looking merrily around the room, swinging her feet.
Lily decided to intervene before any new arguing could ensue, "Can the rest of us perhaps get some clarity, here?"
"Yeah, you just sort of called us here and started having a go at each other," Mary added, "What gives?"
Severus pointed at the two Slytherin girls, "Simone and Thea left Slughorn's party before me. Now, I would have thought this meant they should arrive at our dorms before I did, but they got there after me, looking quite rattled, might I add."
Everyone turned to look at Simone and Thea, the latter hiding partially behind the former.
"At breakfast the next day," Severus continued, "The pair were still in similar states of alarm and concern when I arrived at our table and were very closed lipped as to why. Sine them, no amount of effort on my part has been able to get them talking and I for one am sick of the secrecy."
Severus turned to Simone and Thea, a stern look on his face, "Enough secrets. This clearly isn't the typical juicy gossip between girls or an embarrassing incident or problem you'd like to keep secret. You're worried about something and if it holds any danger for the rest of us or Hogwarts itself, I suggest you start talking."
Simone and Thea exchanged uneasy looks.
Severus sighed, "I didn't want to have to reveal my own hand unless necessary, but…if you tell me your secret then I'll tell you mine," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of parchment, "The one slipped into my pocket by an anonymous someone at Slughorn's party."
Simone perked up, as did everyone else.
"Sev, you didn't tell me something left you a note," Lily said, hurt.
"I honestly wasn't sure if I should tell anyone," Severus admitted, "It's written like a riddle; whoever sent it clearly didn't want this information to be solved by just anyone."
"Well if it's a riddle it should be a cinch for me," Davis stated, "It is what my house is known for."
Simone eyed the paper warily, a hint of curiosity gleaming in her eyes.
"So what does it say?" she asked, reaching for the paper.
Severus held the paper out of her reach, "Your secret first, then mine."
"You should go first since your secret is right here," Simone shot back, "Mine might take a bit of explaining…and even then I'm not sure if you'll all believe me."
Severus narrowed his eyes, displeased with her response.
"It really is a difficult tale to tell," Thea said to placate Severus, "We may need to show you rather than tell you."
"The hell we're taking them there," Simone growled, causing Thea to shrink in on herself. Seeing this, Simone's eyes softened, remorse in her gaze, "Sorry, Thea. I'm just…still a little uneasy about the whole thing."
"Is this something you two would like to share with the class," Severus drawled in annoyance.
Nesme snickered behind him.
"It's cause we're in a classroom!"
"I get it, Nesme," Davis said tiredly.
Simone glared at Severus, "Your secret first; that's the only way I'm talking. But I promise you…it's big…real big."
Severus huffed, "Fine. This is what I got—well everyone come and look," he snapped when everyone stayed where they were.
"You sure it's not cursed or anything, right?" Davis asked as he approached.
Severus shook his head, "I did all the necessary checks myself. Nothing came up."
"I'm surprised it wasn't enchanted to appear as gibberish or invisible to anyone who wasn't its intended recipient," Simone mused peering at the note.
"A secret hidden among pompous pride," Lily read, "That means you have to find something?"
"That's what it sounds like," Severus guessed, "And I guess I have to get whoever is hiding it to tell me, according to the 'loose lips' part."
"Technically, that line could mean that whoever hide whatever it is can be coaxed into talking or already has been," Davis pointed out, "After all, the note's author could have acquired the knowledge themselves by being told by the hider."
"And what's with that name at the end," Nesme asked, "Babbity? Like the from the children's story? That's a weird way to sign off."
"Well I doubt someone who went to the trouble of writing this in riddle would then just sign their real name," Simone said.
"Do you think Babbity is in itself a clue to the writer's identity?" Thea inquired.
Simone shrugged, "That or it was just a name they thought of on the fly. Who knows?"
"Okay, so what we at least know for sure is that whoever is hiding it is pompous and likes to brag," Mary surmised, "That could be Potter or Black. Hell, it could be half of Slytherin—no offense," she added to Simone and Severus.
"None taken," Severus and Simone answered together.
