Finally the day that each of them had looked forward came, together with the first warm winds announcing weather changing from winter to spring. Pansy, Blaise and Neville were about to stage an accident in the greenhouses, that could easily keep McGonagall busy for the whole day; and most of the students were in Hogsmeade: perfect situation, everything was ready to put their plan into action.
Pansy, Blaise and Neville, were heading towards the greenhouses; while the heads, of houses and school, went to the headmistress office to attempt the impossible. Ginny was walking a few meters behind, so if someone asked, they had a head's meeting, and Ginny wouldn't have been suspicious if she was at a distance.
They arrived in front of the principal's office, and stopped to give Ginny the final directions. "Keep this" Hermione said placing a vial of polyjuice potion in Ginny's hand. "If things go bad, this is polyjuice potion, and this is a McGonagall hair. And I personally checked it wasn't a cat hair. right Ron? right Harry?! But use it only for extreme cases, I don't have much of that."
"Why do you have polyjuice potion?" Luna asked.
"Habit." Hermione checked with nonchalance.
"If we don't came back soon, then we will have managed to find a way to go to Ilvermorny, don't worry." Harry reminded her.
"Now go, we don't have much time." Ginny warned them.
The others disappeared behind the large griffin statue that showed access to the stairs to the president's office, thanks to Ron (Siamese). They silently went up the stone stairs, and opened the wooden door of the office squeaking. As expected with the change of headmaster the office hadn't changed at all; everything was in its place, except for one thing: next to the paintings of all the Hogwarts's principals, there were now also Dumbledore and Snape, who at the moment were fortunately in one of their other paintings around the magical world.
They walked slowly across the room trying to not make a sound. They reached the back of the office in the little sitting room, then Hermione took a piece of parchment and wrote down the password she had worked so hard on. She folded the parchment and putted It in the owl's beak, whose eyes illuminated just like in the galleries of space-time.
The owl came to life and after settling for the wings folded over their heads, dived into the fireplace illuminating the passage. One by one they passed through the light and found themselves in the marble hall they had already seen in the window of the space-time; but there was another thing that actually wasn't a "detail", and that the vision of the past had omitted: ten doors studded the walls of the room, with the door from which they entered, they were eleven.
On each white wooden door there was a black and gold drawing of one of the eleven major magic schools in the world; and its name was written in elaborate golden characters.
In the centre of the room there was still the pedestal where Dragonlear has placed the rings long time ago; but it was not as empty as they expected: there was a sheet of parchment addressed to Harry Ron and Hermione; by Albus Dumbledore. Harry came over and took the parchment then began to read it aloud:
-dear Harry, Ron, and Hermione; I knew that one day you would come here too, your heroically unconscious nature, your incredible tendency to get yourself into troubles, and your destiny, would never have allowed you to leave even one only mystery behind.
Well, I think if you got this far, you already know about the rings, the dragons, and presumably you've already been to space-time too. I think I have some useful information for you: even if I haven't found out where any of the rings were, I discovered the second, and in my opinion the most useful and surprising function of this room.
These doors you see on the walls are actually portals, to access other magic schools in the world. Obviously it's a reversible process, and you can come and go from any of the portals around the world. To use them you will need to recite the original motto of the particular school of magic where you want to go; and also a password that is different for each of them. Here there is a list of those that I managed to discover, which unfortunately are not all.
Beauxbatones: cogito ergo sum; and the password is joli. Durmstrang: Fragar, not Flectar, and his password is urkraft. Ilvermorny: dum vita est spes est. The password is William. The last school whose password I found out is Uagadou in Africa; school where I myself went to learn the ancient African techniques much after my graduation from Hogwarts. Adui aangukapo, mnyanyue, (when the enemy falls, help him to get up); And their password is rafiki (friend).
You may be thinking that their passwords are not that complicated, but you must know that from every access the room is different apart from the doors; and maybe they didn't have anything important to hide inside. Or maybe they even forgot about those portals.
There would still be one thing that maybe I should tell you about the history of the rings, and one thing that I did, but if I do, I would fulfill your destiny in your place, and I don't consider it right; good luck."
"Okay, someone go and bless Dumbledore's grave. now. But then curse it! I can't take anymore him telling me things halfway! What was he supposed to tell us that he didn't!? What else has he done?" Harry wondered.
"There is no time now, let's thank him for finding out how to access other schools, and now let's go." Ron urged.
They approached Ilvermorny's door and Harry proclaimed: "dum vita est spes est. William." the door opened instantly; it wasn't rusty, even after so much time, it opened without a noise, it looked new. A passage of light lit up in front of them.
They were spellbound for a moment looking at that, then one by one after Harry, they slowly crossed the corridor and in a few seconds they found themselves in another place: they were in another office, and in front of them was a blue sofa and comfortable red armchairs; behind them, they had the same stone fireplace they had left at Hogwarts, with the exact same owl above it.
