A Traveller's Tale

by Greta Jameson

9. Breaking the Code



The Great Hall bustled with students having their breakfasts and conversing about the day ahead with their friends. Harry and Ron dug into huge plates of sausage and mash while Hermione nibbled her toast and read passages to them from Methods of Magical Movement. "And here on page 153, it describes something called Passes, it says that:

Wizards and witches can place miniscule cracks in the world that can be opened to form hidden tunnels from one place to the next. Just as easily, these passages can be closed, leaving only a tiny knot in space. If these channels are not removed, they can be reopened at any time, if one knows where they are or how to look for them.

"That might be how Mr. Malfoy entered Snape's classroom," she continued. "It's not possible to disapparate on school grounds, so he must have gotten around some other way."

Harry was reading over her shoulder and said, "And down here it says that 'the portals commonly used to get from place to place are nothing more than standardized and well maintained passes.' Sounds reasonable, have you found any other possibilities?"

"None that seem as likely as Passes."

"So how do they work?"

"Over here on page 156 it says that each Pass is controlled by a word - usually determined by its builder." "Does it say anything else about how to figure out the keyword?" Harry asked Hermione thumbed through the index and said, "No, not in this book."

"Could be nearly any word then. How will we find the right one?" "I could ask Professor Miller if he knows anything about Passes. I have to pick a subject for our class project anyway, so it might as well be something interesting, right?" "Good idea, then we can see where they all lead."

"Harry, we already know where they lead . . ."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear what Malfoy said? He said he was 'going back east'. You must know what he meant by east, right?"

Harry sat back on the bench and closed his eyes. Passes from Hogwarts to Voldemort's lair - used by one of the school's Governors - it made him weak just to think about it. But wait! If they could walk right into the school at any time, why had they not killed him yet?

He didn't have long to consider the possibilities because a parliament of owls raced into the Great Hall bearing the morning post. Hermione got a letter and some muggle sweets from her parents, Ron got a letter from his brother Bill . . . and Harry, of course, received nothing at all. After the owls departed a single large falcon entered the Hall and descended sharply towards the faculty table. It landed right in front of Professor Traveller, kicked itself free of its parchment, rolled it politely towards her and immediately lit to the air and out of the Hall. Draco instantly recognized it as one of the birds his father used to deliver important messages, and wondered what he could be writing to Professor Traveller about.

Miranda paced the length of Dumbledore's office, and paused from time to time to look out the windows as she waited. The portraits on the wall of past Headmasters and Headmistresses tried in their own ways to soothe her troubled mind by telling her to, "Please sit down or you'll wear a hole in the carpet!" or "Stop frowning so dear - you'll get wrinkles on that pretty face of yours!" She was grateful for the silence that ensued when Albus and Snape finally arrived, and handed the long scroll of parchment to them:

My Dear Miranda:

Once again, I am ashamed for how poorly I have treated you. I've never met a woman who has challenged me like you have. As the days have passed, I have come to see you not as an adversary, but as a friend or lover, and this has caused a great deal of discord with my work. I was sent to persuade you to join us - and that is what I still wish for you to do. But now, I wish that you will be with us because you choose me as well as our world view.

The blood of the fallen lies thick on both sides of the conflict. As the child of aurors you are well aware of our ferocity when challenged. However, you may not know of the great toll that your own actions and the actions of those of your brethren have taken on us. Over the years I have lost many friends and loved ones to the swords and wands of the aurors. With so many senseless deaths, I want an end to the carnage as much as you do. I fear, however, that it will continue and can already hear the drums steady beat as we step inexorably towards another war.

In the east, we live as a community of magical beings. Once incorporated we can use gifts that we were born with, and also those of our brothers and sisters - and we are all as one in the Master. There is nothing in our philosophy or our way of life that precludes co-existence with the larger world. The conflict began because the Ministry and its liaison became threatened by Voldemort's rapid spread of Slytherin's ideas. And now we fight against each other to avenge our losses and because it is all that most of us can ever remember doing.