"We're assuming the hidden thing is even at Hogwarts," Lily stated, looking over the riddle, "It doesn't actually drop us a clue implying it's here."
"Even if it was, we haven't the foggiest idea where to start looking," Severus said with a sigh.
"Um…we might…" Simone offered up hesitantly.
Everyone looked at her.
Simone scratched the back of her neck awkwardly, "I don't know if the note is connected to it at all or unrelated, but if we're looking for things that are hidden Thea and I found a place perfect for that…"
"By any chance is this part of your secret?" Severus asked.
Simone nodded, "Yeah, we found it on our way to the dorms that night. A secret room full of tons of things people hid or threw away…and what we found inside there wasn't good."
"And this potentially bad thing was in a secret room, you say?" Severus asked, skeptical.
"I know how it sounds," Simone stated, "But it's true. We were on the seventh floor, just wandering. I didn't feel like going to bed right that moment and I hadn't found Amadeus yet so I figured we might as well look for him. We had reached the end of one hall and were heading into a new one when Thea's gecko decided to take off on us."
"So you chased it," Severus surmised.
"Yeah," Simone said, "We had it corner against a wall and while Thea was trying to catch it, the wall sort of…changed. Like a big door appeared out of nowhere."
"Really?" Mary asked, "Just 'proof' and it was there?"
Thea shook her head, "No, it slowly transformed out of the stone itself. Everything morphed and folded into place and there it was; a door."
"You do realize how unlikely that sounds," Severus pointed out, "Even with magic. No incantations, no spells, it just happened on its own…?"
"I know what I saw and if you don't believe me I'll show you," Simone said in frustration, "But you all have to promise me; you won't mess with that item I spoke up, and you'll tell no one of that place."
"I promise," Davis said readily, the chance at new discovery intriguing his knowledge hungry mind.
"Me too," Lily said.
"And me," said Mary.
"Me too, I promise too," said Nesme eagerly, practically bouncing in place, "Let's go see it!"
Simone turned to Severus expectantly.
"Do I look like the sharing type to begin with?" Severus drawled.
Simone led the others through the halls. Everyone tried to act casual since they didn't want anyone to become suspicious. Last thing they needed was to be followed. So they engaged in idle chit chat, feigning interests in humdrum topics like Professors Binns classes and what gossip was going around the school lately.
Fortunately for them, the seventh floor halls weren't commonly in use at this hour, no classes in session right at the moment and hardly any students wandering around.
"Right here," Simone announced, pointing at the wall in front of them, "Right across from that dusty old tapestry."
Everyone stared at the blank wall, not seeing a single thing out of place.
Nesme was buzzing with excitement, nearly vibrating with it.
"So it just appeared," Severus asked, stepping forward to examine the stone bricks, "There doesn't appear to be anything here. No lines in indicate a hidden passageway or any mechanisms to be pushed. How did you open it?"
Simone shrugged, "I don't know; it just opened."
"Maybe one of the bricks pushes in," Lily suggested, coming to stand next to Severus. She felt along the wall, "Surely it didn't open by chance."
"Perhaps it is a sequence of steps," Davis theorized, "Maybe the floor is the trigger and you have to step on it in just the right way." He turned to Thea, "How were you standing when you caught Jerva? Did you step here in any particular way?"
Thea raised her hands helplessly and shrugged with a shake of her head, "I can't remember how."
"Ooh! Ooh!" Nesme cried out, hand in the air like she was in class, "Let me try something. I've got an idea."
Simone gestured to the wall, "Have at it."
Nesme walked up to the wall and stared at it, her eyes narrowed.
"You say you found a room of hidden things?" she asked Simone.
Simone nodded, "Yeah."
Nesme turned back to the wall, her face set in determination. Scrunching her face up in thought, she walked back and forth in front of the wall several times.
Davis snorted, bemused, "Nes, what are you doing—"
On Nesme's third pass by the door, it happened—the floor around them rumbled and the wall in front of them began to change. Stone shifted and reshaped itself, grout and dust raining down and rock crumbling to give way to wooden and metal.
When it was all over, a large door stood before them.