The office was very similar to Hogwarts's; but it had a high ceiling and the external wall had large windows that allowed a lot of light to enter. The sitting room was on an oval platform about ten feet high attached to the external window wall, connected to the rest of the office by two dark wooden stairs and black iron handrails that descended from the sides, curving symmetrically inward. The fireplace was part of the stone cone that was thinning from the floor up to the ceiling and divided the two windows that formed the external wall.
"It looks like Slytherin common room... just the light... I prefer the lake one." commented Draco turning around observing the room.
Downstairs there was a carved wooden desk with some elaborate golden enrichments, and above the desk there was a pile of documents and pens with ink. The walls looked like those of a beautiful south-European stone house, alternated with simple white walls; while the ceiling was white and supported by large wooden beams that crossed it entirely.
There were large wooden wardrobes of a color similar to the one of the beams, in the same style as the desk; and a large, antique, globe behind the desk and under the platform, with a diameter of about five feet. Ancient maps not exactly correspondent at the true earth conformation were hanging on the walls. The Hogwarts' students looked around bewildered, and then remembered their mission.
"Are we really at Ilvermorny?" Asked Luna.
They carefully went down the wooden stairs that led downstairs, and began to observe everything as they walked towards the door of the study.
"yes, look: this is Isolt Sayre. And is wearing the brooch with the ring!" Morgan replied to Luna's question in front of a portrait hanging in the study.
"I suppose we will have to find someone who can tell us where we could find the brooch, and maybe politely ask them if we can take it for force majeure purposes." Hermione proposed.
"Let's go then." Harry commanded by opening the study door.
Stairs unrolled in front of them, and carefully followed them and went out into the corridor.
Ilvermorny wasn't very different from Hogwarts, perhaps because it was directly inspired at her.
There were wide stone corridors, however they were fresher and brighter, with white ceilings and stone walls. Stairs and other passageways for classrooms and dormitories branched off from these corridors.
The company, however, had ignored a fact, it was term time also at Ilvermorny, and students started staring at them: it wasn't exactly every day to find six Hogwarts students wandering around in their corridors; and the fact that they were wearing their uniform didn't really help.
They also heard some whispers... "isn't he Harry Potter?" "and Hermione Granger? And Ron Weasley?" "But who are the others?" "isn't he... Malfoy... the death eater..." "yeah, yeah, Voldemort, that's the name..." "I've seen them on the newspapers..." "Why are they here?" and so on.
They walked through the corridors in search of the principal with all the students of the American school staring at them. After a few minutes they met the principal who was returning to his study, and he was equally surprised to see them like all the students in the school. He was a man in his sixties who had light brown hair and blue eyes staring at them surprised and curious.
"Good morning, I'm Tarrant Glim, headmaster of this school. What can I do for you, Hogwarts friends?" He asked politely.
"Good morning sir, We need to talk to the person who knows the story of Isolt Sayre and Ilvermorny better than all." Harry replied cordially.
"I think I know who is right for you, but I'm sorry to disappoint you, it's not a person." the headmaster informed them calmly.
The others looked at each other disappointed. Wasn't a person?! They walked through the corridors of Ilvermorny, where there was no shortage of surprised looks from the students as they had when they arrived. The principal began to ask them questions to break the tension.
"So my friends, why did you come here from Hogwarts?" he asked quietly. The principal was a calm and controlled person, but at the same time full of energy and someway interesting.
"We have a question to solve that dates back several hundred years, from Salazar Slytherin." Hermione replied.
"If you want I can take you to the tree that was born from his wand." offer the headmaster.
"no need, thank you for the offer but we are a bit in a hurry." Harry thanked him.
In the meantime they had arrived at the entrance of the school, in front you could see the dark forest that surrounded it and the beautiful mountains all around.
"well guys we have arrived, he is a puckwudgie, and he answers to the name of William; we believe it was the same puckwudgie that helped Isolt when she arrived in America. He denies to be William, perhaps because if he really was he would be three hundred years old, and he finds it quite impossible, even if no one knows how old can get puckwudgies.
But he never allows anyone else to polish the statue of Isolt, so we continue to think that he is the one and only William, and that Isolt somehow must have ensured that this puckwudgie could live so long with care and affection, or maybe he still has to do something on this earth that is not preparing food or polishing statues, who knows... ." the headmaster paused with his hands together behind his back to stare admiringly at that strange creature.
"If there is someone who knows everything about Isolt and Ilvermorny, then it's him, but he is a little crabby; if you need, I will be in my office." He greeted them.
At the entrance of the school under the blue sky, a small, old, puckwudgie was polishing the marble statue of Isolt just as it was told them by the principal. It must have been William.