Chapter 29: Searching the Unfindable
"So he really did succeed," Hermione said admiringly as soon as Harry had let her read the note.
"Wow," Ron said as he was reading the note sent by Flamel over his girlfriend's shoulder, "then this is the true powder. So where do we start?"
"Let's start by finding some quieter place," Harry suggested as he swayed the small bag and seemingly carelessly glanced at the passing by classmates. So far, no one looked like being particularly interested in their conversation.
"Then let's go to an empty classroom," said Ginny.
And that they did. Having entered an empty classroom on the third floor, the young people gathered together and began making their next action plan after all of them had looked closely at the blood-red, shimmering powder.
"So how we actually must use it?" Ron asked. "Do we simply have to hold it, or should we cast some spell, too?"
"At first we could try simply holding it, since this is supposedly the most powerful essence of magic in the world," Hermione said.
"But we can't do it right now at this very moment, can we? Because there're people everywhere," Ginny objected.
"That's right. Besides, we always failed when searching during the day. We should do this at night, when school is empty," Harry said as he agreed with his girlfriend, swaying the small bag with his hand. Hermione opened her mouth to say something, but then suddenly the classroom door opened. There showed up giggling Pansy hand in hand with her Quidditch player boyfriend Harper. For a moment she seemed confused as she looked at the hateful four of the Gryffindors.
"So what are you planning now?" she asked icily as she watched the small, brown leather bag in Harry's palm. "Whatever, actually it doesn't matter. Let's go, Harper." Then she spun on her heel and a second later disappeared from the doorway.
"So, where were we?" Harry asked as he shook his head due to the sudden disturbance.
"Yes, so we should start our searching at night," Hermione agreed, also seeming to be disturbed by the sudden appearance of the Slytherin girl.
"When is your next patrolling duty?" Harry asked.
"It's next Saturday in the night after the game of Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff. Luckily, there isn't such a chaos now like it was earlier before the last games, but there's still a whole week until this Quidditch game," Hermione replied.
That afternoon, they planned carefully the places they should start the search, and Hermione helped Harry remember the long string of spell with which Voldemort's energy was to be sought. Soon came the evening, and in order not to pay too much attention, only Harry and Hermione were going to do this task as they armed themselves with wands, the Locator Spell, the Invisibility Cloak, and the small bag containing the substance so similar to the Philosopher's Stone.
At first they examined the East Wing of the castle; there Harry's wand pointed clearly and unmistakably to the west. Then they slowly moved to the West Wing, deftly avoiding Peeves and choosing the corridors with carpets as much as possible. Even when they reached the library, the wand still pointed resolutely in the direction of the Owlery, but when they got closer to it, again, just like before Christmas, the signal of the Locator Spell became something like blurred as the wand started oscillating indefinitely. Arriving at the Owlery, the wand was clearly pointing east again.
"We haven't gotten anywhere much farther," Harry sighed hard.
"It seems so," Hermione reluctantly agreed as they stood on the fourth floor under the Invisibility Cloak and watched the twitching movements of the wand. Then, to Harry's surprise, she chuckled, and he looked at her with a confusion. "Oh, it's nothing," she said as she shook her head, "I just thought that the Essence of Magic we made hadn't been much worse then."
"Yeah, you could be right," Harry said with a smile. "But what do we do next?"
"Actually, it's very late, and you should take a rest from searching the energy of that monster, and I have my regular meeting with McGonagall tomorrow morning. Let's continue with this tomorrow," she suggested.
"All right," Harry agreed as he put his wand in his robes, then he and Hermione cautiously walked back to the Gryffindor Common Room softly like cats clad in the Cloak of Invisibility.
It was Saturday morning now and Harry was already anticipating the searching process again. Hogwarts was enormous; they had managed to look through only from the fourth to seventh floor. But, who knows, what if the Diadem was hidden in the lower floors or even in the dungeons? Although it had seemed that his wand was trying more like to incline upwards when they had descended to the lower floors, but they still needed to carefully check everything. He spent the whole morning, mainly discussing this matter with Ron and Ginny, Hermione joining them later, when she had returned from her Head Boy and Head Girl meeting with McGonagall.