"No way…" Mary breathed.
Severus and Lily looked on in shock and bewilderment.
"I knew it!" Nesme exclaimed, jumping up and down, "I knew, I knew it, I knew it!"
"How did you do that?" Davis nearly shouted.
"Don't you see," Nesme asked, spinning around to face everyone, "This is the 'Come and Go' Room!"
"The what?" Simone asked blankly.
Nesme rolled her eyes, "The 'Come and Go' room. Surely you've all heard the stories?"
At everyone's blanks stares she groaned.
"It's a room that appears to you when you need something," Nesme explained, "When I was younger, I overheard an older student talking about it. His name was Tonks something…or something Tonks….whatever. Anyway, he use to use this room to meet with his girlfriend without her sister finding out. He said it is rumored to take the shape of whatever sort of room you need." She turned back around to the door, "And it must be true if your room contained something else. You just walk back and forth three times thinking real hard and BAM! Instant door."
Simone approached the door, running her hand along the polished wood, "Come to think of it, Thea and I were talking about where Amadeus could have hidden my bracelet."
"And where one would hide things in general," added Thea, "Hard to believe such a place exists."
"So it just magicks up a room?" Severus asked Nesme, "It isn't just bringing in a preexisting room from some other part of the world through a temporal plane?"
Nesme shook her head, though she probably didn't understand what a temporal plane was, "Not that I know of. It just creates it out of nothing."
"So then when then room disappears, where does everything inside go?" Severus inquired.
"How should I know?" Nesme replied.
"Let's worry about that later," Lily offered in compromise, "Right now, I think Simone has something she wants to show us?"
Simone nodded, her face grave, "Follow me."
{page break}
Back in the Gyffindor common room, James Potter was sitting in a corner of the room with his friends, looking over his map. The mischievous reputation he and his friends amassed often ensure people gave them their space unless invited, so James felt safe to have the map out in public in their private little corner.
Around him, his friends sat doing various things to pass the time. Sirius was scribbling a rather unflattering picture of Professor Binns being primarily comprised of farts instead of doing his homework.
Peter was attempting to memorize the flash cards Remus so kindly made him to help him remember what charm does what, though he was having trouble concentrating with Sirius giggling to himself.
Remus sat in an armchair by himself reading a muggle book Lily loaned him. It was a poetry book containing old poems from long before either of them were born. His favorite poem so far was Bisclavret, the tale of a werewolf who avenges the cruelties bestowed upon him by his unfaithful wife with the help of a kindly king who accepts his condition and invites him to live in his castle for all his days.
James studied his map closer, eyes trained a particular group of names.
"What are they up to…" he wondered aloud.
"I hope you're not using that thing to spy on a certain Slytherin," Remus said without taking his eyes off his book.
"Relax Moony, it's nothing like that," James assured, "I'm just wondering what Lily is doing hanging out all the way on the seventh floor. She's with several other people and they're just standing by a wall for some reason." He decided not to mention that Snape was one of the names in that group.
"Spying on Lily isn't much better," Remus said, lowering his book to frown at James, "I thought you were going to give her space this year."
"I am," James protested, "That doesn't mean I don't care about her safety. Wilkes and his lot are still in this school, aren't they? I just want to make sure she isn't off anywhere alone with those creeps wandering the halls."
"I'd hate to run into Wilkes or Rosier alone," Peter admitted.
"They'd hex you into a pile of little Peter flakes," Sirius said with a grin, making Peter cringe.
"Not funny, Sirius," Remus chided, giving Peter a gentle smile, "We won't leave you alone with the likes of them, Peter."
Peter gave Remus a relieved smile.
"They're gone!" James cried out suddenly.
"Who's gone?" Sirius asked, sitting up.
James pointed at the map, "Lily. T-the names, they just vanished."
James pointed to the spot he last saw Lily as his friends crowded around him, "That's where they all were, but then suddenly they just disappeared."
"They can't disappear, mate," Sirius assured him, looking through the map, "Maybe they moved down the hall and you just missed it."
James shook his head, "No, I was staring right at them. One minute they were there and the next they were gone." He searched over the parchment frantically, "They're nowhere else on the map!"
