Cursed With Curious Minds | Hp Next Generation

43 - A Green Glow

James had spent a good while flicking through Dumbledore's book, and deciding that the majority of it was – as Astrid had told him – unreadable. Surprisingly, a lot of it was also nonsense. James had spent about ten minutes trying to read a list of instructions on the back page of the concealing charm, before Toby – who had taken ancient runes at O.W.L. level – told him it was a recipe for homemade chocolate frogs.

"Why would he write a chocolate frog recipe in ancient runes?!" James exclaimed.

"From what I've heard, Dumbledore was a strange man." Delilah replied.

James groaned. "If this page is nonsense that means almost anything else in this book could be nonsense."

Astrid was keeping quiet. She was hoping not to deter James from looking through Dumbledore's book; she had almost finished her homework and didn't need any more distractions. Luckily, James had decided the book was not a total waste and instead he focused his energy on the concealing charm page. Astrid knew that she and Delilah had already decoded the entire spell, but she wasn't going to tell James that.

Occasionally he would whisper over to Delilah and ask what a certain sequence of symbols meant, and Delilah would reluctantly explain it to him while he pretended to understand.

"So the only way you can break the spell is by rendering the caster's wand disloyal?" James asked.

"Yes." Delilah replied, exasperated. "We told you that months ago."

"Alright," James said optimistically. "So we just have to win this guy's wand off them – whoever they are."

The rest of the group were looking quite apprehensive.

"You can't just win a wand off of somebody." Astrid said. "Wandlore is complicated, and no one understands it fully."

"Can't I just wait by the room and Expelliarmus the guy, you know?" James suggested.

"No." Astrid and Delilah replied together.

"You'd have to beat them properly in a duel, and even then you had better hope they have a yielding wand." Astrid explained. "Wands tend to stay loyal to their original owners – they can't be won over so easily."

James felt quite defeated. He really thought this would be a lot easier than it was. "Yeah, but suppose they do have a particularly disloyal wand, and suppose I do disarm them..."

"Then yes, the wand would probably become loyal to you," Astrid said, "but you can't ride all your hopes on the fact this person has a particularly disloyal wand."

James sat brewing for a moment.

"I'm going to the library." He said eventually.

Delilah accidentally lost control of her quill and drew a long line across her page in shock. "You're going to the what?"

"You heard me." James reiterated. "I'm going to check out a book on wandlore."

The other four were completely stunned. They looked to one another to confirm that they had all heard the same thing, and by the time they had all decided it wasn't their imaginations – James had exited the kitchens.

"I think," Ophelia began, "that is the first time I have seen James go to the library willingly."

***

James wasn't exactly lying when he said he was going to the library. He was going to go there eventually, he just wanted to check out the room one more time first.

The moment James entered the corridor, he slipped on his invisibility cloak; he had a feeling he was going to need it. Creeping slowly down the corridor, trying his absolute hardest to make sure that his footsteps weren't audible, James was shocked to find his feeling had been correct. There was a student standing beside the wall where the door would usually appear.