Chapter 7: Messengers' Secrets
Beth spent a considerable amount of time searching through the newest set of letters and old scrolls that Dumbledore had given to her. Many of them were long boring letters from one founder to another concerning students and how the new school should be organized. There were several that recommended one student or another to stay on and become a teacher since all the Founders wanted to expand their student base beyond what would fit in their small homes.
It would've been very interesting if she had been a historian but Beth wasn't a historian and so most of the letters were boring dead ends. She rolled up another scroll that turned out to be a list of students and their houses and tossed it on top of another scroll that had turned out to be a discussion about creating a hat that would be able to place students in the proper houses once the Founders themselves were dead.
"One of the towers…" She told Balboa as she unrolled another scroll onto her map of Hogwarts. She had added the passage that Draco had discovered and a warning about the creature. She had reported the creature to the Headmaster but Dumbledore had just smiled.
"A giant blind flame lizard I suspect, I understand that they used to use one to heat the Castle. It's still around after all these years? No, couldn't be, perhaps it was able to have offspring. I'll let Hagrid know right away. We may be able to keep these hallways warm this winter." He'd then wandered off in the direction of the great doors that led out onto the field in front of the castle.
Beth sighed and checked the time. She only had a few more hours before her meeting with Dumbledore this week and she hadn't uncovered anything new. She picked up another scroll and unrolled it slowly.
It began with what looked like a diagram or an early floor plan for the Hogwarts castle. She studied it for a few moments, noting several features that no longer existed and several more that she could easily recognize. She finished unrolling the scroll to reveal lines of tiny writing. She squinted and scanned the words.
"Our most trusted messengers will act as our guards. The most simple and easily overlooked, anything more grand would draw unwanted attention." Beth read out loud. "When it is completed only they or one like them will be able to gain access to the inner vault." She looked up and studied the drawing once again. She noticed that one of the Towers was outlined in a different color and several bricks were marked with purple Xs. She shuffled the papers around so she could lay her current map of Hogwarts nearby and compare the two.
"Who are the most trusted messengers?" Beth whispered. "Could it be that blind dragon thing?" She shook her head as she placed the two maps side by side. "A blind fire creature would make a poor messenger."
The answer seemed glaringly obvious a few moments latter. "The Owlery?" She said comparing the two towers. There were a few differences but overall they looked the same. It took a few more minutes before the answer dawned on her. She gathered her things and rushed down to Dumbledore's office.
"The most trusted messengers! It's the owls!" She blurted out before she had explained anything to Dumbledore who was sitting behind his desk with a bemused look. "The entrance to the vault is hidden in the Owlery!"
"Are you certain?" He asked with an amused smile. "It seems rather odd since all sides of the Owlery are open so that the owls may come and go."
Beth unwrapped the two maps and placed them on the desk. "It said that only they or one like them would able to reach the entrance."
Dumbledore regarded both maps carefully for several moments. "This is a wonderful discovery." He said at last. "And it fits well with a few pieces of the puzzle that I discovered during my research."
He passed several folded pieces of paper across the desk. "These are diagrams I found in among some of the scrolls. They appear to show two different tunnels leading from a circular room. If the entrance to the vault is indeed in the Owlery it would explain these diagrams."
Beth unfolded the papers to reveal a complicated set of diagrams that seemed to show a door into a circular room and how it would open and close. It appeared that the designer wanted the doors to switch places on a regular basis. It reminded her of the four doors that led into the Ravenclaw tower.
"It looks like the entrance to the Ravenclaw tower." She said out loud.
Dumbledore nodded slowly. "Yes, I noticed that as well. It would seem to point to Rowena Ravenclaw as the designer."
"Then we know its location!"
"We think we know its location. We have no way of knowing for certain if this was the final plan that they adopted or if it was an early plan that they later decided not to follow." Dumbledore said calmly.
"But, Headmaster!"
Dumbledore raised one hand for silence. "Beth, as you have discovered there are many things in this castle that have been lost or forgotten and many of those things are very dangerous. We cannot simply go rushing into every passage that we find. There is no telling what is lurking around the corner. It could be a room full of socks or indeed a room full of blind fire lizards." Dumbledore was smiling as if he found one of those ideas a rather pleasant one.
"But, Headmaster, the Death Eaters…" Beth protested.
"Are no closer to the answer then they were several weeks ago." Dumbledore assured her as he gathered up the papers. "I do believe that there is a bit more research to conduct before we try to open the vault."
