The Angel of Heaven-Part 4
BAM!! Professor Snape slammed a book in front of Harry. Harry jumped.
"Sleeping in class, Harry Potter?" he said icily. "Think you're so great you don't need to learn potions?"
"No, sir, I was just up late studying last night." That was a lie, of course. Harry had really been up trying to figure out the 3 clue. It was confusing as ever.
"So what were you studying for hmm?"
"Um...transfiguration...there was this part I didn't understand in class so..." he trailed off.
Snape's eyebrows narrowed. "Well you better pay attention to me Potter, or it's detention to you."
"Yes sir."
* * *
Celesta was eating quietly when Harry took the 3 clue to lunch.
"Hey Celesta, how have you been?" Ron asked.
Celesta glanced up. "Fine, I'm good."
"So, how about this third clue," said Harry. "It's the hardest one so far..."
Named after a planet, I am
Water and I are the ingredients to making mud
A lion watches over me, acting like a guardian
Find where he lies, in the riddle here
Written in but a single word
An eye is an eye, until it is heard.
"We know it's earth, but there are no lions in Hogwarts," Ron said.
"Hey what about-" Hermione was cut off with the sound of Professor McGonagall's screeching voice.
"ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR DORMITORIES QUICK. YOU WILL FINISH YOUR LUNCH IN YOUR COMMON ROOM."
Harry glanced at his friends. "Well, I guess we better go. We can think in the tower."
They followed the panicked crowd to the Gryffindor tower. A low murmur of whispers in the common room greeted the four as they entered. A few minutes later, Professor McGonagall entered the portrait hole.
"QUIET! If you all don't hush I will certainly NOT tell you the news."
Silence was what a person would heard if he came in the room at this time. Everyone looked up at the professor expectedly.
"One of the teachers has been murdered. Unfortunately, the murderer is also known as Lord Voldemort. Professor McGonagall flinched as she said his name, but she had promised Dumbledore she would try to break her habit of saying 'You-Know-Who'.
Everyone screeched. "Who was the teacher?" someone shouted.
"Was it Professor Dumbledore?" Fred yelled.
"No, it was not Professor Dumbledore, thank God. It was Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher."
"What did the note say?" Harry heard Dean yell.
"The note said, 'Hogwarts shall not interfere with my mission. I will kill anyone who is in my way.'"
Hermione screamed. "Harry," she whispered. "What if You-Know-Who is also after you because you have the stones?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't want to think about it," he muttered.
"I want you all to be very, very careful. We don't know how You-Know-Who got into Hogwarts. Be careful of where you go, and don't go anywhere alone. I have to go tell the other houses now. Stay, you will eat your lunch here." Professor McGonagall looked at her house, then solemnly walked out of the portrait hole.
Tables, plates, and food suddenly appeared out of the air. Everyone quietly sat down in a chair and started to eat.
"Why was Professor Flitwick killed?" Ron asked quietly.
"Beats me," Harry said. "But she didn't really do anything...we would've expected Dumbledore to get killed."
"What if she had something to do with one of the stones? Or the altars? What if it was in her office or something?" Hermione said.
"Let's think about the third clue first okay? Remember Celesta said we had to hurry," Harry said.
"Okay, okay. So what was the clue again?" Ron asked.
"Named after a planet, I am, water and I are the ingredients to making mud, a lion watches over me, acting like a guardian, find where he lies, in the riddle here, written in but a single word, an eye is an eye, until it is heard." Harry repeated it to them. "Wait a minute," Harry said. He squinted at the parchment. "There's something else written at the bottom in very fine print but I can't read it."
Hermione grabbed the paper. She brought it close to her face, and read it out loud. "Lines: 8 of 1, 11 of 1, 12 of 1, 4 of 2, 12 of 3, 21 of 3, 8 of 4, 4 of 6."
Ron blinked. "Lines? Straight lines? Or does it mean crooked lines?"
