Chapter 23: The Puzzle Pieces Start to Fit Together

(Albus)

The May flowers blossomed everywhere. The trees had all their full leaves again, looking heathier than ever. Kids ran around and played in the green grass. The lake glistened in the afternoon sun. It was perfect.

Except for one thing.

"Oh, James, thank you," said Cassidy accepting a package from my breathless brother.

"No… no problem, Cassidy," he replied grinning and panting.

I shook my head. It was really starting to bug me. Cassidy was my girlfriend. Why did Jams have to keep budding in? If Cassidy wanted some ingredients for her stupid potion she could just ask me.

"Is there anything else I get for you?" James asked.

"No, its fine," I snapped before Cassy could answer.

James glared at me a little. "I was talking to Cassidy."

"Yes," I said, glaring back at my brother. "But you don't have time for that right now. Remember we have plans."

"Oh, yeah." He turned to Cassidy. "We're having a family birthday get together for Louis. Almost forgot." He lied so easily that it almost shocked me.

Cassidy nodded and hugged us both goodbye.

As soon as she was out of earshot I rounded on my brother. "Stay away from her!"

"Why?" James demanded. "She's my friend! I am allowed to have friends, you know, Al."

"Well, why does your friend have to be my girlfriend?"

"Because! I knew her first. She was my fiend long before she was your girlfriend. So if anything, I should tell you to back off." James crossed his arms and I knew there was no winning this argument.

"Whatever," I grumbled. "Let's just focus on what's important. The wand and what Code is going to do with it."

James nodded.

We arrived in the Room of Requirement a few minutes later. It was covered in bean bag chairs with a comfy carpet. Waiting there for us was Alice, Fred, Rose, Scorpius, Lily, Hugo, Roxy, Lucy and Frank. The small team we assembled to defeat Code. However one member was missing today.

"Where's Jacob?" I inquired.

Lily looked down and avoided anyone's eyes. Hugo gave her a reassuring hug and answered my question, "He said he'll do his own research and let us know if he finds anything."

Lucy narrowed her eyes. "He's not going to tell anyone is he?"

Lily looked down-right offended by the comment and Hugo and Roxy glared at our cousin. "Even if he told anyone he'd just get the same title James had; attention seeking prat," Roxy reasoned. "And besides, he wouldn't tell."

"Sorry," Lucy said, sounding quite insincere, "Just asking. It's a little suspicious that he's not here."

Frank gave Lucy a hug and a peck on the check which distracted her from insulting Jacob.

"So," James began, "Anyone find anything new?"

After a moment's hesitation Rose raised her hand. "I'm just thinking of something we've never really considered. I mean, Code clearly very calculated. He doesn't do things just for the fun of it, he has motives. So why are we solely looking at the wand incident? Shouldn't we look as everything as a whole. This is Code after all, he's probably been planning all of this since the day his sister died."

Everyone nodded, taking in what Rose said. "Okay," Roxanne began. "So what's the first thing Code did?"

"He used Sirius to try and get to me," James replied.

"No," I disagreed. "Filch did that, didn't he? We have to separate Filch, Claire Code and Ryan Code. I think they may be working as a team, but they all have different motives."

"So whose idea was it to recruit people, like the Death Eaters?"

"Filch's or Claire's for sure," Alice answered immediately. "Code works alone and he has one main goal; to kill James."

"He tried to kill me when we duelled in the Chamber of Secrets in third year," James remembered. "He spouted all this crap about wanting to end the world. That was before I found out this was all about his sister."

"He attacked us at the end of the year," I recalled. "But he seemed more intent on hurting you, not me."

I saw James run his hand across his right arm. In the same place I had an identical scar. From that night. Two of Code's goons stabbed us with identical weird looking knives. For some reason they hadn't drawn any blood but they left a scar.

"That must've been part of Code's plan," James said, as if reading my mind. Maybe he actually had, because we both had that ability.

"Yeah, but what was he trying to accomplish?" I asked.

"I'm not really sure," James mumbled, deep in thought. "But after Code duelled me, we didn't see him again. Just those two goons who gave us the scars."

"You're right," I said remembering that I'd thought it was weird that Code just gave up.

Fred cleared his throat, James and I both turned to him. "Would either of you care to explain what you're talking about?"

James and I lifted the sleeve of our cloaks to reveal the scars. "We got cut with this weird looking knife that made these scars even though we didn't bleed," I explained.

"I had duelled Code earlier that night in the Chamber of Secrets. I lost the duel and Code tried to kill me, almost did, but I saved myself with wandless magic. Al had been in danger, so I escaped Code to go help him. I'd expected Code to follow but he didn't…"

"We just ran into the goons who gave us these," I added.