"Calm down, James," Remus soothed, "The map can't be accurate all the time. I mean, it's got hundreds of names to keep track of all at once, surely there will be some slip ups from time to time. Look," he pointed to their common room, a large mass of names piled indiscernibly on top of one another, "There's so many of us in here you can't even make out our own names. Maybe something similar is happening with Lily and her friends."
James considered Remus words, "Maybe…but there weren't any other people around them on the map for them to get caught up in. How could they simply vanish?"
"Like I said, maybe the map screwed up," Remus pressed, "There isn't anything to go into where they were standing, so they couldn't have just walked into nothing."
"Maybe Snape found out a way to go undetected," Sirius suggested.
James nodded, "Maybe."
Remus looked up sharply, "I thought you said you weren't spying on him, James."
James held his hands up, "I wasn't I was spying on Lily—I mean, watching out for her. It's not my fault that the girl I wanted to check up on happens to be with him at this moment."
"So the fact that they were together at all in no way effected your decision to spy on Lily?" Remus asked skeptically.
"Honest," James promised, "There wasn't a single prank I had in mind; I was just checking up on Lily."
Remus stared James down, searching for a lie. When his friend's face remained blank, he sighed, "Fine. Just don't let me catch you following him, got it?"
"Got it," replied James.
"Still is weird they're not on the map anymore," Peter said quietly, staring at the empty spot on the map.
{page break}
"You're sure you threw it over here?" Severus asked, climbing over a collection of old shoes and hairbrushes.
"Positive," Simone's voice called out from behind a stack of books, "it flew in this direction."
Mary managed to climb on top of an armoire so she could see better.
"This room is full of junk," she exclaimed, "How does anyone find anything in here?"
"I imagine the first few people who began hiding things here didn't expect it to be so popular," Lily guessed, picking up an old bust of a particularly sour-faced man.
Severus tripped over a wicker basket and fell face first into the cushion of a chair, getting a mouthful of dust and mothballs.
"This is ridiculous!" he snarled, spitting and coughing in disgust, "Just summon the blasted thing to you, Serapeum."
"Good idea," Simone agreed, "Accio, hatbox—ACK!" There was a loud clatter as the sound of many things colliding together filled the room.
"What happened?" Lily asked worriedly.
"Apparently there are a lot of hatboxes in here," Simone's voice came from around a corner of the junk maze, "I barely had time to get Thea out of the way."
"Thanks for that, by the way," Thea said.
"Don't thank me too much…I shoved you into a cabinet," Simone pointed out wryly.
"Did you find the box you put it in," Severus asked impatiently.
"No, none of these boxes are it. It's sort of strange because I thought the spell work on containers even if they carried things inside them," Simone sounded very perplexed.
Davis sighed from somewhere to Severus's left, "Just summon the item itself, Sim."
"That was my next plan," Simone said hastily, "Accio...tiara."
There was a few moments of silence as everyone waited for something to happen. Nothing did.
"Accio crown," Simone tried.
Still nothing.
"Accio diadem," Davis called out.
His attempt yielded the same results.
"Diadem?" Simone asked with a snort.
"Some crowns are called Diadems," Davis explained.
'An item enchanted to not be summoned,' Severus thought, 'That does not bode well…'
"There's got to be some way of finding it," Mary stated, "We can't just search through every pile until we do."
"I found it!" Nesme yelled.
"What?" Simone cried.
"It's a hat box," Nesme continued as everyone followed her voice, "It's all tied up in ropes and somethings rattling around inside it."
"That's the one," Simone said, "How the hell did you find it?"
They rounded a pile of shredded feather pillows to find Nesme holding a hatbox with a proud grin on her face.
"Hufflepuffs are particularly good finders," she recited proudly.
Put out that she didn't find it herself, Simone took the proffered box with a pout, "I could have found it eventually."
Nesme patted her back, "Of course you could."
Glaring at Nesme, Simone turned her attention to the box, worry clouding her features.
"It's in here," she said seriously.
Vanishing the ropes, she cautiously opened the lid of the box and showed her friends.
