Chapter Five

The Attic

Mrs. Weasley, rather than badger Harry about his plans to drop out of Hogwarts, had taken a "hands off" approach, leaving him strictly alone about such personal details. That Monday, however, she announced that the Burrow was to be thoroughly cleaned, top to bottom, and that everyone in the house was to pitch in. Harry didn't mind, of course; he was always happy to give whatever help he could. Unlike number 12 Grimmauld Place, the Burrow, happily, was doxy- and boggart-free, but gnomes perinally infestedg the garden, and there was a lot of settled dust in unused rooms, especially Fred and George's, which had served as a store room for some time.

Worse, both Hermione and Ginny also seemed to think it was a good idea to get the house cleaned up as well. "After all," Hermione pointed out to Harry the first evening. "It's the least we can do for the hospitality she's shown us. We'll take a week or two to get things squared away, then we can tackle You-Know-Who."

What they shortly found out, however, was that it was Mrs. Weasley's strategy to get each of them alone to grill them for information about Harry's plans once he left Hogwarts and the Burrow. "I didn't think I'd say this about another human being, much less my mum," Ron moaned the second evening after describing her efforts to penetrate his innermost secrets. "But she's worse than Umbridge!"

Harry didn't mind helping around the Burrow; the Weasleys had made him feel very much a part of their family over the years. But this seemed beyond the pale. "You can't really blame her for trying," Hermione said the third evening after her own interrogation. "She's worried about you, Harry!"

It was a concern that Harry shared wholeheartedly. He had scant ideas on how to proceed in his quest to destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes and Voldemort himself; he would need every bit of help Hermione and Ron could give him, as loathe as he was to place them in danger. For Mrs. Weasley to make such intrigue out of it, however, seemed to cheapen the effort.

"Maybe I should tell her we all plan to leave Hogwarts, and why," Harry suggested to Fred and George, who were visiting for lunch one afternoon. At Harry's insistence they had crowded into the Weasley's broom shed and Imperturbed the door against listening devices like Extendable Ears.

"Bad idea, mate," Fred shook his head. "Leave that to Ron."

"Right," George concurred. "Better she hear it from him than you."

"Ron thinks she'll kill him," Harry argued.

"Oh, she'll give him an earful for his trouble," Fred said, sharing a smile with George. "By the way, d'you know she's already had a go at us about what you're up to?"

"No, I didn't," Harry said, surprised. "When did that happen?"

"You and Ron were up dusting out our old room," George said. "Which we appreciate, by the way, in case we ever decide to drop by for a night or two."

"We're cleaning out the extra boxes in your room this afternoon," Harry said. He eyed them with a mixture of amusement and suspicion. "Is there anything in those boxes we ought to be worried about?"

Fred looked thoughtfor for several moments. "Can't think of anything," he said at last. "But don't go looking into anything without checking it for magic first."

Fred and George's old room, they had learned, was filled with strange and wondrous things: scraps and folders of parchment filled with odd diagrams and arcane words and figures. Ron found an old bag of sweets, evidently a first attempt at some of their joke candy. Wisely, he'd decided not to try any. Harry found a wand that would turn different colors each time it was waved. Flourishing it with different motions caused it to assume multiple colors in varying patterns. Ron had come across an old hat that did nothing but turn the wearer's hair green for anywhere from a few seconds to over an hour; he'd almost missed dinner the previous evening waiting for his hair to turn red again.

That afternoon, Harry and Ron returned to Fred and George's room to clean out any junk left in boxes and move the rest of their things up to the attic. Most of them seemed to be filled with junk: nothing but scraps of parchment, broken quills, and empty, dusty potion bottles. Ron shook his head as they emptied boxful after boxful of trash. "They must've cleaned out everything they wanted," he muttered to Harry. "Figures they'd leave nothing but junk up here."

In one of the last boxes Harry came across a folder with a few scraps of parchment in it. He started to throw it away as well but his eye had caught sight of a neat line of handwriting on one of the pages. Reaching into the folder, Harry pulled out a few sheets of parchment with the word "Mystery Map" across the front of it.

"Aha!" he said, looking up at Ron. "This might be worth a shifty."