"And then we found Sirius, healed him, and everything went back to normal," James concluded.

Rose, Scorpius, Fred and Alice were nodding as they were the only others in the room who had been present for part of that night.

"So we're thinking that those scars have some special meaning to Code?" Hugo surmised.

"Right," Alice said, nodding. "He must've done it on purpose. Must've held some value to him."

Rose conjured up a quill and a piece of parchment. She write down what we'd just discussed. "Okay, what happened the next year?"

"Code tried to embarrass me and get me in trouble," James grumbled bitterly. "And succeeded. Got every to start calling me an attention seeking prat."

"That was the Hogwarts News," Lily piped up. "Are we saying Code had something to do with that?"

"Well, he's not here now so he couldn't be the only one who's part of it," Frank said.

"The other one's Mystie, also known as Melissa," James said confidently.

Alice sighed. "You got that information from Cassidy."

"What's that supposed to mean?" both James and I demanded.

"It means we don't know if we can trust her."

"Of course we can!"

"Fine, whatever," Alice groaned. "Trust her. Why not invite her to these meetings?"

I'd never seen Alice act so sarcastic and… unsympathetic. She never disliked people on sight. It was a lesson one learned when befriending James. But with Cassidy… she just despised her for no good reason. I felt the need to stick up for my girlfriend.

"Why do you hate her so much, Alice?" I asked, standing up. "She's not a threat to you and James anymore, so leave her alone!"

Alice crossed her arms over her chest. "I am not, nor was I, jealous of that-" she took a calming breath and I had a feeling she about to swear but changed her mind "-girl."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Because you have no other reason to hate her! You didn't like her from the second you saw James go all googly eyes over her."

"Can you people not see? Are you blind? I'm telling you there's something up with her!"

"Maybe you're the one blinded with jealousy, Alice," I snapped.

"Leave her alone!" James shouted pushing me back into my chair.

I would've shoved him back if Scorpius had not grabbed a hold of me. Fred put a hand on James' shoulder to hold him back too.

I glared at Alice and James, Alice's response back was a shrug as if to say, you'll see when I'm right. James just glared back at me.

"Anyway," Fred said, shooting a knock it off look at me and James, "We were discussing things Code did the year before last."

"He drugged my parents on their business trip to Australia in the summer," I remembered.

"Yeah, and he tried to make me look bad in front of Mum and Dad," James said.

"He found Preston Castle that year," Hugo said.

"Oh, yeah, we had that big fight there," Lily said. "Wait… while I was there I got a scar too." She lifted her sleeve to show a scar on her right arm that was identical to mine and James'. "I almost forgot about it…"

"So he must've knew what he was doing then. If he gave you all the same scar," Rose reasoned. "That knife must hold special power. Something that affects you three and benefits him."

We took a minute to think, but none of us could figure out what the knife did.

"Well, besides the knife and Lily's scar, what else was important about that night?" Alice asked.

"Voldemort," James said without hesitation. "That's the night Code rose Voldemort."

"He didn't fully succeed, though, we stopped him. Sort of," Lily pointed out.

"What would Code even want with Voldemort anyway?" Hugo asked. "He seems to be more interested in killing James than anything else. In fact from what I've noticed he hates collateral damage. So why would Voldemort be of any use to him?"

"Maybe Voldemort wasn't his idea or plan," James suggested. "It could've been Filch's or Claire's."

"Voldemort was partially rose, most likely not Code's idea," Rose surmised writing as she spoke.

"He also kidnapped Jacob's sister," Roxy reminded us.

"Again, a motive that doesn't make sense," I muttered.

"He didn't harm her did her?" Lucy asked Roxy.

"No, not at all," she replied. "Just kidnapped her."

"Then maybe she was bait. Maybe he just wanted Jacob to come."

"Why would he want Jacob to come though?" Hugo wondered. "He had no interest in him."

"No, but he does have interest in Lily," Lucy went on. "And wherever Jacob goes, Lily goes too."

Lily blushed at this, but nodded all the same. "So maybe it was really important, cutting me with the knife. I mean that's the only thing that happened to me that night."

"You think he went through all that trouble just for a scar?" I said skeptically.

"Well, like we said, the scar has to do something. He wouldn't bother with it at all if it didn't," Lucy said. "Think, what could it be?"

There was a silence and then, "We discovered that we can communicate telepathically a little while after that," Lily offered. "Me, James, Al and Code."

"You think the knife gave you telepathy?" Alice questioned.

"I think it came as a surprise, though," James said, frowning, "I mean, I was able to sneak into his mind to see the memory of him and his sister. I don't think he ever intended for me to find out like that. I think his whole plan was to get me to admit to it. Admit to killing his sister."

