On the afternoon of the following day, Hermione was in the library exactly as she said; sitting in one of the armchairs near the fireplace which had replaced her favourite tables, and holding a large divination book on the various symbolic meanings of animals.
Above the pages of the book, which were large enough to be used as a desk, there was a note on which were written the words that Hermione and Draco understood during Dragonlear's assassination.
"then, in summary, the eagle is the lion of the sky, the owl symbol of wisdom, the fox of cunning, the dog of loyalty, and the horse of purity. Instead the crocodile..." Hermione whispered talking to herself, slowly leafing through the pages of the big book she kept on her knees. Repeating things to herself always helped her cleaning her mind.
"the crocodile... means falsehood, opportunism, and sense of alarm!" Hermione wrote down everything she had found on the back of the parchment on which she had written the code words.
"My goodness! maybe..." exclaimed Hermione face-palming. She closed the book and placed it on a small table nearby. She then took some parchment and started writing seven identical letters:
"to the mirror, now. H.J.G."
She threw the book in the bag along with the notes, then went to the history shelf and pulled out another one with emerald green cover and a snake on it; then she put it in the bag with the others. Fortunately she made an undetectable extension charm even on that poor bag.
She ran to the owlery, whose stairs luckily were no longer frozen, then she called Artemis, Draco's owl, and sent the letters to everyone else involved in the story. Hermione ran back to the much warmer castle and started walking towards the secret passage of the mirror, on the fourth floor.
She went through the mirror looking carefully if there was someone in the corridors, and then in the room halfway through the secret passage. She placed the divination book on one of the disused tables in the room, open to the crocodile page, and then sat on a chair to check the book with the green cover.
After about ten minutes the others arrived.
"What happened?" Asked Ron, who came in with Harry. Ron seemed somewhat upset about having received the letter interrupting his rest after doing nothing.
"We need to tell Ginny, Neville and Blaise about what happened; and I've discovered something you don't know either." Answered Hermione. In a few minutes also the others arrived, but this time Harry exposed the report of the mission in the secret room.
"We went to the hidden room and then did what Rowena had said in her diary; so we took the keys and after we said "Tergumtemp" doors appeared, from which we entered the space-time, which however seemed more the corridors of our school. Inside the corridors there were some sort of "windows" that showed past events. We have walked all the corridor of the Second Wizarding War backwards, starting from the Battle of Hogwarts, till the night I survived Voldemort.
Then we arrived at the center of this labyrinth where there was the Hogwarts crest, from where many corridors branched out for every era in the history of the magical world. The dragons led us to the corridor of the school foundation and we saw how they got to know each other, when they forged the rings, when they founded the school, when they fighted, and also when Dragonlear was killed.
Dragonlear himself had placed the rings in a room attached to the principal's office; which was accessed with a password written in runes on a parchment to be given to the owl who was on the fireplace, as if it was a letter.
As soon as he came back in the office, the killer was waiting for him, but his face could not be seen from our point of view. He must have been someone close to the victim because when he saw him he didn't try to defend himself; he caled him: "his friend". As soon as he killed him, the murderer took the rings, which were probably his only target, and he was furious to see that there were only two; but he contented himself and vanished in the fog." Harry explained short and to the point.
"Woa, slow down, that's a lot of information; I'll need some time to reorder them to understand everything." Blaise commented.
"Well, now I have something else to say. All of you will remember the scene of the assassination of Dragonlear? More or less..." the others nodded at Hermione's almost rhetorical question.
"Dragonlear, when he saw the murderer, used a non-verbal spell and wrote a few words on a piece of paper; Draco and I managed to translate them at the moment, together with the password for the room behind the fireplace. But it's in cryptic language: "The eagle and the owl fly high in the sky, above the white horse that runs with the dog and the fox in the amaranth field." This was the phrase to enter the fireplace room. Instead what he wrote a second before he was killed, was: "the crocodile devoured the fox under the apple tree." said Hermione following her notes.
"What does it mean?" Ron asked sleepily but curious.
"I went to the library and looked for some information on a divination book about symbolic meaning of animals.
The eagle is the lion of the sky: so it probably refers to Gryffindor. The owl symbolizes wisdom, therefore it is Ravenclaw. The Dog is the symbol par excellence of loyalty, and therefore Hufflepuff. Then the fox is cunning: Slytherin. The horse instead symbolizes clairvoyance, freedom, sincerity, and strength; in the case of the white coat, purity. So Dragonlear." The others looked at each other with a lost and absorbed look.