"What is it?" Ron looked up, interested. Harry held up the pages, pointing to the words "Mystery Map" across the top.

"Mystery Map?" Ron mused, intrigued. "I wonder if that means the Marauder's Map?"

"That's what I'd guess," Harry concurred.

During Harry's third year, when students were normally allowed to visit Hogsmeade several times during the year, because the Dursleys hadn't signed his permission slip he wasn't allowed to go. During the December visit, Fred and George had presented him with the Marauder's Map: the reason, they said, why they knew every square inch of the school and grounds. The Map showed every level of the castle and the grounds, along with labels showing the location of every person who was in the school or on the grounds. It had all the secret passages inside the castle, into and out of the school grounds, and the magic words needed to activate the secrets. It had been invaluable in the past four years helping Harry keep track of people like Snape, Malfoy, and Filch when he needed to avoid them. It had even, the first year he had it, shown him the name Peter Pettigrew, the man who had betrayed Harry's father and mother to Voldemort.

Ron looked over Harry's shoulder at the parchment as Harry read the first entry.

Mystery Map

September 8 –

We had the displeasure today of meeting Filch, the caretaker, and a right foul piece of work he is. We'd skived off Charms class and were exploring the castle when a cat walked by. Thought it was a student's pet but we found out it was Filch's cat, a ghastly little beast named Mrs. Norris. We ran across Filch a few minutes later and he hauled us off to his office.

Suffice it to say, it was not one of the more pleasant introductions we've had at Hogwarts. There was one good thing to come of our meeting, however – we found that Filch keeps a drawer full of confiscated items. Had a shufti at several items as Filch rummaged through the drawer. One caught our eye – a large piece of folded parchment – and we decided to nick it and have a look at leisure. So far haven't come up with much – it's blank, but if it was in Filch's drawer it has to be interesting. George suggested we keep a log of what we try on the parchment so we don't end up repeating ourselves, and that's what this journal is about.

"Interesting," Harry said, looking at Ron. "I've always wondered how they figured out how the Marauder's Map worked." He read on:

September 13 –

Haven't been able to make heads nor tails of the ruddy parchment yet. We're almost tempted to nick back into Filch's office and have another look in his cabinet for anything else in there about it. Tried Revelaspell on it but it just got cheeky with us.

Harry remembered when Snape had tried this same thing on the Marauder's Map. It had insulted him as well, by name. They read on.

October 25 –

Between the two of us we've read half-way through the library's Transfiguration and Charms section. Told Fred we ought to show it to Bill, he's gotten a job as a cursebreaker at Gringott's, he might know a way to figure this out. But that's a last resort – we're not letting a bleeding piece of paper get the best of us. Our goal is to have it licked by Christmas.

"I guess they had a bit more trouble with it than they let on," Harry grinned.

November 3 –

Found a few more spell detection charms to try on the parchment, but no luck. Aperius Dissimulus fizzled as did Magus Detectum. We may have to resort to asking Bill after all.

"I've never heard of those spells," Ron said, looking at the two incantations the notes mentioned.

"Me either," Harry muttered. "It sounds like they read quite a lot trying to figure the Map out."

"Something must've worked," Ron reasoned. "Obviously they figured enough out to show you, years later, how it worked." They looked back at the next entry:

December 16 –

Thought we should have a go at the parchment again, it's been a while since we've tried anything with it. So far we've gotten it to show the following phrases while attempting to reveal its secrets:

1. Get stuffed, you're hardly trying.

2. Were you really expecting that to work?

3. You'd do better studying chartered accountancy than magic.

4. I think your mum is calling you.

5. Never tickle a sleeping dragon.

6. You're as pathetic as Snivellus Snape.

7. You really should study more for your O.W.L.s, you know.

8. Don't worry, there'll always be work for dustmen.

Not very encouraging, it's odds-on whether we crack this nut before Boxing Day or not. We may have to owl Bill if we don't have it by then.

Harry looked at the next page in the folder, but the rest of them were blank. "That's all they wrote," he said, chagrinned.

"Guess they figured it out right after that," Ron shrugged.

"Yeah, but how?" Harry said, now frustrated that there was no satisfaction for his curiosity. "They never told me how they figured it out – just showed me what to do to turn it on and off."

