"I assure each of you that these activities have been planned to bring you closer together. We can't have inter-pair fighting, after all, can we?"
Nobody laughed at Dumbledore's joke except for himself. Even Draco and Hermione, who got along just fine, had taken issue to this ridiculous proposal. Not the least of it was because it was Saturday, and Hermione had already written up her study schedule for exams. That morning was supposed to be defending oneself against dangerous plants, for Herbology: venomous tentacula, mandrake, and Devil's Snare, to name a few.
"I need to study!" she snapped. Draco rolled his eyes.
"Hermione, you're the smartest person in this entire room. Don't try to tell me you haven't already managed to get every single thing we were taught this year lodged in your head."
Theo, standing close by them with Cassie-really-just-Cassie Runcorn, snorted. "Would you two quit it? We all know you love each other very much."
"Theodore!" said Cassie in horror, almost dropping her ring. "Don't be rude!"
"What? It's the truth."
"We don't love each other, you idiot. Who bothers with that rubbish, except Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and I can't believe I just said that." Draco grimaced, looking down at Hermione's hand, twisting around her wrist and the bracelet he had given her for Christmas. She paused to look up from the dainty golden chain, raising an eyebrow.
"Not bad. But you forgot Snow White."
"I knew that. I was just testing you and your memory."
"Oh, yeah right."
"Mister Malfoy, Miss Granger, if you would please be quiet?"
Hermione blushed and nodded quickly as Draco opened his mouth to produce a scathing retort; how dare this madman address him directly? But she stomped on his foot– hard– beneath the table. His word choice was reduced to a tiny whimper. Somewhere nearby, a Gryffindor laughed.
"Thank you, Miss Granger. Now, where was I? Ah, of course. Today the exercise shall be a scavenger hunt!"
At least a quarter of the first-years groaned aloud at that. "You're kidding," Blaise hissed from beside Padma Patil. "We're not six!"
"Be that as it may, Mister Zabini, I assure you this particular hunt will not be your typical hunt. You will each need a camera, provided by the school," he waved his wand to conjure up a camera within reach of each pair, "an enchanted checklist, so that you know what you have collected," he waved his wand again, "and of course you are each allowed a pen," once more, "and your wands. However, magic is to be kept at a minimum. There will be an additional reward for whichever pair manages to use the least magic."
Hermione grimaced. "Bribery," she muttered under her breath, "again. I'd rather be studying."
"I know," Draco muttered, "and while I agree, I do wish you'd stop talking over the madman."
"There are no time limits except the usual curfew. First finished will, of course, get a reward, as will second and third. Other pairs that finish will receive house points. None of these activities require you to access an out-of-bounds area or to leave the Hogwarts grounds at all. Some of them require logic, some chance, some searching. Any objects that I have not told you of cannot be used to your advantage, unless the object on the list specifically states that you do. Pairs must stay together– yes, even if you do happen to be from different houses, Mister Weasley. None of the clues require you to take a non-house member to your dorm, of that I am certain. Lunch will be served at twelve in the Great Hall, as per usual. Yes, you may have a break to eat lunch, though not everyone, I am sure, will do so.
"I believe that's everything. Now: off you go!"
Hermione didn't move as the room emptied, and neither did Draco. She was frowning at the page of clues, all hints that needed to be solved. "This is absolutely ridiculous. There must be two dozen of these!"
"Yes. There are twenty-four, Hermione, just check the numbers." Blaise leant over her shoulder, pointing to the bottom of the page. 24 was written alongside the hint in emerald green ink.
"Shouldn't you be making a run for it?"
"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Draco? But no," Blaise told him, "I was going to head up to the library. I'm waiting for them to get some books that aren't dull texts."
"They aren't dull," said his partner, "just poorly written. If you can get past the fact that it takes eight pages to get out what should have taken half a page, then they're fascinating reads."
"Hello, Padma," Hermione sighed. "You're going along with this?"
"I don't care about some silly competition, if that's what you're implying. As for this idea of Zabini's, it could work. Except the library is closed to first years today. I checked." Hermione had never seen the Ravenclaw half of the twins look quite so forlorn, but she could understand it.
Hermione sighed. "If I can't go to the library, then we may as well do this competition."
"Thank you! Now convince Harry."
"What?" A half-second later, she realised her mistake: it hadn't been Padma who'd spoken, but her sister. "What are you doing here?"
"My sister's here, Hermione, aren't you paying attention? No. Anyway, here's Harry–"
"My arm's sore," said the boy who lived, and Parvati shot him a glare to quiet him.