"ATTENTION STUDENTS. YOU WILL NOT HAVE CLASSES FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, BUT PLEASE STAY IN YOUR DORMITORIES. DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ELSE." Professor McGonagall's voice screeched again.
"Darn! I was looking forward to the Transfiguration quiz we were going to get today," Hermione sighed. "Oh well. I'm going to change into normal clothes okay? These robes are kind of getting itchy." Hermione scurried off to her room.
"Well, there goes our brainiac," Ron said. "So...what about these lines?"
"We have to find out what they mean by lines. Then we can probably solve it." Harry said.
"Uh...what? Eight lines of one line? Eleven lines of one line? Doesn't make sense to me. I'm going to go change and take a nap." Ron said. "Sorry Harry, but these lines are making me sleepy."
Harry sighed. "It's okay, I'm kind of tired too. I'll go up with you."
The two boys climbed the stairs to their 4-poster bedroom, and started changing into fleece clothes. Suddenly, Hermione barged in, just as Ron was only in his boxers.
"HERMIONE! Can't we have some privacy here?" Ron hurried to cover himself with his blanket. Harry couldn't help but laughed.
Hermione didn't even notice Ron. "Harry, I got it!"
"Got what? The Transfiguration quiz?"
"No, you idiot. The clue!" Hermione almost shouted in his ear.
"Whoa, Hermione. So what is it?"
"Well...I didn't get all of the riddle, but I understand what the lines are."
"So are they crooked lines or straight lines?" Ron peeked out from his blanket.
"Silly, how stupid can you get? There not drawing lines, their lines from the riddle! Like, letter 5 in line 9, letter 3 in line 4...you get it." Hermione waved the clue in the air. "And I found it out! See, the eighth letter of the first line is T. Eleventh letter of the first line is A. Twelfth letter of line one is P. Fourth letter of line two is E. Twelfth letter of line three is S. Twenty-first letter of the third line is T. Eighth letter of line four is R. And the fourth letter of the sixth line is a Y."
Harry spelled it out slowly. "So...T-A-P-E-S-T-R-Y...tapestry!"
Ron had changed into his fleece clothing. "Yeah, so it's tapestry. But what does the rest of the clue mean though?"
"An eye is an eye, until it is heard? There's no 'eye' in the word tapestry...unless it's referring to the lions eye," Hermione said.
"So a lion is guarding a tapestry? But which one? We have a lot of tapestries in Hogwarts," Harry said.
Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. Just look out for lions and tapestries okay?"
"Oh I think Neville has my dragon hide gloves. I better go get it back...where is he?" Ron asked.
"In the common room, I think. Come up after you get it," Harry replied.
***
Ron walked down the stairs and found Neville sitting on a couch, talking to Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. "Neville, can I have my gloves back?" Ron asked.
"Sure, there right over there in my bag...right there, behind that table," Neville pointed.
Ron walked over to the table, bent down and picked up his gloves. He glanced up at the tapestry with the Gryffindor lion on it, then walked up the stairs. Right when he was about to turn the doorknob, he realized that he had just looked at a tapestry with a lion on it. Ron gasped, then barged into the room.
"Harry! Hermione! I know where the tapestry is!" Ron shrieked.
Harry and Hermione scrambled up, and ran to Ron. "Where is it?" Hermione gasped.
"It's the tapestry in the common room! Remember? 'A lion watches over me, acting like guardian'...and we found that it's hidden in a tapestry! The tapestry is of the Gryffindor lion!" Ron jumped up and down.
Hermione pushed past Harry and Ron and jumped down the stairs, 3 at a time. Harry and Ron quickly followed, and found Hermione running her hands over the thick red tapestry.
The tapestry reached from the floor right up to the ceiling, and thick as Harry's fist. It showed a giant gold lion, standing proud, with gold letters that spelled: Godric Gryffindor.
"I can't feel anything lumpy in it," Hermione answered. "It's perfectly smooth."