The day kept moving forward slowly like a snail – Ron was especially amused by this while they were sitting in their chairs at the Slughorn's Club afternoon tea party with the famous singer Celestina Warbeck. "'Er singing is so borring," his friend imitated his older brother's wife Fleur when she was forced to listen to any of Celestina Warbeck's love ballads as he whispered softly in Harry's ear, and Harry had to resist chuckling loudly. And yet, finally, the long-awaited evening had come, when he and Hermione could start their search from the Owlery moving deliberately to the lower floors.
It was only a few minutes to nine o'clock when they left the Gryffindor Tower, and it seemed that everyone was in their respective Common Rooms, and now the night patrollers were going to begin their duty.
"Tonight, Flitwick will watch the upper part of the West Wing, and Sprout will be patrolling on the lower floors," Hermione explained as they walked down the long corridor of the fourth floor in the direction to the Owlery.
"Well, well then, so what are you both doing here?" said a strict girl's voice suddenly. Harry and Hermione instantly spun around. Clad in the robes and having put a towel over her arm, there stood Jodie, the Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch Team as she cast a rather fiery glance at both Gryffindors.
"We're heading to… to the Owlery," Harry replied. "Am I not allowed to send my letter then?" he added quite icily.
The girl just sneered at it. "Yeah, right – to send a letter. I think you have some shorter routes to get there, don't you? I won't be surprised if some curse will be put on our stairs again tomorrow, or there will be poured everywhere that Weasley Darkness Powder," she said, emphasizing the last words.
"Why do you think we have the Darkness Powder with us?" Hermione asked. "Why should we do anything like that at all?"
"Who knows what's on your mind now, but some people have seen you with the Darkness Powder stocks making some secret plans. Admit it that Hufflepuffs have bribed you," Jodie said.
Harry didn't know what he should better do about this statement – to get angry or to laugh. The girl's claims seemed so absurd, but the worst part was that they were wasting their precious time so uselessly right now.
"So now we are friends with the Slytherin, huh?" Hermione asked contemptuously. "Two months ago, you were ready to rip each other's throat out."
Jodie flinched from Hermione's offensive statement, but didn't give up so easily. "But I'll be watching you. If anything happens, I'll know that you are to blame. Why else you are so frequently seen wandering near our tower then?" Then, without saying anything more, Jodie walked quickly past them and turned around the corner to the passage to the stairs which led to the Ravenclaw Tower.
"What's the matter with the Rawenclaws? All the other years they were so sensible people. Why there's such hatred now?" Hermione asked angrily, addressing the question half to herself, half to Harry.
"You know, maybe you're right about the Quidditch in this regard – people really take it too seriously," Harry said, giving Hermione a smile. And if Harry thought about it, even his own friend Ron had insulted Cho Chang a few years ago because she had some silly Quidditch badge. It may be that because of sports, some people could sometimes behave inadequately and even foolishly.
"Well, let's leave that – um – Quidditch be and let's go searching for the Diadem," Hermione said testily, resisting herself not to endow the sport so indifferent to her with some unpleasant epithet.
Standing on the fifth floor by the spiral staircase in the West Wing that connected the middle floors with the Owlery, they began their search. Carefully examining the corridors, slowly moving downwards, they studied Harry's wand movements. However, it seemed that when getting to the lower floors, the wand was constantly trying to incline upwards. So they had to make a conclusion that the Diadem indeed wasn't located on the lower floors and definitely not in the dungeons. This meant it was not located in the Slytherin Common Room either, nor in the kitchen. Arriving at the luxurious marble staircase in the Entrance Hall, Harry and Hermione ended their searching session as Harry's wand shot upwards and jumped out of his hand, and it almost fell down the long flight of stairs, unless Harry hadn't managed to quickly grab it.