"Stop complaining, I didn't even hit you. Not like Bulstrode and Ron." She laughed aloud. "Serves him right for being such a git to her."
"Is that the word of the week or something? Because everyone is calling the Weasel a git."
"Theo?"
"If you're surprised that he's here, Hermione, you haven't been paying as much mind to everyone else as I thought," Draco pointed out. "He doesn't do anything if he can get away with not doing it."
She shook her head. "Fine. Draco, Harry, Parvati, Padma, Blaise, Theo, Cassie– hi, Cassie, by the way, I hope you're well?"
"Fine, thank you," she said, her tone almost sing-song and pleasing to listen to. She was in the same Astronomy class as Hermione, sometimes they worked nearby, though they didn't often talk. "And yourself?"
"Well enough. Where's Neville? If we're all working together, then he might as well tag along."
"I'm not working with Potter!" came Draco's protest. Hermione shot him a glare.
"I'm not giving you a choice."
"Hi," came the last voice, Nevilles, as he waved slightly. "Hermione, this is Susan, Susan Bones. You know her, right?"
"A little." She smiled slightly at the red-head, nodding. "Hello."
"Hi." She had a quiet voice, barely more than a whisper. "What's the first clue?"
"Oh. Uh. Draco?"
He had the paper because she'd pushed it into his hands when Parvati had first spoken, startling her. "'I'm a magical object, a joke gift and more, I remember all you forget but I won't tell you what I know. What am I?'."
Neville, of all of them, was first to laugh. "All they really do is confuse and annoy the owner!"
"Didn't Hermione say that about the thing your nan bought you?"
"Exactly, Theo!" Neville shoved his hand deep in his pocket, grinning, and pulled out a ball that was, yet again, full of red smoke. He ignored this, holding it out to them all. "Does anyone know how to use a camera? Because I know what Hermione needs to write for the answer."
"I do," Cassie said, raising it in her fingers. "But we all need a photo of it. Each pair."
"Right. Good point." Draco pushed the paper into Hermione's hand and took the Remembrall from Neville. "Smile for the camera, Hermione!"
She rolled her eyes as he took the picture, grinning nonetheless. "Honestly."
✦
"But that's a bit bleak, isn't it?"
"Why are you surprised? The teachers probably all worked together to come up with these clues. If Professor Snape made this one up, it would make sense. Or even if Mister Filch wrote it, it would make sense."
The group of students were the only ones out in the grounds. They had found a spot under a tree that was almost devoid of what was left of the snow, and after some arguing amongst themselves, Hermione had conjured up a blue fire to warm them as they ate what Neville, Susan, Theo and Cassie had grabbed for them from the Great Hall. This included sandwiches, chips, some fruit, pastries and a selection of Chocolate Frogs and Licorice Wands that Cassie seemed to have smuggled in.
"I still don't like it. We'd have to head back inside and go down to check. And we don't know how to light anything up, not yet, so how will we see to know when we've found them?"
"Well, they can't be that hard to find. They probably rattle like the Bloody Baron, if they're really down there," Hermione reasoned, sipping her glass of pumpkin juice.
"We could just ask one of the boys. They sleep down there, they have to know."
"No, we don't–"
"Know what?"
Hermione groaned: if Blaise gave them the answer, he'd lord it over them for at least a month. "Nothing."
Padma peered at the Gryffindor. "But if he can tell us for sure, it'd put us one step closer to winning!"
"Didn't you want to go sit in the library instead of competing?"
"Yes, because I know how I can get. Zabini, where did people used to get hung up in the dungeons?"
"Oh, that's the third hallway past the potions classroom Snape uses."
Everyone looked up at Harry, staring. He was focusing on pulling apart some kind of pastry that Susan had grabbed on the notion that someone other than her had to like muggle pies. As everything had gone quiet, he looked up and, seeing everyone's eyes on him, blushed. "What? I got detention from Filch."
"He can't hand out detentions, he's the caretaker, isn't he?"
"Okay, let me rephrase: I was out late visiting Hagrid and he busted me because someone was sneaking around."
"Hey, don't blame me!" Draco snapped, "It's not my fault you're only about as capable of sneaking around as that Hagrid fellow."
"That makes a lot of sense, since it was him I was visiting at the time!"
"There was a monster in the Forest that killed a bloody unicorn, Potter, and he had a dragon in his cabin. A wooden cabin. And everyone knows he can't do magic properly, so if something attacked him or a fire started he wouldn't be able to fight it off or put it out."