"Check the eyes...remember, 'an eye is an eye, until it is heard'?" Ron suggested.
Hermione reached for her wand. "Levantinivo!" Suddenly, she, Harry, and Ron levitated in the air, until they were at the lion's eyes. Hermione prodded her wand inside the tapestry, feeling for the stone, while Ron did the other eye.
"Nope, not a thing," Ron said.
"No luck here either," Hermione added.
"But it has to be here!" Harry insisted. "It's the only tapestry in Hogwarts that has a lion on it!"
"An eye is an eye...until it is heard." Hermione mused. "Eye...eye...'I'? I!"
"Aye, Hermione. We're not sailors, we're wizards and witches." Ron grinned at her.
"Idiot! I didn't mean 'I' as in 'aye', I meant 'I' as in the letter 'I'!" Hermione stuck her tongue out at him.
Harry lowered to the ground, took his wand, and stuck it inside the 'eye' of the 'I' in 'Godric'.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked.
"Don't you see? 'An eye is an eye until it is heard. Say 'eye' out loud and it sounds like the letter 'I'. The letter 'I' has a dot on the top...which is like an eye!"
"Oh! I get it!" Ron grinned.
Harry finished prodding the 'I' in Godric, then started poking the 'I' in Gryffindor.
"See? I got something here! I just can't get it out without ruining the tapestry though," Harry said.
"Hold on," Hermione said. "I learned this nifty little trick I read in a library book...you can un-sew anything then re-sew it. Unsewendo!" Hermione flicked her wand.
The dot of the 'I' started unraveling. Harry could see more of the stone now. When the hole was big enough, Harry reached inside the tapestry and edged the stone out.
"Sewendo!" Hermione commanded. The tapestry began sewing itself again, and when it finished, no one could tell the tapestry had some minor modifications.
Harry gave the dull green marble sphere a light squeeze, then trotted upstairs to lock it in the case.
BAM!! Professor Snape slammed a book in front of Harry. Harry jumped.
"Sleeping in class, Harry Potter?" he said icily. "Think you're so great you don't need to learn potions?"
"No, sir, I was just up late studying last night." That was a lie, of course. Harry had really been up trying to figure out the 3 clue. It was confusing as ever.
"So what were you studying for hmm?"
"Um...transfiguration...there was this part I didn't understand in class so..." he trailed off.
Snape's eyebrows narrowed. "Well you better pay attention to me Potter, or it's detention to you."
"Yes sir."
* * *
Celesta was eating quietly when Harry took the 3 clue to lunch.
"Hey Celesta, how have you been?" Ron asked.
Celesta glanced up. "Fine, I'm good."
"So, how about this third clue," said Harry. "It's the hardest one so far..."
Named after a planet, I am
Water and I are the ingredients to making mud
A lion watches over me, acting like a guardian
Find where he lies, in the riddle here
Written in but a single word
An eye is an eye, until it is heard.
"We know it's earth, but there are no lions in Hogwarts," Ron said.
"Hey what about-" Hermione was cut off with the sound of Professor McGonagall's screeching voice.
"ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS PLEASE REPORT TO YOUR DORMITORIES QUICK. YOU WILL FINISH YOUR LUNCH IN YOUR COMMON ROOM."
Harry glanced at his friends. "Well, I guess we better go. We can think in the tower."
They followed the panicked crowd to the Gryffindor tower. A low murmur of whispers in the common room greeted the four as they entered. A few minutes later, Professor McGonagall entered the portrait hole.
"QUIET! If you all don't hush I will certainly NOT tell you the news."
Silence was what a person would heard if he came in the room at this time. Everyone looked up at the professor expectedly.
"One of the teachers has been murdered. Unfortunately, the murderer is also known as Lord Voldemort. Professor McGonagall flinched as she said his name, but she had promised Dumbledore she would try to break her habit of saying 'You-Know-Who'.