"Maybe they wrote it down in some other book or parchment," Ron said, doubtfully. "But… they never were much for keeping track of things."

They searched through the last few boxes but came up empty; there was nothing else written about the Map.

The last task remaining was to move the boxes still contained items to be stored up to the attic and bring down any rubbish that had accumulated up there. It was a task Ron wasn't too keen to perform. "The ghoul is still knocking about up there," he mentioned to Harry as they walked the boxes to be carried up to the staircase leading to the attic.

"I've read that ghouls like eating spiders," Harry couldn't resist mentioning as Ron stared at the door. He looked at Harry with a combination of dread and disgust.

"Thanks for cheering me up with that, mate," he said sourly. "Well done!"

"Ron, it's going to growl at us and then run away," Harry said matter-of-factly. "It's more scared of us than we are of it."

"You think so?" Ron said dubiously, but he grasped the knob and turned it. The door opened and they peered into the darkness.

Harry could see the ghoul staring in their direction from the light of his lantern; as expected, it made a growling sound, but as the door continued to open and light fell upon it, it turned and fled to a far corner of the attic, well away from them.

Most of the stuff in the attic was in stacks and piles near the doorway. There was a rickety lamp table and an old bureau. The floor was strewn with pieces of parchment, tipped over boxes and other small objects, evidently things thrown about by the ghoul.

"What a mess," Ron sighed.

"It's not too bad," Harry said, putting the lantern down on the lamp table and beginning to restack boxes and pick up loose parchment scraps. "Mind the spider on your leg," he said casually and Ron yelped and jumped about a foot as Harry laughed. Ron swore feelingly at him.

"You kiss your mum with that mouth?" Harry snickered as he opened up a box and, finding it empty, threw the parchment scraps into it.

"You can kiss my — you know I don't like spiders, Harry!" Ron looked around again in spite of himself before pulling out his wand and saying "Lumos." The tip of his wand lit, illuminating most of the attic and drawing another growl from the ghoul, now standing in the farthest corner with its arm thrown across its face. "Much better – except now I can see the ghoul."

"Can you see yourself helping me anytime soon?" Harry complained, waving one hand to indicate the mess. "You're the one who's old enough to use magic, after all."

Ron began using his wand to Accio small objects laying about on the floor to him. "It's not like I'm going to tell if you use magic, Harry. Especially if it gets us down and out of here quicker."

Harry pulled out his wand, but hesitated for a moment. Would the Ministry of Magic be able to find out if he used magic, up here in the Burrow's attic? It seemed unlikely, but the Ministry lately seemed to alternate between courting Harry's favor and wanting him thrown in Azkaban. But it was less than a month until he was seventeen…

Harry shrugged and pointed his wand at a scrap of parchment on the floor nearby, saying "Accio!" The scrap zoomed toward his hand, then began to flutter away. Harry caught it and pointed at another scrap. Soon he and Ron had cleared most of the floor near the doorway of scraps. They began working on the various small objects lying about; it was even becoming something of a competition to see who could get the smallest object, or the farthest, in the room.

Finally a small gleam of light caught Harry's eye in a far corner. He aimed carefully and shouted "Accio," catching the object as it sped toward him. Turning to drop it in the scrap box, he instead gasped in surprise.

"What's up?" Ron turned to look at what Harry was holding out to him. "Whoa!" The object Harry held was like nothing he'd seen before – wait, scratch that, Harry thought. It did look vaguely like some of the strange silver instruments he'd seen in Dumbledore's office in the past. Ron took it from him, turning it gingerly to examine it.

"What is this thing?" he asked wonderingly. It looked like a small silver box, but there was no obvious lid or hinge, and no button or fastener to push or turn to open it.

"Dunno," Harry said. "D'you think your mum or dad will know?"

"Maybe." Ron shook it gently. "It feels empty, I don't hear anything rattling inside. I wonder if there's anything else up here like this."

Harry pointed at the other boxes stacked nearby. "We can find out quick enough. Specialis Revelio!" he cried, pointing at the topmost box. Nothing happened, and Harry proceeded to the next box, and the next, until one, on the top of the last stack, glowed faintly as the spell struck it.

