Chapter 25 - Friendships & Falling Outs

As soon as Barney left Professor McGonagall's office he went to find Thomas who was in a Herbology lesson so he waited outside the greenhouses for the lesson to finish. And as son as it did he grabbed Thomas and pulled him to one side. "I made a mistake about Ottomaya. I spoke to McGonagall and she knows Ottomaya is an Animagus and she said it's not possible for her to transform into both a crow and the beast."

"Maybe next time you should think harder before you start making accusations about someone," Thomas replied, disappointed in his friend but glad that Ottomaya had nothing to do with the attacks.

"Look I'm sorry OK. You can't blame me for thinking what I did though."

"But you've spent time with Ottomaya and you know she's a good person so how could you think she attacked Lara?"

"I know it was stupid for me to have thought that. I really am sorry."

"Yeah OK, I need to get going. I'll speak to you later," Thomas said as he walked off, looking very upset.

Barney thought about going after him to try and smooth things over but decided to give him some space and let him calm down before they spoke again. He felt really bad for accusing Ottomaya of being the beast and just hoped he hadn't ruined his friendship with Thomas by doing so.

The weekend came and he barely saw Thomas for most of Saturday. When Barney saw Tabitha she said Thomas was busy studying in the Hufflepuff common room but he knew that Thomas was deliberately avoiding him.

Though Tabitha spent Saturday morning hanging out with Barney and some of their other friends playing games in the Great Hall, she spent the afternoon with Hamish so Barney decided to use the rest of the day working on Nevermore's journal and the box.

In his dorm Barney now had a large collection of books on runes and languages but they were proving little help. He had managed to decipher some of the symbols on the box he had found in the tunnel under the castle and they turned out to be letters. And the fact that there were twenty-six symbols on the box only cemented the fact they represented the alphabet but just in various languages and writing forms. He had also noticed when he touched each symbol it slightly glowed momentarily but without any other information he had no idea how to open the box. But he knew the answer must be somewhere in Nevermore's journal, waiting to be deciphered. Though the more he looked at the various symbols the more they all blurred into one and he was getting nowhere.

He decided to take a break and headed to the courtyard for some fresh air, taking the box with him. It was mid February and cold out so the courtyard was practically deserted except for a pair of students who were practising some charms in the safety of some open space.

Barney took a seat in one corner away from the pair and looked at the box in his hand.

"That's an interesting box you have their West," a voice said and Barney looked up to see no one there but he recognised the voice as his old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Winters, who was still yet to figure out how to reverse his accidental invisibility.

"Oh hi professor," Barney replied, putting the box down beside him and quickly tried to change the subject. "How are you? Still no luck with a cure?"

"No unfortunately not though Professor Grim has been helping me and she's confident we can find a solution soon."

Barney thought the idea of Professor Grim helping someone as bizarre. He didn't believe she had it in her to be nice to anyone, including the other teachers.

"So that box you have there, they are some strange symbols. Where did you get it?"

"Oh this," Barney said picking the box up again and quickly thinking of a lie. "It was a gift."

"It's very unusual. I don't recognise most of the symbols."

"Neither do I."

"Have you shown it to Professor Dufour yet? I'm sure he would have no trouble working them out."

"No not yet."

"Well I should be on my way. Professor McGonagall has asked me to help out patrolling the school making sure everyone is staying safe. Glad to still be of use despite my condition."

"Bye professor," Barney replied but he wasn't sure if Winters was even still there or not.

Though he was worried by the fact that McGonagall was getting the teachers to patrol the school, clearly showing that the headmistress thought the situation was perilous, he was glad she was taking it seriously, even if she had tried to play down the attack on Lara to stop panic spreading through the school. It made him feel a bit safer knowing the teachers were on alert, especially as his vision had shown him being attacked by the beast.

The rest of the weekend had been spent failing to make any progress with Nevermore's journal and box, some intense Quidditch practice with Silvanna cracking the whip as their final game against Hufflepuff was only weeks away and neglecting his actual school work, which was piling up.