"Well, maybe he was still trying to work it out," Lily said, seemingly defensive of her theory.

Rose nodded. "That's the most realistic theory we've come up with so far, I think."

James snorted. "How is a knife that gives you superpowers realistic?"

"The same way dragons, unicorns and wizards are," I countered.

James opened his mouth to retort, realised he didn't have one and sunk back into his bean bag chair. I smiled triumphantly.

"Okay, last year," Rose said, "What happened?"

"The whole takeover of the school," James recalled, "But that was Filch's plan, I think."

"It was the first year Code wasn't at school," Fred stated.

"Like I said, me invading his memories. But then he seemed to figure how the whole thing worked and started invading our memories."

"I talked to Marlo who seems to know some of Code's plans," Lily added.

"The Resistance was formed," I said slapping my head, shocked I'd almost forgot that. "We almost all turned into zombies."

"Speaking of the Resistance, maybe we could get them to help," Lily suggested.

Mostly every shook their heads no. "We're not sure who we can trust," Alice said.

I knew she was taking about Cassidy and I would've said something, but Rose beat me to it. "Maybe Code left that year because he knew the whole zombie thing was going to happen?"

"That would make sense," I agreed. "Nothing really happened that year, maybe Code was taking it easy to avoid the zombie thing."

"Something else happened," James said, sounding irritated, "Code killed Grandpa Weasley.

I hated myself for forgetting that. Hugo, however shook his head. "It was Lucius, not Code. It wasn't even on Code's orders."

"Grandfather is in Azkaban now, though," Scorpius informed us. "He's not an issue anymore."

"Code also broke into my mind," Hugo told us. "I guess because he didn't use the knife on me. He wanted to find the Elder Wand."

"Why, though?" Lily asked.

"We still haven't been able to figure that out," Lucy replied shaking her head. "Or where it's hidden."

"But Code has." We all turned to Hugo waiting for an explanation. "When he broke into my mind…" Hugo took a deep breath, looking at James.

"Go on, Hugo," he prompted. "They should know."

"When he broke into my mind I…" Hugo stopped and kicked a bean bag chair. "I should've stopped him! I tried but I don't know Occlumency."

James put a hand on Hugo's shoulder. "He thinks Code might've found out where the Elder Wand is hidden."

"It's not your fault, Hugo," Lily said soothingly. "You couldn't have done anything."

"We should get Hugo and Lily to learn Occlumency too."

"That will work for Lily, but unfortunately it's too late for Hugo," Scorpius spoke up. "Once a mind-walker gets a hold on their victim there's like a bond between them that can only be broken by the mind walker. Occlumency won't work."

Protests were spoken all throughout the room. "There has to be another way!" Lily pleaded.

"I'm sorry," Scorpius replied shaking his head. "I have the book right here if you want to read it." Scorpius pulled a book called Mens-Destruens out of his bag. "It's it Latin though…"

You speak Latin?" Hugo asked.

Scorpius grinned sheepishly. "Yeah, it's sort of a pureblood thing. I also know French, Italian, Spanish and German."

We all stared at Scorpius opened mouth. While I'd known he spoke French I hadn't known about the others.

Lucy stared for a minute, looking slightly annoyed. She probably wasn't used to be one-upped in the intelligence department. "We should get back on topic."

"Right," James said. "This year Code also forced me to kill our family."

There was a momentary awkward silence. I wasn't sure if everyone here had forgiven James. Lucy still seemed a little bitter. She had lost her father after all. The others seemed fine.

Rose cleared her throat. She finished writing all the new information down. "So let's piece this together. What can we say about all Code's plans?"

Alice stood up. She took the papers from Rose, whispered a spell and suddenly there were multiple copies. She handed one out to everyone. "Perhaps we should think about this, come up with theories and then meet again soon."

Everyone nodded in agreement. We all had a lot of thinking to do.

(James)

"What the hell are you doing?"

I whipped my head around wand held out. I'd been on edge since the meeting, talking about Code and all his evil plans. But it turns out it was just Brianna.

I lowered my wand, "Sorry, Bri, I thought-"

I didn't have time to finish that sentence though because she slapped me. It wasn't hard but I still put my hand to my check, out of shock not pain. If she wasn't a girl I would've hit her back. "What the hell was that for?"

"What are you doing with Cassidy?" she demanded.

"What- why is that any of your business?" I asked, avoiding the question.

"You're running around like her little errand boy!"

"So? It's my problem if I am, not yours."

"I'm your friend, Jay, and I just want to look out for you," Brianna said her tone softening.