The next night, they were going to pay more attention to the upper floors, beginning from yesterday's starting position on the fifth floor next to the Owlery. They had planned to check the entire fifth floor and then slowly and carefully move upwards. Looking at the Marauder's Map, Harry noticed there were some people near the Ravenclaw Tower, including Jodie.
"Let's put on the Invisibility Cloak. It seems that Jodie has decided to watch, if we really aren't planning to do any harm to them," Harry said to Hermione, and she agreed. Arriving near the stairs of the Ravenclaw Tower, they saw the indefinite wand movements again, so they wanted to go one floor up to see how the wand reacted there. They both turned to the stairs. Concentrating hard on the movements of the wand while hiding under the Invisibility Cloak, they suddenly tripped and fell on the floor as Harry's Invisibility Cloak slipped off of them.
"Well, well, well," the girl's voice announced. Of course it was Jodie. "Anthony did inform us that you may have the Invisibility Cloak. It seems that the common tripping spell is even very effective against it."
Harry spun around and sat up. Though, his wand had rolled quite a distance away, but fortunately he had tightly held the Philosopher's stone-like powder in his hand. Harry quickly tried to collect his Invisibility Cloak with his free hand. Hermione had also managed to spin around, facing the speaker.
"You were standing here and specially waiting for someone to show up?" Hermione asked curiously.
"And see, I didn't have to wait that long. Just put on the trap and the hare will go in there itself," she replied. "But now I really do want to know what are you looking for here?"
"We were just passing by," Harry explained. "Really."
"And the day before yesterday you were just passing by, too. Somehow I have a hard time to believe this," she objected.
"Even if we had any business here, Jodie, really, we don't have even the slightest interest in harming you in any way," Hermione said.
"Of course you have some business here. I just don't understand why do you have it with her, Harry? If you were wandering around here with Ginny, it wouldn't seem so suspicious. But always seeing both of you together, there have been rumours since the first term of the school year about the weird bigamy of your four," Jodie began to explain.
Harry was left speechless as he sat there with his mouth open as he didn't even know what kind of reply he should give. However, Hermione suddenly seemed intrigued. "What do you mean – that you always see both of us together?"
"I think you know it better what exactly it means. Well, you weren't seen for quite a long time now, but earlier there was a time when whenever I went to look out of the window of our tower, you both were always somewhere nearby. And you were always staring at your hands," she replied.
"And now if I tell you this, Jodie, that McGonagall had instructed me as the Head Girl to ensure peace and order in the castle. Harry only helps me with this duty, so we're using the Locator Spell to find troublemakers. And it looks like tonight we have found you. Should I report you to McGonagall?" Hermione asked strictly as she stood on her feet and pressed her fists firmly in her sides. Harry stood up, too, and he went to collect his wand as he listened carefully waiting for the Ravenclaw girl's answer.
She seemed utterly confused. "But Flitwick said that the Locator Spell –"
"Flitwick said the Locator Spell is the most suitable for searching people. And we use the Peruvian Darkness Powder to amplify the energy of the troublemakers. If it brings us here so often, then maybe there's located one or two rascals, huh?" Hermione asked aggressively to the confident Ravenclaw girl, who had a blush on her cheeks now.
"Oh, I'm really sorry. Maybe I'll have exaggerated all of this. It's just after our Quidditch game, you really were seen here so unusually often," Jodie shyly tried to explain herself. "I'm going now, but please don't tell McGonagall anything."
"Well, off you go now," Hermione allowed. "But if you start tripping people here, then I'll have to report you."
"No, no, this was the first and the last time," and the girl removed the spell with a flick of her wand and then she hurried to the stairs of the Ravenclaw Tower. Harry and Hermione, on the other hand, gathered their things and climbed one floor higher.
"Well, we really do have some adventures," Hermione said to Harry as she shook her head.
"But you were really good as you put her on the carpet," Harry praised his friend.
"There was no other way. Sometimes you need to scare people a little bit," Hermione said with a smirk.