"Excellent!" Ron said, grabbing the box. "Grab the rubbish box, Harry and let's go down to my room and check this out!" He followed Harry out the door, pulling it shut behind him, and they went into Ron's room. Opening the box, Ron pulled out several handfuls of old parchments, apparently school assignments, with the name "Arthur Weasley" scrawled across the top. He handed them to Harry, who glanced over them perfunctorily; there were mostly A's on them with an occasional E and some P's. Most of the passing grades were in Charms and Transfiguration papers while the P's seemed to be mostly on History of Magic and interestingly, Harry thought, Muggle Studies. There weren't any lessons about Defense Against the Dark Arts in the first handful Ron had handed him, nor in the second.

"I wonder what we detected," Ron said, now peering intently into the box for anything unusual like the silver box they'd found. "This just seems to be Dad's old school papers." He looked up at Harry, bemused. "Nothing very magical about that, I'd expect, unless he cheated on his homework assignments…"

"You mean like having someone else write them for him?" Harry asked, pointedly. Hermione corrected a lot of Ron's papers or just wrote them outright for him to recopy in his own writing.

"Get off it, Hermione helps you just as much – hello, what's this?" Ron had pulled out a leather-bound book with the name Arthur Caractacus Weasley and the date February 6, 1952 embossed in gold print on the cover.

"I never knew Dad's middle name was 'Caractacus,' " Ron said, staring at the name on the cover. "I can see why he never told us."

"Let's see what's inside," Harry suggested.

Ron opened up the book. On the first page was an inscription, which he read: "To my nephew Arthur, with much affection and best wishes for the future – Uncle Archie." Ron scratched his chin, thinking. "I don't think Mum or Dad ever mentioned an Uncle Archie."

"Maybe he died before you were born," Harry suggested.

"Maybe." Ron flipped through a few pages. "His first entry was on February 6, 1963 – his eleventh birthday. That must've been the day he got this journal." Ron read:

6 Feb 1963 – My 11th birthday!

Dear Journal,

Uncle Archie has given you to me and I promise to write in you every day. Today, for my birthday, Uncle Archie and I went to Diagon Alley where he bought me an owl, which I've named Percival —(both Harry and Ron laughed at this; Ron snickered, "I bet Percy would love to read that!")— after one of King Arthur's knights. He also gave me a magic box he built himself, it unlocks by touching the sides of the box in the right order (which I shan't tell here!)

"Now we know what that box is, I reckon," Ron said.

"I wonder why your mum and dad never mentioned him," Harry pondered.

Ron was flipping through the pages of his father's journal. "Probably like you said," he said absently. "He died a long time ago or something like that."

There was a knock on the door and Hermione poked her head into the room. "Finished cleaning the attic already?" she asked.

"It was a doss," Harry said, waving his wand airily. "We just Imperiused the ghoul and had him do it." Ron hid a chuckle behind his hand.

"Very droll, Harry," Hermione said archly. "Except that ghouls are too simple-minded to give instructions like 'Clean this room' to, even when Imperiused."

"That's good to know, assuming I ever actually try to Imperius a ghoul to do housework – which I won't," Harry said with a grin.

"Harry found this in this attic," Ron said, handing her the silver box. "We also found a journal my father kept when he was a kid. Hermione looked at it.

"It's a puzzle-box, isn't it?" she decided after a few seconds, handing it back to Ron.

"Now how could you tell that just by looking at it?" Ron demanded.

"It had to be," Hermione shrugged. "Without an obvious opening mechanism."

Ron seemed irked that Hermione had figured out the secret of the ivory box so quickly. Harry changed the subject. "The journal we found also talked about Ron's dad's Uncle Archie."

Hermione was silent a moment. "I don't remember anyone ever mentioning him."

"Neither do I," Ron said, almost sounding relieved to Harry's ears. "We'll have to ask Dad at dinner what he remembers."

"What're we having for dinner tonight?" Harry asked.

"Steak and kidney pies and Cornish pastries," Hermione said, not sounding to enthused, but Ron smacked his lips.

He held up the silver box and his father's journal. "A pretty good haul today," he said. "Between this box, Dad's journal, and Fred and George's 'Mystery Map' notes, we did alright."

"I just hope finding Horcruxes is this easy," Harry muttered.