Everyone screeched. "Who was the teacher?" someone shouted.
"Was it Professor Dumbledore?" Fred yelled.
"No, it was not Professor Dumbledore, thank God. It was Professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher."
"What did the note say?" Harry heard Dean yell.
"The note said, 'Hogwarts shall not interfere with my mission. I will kill anyone who is in my way.'"
Hermione screamed. "Harry," she whispered. "What if You-Know-Who is also after you because you have the stones?"
Harry shook his head. "I don't want to think about it," he muttered.
"I want you all to be very, very careful. We don't know how You-Know-Who got into Hogwarts. Be careful of where you go, and don't go anywhere alone. I have to go tell the other houses now. Stay, you will eat your lunch here." Professor McGonagall looked at her house, then solemnly walked out of the portrait hole.
Tables, plates, and food suddenly appeared out of the air. Everyone quietly sat down in a chair and started to eat.
"Why was Professor Flitwick killed?" Ron asked quietly.
"Beats me," Harry said. "But she didn't really do anything...we would've expected Dumbledore to get killed."
"What if she had something to do with one of the stones? Or the altars? What if it was in her office or something?" Hermione said.
"Let's think about the third clue first okay? Remember Celesta said we had to hurry," Harry said.
"Okay, okay. So what was the clue again?" Ron asked.
"Named after a planet, I am, water and I are the ingredients to making mud, a lion watches over me, acting like a guardian, find where he lies, in the riddle here, written in but a single word, an eye is an eye, until it is heard." Harry repeated it to them. "Wait a minute," Harry said. He squinted at the parchment. "There's something else written at the bottom in very fine print but I can't read it."
Hermione grabbed the paper. She brought it close to her face, and read it out loud. "Lines: 8 of 1, 11 of 1, 12 of 1, 4 of 2, 12 of 3, 21 of 3, 8 of 4, 4 of 6."
Ron blinked. "Lines? Straight lines? Or does it mean crooked lines?"
"ATTENTION STUDENTS. YOU WILL NOT HAVE CLASSES FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, BUT PLEASE STAY IN YOUR DORMITORIES. DO NOT GO ANYWHERE ELSE." Professor McGonagall's voice screeched again.
"Darn! I was looking forward to the Transfiguration quiz we were going to get today," Hermione sighed. "Oh well. I'm going to change into normal clothes okay? These robes are kind of getting itchy." Hermione scurried off to her room.
"Well, there goes our brainiac," Ron said. "So...what about these lines?"
"We have to find out what they mean by lines. Then we can probably solve it." Harry said.
"Uh...what? Eight lines of one line? Eleven lines of one line? Doesn't make sense to me. I'm going to go change and take a nap." Ron said. "Sorry Harry, but these lines are making me sleepy."
Harry sighed. "It's okay, I'm kind of tired too. I'll go up with you."
The two boys climbed the stairs to their 4-poster bedroom, and started changing into fleece clothes. Suddenly, Hermione barged in, just as Ron was only in his boxers.
"HERMIONE! Can't we have some privacy here?" Ron hurried to cover himself with his blanket. Harry couldn't help but laughed.
Hermione didn't even notice Ron. "Harry, I got it!"
"Got what? The Transfiguration quiz?"
"No, you idiot. The clue!" Hermione almost shouted in his ear.
"Whoa, Hermione. So what is it?"
"Well...I didn't get all of the riddle, but I understand what the lines are."
"So are they crooked lines or straight lines?" Ron peeked out from his blanket.
"Silly, how stupid can you get? There not drawing lines, their lines from the riddle! Like, letter 5 in line 9, letter 3 in line 4...you get it." Hermione waved the clue in the air. "And I found it out! See, the eighth letter of the first line is T. Eleventh letter of the first line is A. Twelfth letter of line one is P. Fourth letter of line two is E. Twelfth letter of line three is S. Twenty-first letter of the third line is T. Eighth letter of line four is R. And the fourth letter of the sixth line is a Y."
