Chapter 6: Godric and Helga's Epistle
Beth was very tired the next morning but somehow she managed to get through History of Magic without falling asleep.
"Why are you so tired?" Hestia asked her as they left the classroom. "You went to bed so early last night."
Beth shrugged, still unwilling to share tell her friends about the Relics. Dumbledore had told her to keep it a secret. "I didn't sleep very well, I'm ok though."
Hestia shrugged. "Not like you to nearly fall asleep in class."
"Not like any Ravenclaw to fall asleep in class." Beth corrected with a small smile.
Hestia chuckled. "Have fun peering into the future. I've got to get to Muggle Studies."
Beth climbed up the ladder into Professor Trelawney's Divination class. There were very few students in the advanced class. Pavarti from Gryffindor was there, two girls from Slytherin, and a cheery girl from Hufflepuff. Beth took her usual table by herself and did her best to ignore the slightly odd smell from the incense as she unpacked her crystal ball.
It wasn't really surprising that so few had made it this far, either you had the talent or you didn't, although Beth suspected that the two Slytherin girls had more imagination than insight into the future. Beth uncovered her crystal ball as Professor Trelawney invited them to begin their gazing.
Beth watched as the clouds in the crystal slowly parted. "Does Draco know about the Vault?" She thought hard as she watched the swirling mist. Colored shapes appeared that slowly formed Draco's figure. He was walking quickly through one of the corridors of Hogwarts counting doors and statues as he walked.
Beth bit her lip. Did it mean that Draco was hot on her trail or that he was hopelessly lost and trying every secret passage that he could discover? She cleared her mind again and the image vanished back into the mist. "The only trouble is I don't know where the vault is either." She tried to re-center her mind but she was too distracted by the thought of the Death Eaters getting the relics to scry anymore.
She was about to give up completely when a strange feeling came over her and all of a sudden she saw herself walking through a dim hallway. The floor opened wide into pits every few feet and so she shrank and changed into a white and grey falcon that flew easily over the gaps and then up a vertical tunnel.
Just as quickly as the vision had begun, it ended, and Beth was staring down into her foggy crystal ball. Underneath the table, Balboa purred softly and rubbed against her legs. "It was a vision? A vision of the vault?" Beth wondered to herself, barely able to listen as Professor Trelawney assigned them homework and told them to bring their best tea cups with them for a deeper study into reading tea leaves and the significance of using tea that contained flower petals.
Beth hurried through the hallways to the Great Hall where she ate quickly before rushing back up to her room. She just had to know if Draco had any idea where the vault was or if he even knew one existed. She wracked her brains for a way she could discover how much Draco knew as she rushed up the stairs. She couldn't think of anything that would get her a solid answer, except for giving him Verita Serum and trying get him alone long enough to learn the truth.
She finally sighed and gave up trying to think of ways to sneak into the Slytherin common room that didn't involve polyjuice potion and Slytherin girls into broom closets. She dropped her bag onto the floor and pulled the package of letters out of the inside pocket where she'd kept them hidden. She quickly sorted them into read and unread piles and immediately started to read them again.
There were several more letters from students to Rowena or Helga about their classes or the other wizards that they were meeting in their travels but nothing concerning the vault. Beth was about to give up and get ready for her next class when she found the letter she had been looking for, actually she found two letters that said almost exactly what she wanted them to say.
The first letter was from Helga Hufflepuff extolling the genius of Rowena's idea to build a vault. "A place for our spells so the books will not be lost or destroyed. A place for powerful artifacts so they might not be used by unwary wizards! Rowena, it is a wonderful idea." Beth almost cheered out loud. "Of course I will assist you in this endeavor, I will also attempt to speak with Salizar but I fear it will be nearly impossible for him to listen to reason."
