Chapter 40
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Night.
Severus sat on the bed, working through a grey book with a map spread out on the table beside him. His gaze kept moving between the two.
"Three places. Only three where it could logically be hidden, and each one is more unlikely than the last." He looked up at Salazar's portrait, which was currently wearing seven darts and hanging above a jar of slowly seething green liquid. The painted face stared back at him in an expression caught somewhere between terror and fury. "Do not look at me like that. I was actually going to arrange for a pair of spectacularly unpleasant strippers to come and perform directly in front of you, with a substantial encore. And then, as a finale, hand everything you own to Muggle-born wizards and invite some actual Muggles to spit in the face of the founder of Hogwarts."
"Sev, is that not a bit much?" Nagini asked, looking at the living portrait of what had once been one of the most powerful wizards in the world with something close to pity.
"He was supposed to answer questions, not go silent."
"Party. who?"
"In the Muggle world, that is what they call someone who will not say a word even under torture. I read it somewhere."
"I see."
"I have told you everything I know about Godric. Now let me out of here!" Salazar's voice was ragged with anger, his fists clenched.
"I remember. But where do you think he would have left the sword?"
Severus rose from the table, went to the portrait, and began pulling the darts out one by one.
"How am I supposed to know where that red-headed traitor hid his toothpick?! I already told you every place he spent time and everything he used regularly. What else do you want?!"
"All right, enough." Severus rolled the portrait back up with a privately devilish smile. "Think carefully about everything you know regarding Rowena and Helga, and I promise I will resurrect you."
"You can actually—" Salazar started, and Severus cut him off, dropped the roll into his wallet, and closed it.
"Are you genuinely going to resurrect him?!"
Nagini looked at him with open alarm. She had a very strong dislike of Salazar.
"Of course. I need people who will handle problems and keep things peaceful in my absence." Severus stroked her head with a smile and opened the barrier in his mind slightly. She felt calm move from him into her almost immediately.
"A pawn? You are going to make that horrible old man serve you? He is dangerous!"
"Do not worry. I have my methods. For now, though, I need to think about where the sword could actually be."
"Please, Sev, he is genuinely dangerous, I."
"Calm down." He looked at her pleading expression and sighed. "Fine. I will think it over further. For now, help me decide where to start: the Gryffindor common room, the Headmaster's office, or the lion statues?"
She settled a little, though the trace of unease did not leave entirely.
"The Headmaster's office. though getting in is going to be. well, you will figure something out regardless. Let us start with the statues."
"We think the same way." He winked and stood. "Time to work, Peter."
"Yes, master."
Nagini stared at him.
"Right now?!"
He pulled on a dark robe and held out his hand to her.
"Night is best. Daytime would look suspicious, and with the map we can avoid Filch and everyone else." Nagini, exhausted by the accumulated events of recent days, climbed under his cloak. He cast the Disillusionment Charm and stepped out.
In the corridor he went straight for the stairs. On the first floor he passed a tired-looking McGonagall on her way to her office, then climbed to the second, where the first lion statue stood around a corner on a small pedestal.
It was marble, pure white, and carved with such precision that it looked as though it might step down at any moment.
He was mildly surprised he had never paid attention to it before. Back then he had simply not had the time.
A few minutes of inspection found nothing unusual about the statue itself: it was exactly what it appeared to be. When he lowered his eyes to the pedestal, though, he found runic inscriptions. Even with a fairly basic knowledge of ancient runes, he could decipher most of them from memory.
Only a true Gryffindor may solve this riddle. If you are not one, leave immediately.
He looked up, smiling to himself. The carved face was grinning at him, and a low sound was building in its throat. A living statue, apparently activated by the pedestal's words. He felt nothing in particular about this except mild interest.
Rrrrr.
He sharpened his perception, looked down again, and simply removed one rune from the bottom row. The statue stopped, mouth half-open.
"He left the deactivation rune right next to the statue itself. Did he really expect no one would look for the mechanism immediately beside it?"
"In fairness, it is a reasonable hiding place. You are the exception. A normal student would have run."
"Can not argue with that." He looked back up and caught a small glint of reflection in the lion's open mouth, lit by the hovering firefly. "Convenient." He placed his palm on the lion's head. Its lips drew back. A barrier formed around them, and the head exploded, scattering marble fragments across the floor. A silver badge fell among them, untouched.
He picked it up. One side: a lion with an open mouth on a red ground. The other side: an image clearly unfinished. The full picture was on the other badges.
"On to the library."
He restored the lion with a Reparo and headed for the fourth floor.
Getting into the library required breaching several layers of security and disabling roughly forty alarm charms. Madam Pince's work was genuinely impressive; he briefly considered asking her to teach him. He moved like something out of a Muggle spy film: slow and deliberate, stepping over invisible tripwires, occasionally hopping, once or twice crawling. He refused to drop his concentration for a moment.
Nagini, who had not previously seen the library's defences, experienced secondhand embarrassment that intensified with each strange movement he made.
When he reached the statue, he did not bother with the inscription. He simply removed the head.
"Exactly as I thought." He picked up the badge, and Nagini immediately began poking him in the stomach with her tail. He looked down, puzzled. "What is it?"
"Nothing! I saw nothing. Carry on with whatever you were doing."
"All right. Tell me if something comes up." He studied the badge under the firefly's light, and shook his head. "They are not connected: the complete image will only appear once I have all of them." He sighed, glanced toward the exit, and immediately perked up: the obstacle course had shifted into an entirely new configuration. He checked his watch. Just past one in the morning. "This is what it means to be devoted to your books. You could practically run training exercises here in the evenings." He grinned, took a book from the shelf, restored the lion's head, and set the book on the pedestal. "Let us hope it improves the defences."
The third statue was in the corridor leading to the Astronomy Tower. It took nearly thirty minutes to reach it: two ghosts were in the way and talking at length. Once they finally moved, Mrs. Norris appeared in the same spot. Then Filch. He waited. When they were finally gone he reached the statue, collected another badge, and started back down.
Walking through the dark corridors, he heard voices from one of the abandoned offices.
"Peter?"
"Sir, Joanna Smith and Anthony Benson are in the office, and they have been there some time."
He stepped to the door and heard a rather emphatic sound, which made the nature of the lesson inside immediately apparent. He cracked the door open a few centimetres, confirmed that nothing illegal was occurring, and closed it again just as quietly.
Youth. He gave a small, vaguely paternal nod and cast a Silencing Charm on the door so no one would interrupt them.
Nagini, flushed and rather more worldly-wise than she had been a moment ago, chose to poke him in the stomach in silence. She had heard the sounds. For one brief, unavoidable moment she had also seen something. Severus closed the link for the rest of the operation so her emotions would not interfere.
"Peter."
"Yes, Lord?"
"You found these statues originally, yes?"
"Yes."
"And you know where all of them are?"
"Yes."
He pressed his palm slowly against his forehead.
What an idiot I am. All right, how many are there in total? he asked the map internally.
"Ten. Five in the castle, five on the grounds."
And I only had six in mind. Lead me to the others. There is nothing else for it.
"Yes, sir. One is near the Herbology classroom, and one is near the exit to the Quidditch pitch."
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