When we first dined together you spoke to me about transcending boundaries with your telepathy. This is exactly what we wish to do in our quest for magical unity. My dear Miranda, it is a truly beautiful experience when we cast off the limits imposed by state and self and flow gloriously into one another. This is the experience I wish to share with you.

I will be at the school on Friday to collect my son. Please let me see you then.

Yours,

Lucius

As they read, she looked out over the school grounds and wondered whether Lucius was sincere, or whether this was just a new tactic he was using to acquire telepathy for Voldemort's community.

If he was sincere, what was she going do about it? Running off with the first man who asked, she knew was an ill-advised course of action. Running off with Voldemort's counselor was unthinkable. And yet . . .

"Well congratulations my dear!" Albus began exuberantly. "It seems as if you have had some influence over Lucius Malfoy after all!"

"I wouldn't believe a word of that letter if I were you," Snape cautioned. This cloy sentimentality of his is nothing but a ruse to gain her trust."

Miranda quickly looked away, stung by the venom of his words.

"You don't think he is sincere, do you?" Snape worried as he walked over to her.

"I'm not sure what I think, anymore. There is the ring of truth in his words, certainly, but I just don't know where his sincerity ends and . . ."

"You mean you want to . . ." he asked incredulously.

"I'm not sure."

He looked fdisbelievingly rom Miranda to Albus and said sharply, "She should not be allowed to see him again. She has lost her objectivity and is no longer able to do her job!" Then he turned to Miranda and slowly spat, "How could you?"

"How could I?" she asked angrily. "Have you forgotten what this life is like and how alone we always are? Whether we succeed or fail to destroy our enemies, we are always alone. Regimes rise and fall but we who make it all happen stand quietly in the shadows while our masters rejoice. I didn't choose this lonely life . . . I was born into it, and I'm tired of it! Lucius says he's falling in love with me and yes, if he is sincere, I want to be with him."

He shook his head, unable to believe her words and yelled, "He has killed in Voldemort's name!"

"So have you. . ." she roared back.

"Yes . . . I did," he reeled. "But the difference between Lucius and me is that he enjoyed his job!"

"That was a long time ago. I have seen at least some of his mind recently and . . ."

"Intentions can be veiled and telepaths deceived!"

"And men can get mired in a painful past, and refuse to see that the world around them has changed!"

He stood for a moment, stunned by her words but having heard the truth in them. "I don't know why we're even wasting time arguing about this," he offered quietly. "What Lucius Malfoy wants is irrelevant. Voldemort's opinion is the only one that really matters."

"That's not how it's supposed to be, Severus!"

"Miranda . . . I know that better perhaps than anyone left alive," he whispered. And that's why I continue to fight against Voldemort and the monster that he has become."

"Well then, try for just a moment to believe," she said coming very close, "that Lucius may have come to agree with you. And that together, perhaps, you and I can persuade him to help us."

Albus, who had been watching them argue, stepped in and said, "So it's settled then. Miranda will meet with Lucius on Friday and speak of her love for him but her reluctance to help their war effort. Then, Severus, when ordered to do so, you will deliver her - quite against her will - to Voldemort. Are we all agreed?"

"Should've brought a lantern, its already getting dark in here," Ron said glancing at the small windows that provided the armor collection's only light.

"This should help a bit," said Harry causing the end of his wand to light up, bathing the armor and weapons nearby in brilliant light.

"She's late, that's weird. She's never late."

"I am not late, Ron Weasley," Hermione said from just a few feet away.

"How did you?"

"Just practicing my stalking, that's all," she said pointing down to the slippers on her feet.

"Really going all out with this aurorcraft aren't you?"

"Yeah. So, any good matches for the staff yet?"

"No, umm," said Ron looking around and pretending that he had already been hard at work. He walked over to a pike held by one of the armored figures, examined it, and then shook his head and moved on. Then he took a look at the handle of one of the flails, "No wider 'round still."

"How 'bout some more light?" she inquired raising her arms.