Beth quickly placed the letter in the pile with the others that hinted at a vault and picked up another letter. This one was from Godric. "The vault should be located at the center of the school but Salizar wishes to place his own chamber there. I may be able to dissuade him from that but no matter what I say he won't cease the plans for it. I fear what creatures and spells he may leave there." Beth scanned a few lines of text that complained about Salizar and his obsession with the purity of a wizard's heritage. "Rowena, I will assist you in any way I can. I know of many powerful things that could be kept safe within this vault."
Beth scanned through the rest of the letters quickly as she gathered them up to put them back into her page. She had just enough time to get her supplies and get to her Potions class. She had a hard time concentrating on brewing her complicated potion. Balboa bit her leg whenever she was about to do something foolish and kept pulling her out of her thoughts about the letters that were safe in her bag. She could barely restrain the urge to run to Dumbledore's office.
Wednesday evening couldn't come quickly enough. Beth did her best not to run through the hallways and could barely contain herself when she knocked on the office door.
"Headmaster!" She cried out before he had even greeted her. "There is a vault someplace in Hogwarts!" She handed him the selected package of letters. "It's all there!" She said triumphantly. "I still don't know where it is but at least we know that the relics might still be here."
"Excellent work, but you must remember my dear, Voldemort was a student here and it's entirely possible that since he was able to uncover the Chamber of Secrets he was also to uncover the Founders' Vault."
Beth felt suddenly crestfallen and she sank into the chair across from the claw footed desk.
"Don't look so glum, I too have made a few interesting discoveries." Dumbledore was holding a few letters of his own.
Beth sat up a little straighter and leaned forward eagerly as he laid them down on the desk.
"I too found evidence of a vault where the Founders' wished to store powerful artifacts, but they also sought to make it safe from ambitious wizards within their own school." He pointed to a few lines in one letter from Helga.
"Our students are wonderful, but I've noticed some are more ambitious then others and seek nothing but to gain power over their fellows. It saddens me but it is from some of our own students that we must conceal these things. I don't dare to think of what would happen if these things fell into good yet overly ambitious hands."
"I also found a few clues as to its location." He put down another letter. "Rowena wanted to place the vault someplace high instead of in the deep dungeons where Salizar was planning to build his chamber. She also wanted it inaccessible to even powerful wizards." He pointed to another few lines. "What do you think?"
Beth bit her lip as she read over the letter. "Someplace high? Any one of the towers then." She said. "And there are only four towers…"
"Four towers does indeed narrow it down, but we cannot search every brick of every tower and the Vault would surely be guarded against that. I'm almost sure that the Founders would've made the vault invisible except by those who knew where it was."
Beth shook her head fiercely. "But then once they were gone no one would be able to access it!"
Dumbledore nodded. "That is true, to lock the magic away forever was not their intention, but it would still be difficult and I have no doubt fruitless to search every tower inch by inch."
"Are there any more letters?" Beth asked. She was beginning to get frustrated that every lead they got seemed to actually push them further away from their goal. "We have to move fast. There are Death Eaters…"
"Searching for the vault as well." Dumbledore finished her sentence. "Yes, that has been brought to my attention, but I had expected that."
"I believe there are students helping them." Beth was set to name a few names but Dumbledore only nodded slowly and a bit sadly.
"I did expect as much and if that is the case there is very little that we can do to stop them."
"Why not confine them to their dorms!"
Dumbledore smiled gently. "I would have to confine every student to the dorms and that is hardly productive for a school. No, we must simply seek to discover it first. We must also take into consideration that even though the vault itself is located in a high place the entrance could still be anywhere within the castle."
Beth fell back into the chair with a heavy sigh. "This is beginning to look impossible, Headmaster. Every clue we get just leads us farther away from where we're trying to go!"
"Nothing is impossible. It may seem impossible at first but there is always a way to achieve your goals." He gave her an encouraging smile. "Oh, and I must congratulate you on your animagus transformation."