"You're right," Harry agreed as they stepped out in the hallway on the sixth floor. "But now let's keep searching." Though, he needed quite a long moment until he was able to gather his mind and concentrate his thoughts hard enough on Voldemort again. Here, too, the wand oscillated indefinitely, just as it was one floor lower. Gradually moving away from the stairwell, it looked like the wand was starting to show a little bit the direction of the stairs. Then to test closely the stairwell they climbed up to the seventh floor, where they saw the same wand movements.
"Now it shows almost a clear direction back to the stairs," Harry concluded as he stopped at the far wall of the corridor where it crossed with the main hallway of the seventh floor. Hermione seemed having not heard him as she stared behind him with unfocused eyes.
"What's the matter?" Harry asked as he put aside his wand and turned around. Seeing what Hermione was looking at, he understood – next to them was located the door of the Room of Requirement, but the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy on the opposite wall, once so usual for them, was burnt black. The door itself in the wall also looked like a wobbly burnt out shape, making a shiver run down their spines.
Harry watched silently the ruined entrance of the Room of Requirement for a moment, feeling nostalgic. He had had many nice moments here, even his first kiss with Cho, but now this room, once so useful, was irreversibly destroyed. Harry thought that even the Philosopher's Stone couldn't help fix it.
"You aren't thinking now that the real Diadem wouldn't have burned in the Fiendfyre and could still be in there, aren't you?" Harry said aloud the thought that suddenly had popped into his mind.
"What?" Hermione seemed to stop her train of thoughts. "Oh, no, no, the wand shows away from here. Let's go take a rest; I still have to think about this." Hermione turned away, leading Harry back to the Gryffindor Common Room.
"Hermione, is it just me, or do you really look better?" Harry asked her suddenly as a dim torchlight shone on her cheek.
"You mean my scars?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah, I mean them. So the powder did help?" Harry had given her a pinch of the Philosopher's Stone powder yesterday so she could try it for her scar cosmetic correction.
"The transfiguration has lasted for a whole day, and I haven't used Malfoy face cream today. Then later I'll see how long the effect will actually last. Transfiguration spells work on living beings for a very limited time, of course," Hermione replied. "On the other hand, the Stone should theoretically be able to keep the transfiguration infinitely long for inanimate objects. I think we'll need to use this assumption if we want to find the Diadem, because at the moment we're wandering around a very large area, which we have supposedly tested inch by inch."
"Are you supposing of restoring the former Horcruxes? But didn't we conclude that Voldemort's energy inside them was destroyed?" he said his thoughts.
"Yes, but they're also very special relics of Hogwarts. And Flitwick told us about combining spells a couple of lessons before. Only we could try to combine two separate Locator Spells, not only amplification and fastening of just one single spell. If you would focus on Voldemort at the same time when I am concentrating on Hogwarts energy, it could be possible for us to narrow our search area greatly. And we should ask again Luna how carefully she has examined the rooms of the Ravenclaw Tower. We really are wandering suspiciously close around it all the time."
After the Charms lesson, asking Luna about her searching results had given no contribution – the girl claimed that as much as she had searched the Common Room and the dormitories, she hadn't found even the tiniest clue of the true Diadem.
So in their free time, before lunch, they found an empty classroom somewhere further away from the stairs, locked the door, and prepared to revive the ancient Hogwarts relics. Harry took both Slytherin's and Hufflepuff's artefacts out of his mokeskin pouch, and also he pulled out the precious Philosopher's Stone powder.
"Let's try the simplest option first," Hermione suggested as she took a pinch of the blood-red powder. "Reparo," she said, pointing to the Locket with her wand. The locket became lighter or so, like less blackened, but it definitely wasn't repaired. Surely the Dark Arts of Horcruxes and the Basilisk venom were very strong.
"Obviously, we'll have to bring in the heavy artillery," she said with a smile and, having thinking for a brief moment, she continued to perform her spell.
"Reparo the Locket, worn by Slytherin,
Reparo the Locket, be as new again."