"It is a tiara," Mary oohed.
"It's just jewelry," Severus said dismissively, not seeing the appeal.
Lily elbowed him, "It's still pretty."
"When we found it, I felt…compelled to put it on," Simone explained, "There's some force around it that urges you to. I nearly did, but stopped myself in time…only to face consequences."
"Like what," Severus inquired.
"A pain like I had never felt before," Simone answered, "It felt like my head was being split open, like something had seared through my brain and nearly teared me in two."
"It made her nose bleed," Thea added fearfully.
"It did that just from you holding it?" Mary asked, shocked.
Simone nodded, "That's not all though. We felt something inside it. A presence. We could feel it…hear it."
Everyone looked at Simone horrified.
Davis looked at the tiara, scrutinizing it.
"There's something really familiar about this thing," he said, "It almost looks like the lost Diadem of Rowena."
Simone looked down into the box, "It does?"
Davis nodded, "I'm surprised you don't recognize it. One of the only portraits of her wearing the diadem is painted on the wall of Ravenclaw's common room. You've seen it."
Simone looked closer at the tiara in the box, "They do look similar."
"It's said the portrait must have been painted after the diadem was already lost," Davis went on, "Because Rowena didn't wear it for the painting and asked them to paint it in based on her description." He pointed to the large jewel in the center of the tiara they had before them, "But that stone, was definitely in the painting."
Nesme gasped, "Does this mean that we found the lost diadem?"
"But something's wrong with it now," Lily pointed out with a frown.
"Maybe that's why it needed to stay lost," Severus said darkly.
Everyone looked at him.
"Objects aren't supposed to call to you," Severus stated, "Or hurt you by means unseen. You can charm a clock to tell the time out loud or make a teacup bite, but those are just silly tricks." He placed his hand over the box, "But this…this has consciousness…a malicious one if Simone is to be believed."
"I can feel it even now," Thea said, a quaver to her voice, "Can't any of you?"
Everyone concentrated, standing in silence.
"I hear whispering," Nesme admitted, one of the closest to the box.
Mary shivered, "Is it colder in here?" She drifted her hand over the box, pausing, "It's weird…it's like cold and hot at the same time. A deathly chill, but pulses warmth…"
Davis picked the diadem up, much to everyone's protests.
"It can't be that bad," he chided them, examining the item.
"So do you feel anything?" Simone asked.
Davis shrugged, "Not really. It's just an old tiara, I can't imagine why people have sought so hard to find it since it went missing…"
"Just because it seems like nothing doesn't mean it isn't something," Severus pointed out.
Davis didn't answer right away, his eyes fixed on the diadem.
"I don't see anything wrong with it," he said slowly. He sounded odd.
"But that doesn't mean there isn't something wrong with it," Severus insisted in exasperation.
"So you're saying you know better than me?" came out the harsh reply from Davis.
Severus blinked, "…What?"
"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Davis said slowly, lazily even. He turned to Severus with a glare, "You don't know everything. I'm the Ravenclaw. You're just some Slytherin wanna-be trying to be a bigshot."
"Where is this coming from?" Severus asked, surprised by Davis's hostility.
"Stop trying to show everyone up all the time!" Davis exclaimed, taking a step towards Severus, prompting the Slytherin to reach for his wand, "Did it ever cross your mind that someone else might have the answer for once?"
"Davis, what's wrong with you?" Simone shouted.
As the others yelled and argued with Davis about his behavior, Nesme stood there wringing her hands. Eyes landing on the diadem, Nesme slapped it out of Davis's hand without a second thought and it fell back into the box.
Like a cloud was lifting, Davis's face cleared, "i-I'm sorry...I don't know what came over me..."
"Care to explain what that was about?" Simone asked harshly.
"I'm not sure. I didn't feel anything at first," Davis admitted, "But you know, the longer I stood there holding it things just sort of started to feel…wrong," he wrung his hands, looking for a way to explain, "I felt…off somehow. It's made me feel…not right…"
"Angry," Severus supplied, "It made you feel angry. I felt it too."