Beth's jaw hit the floor. "What? How? I only managed it once and… I do intend to go to the Ministry; it's just that the test takes months and…"
"Yes, I quite agree." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Now is perhaps not the best time, you are only a student after all and much too young to have managed it. I'm sure waiting a bit won't hurt. In the meantime," Dumbledore opened one of the drawers in his desk. "There are indeed a few other letters and some very old scrolls that may have more answers."
Beth left Dumbledore's office with her bag loaded with new letters and scrolls to search through. She was trying to decide which of the towers the vault was likely to be in when she heard whispers coming around one corner. Balboa perked up his ears and gave a low hiss. Beth strained her ears to hear what they were saying.
"I told you to be quiet!" A boy's voice hissed. "That passage should be nearby and once we find the vault…" The voice trailed off and it sounded weary and frustrated. It could only be Draco Malfoy's voice. Had he managed to discover a path to the vault? She crept towards the voice and carefully peered around a corner.
Draco was crouching in the shadow of a huge ugly statue with one of his goons hovering near his shoulder. Draco was trying to shield the glow from his wand with the sleeve of his robe. Beth tried to creep closer without being seen.
"There is writing there!" The larger boy said. Beth couldn't be sure if it was Crabbe or Goyle since both of them looked the same to her. They were usually both wearing the same blank, stupid expression.
"Shut up, you dolt!" Draco hissed. "I wish to enter the secret fire!" Draco said firmly.
Beth swallowed a nervous lump as the statue slid out of the way and Draco and his bodyguard disappeared behind it. Beth rushed up the hallway and slid into the passage before it closed, hastily scooping up Balboa and transfiguring her robes to look like dusty rock.
She felt as if the darkness had swallowed her and barely breathing she followed the tiny glow of a pair of wands. The passage went up for a short period of time before it suddenly started to go down.
"That book on the restricted shelf didn't mention this." She heard Draco murmur. "But this has to be the passage. The book said that there was powerful magic here."
Beth made a mental note to try and get permission to read those books again. She couldn't remember reading one that described a hidden tunnel under one of the statues near the Headmaster's office. Swallowing her fear that Draco had discovered the Vault before them, she drew her wand and crept after them.
The tunnel continued to slope downwards but instead of getting colder it started to get warmer and the walls took on a strange orange glow. Beth slowed her pace. "I don't like the look of this." She whispered to Balboa. She dared to get closer to the two boys as they came to a sudden halt. She pressed herself into a crack in the wall, sweating under her robes.
"It's hot." The boy with Draco declared.
Draco hissed something that didn't sound flattering. "This isn't what the book described at all. There wasn't supposed to be a pit!" He said swearing and kicking something that sounded like a stone as it echoed down the path and into what sounded like a deep hole.
A few tense moments later there was a roar that split the silence like lightening and Draco screamed. He pushed the other boy aside and ran back up the tunnel. He was too intent on his escape to notice Beth hiding in her crack. As soon as the other boy had passed Beth rushed out of her hiding place.
A creature she had never seen before was rearing out of the bit. It looked as if it might've been a Dragon but its skin was a sickly, pale, milky white and lacked eyes. It roared again and sniffed the air.
Beth didn't dare stop and stare longer, even though she wished she could figure out what kind of creature it was, she ran after the two boys. The creature sounded like it was following at first but as the passage grew colder it lost interested and its heavy footsteps vanished into darkness.
By the time Beth made it to the statue and pushed her way back into the hallway Draco and his bodyguard were gone. She climbed out of the hole and the statue slid shut once again. She looked down at the base where she could see the words Draco had been studying. There were several lines of Runes and Beth paused long enough to try and decipher a few.
"Hot and Blind, I will wait," was all that she could manage to translate.
"At least he doesn't know where the vault is." She told Balboa as she hurried back to her room to study the newest set of letters. "Although I wonder what kind of creature that was and if it was guarding something."
Balboa regarded her with cool yellow eyes but did nothing but clean his whiskers in response.