Beth left Dumbledore's office with her shoulders drooping. Beside her Balboa let out a heavy sigh before he climbed up her robe and settled onto her shoulders with a sad little sound. "We can't afford to wait." Beth told him in a whisper. "The first thing we're going to do is make sure that Draco doesn't know where the Vault is located!" Balboa started a low rumbling purr.
Beth rushed back to her room. Jonquil and Hestia tried to get her attention but she muttered an excuse as she flew past them and up the stairs. She pulled out several Copy Quills and made a copy of the diagram with several key alterations. She removed the purple Xs from the Owlery and placed them on the other side of the castle in one of the places where the dungeons hallways went in a few little circles.
"I'll just have to leave this for Draco to find and then we can be sure that he won't be able to find the vault!" She told Balboa as she put the fake scroll in her bag. "And then we're going to take a look at the vault."
Balboa sat up and purred loudly.
Beth hadn't counted on how difficult it would be to get Draco to just pick up the scroll. Draco Malfoy wasn't in the habit of picking up strange scrolls that were lying about in hallways. Eventually she let it fall out of her backpack as she hurried to a class. Draco scooped it up, no doubt with the intention of finding something in it to mock. Beth watched from the around the corner as he unrolled it with a smirk on his face. A moment later the smirk vanished and he rolled it back up and stuffed it into his bag and hurried away with his two minions in tow.
"There," she said to Balboa as they hurried around the corner. "They'll be looking in the wrong place and that leaves us free to go and find the vault!"
Beth spent several nights planning ways to get to the Vault. She decided to wait until most of the students were asleep so that she wouldn't have to worry about any witnesses in the tower while she was tapping on the bricks in the wall. It was harder to plan how to evade Filch and Mrs. Norris.
"We'll just have to take our chances, I guess." She told Balboa as they lay waiting for the proper time.
As the hands of her watch clicked around to midnight she slipped out of bed with her cloak and her wand, slipped down the stairs and out the door. The hallways were deserted at this hour and with her robe transfigured to look like a pool of shadow she slid through the darkness and up the stairs to the Owlery.
She entered the round drafty room carefully. The skeletons of mice and voles crunched under her shoes as she crept towards the well. The owls were awake and hunting at this hour and only a few were perched high above her head in the rafters. She pulled a copy of the diagram out of her pocket and lit her wand. She had drawn her own smaller picture of the marked bricks on the parchment. She walked up to one of the walls and examined it carefully.
She bit her lip; all of the bricks looked the same and there was no telling where the bricks were that needed to be tapped in a certain order. She knew that it was part of the mystery but could the bricks change position as often as the door? There was no telling where the bricks were located or if the door they would open was near the top of the tower by this time. The reverse could've also been true. The correct bricks located near the top of the Tower and the door near the floor.
She looked at her diagram carefully before glancing up at the walls again. "It did say that only the messengers would be able to reach it…" She said slowly, quickly losing heart.
Balboa made an annoyed noise and sunk a few claws into her arm.
Beth bit back a yelp and walked around the room, holding her wand close to the bricks on the walls. On her second circuit she noticed a brick that had something scratched into it. It looked at first like the random scratches an owl might make as it flew past. She bent a little closer and saw that they were not random scratches at all. A few appeared to be an owl and the others looked like they were pointing back the way she had come and slightly upwards.
She tapped the brick and a few feet back she heard a noise. She hurried back along the wall, looking up and noticed that another brick was glowing slightly as new scratches appeared on its surface. She reached up and tapped that one with her wand, listening carefully for the sound of talons on the brick.
She tapped several more bricks, some so high she had to stand on her toes and stretch to reach. She had just tapped the last brick when she heard the familiar grinding noise of a stone door sliding open. She looked around frantically. Across the room a small stretch of wall was rising up to reveal a deeper darkness as she watched it the door started to descend once again. She bolted across the round room, skidding on the droppings and sliding through the quickly closing door.
Balboa yowled as they came to a stop against a hard, cold and damp wall. "Sorry, Balboa." Beth murmured as she held her wand aloft trying to light as much of the room as she could with its tiny light. "Was that your tail? I'm sorry."
Balboa made a low growl before disengaging himself from Beth and landing on the floor. Beth stood up and dusted herself off. The door clicked closed leaving them in total darkness and a grinding noise told her that the bricks were changing places in the walls around her. The thought of trying to find her way out of this tunnel flashed through her mind but she pushed it away and with her wand held out in front of her, began to descend into the tunnel.