As the next week started he headed to his Defence Against the Dark Arts class and it was the first time he had seen Thomas since before the weekend. However Thomas was not very chatty towards him, instead only indulging in some polite chat before Barney had to move desks to go and join Velyan as Professor Night had them working in pairs to subdue some Highland Imps.

After the class ended Barney tried to grab a word with Thomas but he sped off before he could catch him.

"What's going on with you two?" Tabitha asked, realising something was up between the pair of them.

"It's nothing," Barney noted, not wanting to talk about it.

"Well clearly it's not and Thomas is not saying anything either."

"You asked him about it?" Barney said sounding surprised.

"Oh course. The three of us have spent too much of this year having issues between us and not talking about things. I didn't want there to be another falling out though it's nice that I'm not the cause of it for a change," Tabitha replied, half joking but Barney knew she was right.

Barney had decided he would talk to Thomas before the end of the day to try and clear the air. He didn't want to be the reason there was tension between their friendship with Tabitha being the one this time stuck in the middle.

After lunch Barney had Charms with the Gryffindors and Professor Pomperduke was his usual absent minded self. He was trying to teach the class a charm to makes books read aloud the words on their pages but he had managed to mess it up when demonstrating and all the book did was start to shout insults at him, much to the amusement of the class. Barney was very much looking forward to the day Professor Flitwick returned.

As the class descended into chaos as usual with no one doing the charms they were meant to be and Pomperduke unable to stop them, Silvanna came over to Barney. "I've booked the Quidditch pitch booked for Tuesday and Thursday evenings this week for practice. I've got some new drills I want you and Velyan to practice."

"I have astronomy on Thursday night," Barney huffed.

"You'll just have to make it work. This final Quidditch match will be the most important match of your life. I want everyone to be ready."

"But I'm not going to get to play anyway so what's the point?"

"What's the point?!" Silvanna fumed. "This isn't about you Barney. It's about Slytherin. Where's your house pride? We all need to pull our weight to ensure we win the cup."

Velyan, having heard the conversation, headed over to the pair of them. "Barney is more than ready to play so if he needs to miss one practice I'm sure it won't affect Slytherin's chances," Velyan noted and Barney was glad he was there to rescue him. Velyan was the only person who could reason with Silvanna, mainly due to his family connections.

Silvanna didn't say any more and walked back to his desk.

"Thanks," Barney said with a smile. "I'm so behind on my school work that I can't keep wasting time on practice when I'm not even on the team."

Velyan could see how disappointed Barney was when he said that last bit. But it was true. If Barney didn't get back to focusing on his studies and stop getting distracted by other matters, he would probably end up failing every subject.

At the end of the day Barney headed to Elio's sign language class and was glad to see Thomas in the corridor heading there too and decided now was the time to talk to him.

"Hey Thomas, how are you?" Barney called out across the corridor but Thomas didn't turn or stop to talk to him. "Hey wait up. Can we talk?"

"I have nothing to say to you," Thomas fumed back, finally turning to face Barney, who could see he was not happy at all.

"What's wrong? I apologised about jumping to conclusions about Ottomaya and I really am sorry."

"Why did you have to get involved?"

"Involved in what?" Barney snapped back, confused by what exactly it was that he was being accused of.

"With Ottomaya. I told her I knew she was an Animagus. I thought it would be a weight off her shoulders that she didn't have to keep it a secret from me. I said you happened to see her changing into a crow," Thomas said before stopping and giving Barney a furious look.

"And?"

"And she was angry. She thought you were spying on her because of me and she said it should have been up to her if she told me."

"How can she be mad that I accidentally saw her changing form? You didn't tell her that I thought she might have been the beast did you?"

"No of course not but you can't blame her for being angry."

Barney was pretty sure he could as he couldn't quite work out what she had to be angry about.