This time the Slytherin's Locket seemed to shine, it became brighter, more colourful as the black color on its surface receded, until it finally regained its original shape, and Hermione immediately poured it with the Stone Powder. The glistering particles of the powder seeped into the metal of the Locket and then they vanished. When Hermione had finished her activities, the artefact indeed looked like new.
"Brilliant," Ron said approvingly.
"Then the next comes the Hufflepuff's Cup," Ginny said, urging Hermione to restore the second relic. Meanwhile, Harry took the Locket. Unlike its previous damaged form, now it seemed somehow alive.
As Hermione cited the amplifying spell words, she managed to restore the Cup, too. Harry took it with his hands and felt that there had returned the energy to both of the items that could be used to drive the Locator Spell.
Of course, they needed to wait until the night when the school was empty, besides Hermione and Ron had to do their administrative duties, that is, they had to patrol the Hogwarts corridors and keep everything in order when they didn't have their lessons. Hermione felt it as a great relief when before this Quidditch game Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff, the fans and the members of those teams were much calmer. Apparently the Hufflepuffs, who were now in the lead of the House points, were not at all interested in losing them in silly conflicts, but the Ravenclaws were determined to save the little they had managed to earn in the last two months.
The night came quickly, and, having left Ron and Ginny in the Gryffindor Common Room again, Harry and Hermione went out searching. Although they were going to try some indeed new method this time, they had decided that the four of them might attract too much attention, and actually rarely did the very first attempt succeed, so Ron and Ginny had stayed in the Common Room eagerly awaiting them back with some exciting news.
After leaving the Gryffindor Common room Harry and Hermione went to the main corridor on the seventh floor of the West Wing of the castle and stopped there. Hermione took out the restored relics of her robes and, holding them in her left hand, performed the Locator spell on Hogwarts' energy as she tried to detect the direction with her right hand. Meanwhile, Harry opened the Marauder's Map and examined the areas on the upper floors near the Room of Requirement, and the Ravenclaw Tower – there were only two dots wandering: Mrs. Norris and Peeves. So they had no serious obstacles for their searching, and Dawlish was on his duty now walking down the fourth floor to the Grand Staircase. "What did you get there?" he finally asked as he closed the Map.
"Of course, the wand mostly turns to the Headmaster's Office, but it shows a little bit also to the west," Hermione replied, examining her palm with her wand.
"Well then, let's try the combined spell," Harry said as he readied himself to search for the so disgusting Voldemort's imprint for the countless time. After performing the Locator Spell, he felt the usual – the thing he was looking for was somewhere to the west, nearby, but he also couldn't really understand where exactly it was located; there was like something interfering his perception of the signal.
"Then give me your hand," Hermione simply said, putting her wand in her pocket, and then she reached her right hand toward his left one, where he had grabbed the bag of the Stone Powder. Harry raised his left fist to meet Hermione's hand, and she took it; then they began to silently count in their minds their Locator Spells. The power of them, amplified and united, was to be gathered in the Harry's wand arm. Though it was true, that they had never tried to combine and channel magic in this kind of way, but an unusual task also requires an unusual solution.
Focusing their minds on the objects they were looking for, Harry and Hermione sensed a moment later which way the wand was taking them, and they reached the Room of Requirement again, only this time they weren't having just unclear oscillations, but rather clear indication in the direction of the stairs. As they approached it, Harry's wand began to fluctuate slightly, but the direction was still clear. Will they really be able to finally locate the Diadem? Finally, after all these months of their efforts?
Also on the stairs, the direction was still clear – and it didn't point, nor to the right, neither to the left in any direction of the Hogwarts corridors, but it was definitely showing towards the courtyard. The wand was clearly bringing them to the Ravenclaw Tower.
Going higher up the stairs, close to the Tower, the wand had eventually begun to oscillate showing an incomprehensible direction.
"So, it's the Ravenclaw Tower," Harry concluded. "But we can't break in there. At least not now."
"Definitely not," Hermione agreed. "Bet we should search it carefully ourselves; I'm sure Luna has missed something. But in order to do so, we need their Common Room as empty as possible so no one disturbs us."