"What is with you and Alice? Why do you guys hate Cassidy so much?"

Brianna shook her head. "If two of your good friends are telling you a girl is bad news, you should listen!"

"No, Brianna, I shouldn't, because it's my life and I can do what I want with it!"

"You're going to get hurt," she warned.

"And if I do, it's my problem!"

Brianna sighed. "Have you ever even thought about what she's doing? Why she needs all these ingredients?"

"She's working on a potion for extra credit."

Brianna snorted. "Yeah, that's what she tells you."

"Oh, well, enlighten me, what do you think she's up to?"

"Working with your arch nemesis to create an illegal potion," she replied casually.

It took me a minute to realise she meant Scone, not Code. "What? That's ridiculous!"

"Is it really?" Brianna asked nodding her head towards something behind me.

I turned to see Scone and Cassidy walking together, whispering in low voices.

"So? They're allowed to be friends. They are in the same house after all."

"Don't say we didn't warn you," she repeated.

I stormed away from her, but despite my words I had a little nagging feeling now.

The next day was the third competition in the Four House Cup. Because I had opted not to trade any of my points in for clues, I had no idea what this challenge held in store for me. I was slightly nervous, but the fact I had a lot more points than the others was reassuring.

Alice was walking me to the Quidditch Pitch where they were holding event. The moment we stepped outside the castle I saw the giant mound of rocks.

It was huge, like a cave in the middle of the pitch. It looked so odd in the fresh healthy green grass but at the same time it looked natural. Like it'd always been there. I was impressed.

"What do you think I'm going to have to do in there?" I asked Alice.

"I'm not quite sure. Fight some sort of creatures? Try and find some sort of prize? Your guess is as good as mine, Jamie."

I snorted. "Please, your guesses are always better than mine."

She laughed and at that point we had reached the Quidditch pitch. She gave me a hug, wished me luck and then hurried off into the stands. I swallowed my nerves and headed for the cave.

"James, glad you could make it," said Flitwick. I looked around noticing I was the last one there.

"Sorry, Professor," I muttered.

"It's quite all right, James, just try not to be late again." I nodded and he continued, "As I was saying, this is the last challenge before the finale. The finale is a maze. We won't give you the details except that it's a race. The first to finish will receive a hundred points. Second sixty, third thirty and fourth ten. The current standings are like this, James in first place with a hundred and twenty-six points, Lucas in second with a hundred and three, Steffi in fourth with ninety-one points and Samuel in forth with a thirty-two points."

I had to stifle a giggle at hearing Scone's score. I was beating him by almost a hundred!

Flitwick shot me a reprimanding look. "Anyway, you may figure out for yourselves what this means in terms of your ability to win. It is possible that the forth competition will get cancelled if we have someone who scores so many points that beating them would be impossible."

I smiled triumphantly. If I won this competition I was fairly certain the forth competition wouldn't even be necessary.

"Now for the challenge. In this cave we have made there are floating rocks which you have to jump onto to move around. As you jump from rock to rock you will search for small golden stones. You have to find as many as you can. Each stone is worth ten points. There is a total of one hundred and twenty stones, although we highly doubt you'll find them all. This task will be quick, you only have fifteen minutes."

"And the catch?" Reed asked after a minute of silence.

"Oh yes, I almost forgot that part," Flitwick said with a slight smile. "There are chimeras so good luck with that. You now may prepare enter the cave now."

We all lined up in front of the entrance. "When I say go, you may run, 3… 2… 1… go!"

I bolted. My original strategy was going to be to search for stones on the ground first. However that seemed to be everyone's strategy so I immediately jumped onto the rocks. The first rock contained a stone, which I pocketed.

The rocks was not evenly spaced. Some were further apart, others were closer. Some were not that much higher than the one below so you could jump easily. Others were so high I had to use my arms to pull myself up.

When I was on the forth level of rocks and already had five stones I felt a tug on my leg. I was currently trying to get to a particularly high rock. My arms were barely holding me. I locked down to see Reed was the one with the grip on my leg.

He succeeded in pulling me down. I was about to yell at him when I saw the rock I had been trying to climb on crumble.

"Flitwick 'forgot' to mention that not all the rocks hold your weight," Reed explained.

"Thanks," I said, watching the small chunks of rock fall to the ground. If I had been on that when it crumbled I could've broken an ankle at the least and got a major concussion at the worst. "Thanks a lot."

"No problem. Listen, Steffi and Samuel have teamed up, so what do you say you and I do the same?"

I looked at him skeptically for a moment. He was a Slytherin known for being cunning and deceitful. He also happened to be my old enemy that grew into somewhat of an… acquaintance that I didn't hate. And he had just saved my life.