Davis nodded, "Yeah, like irritated in some way…" he looked around at his friends, his eyes narrowing, "Looking at you…it was like I was seeing you all for the first time…and I didn't like it…but none of you acted that way when you touched it..."
"Whatever is causing it might have a stronger affect on some of us than others," Simone suggested, "Snape said he felt it to some degree."
"This thing has some bad vibes, guys," Nesme pointed out, "What could cause that."
Simone looked down at the box, "Well it's obviously a form of dark magic. As to what precisely, you would need to ask an expert."
All eyes went to Severus.
Severus rolled his eyes, "Oh sure, single me out."
"Severus do you have any idea what is going on?" Lily asked gently.
Severus examined the tiara from a distance, not willing to touch it, "Well the whispering and humming you all hear is clearly a compulsion charm; a strong one at that. Not necessarily dark magic, but it's being used to make you want to put on an item with potentially foul curses on it."
"What about the…'wrongness' of it?" Simone asked.
"That could also be a spell," Severus guessed, "One designed to make passersby wary of it, afraid of it."
"Why would someone do that?" Davis asked.
Severus shrugged, "My best bet is whoever hid this wanted to scare others away from it and…'take care of' those who didn't turn tail and run."
"And the anger?" Thea prompted, "The way it was affecting Davis? How do you explain that?"
"And what about how it feels…I don't know, alive somehow?" Mary added.
"That I don't know," Severus confessed, "Truthfully, those attributes are something I've never encountered in any of my reading or research."
"Why didn't you go to Dumbledore?" Lily asked Simone, taking a step away from the box.
"And tell him what? That I found a magical tiara in a room that doesn't exist?" Simone snapped, "If he didn't think I was crazy, the rest of the staff would have thought I was making things up. Plus, I don't really want anything questionable in the hands of a headmaster who's own moral compass doesn't always land on fair and good."
"He has made some questionable calls over the years," Severus agreed.
Lily sighed, remembering the werewolf incident Severus went through, "That he has."
"But that doesn't change that this thing is dangerous," Severus declared, "We should destroy it." He fixed Simone with a level stare, "You should have done that to begin with."
Simone glared at him, "You didn't feel what it did to me! I panicked, okay?!"
"Let's not fight amongst ourselves," Thea intervened, "Severus is right, we need to destroy it before someone else finds it. I doubt the results are good if you actually are foolish enough to put it on your head."
"Agreed," said Severus, taking the box from Simone and setting it on the ground, "We should all stand back."
Everyone spread out, putting distance between themselves and the box.
"Sectumsempra," Severus said, slashing his wand at the diadem.
The spell flew towards the diadem and dissolved into nothing.
Severus blinked, "That should have worked."
"Try confringo," Simone suggested, "Maybe it will be stronger if we try together."
"I'll help too," said Lily, wand at the ready.
The three of them pointed their wands at the diadem.
"Confringo!" they shouted.
Instead of exploding like it should have, the diadem remained intact, the spell reflecting off it like a mirror.
"Expulso," Lily tried.
"Incendio!" Severus commanded.
"Reducto!" Simone yelled angrily.
The trio threw a series of spells, hexes, and curses at the diadem, the others joining in when it became apparent none of their attempts were working. For a full five minutes, the frantic teens threw all the magic they knew at the diadem, all to no effect.
Simone dropped to her knees, stunned, "What sort of magic is this?" she asked.
"We need something stronger," Severus panted, "Whatever dark magic is in this thing can't be destroyed by the standard spells."
"We don't know anything stronger!" Simone growled, "And even if we did, I doubt we'd get away with using them in a school."
Mary came over to place a hand on Severus's shoulder, kneeling by him.
"So what do we do now?" she asked him.
"For now we bind it," Severus declared, "We seal it away and stash it somewhere in here, where no one else would think to look."
"We should at least tell one of the professors," Lily suggested, "This thing is dangerous to the school."
"We don't know what we're up against yet," Severus pointed out, "You saw what it did to Davis; it changed him. What's to say it wouldn't have a similar effect on someone else? Someone with the ability to do some legitimate damage." The idea of someone as powerful as Dumbledore being manipulated into turning on his students the way Davis nearly turned on Severus was a worrying thought, "No, we best find out what we're dealing with first and keep this thing hidden in the meantime."