"Then we'll have to wait until Saturday, when all the Ravenclaw students will be going to watch the game," Harry suggested.
"So, it's in the Ravenclaw Tower, then?" Ron said, not really being sure, whether he felt surprised about it or not. After all, Harry and Hermione had long been wandering in that area when searching for the Diadem.
"Of all the places of Hogwarts castle, the Ravenclaw Common Room wasn't really on our list of potential location areas," Ginny affirmed. "We suspected the Slytherin Common Room; but actually – why not the Ravenclaw one? The Diadem belongs to Ravenclaw."
"Maybe Quirrel was a Ravenclaw back in his school days? We hadn't thought much about him," Hermione said. "We were always focusing on Voldemort."
"Anyway, we need to talk to Luna as soon as possible so we can get into the Tower on Saturday in order to investigate everything while no one is there," Harry planned what to do next.
"So, we just need to wait only until Saturday, and all this tedious searching will be over for good," Ron concluded, sighing with relief.
Luna had instantly agreed to her friends' plan, and on Saturday morning they all waited patiently until ten o'clock when the game started. Then all of them together with Luna climbed from their hiding place in an alcove on the first floor to the fifth floor, until they reached the stairs to the Ravenclaw Tower, which led to the door with the knocker always checking the wisdom of the entrant.
Luna knocked on the door once.
"Which is heavier – an ounce of stones or an ounce of bird feathers?"
"An ounce is an ounce in both cases, so the stones and feathers have the same weight," Luna replied.
"That's right," the knocker said and the door opened, letting all five of them in the Ravenclaw Common Room.
Ron, Hermione, and Ginny looked around the Common Room with great interest since they were here for the first time, but Harry had already seen this round room similar to the Gryffindor Common Room adorned with Rawenclaw blue flags with an eagle on them before, and there was a large stone statue of a witch in the middle of the room wearing a diadem on her head.
"So that's how this trinket looks like we're searching for," Ron said as he approached the statue and examined the stone replica of the Diadem on her head.
"So we must find such a narrow hoop with a few funny things attached to it," Ginny agreed.
"Kh-km," Luna cleared her throat meaningfully, "they're not just some funny things. These are the laurel leaves, long known as an amplifier of power both physical and magical; these are the buds of the Dirigible plum – they have the ability to perceive the unusual magic, but here, you see, those flowers, they are the flowers of Venomous Tentacula that are known to help to develop a creative and unorthodox view of the task one has."
"Luna, but the Venomous Tentacula plants don't have any flowers. These look like ordinary apple tree blossoms to me," Hermione objected.
"It's because you have to learn how to develop an unorthodox view," Luna replied, glancing at Hermione. Ron coughed into his fist quite suspiciously, so Hermione looked at him questioningly.
"Hermione, who knows, perhaps there are times when those tentacles bloom. Let's better start the searching; it may take a lot of time," Harry suggested, eager to begin the examination of the Common Room with their well tested searching methods.
They searched and searched for hours as the far, cheering sound came from the school Quidditch Pitch. It was already a late afternoon, when they heard the whistle of the referee signalling the end of the game, but, having searched everywhere under the carpet, and all of the chairs, sofas, fireplace, wall panelling, even the flags hanging from the ceiling, and windows, they still had found utterly nothing. Having examined the very statue, Luna had said she was going to check the dorm rooms, but there wasn't a clue of the Diadem either. They had hoped to find some secret area, a loose board, a peculiar mechanism, or anything unusual or suspicious, but there was absolutely nothing like that. Nor did the Hermione's very last teeny-tiny piece of Revealer showed anything. They had only one conclusion: the Diadem wasn't here, so Harry was starting to think that maybe they had misspelled something badly with their Locator spells, but he couldn't understand at all what exactly could it be. Perhaps they had detected some other object they actually weren't looking for? But maybe the Diadem was indeed destroyed and they were chasing after some ghost, exhausting themselves vainly?
I wish so much for there would be someone who could tell me what to do, Harry thought as he went back to the Gryffindor Common Room with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.