"What are the terms?" I finally asked.

"We split the rocks fifty-fifty. Save each other when necessary, watch each other's back."

"Fine," I replied, putting my hand out, "Deal."

He shook it. "Good."

And so we continued. Jumping from rock to rock, picking up the small gold stones whenever we saw them. The first chimera we saw was about the size of a cat. We easily defeated it with an Augumenti and a stunning spell. By that point we'd already collected thirty-three stones.

The next chimera was probably the size of a baby elephant. I hadn't really gotten a good look at the other one. This one, however stared me right in the face… with all three of its faces. Yeah, you read that right, three faces. It was a lion, a goat and a serpent blended into one body. It appeared to have the scales of a dragon as well. The lion and the goat heads were side by side in the front, with the serpent acting as a tail in the back. The body was that of a lion's covered in the dragon scales.

Reed turned to me, "Shit," he said.

"Run!" I yelled, putting my hands out which Reed stepped on and launched himself onto the next level of rocks. He then grabbed my hand and pulled me up.

But the chimera had another feature I hadn't noticed before. It wasn't just the scales of a dragon, it had freaking wings.

"What the hell are the teachers thinking making us fight these things?" I demanded dodging a blast of flame. Great it breathed fire too.

"Petrificus Totalus!" Reed shouted.

It worked for about two seconds. The beast was free again, and angrier than ever. When it opened its mouth again, Reed and I both had the same idea. "Augumenti!" we shouted.

That effectively stopped the fire breathing. The beast opened its mouth wide, but nothing more than smoke came out.

It growled and was coming closer to us. I panicked so I did the first spell that came to mind, "Tarantallega!"

To my surprise it worked. The chimera started dancing uncontrollably. Reed just stared at me. "Seriously?" he said. "Really?"

"Let's just go before the spell wears off."

And so we jumped to the next level of rocks.

"Whoa, do you see that?" Reed asked staring up at the top of the cavern. I looked too, and indeed I did see. There was at least fifteen of the golden stones up there.

"You go get those, and I'll gather the ones down here," Reed suggested.

"All right," I replied, already jumping from rock to rock, getting higher and higher.

Then there was a dead end. I was so close to the top but there was no way I'd be able to jump from here to the ledge where the stones stood.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" I shouted, levitating the stones and lowering them towards me. It worked and just in the nick of time. I had pocketed them when a loud ring sounded.

"Champions please proceed out of the cavern. If you attempt to collect any stones from this point on you will be disqualified!" came a booming voice echoing off the walls.

It was much easier to get down than up. It only took me a few minutes to get down, my trip shortened by a rock that crumbled underneath my weight. Fortunately it was quite close to the ground and I landed on my feet without breaking anything, I think, although my ankle was a little sore.

When we emerged from the cave the four heads of houses and Flitwick were waiting. Flitwick cast a non-verbal spell and large numbers appeared above our head.

Mine said twenty-seven, as did Reed's. I turned and noticed for the first time Steffi wasn't there. I continued to search for her and noticed a tent set up that said Infirmary on it. My only guess was she was in there.

And how convenient that Scone's number was thirty-six.

"Only ninety out of a hundred and twenty stones were found but that was more than expected from you all. Congratulations!"

Flitwick and the heads of houses clapped for us. "Now what you've all been waiting for," he said with a magically amplified voice. In fourth place we have Steffi Roberts with ninety-one points." The Hufflepuffs cheered. "In third we have Lucas Reed with three hundred seventy-three points." The Slytherins roared. "In second we have Samuel Scone with three hundred ninety-two points." The Ravenclaws clapped loudly. "And in first place we have James potter with three hundred ninety six points!" The whoops and cheers and roars from the Gryffindors were deafening. Tons of them ran from the stands and lifted me onto their shoulders chanting my name over and over again.

I just had one thought going through my mind Victory was in the bag.

A/N: Hey guys! Hope you enjoyed the chapter :)

1: Next update will be between July 15th and July 18th.

2: If you have any questions feel free to review or PM me.

3: QotC: What's your favorite book or series? Why is it your fav? And also any book you'd recommend for someone who likes Fantasy?

Does Albus have a right to be jealous of James? Why is Cassy asking for James' help instead of Albus'? Is Rose right about Code, do all his plans connect? Will the Potters/Weasleys be able to figure out Code's end game? Is Brianna right about Cassidy? Why does James refuse to believe his two best friends? Are they right? Will James win the Four House Cup?

"I have loved to the point of madness. That which is called madness. That which is the only way I know how to love," Francoise Sagan.

-Monkeywoman14