Harry spelled it out slowly. "So...T-A-P-E-S-T-R-Y...tapestry!"
Ron had changed into his fleece clothing. "Yeah, so it's tapestry. But what does the rest of the clue mean though?"
"An eye is an eye, until it is heard? There's no 'eye' in the word tapestry...unless it's referring to the lions eye," Hermione said.
"So a lion is guarding a tapestry? But which one? We have a lot of tapestries in Hogwarts," Harry said.
Hermione shrugged. "I don't know. Just look out for lions and tapestries okay?"
"Oh I think Neville has my dragon hide gloves. I better go get it back...where is he?" Ron asked.
"In the common room, I think. Come up after you get it," Harry replied.
***
Ron walked down the stairs and found Neville sitting on a couch, talking to Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. "Neville, can I have my gloves back?" Ron asked.
"Sure, there right over there in my bag...right there, behind that table," Neville pointed.
Ron walked over to the table, bent down and picked up his gloves. He glanced up at the tapestry with the Gryffindor lion on it, then walked up the stairs. Right when he was about to turn the doorknob, he realized that he had just looked at a tapestry with a lion on it. Ron gasped, then barged into the room.
"Harry! Hermione! I know where the tapestry is!" Ron shrieked.
Harry and Hermione scrambled up, and ran to Ron. "Where is it?" Hermione gasped.
"It's the tapestry in the common room! Remember? 'A lion watches over me, acting like guardian'...and we found that it's hidden in a tapestry! The tapestry is of the Gryffindor lion!" Ron jumped up and down.
Hermione pushed past Harry and Ron and jumped down the stairs, 3 at a time. Harry and Ron quickly followed, and found Hermione running her hands over the thick red tapestry.
The tapestry reached from the floor right up to the ceiling, and thick as Harry's fist. It showed a giant gold lion, standing proud, with gold letters that spelled: Godric Gryffindor.
"I can't feel anything lumpy in it," Hermione answered. "It's perfectly smooth."
"Check the eyes...remember, 'an eye is an eye, until it is heard'?" Ron suggested.
Hermione reached for her wand. "Levantinivo!" Suddenly, she, Harry, and Ron levitated in the air, until they were at the lion's eyes. Hermione prodded her wand inside the tapestry, feeling for the stone, while Ron did the other eye.
"Nope, not a thing," Ron said.
"No luck here either," Hermione added.
"But it has to be here!" Harry insisted. "It's the only tapestry in Hogwarts that has a lion on it!"
"An eye is an eye...until it is heard." Hermione mused. "Eye...eye...'I'? I!"
"Aye, Hermione. We're not sailors, we're wizards and witches." Ron grinned at her.
"Idiot! I didn't mean 'I' as in 'aye', I meant 'I' as in the letter 'I'!" Hermione stuck her tongue out at him.
Harry lowered to the ground, took his wand, and stuck it inside the 'eye' of the 'I' in 'Godric'.
"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked.
"Don't you see? 'An eye is an eye until it is heard. Say 'eye' out loud and it sounds like the letter 'I'. The letter 'I' has a dot on the top...which is like an eye!"
"Oh! I get it!" Ron grinned.
Harry finished prodding the 'I' in Godric, then started poking the 'I' in Gryffindor.
"See? I got something here! I just can't get it out without ruining the tapestry though," Harry said.
"Hold on," Hermione said. "I learned this nifty little trick I read in a library book...you can un-sew anything then re-sew it. Unsewendo!" Hermione flicked her wand.
The dot of the 'I' started unraveling. Harry could see more of the stone now. When the hole was big enough, Harry reached inside the tapestry and edged the stone out.
"Sewendo!" Hermione commanded. The tapestry began sewing itself again, and when it finished, no one could tell the tapestry had some minor modifications.
Harry gave the dull green marble sphere a light squeeze, then trotted upstairs to lock it in the case.