"Sure, that'd be. . . "

"Lumos Internis!" she said loudly as each suit of armor glowed with a hidden light from within.

"She still scares me sometimes, you know, Harry."

Harry stopped short. "Ron, how big around did you say that staff was?"

"I don't know, maybe four or five inches."

"Then how 'bout this?" he asked walking over to one of the structural supports for the display of equine armor.

"Yeah, maybe," Ron said undoing his belt as he approached. He unraveled the skytale to its full length and started wrapping it around the iron rod. "Now I really need some light, and bring it close up. These letters are really tiny.

HFMKOIOEOUJHRHEBNDMKIBLAPOUINVIWSQUIEJFSDP

Hermione lit her wand and placed it near the skytale. "Hey! Look at this!" he shouted, his voice echoing off of the armor. When the belt was wrapped around the rod, a single word emerged from the jumble of letters:

MOEBIUS

"Cool! But is Moe-bi-us a word?" he continued.

"Wait!" Hermione cried! "Its not a word, its someone's name! There was a muggle mathematician named Moebius! He invented the muggle world's first one-sided surface more than 150 years ago."

"Almost a thousand years after we did," Ron remarked.

"Do you think that a pureblood dark wizard would use a muggle's name as a keyword?" Asked Harry.

"He used the skytale, and that's a muggle invention. Something a wizard- cryptanalyst would least expect."

"Possibly. But I'll bet there's someone in the magical world with that name as well. After dinner Harry, you and I are going to the library."

Ron began that evening of detention continuing his frequency count as Snape attempted to solve Sebastian's cipher. Patterns . . . patterns . . . his father had taught him to always begin the least common thing, that which seemed out of place. He mused over the presence of numbers in the enciphered text. He more closely examined each of the numbers on the page in front of him, and after a while he froze: each number separated a pair of duplicate letters! Scanning down the page he found: "o2o" . . . "t5t" . . . "o9o" . . . "s6s" . . . Those numbers were dummy text to separate duplicates!

"What do you make of these numbers, Mr. Weasley?"

"I . . . I hadn't given them any thought, sir."

"Hmm. It seems to me that they are separating pairs of common letters and leads me to believe that we may have a digraph system on our hands."

Ron shrugged and offered, "Yeah, could be."

A loud tapping came at the office window and Snape went to see what it could be. Ron seized the opportunity and grabbed a random bound volume out of the trunk and stuck it beneath his robes in the waistband of his pants.

"False alarm," said Snape coming back. "No letter or visitor, only the wind."

They worked for another fifteen minutes or so, and then Snape said, "You may go, Mr. Weasley. If you could think about those numbers and do some research on digraph systems on your own time, I would appreciate it. The frequency count doesn't seem to be leading us anywhere."

"Yes sir. I'll do my best," Ron said with an awkward smile as he left.

The clock chimed the second hour past midnight as Sebastian sat in his study sucking on the last of his black-cavendish blend. He tapped out his pipe, slowly walked over to the edge of the window, and drew the curtains aside just enough to look out on the bright moon sinking beneath the trees in the west. He placed his palms together, inhaled deeply and felt his power begin to flow though his limbs - he needed more time. He wasn't strong enough yet. He lightly stroked the skin on his palm with his fingertips, and shivered at the pleasure of his own touch. The simple things - a touch, a pipe, a good meal - so many of these things he had taken for granted when he was alive. How he had missed them!

He opened his mind, and felt the observers around the manor. They would assist him in his flight back to the Master. Beyond them, he felt the hostile presence of the aurors - they must already know. It would not be easy. He would have to fight his way through their line.

He wished that he could count on Severus' help. His son was powerful. But over the years, he lost his taste for the fight. First, he preferred to stick close to the fortress, and then he reported on Dumbledore and his machinations to the Master. Sebastian frowned when he thought of Malfoy's suspicions against Severus. His own son would never have betrayed Voldemort! At least he hoped that he hadn't. He shook his head sadly, looked out over the grounds, thinking that he didn't want to kill both of his sons.