"We better find something better than a hatbox then," Thea pointed out.
"And tie it up," Davis added, "Lots of ropes, both real ones and magical ones for good measure."
Lily looked around them, scanning the piles, "Everyone be prepared to duck."
Mary blinked, "Why?"
"Accio lock box!" Lily said, raising her wand.
There were some crashes in the room and they all barely had enough time to run for cover before several boxes and safes came bursting through the piles around them, sending various items flying.
"A little warning next time," Simone muttered from where she was was half crouched over Thea under a piano bench.
Lily grinned sheepishly, "Sorry."
Coming out of their hiding places, everyone picked through the boxes that Lily summoned. Some were metal, some wooden, some had big padlocks on them and some had simple knobs to turn.
"This one's no good," Davis announced, putting a box off to the side.
"This one either," said Mary.
"What about this one?" Thea asked, holding up an odd wooden box with intricate carvings and gold embellishments. On the front was a series of sliders and knobs interlocking together.
"That's a puzzle box!" Nesme said excitedly.
Severus took the box and examined it, "It's magically reinforced; it should stand up to most spells."
"But look, it was already locked by somebody," Davis stated, reaching over to fiddle with the locking mechanism, "Each time you lock it you can set your own puzzle to keep it sealed. I doubt we can get into it—I got it," he added with a start as the locked clicked and opened.
"Ravenclaws," Simone snorted.
Thea picked up the diadem with a discarded handkerchief she found among the rubble and junk, carrying it carefully over to Davis.
"Is the box empty?" she asked.
Davis peered inside, "It's just filled with old love letters from some Baron to a woman by the looks of it."
"As long as the diadem fits inside, those can stay," Severus said, "I see no point in tossing them out and making more of a mess."
Cautiously, they placed the diadem inside the puzzle box.
Closing the lid, Severus handed the box off to Davis, "You're the one who solved the last puzzle lock on it; makes this one near unsolvable."
"I'll do my best," Davis replied, getting to work moving all the sliders and knobs into place.
When he was finished, Simone summoned a rope from the room and tied it tightly around the box before Severus conjured a magical one to bind it with as well.
"We need a good hiding place," Simone said, standing up with the box.
Mary cocked her head to the side, listening, "Does anybody hear that? It sounds like something's moving."
Everybody strained to hear the sound. Sure enough, they could all hear something shifting and moving, like stone dragging on stone. It was coming from the back of the room.
"Stay sharp," Severus warned, keeping his wand out in front of him.
Warily, everyone followed the sound to the far end of the room, prepared for sudden danger.
However, it wasn't an enemy they found, but a change in the room. The back wall was opening up in the middle, rearranging itself. The stones continued to shift until there was a little opening in the center.
"Did the room just make that for us?" Simone questioned, turning to Nesme.
Nesme shrugged, "Well it is a room for whatever you need."
"Good enough," Severus said, taking the box from Simone. He placed it in the hole and they all watched as the stone slowly resealed itself, closing over the nook until all that remained was a blank wall again.
"Now what?" Mary asked.
"Now we figure out what that thing is," Severus told everyone turning to face his friends, "And how to destroy it."
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It took a while to write with all the Christmas hullabaloo going on around here.
Hopefully this chapter cleared up some things about the Horcrux. Simone and Thea cannot sense Horcruxes like Harry, since Harry was a Horcrux and they are not. What they felt were lingering enchantments placed on the Horcrux by Tom as an extra security measure. Keep in mind that judging by the number of things in the room, other people have come across the room of requirement at some point or other. So while Riddle had a vast area of junk to hide the Diadem in, he probably was aware there would be an off chance of someone finding it, however slim a chance that may be. So he would probably take some measures to ensure whoever did find it was either scared away by it or harmed or killed if they were foolish enough to pursue it still. He cursed the ring Horcrux to painfully kill whoever wore it, so he would probably do the same with the diadem.
Read and review :)