"And she said she thought it was a bad idea for me and her to keep hanging out so thanks for that," Thomas remarked, his tone tinged with bitterness.

"How is this all my fault? She's overreacting!" Barney said as Tabitha came round the corner and headed straight for the pair.

"What's going on?" she asked, having caught the end of the altercation.

"Nothing," Thomas said before turning around and heading back towards the Hufflepuff common room.

"Where are you going?" Tabitha asked. "What about Elio's class?"

"I'm not in the mood!" he shouted back without turning around.

Both Barney and Tabitha watched him leaving, having never seen him this angry before.

"I'd better go after him," Barney said but Tabitha grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

"Maybe that's not the best idea. Let me go and talk to him. You get along to the class."

Tabitha left Barney standing alone in the corridor and right now he didn't fancy being in a class surrounded by other people so headed back to his own dorm.

The dormitory was empty as Barney stormed in, threw his stuff down beside his bed and jumped on it. He lay there in silence for a bit, fuming at the situation with Thomas. He considered going after him but thought it better to let Tabitha try and calm the situation. He then thought about going to speak to Ottomaya but then thought that might only make things worse. Falling out with Thomas was the last thing he needed right now. Slytherin's last Quidditch match of the season was only weeks away and he was struggling with his school work. He was just glad he didn't have exams this year as he would surely be failing them.

Looking for something to take his mind off things he got off his bed and opened his trunk. Digging down to the bottom he pulled out Nevermore's box and jumped back on his bed, holding the box in his hand and examining it. If only he could find the Endeavour Stone he knew he could use it to make everything better. Right now he hated Nevermore and his codes. Why couldn't life be easier?

As he turned the box in his hand he thought of the symbols he had already deciphered and the letters they represented and started to think of words he could spell out, hoping that the box was simply opened by a password. But with only about half the letters decoded he was limited to what words he could make.

He went back to his trunk and again dug out from the bottom a heap of parchments he was using to make notes on his deciphering work and found the piece that had all the symbols from the box drawn out with letters under some of them and started to think what words he could make from them. But also with no idea how long the word may be there were millions of possibilities it could be and it might not even be opened by a password, he could just be wasting his time. He still knew very little about Nevermore so couldn't even possibly start to guess the type of word he would use as a password.

Barney started to think how if he were in Nevermore's shoes and needed to use a password, what sort of word he would use. A name of a pet? A favourite colour or place? A loved one? All he knew about Nevermore was that he taught at Hogwarts and he was married.

He looked down at the parchment and the list of letters and wondered. He had managed to get all of the vowels and a bunch of consonants including 'L' and 'R'. Could it be the most obvious answer? The most seemingly important thing in Nevermore's life?

Barney started pressing the various symbols on the box starting with the one that stood for 'E' and watched it momentarily glow before pressing the symbol for 'L'. Next he pressed the 'E' symbol again before the 'A' but now came the tricky bit. With only twelve symbols left that he was yet to decipher it was just a process of trial and error. He picked a symbol and pressed it. It glowed and then he continued to the symbols for 'O' and 'R' but nothing else happened. He made a note of the symbol he and tried and then started again, this time choosing a different symbol for the missing letter. But after completing the sequence again nothing happened so he began once more.

On his seventh attempt after touching the final letter and just as he was about to start again, he could feel the box moving in his hands and immediately he placed it on the bed and moved back. He wasn't sure if he should be afraid as the box continued to move on it's own.

The box continued to vibrate and then it seemed to split up into sections, which all started to turn independently of each other like a Rubik's cube.

Barney quickly glanced to the door to make sure none of his dorm mates were about to walk in and then instantly turned back to the box which was still moving.

Slowly as it turned in all directions a hole appeared in the box which started to get bigger until finally the box stopped still.

Barney nervously leaned over the box and peered into the hole. There laying at the bottom of the box was a beautiful, large, blue gemstone glistening back at him. He had just found the Endeavour Stone.