"now Neville, I need your knowledge of plants. Do you know what the meaning of amaranth and apple tree is?" Hermione asked, turning to Neville still a little confused.
"well, amaranth is a plant whose flowers don't wither, therefore it is a symbol of immortality and constancy. While the apple tree is betrayal, like the apple of discord, or the apple that Eve ate while performing original sin. The forbidden fruit that would have given knowledge, but they would have been forever thrown out of the Eden garden." Neville said a little embarrassed.
"then... Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Slytherin and Dragonlear together forever? Is this the heart of the matter? it's sound like a eight years old kids oath." Harry commented.
"yes, but there is also the other thing... do you remember the other phrase? I think it is: "the falsehood has devoured Slytherin; he has betrayed us." So the killer is Slytherin!" exclaimed Hermione satisfied with having solved the puzzle.
"now we have to understand where he brought the rings; and for this reason I have at least three books in my bag about Slytherin, among all the ones I have here." they were all quite amazed and a little stunned by the discovery of the murderer's identity.
"we have to find them before the ring of hope explode, so as soon as possible. I already have a half-idea, but I need you too. If you have time, I ask you to stay looking for information."
"me and Blaise will stay." announced Draco.
"We will too." Ginny said with Ron and Harry.
"I'm sorry, but me and Morgan have an astronomy lesson this evening, we have to go." Luna said for her and Morgan.
"I have to go to Professor Sprout for greenhouse maintenance." Neville said hurriedly.
"then go, see you around, guys." Harry greeted the ones who were going away covered by a vague loud rumour of phrases supposed to be greetings from the others. As soon as the door was closed Hermione moved two tables in the centre of the room and placed the chairs around it with a twist of her wand.
"well, we know that Slytherin was very attached to the transmission of his bloodline and therefore to his family. As with Marvolo Gaunt's ring, the rings must have become family treasures. So we have to investigate his descent." Hermione put the books on the table while everyone was sitting leafing through them carefully.
"The line divides. Caspian Gaunt had two sons, one was Voldemort's ancestor, and the other was the first of the branch that will end up to Isolt Sayre, is the founder of Ilvermorny. So we have to check the story of Isolt and Ilvermorny." said Hermione with a quick mental recapitulation.
"I am going to get the book from the library." "Do you know where the library is, Ronald?" Ginny asked, mocking her brother who was indignantly exiting the door.
"One of them, however, will certainly have arrived to Tom Riddle. If is like that, we just have to hope he didn't notice what he had in his hands. I should have brought also a book on the Slytherin's lineage..." Hermione said scratching her head remembering.
"Yes, it's here." Blaise said raising his hand with his face almost attached to the pages of the book.
"well, if my assumptions are correct, one ring has arrived to Voldemort, and the other probably to the Sayres." She proposed wile Ron opened the door out of breath. He was carrying a large book with a sky blue velvet cover and red title.
As soon as he got close enough, Hermione grabbed the book from his arms and started looking at it with Ginny searching for anything related to a rings. They spent the rest of the afternoon looking for information, analyzing the Slytherin family tree, and carefully studying the history of Ilvermorny.
Dinner time had come, and Blaise got up dragging himself from his chair. "Can we go to dinneeeeeer?" he groaned, walking around the room.
"calm down, it's only dinner..." Draco said.
"only dinner? Have you got any idea of what my Italian grandma would do to you now for what you just said?! We take it very seriously! She would kill you, probably by filling you with food till you explode." Blaise frowned.
"I fully agree with him. I want to go to dinner." Ron said, getting up from the table.
"okay, you are unproductive when hungry though." accepted Hermione, closing the book about Ilvermory's story. "I have enough material to work on, I hope it is the same for you" she added, collecting the sheets with the notes.
"As soon as we can go back to search, bring all the books you find on the Slytherin and Ilvermorny. I'll inform the other with letters. When are you free?" she asked, adjusting the bag on one shoulder.
"Is Sunday okay? We have quiddich training Saturday." Ginny said also for Harry and Ron.
"Sunday is fine for us." Blaise said on behalf of the two Slytherins.
"Well, let's go to dinner then." Hermione said staring at Ron and Blaise so grimly that she could have crossed them.
Everyone left the secret passage after carefully collecting all the sheets that were on the tables, so as not to leave a trace. But no one noticed a single sheet that had fallen under the table, the sheet with the original password, not yet translated; they forgot about it and stayed under the table.