Parvati was gaping openly at Draco now, apparently astounded by the discovery that the Slytherin had stalked the boy she was essentially engaged to because of a warped concern for the gamekeeper. "You're kidding," she said, in a very small voice.
"You did what?" Hermione snapped.
"We got detention," Neville said slowly, "didn't he tell you? Professor McGonagall caught us all out of bed in the morning."
"In the morning? But –"
"It was one, according to the nosy old witch," Draco sighed.
"Hagrid, that's it!" cried Padma, startling the lot of them. "It's so obvious, why didn't we think of it before?"
"No, Patil, I'm talking about McGonagall. Why would I still be talking about Hagrid?"
"Out of concern for his well-being, apparently," Parvati reasoned, frowning. "Padma, where are you going? Bring him back!"
The Ravenclaw twin had leapt to her feet and grabbed Harry, dragging him with her. She had then proceeded to pull him out from beneath the tree and towards the little hut at the edge of the forest. The remaining eight looked at each other, sharing a collective expression of confused doubt, and scrambled to follow them. "What are you doing?"
"The seventeenth clue, Zabini! It's so obvious, now that you've mentioned it properly. 'I could be anything, as it's plain to see, the trick is finding me in among the trees'. We just have to find something in the Forest, only we're not allowed in restricted areas. But Hagrid is. And he's friends with Harry, so he'll help. He has to."
"That... makes sense, actually." Hermione agreed slowly, then sped up to keep pace with them. "What's this Hagrid person like?"
"Tall. Big."
"Thanks for that, Draco," she rolled her eyes yet again as Padma beat on the door. After a moment, the giant with the scraggly beard and dark, warm eyes opened them, restraining a gigantic black boarhound. These eyes moved over Parvati curiously, and over the group, before alighting on Neville, Draco and Harry.
"Boys! Haven' got detention again, do yeh? An' draggin' this lot with yeh ain't too good."
"Hello, Hagrid," Harry said, glancing back at everyone. "Er, scavenger hunt. We're looking for something. Parvati, what did you say we needed?"
"We need a photo of a magical animal. Something out of the Forest."
"All of yeh? Do yeh, now?"
"Yes. I don't know if we can all get a photo of the same thing, though. Maybe three different things." Parvati frowned. Hermione shook her head as Neville spoke up.
"Can you help us?"
"Help yeh?" Hagrid chuckled. "I already got summat to show you. C'mon, anything ter keep yeh away from Fluffy."
"Is he still there, Hagrid? In the corridor."
"I told yeh to quit asking tha', Harry, 'nd I stand by it. 'S not righ', yeh poking yer nose where it shouldn' be."
"Fluffy? Really?" Hermione frowned. "That thing is called Fluffy?"
"Well, yeah, he's mine."
"Really? Where'd you get him?"
"What are you lot talking about?" Blaise asked, annoyed at being ignored. Hagrid coughed and refused to say any more on the subject, while Harry, Hermione and Neville shared a knowing look.
"Now, this here is a Blood-Sucking Bugbear," Hagrid said, pointing to a sleeping creature that looked like a cross between an angry-looking stuffed bear and a bat, given its snout and ears. "They're nocturnal, in tha' they sleep all day. If yeh look closely, yeh'll see a bowtruckle in this box. Viscious little blighters, these things, th' size of yeh hand there," he told them, pointing between the box and Susan Bones, who had the smallest hands of all of them.
"What's third?"
"Firenze there," Hagrid said, nodding to the fence between his vegetable patch and the Forest. There, a man stood sentinel, inclining his head to the group when they looked upon him. "He's a centaur. Proud things, bu' decen' enough, too. Firenze volunteered for this."
Parvati was gaping as she stared at the centaur, apparently not having expected to see this, not today. Harry smiled nervously, and Draco glanced to the side. He wasn't proud of what he'd done when faced with Firenze last, but he'd never admit that aloud. "Hello, Harry Potter. Are you staying out of trouble?"
"I'm trying, Firenze, thanks."
"And Draco Malfoy. I am pleased to see you are not so pale in the light." Draco almost covered his face with his hands to hide the subtle blush that touched his cheek. He hunched over the bowtruckles box to take a photo, grimacing and refusing to meet anyones gaze until they had left the hut.
"Three more!" Padma crowed, beaming, much to Blaise's amusement. Theo and Cassie trailed behind, heads bent over the list as they examined the final three clues. They still had the chains to consider, and Harry was to show them just where, exactly, they were.
"That centaur seemed to recognise you," Hermione pointed out to Draco. She was half smiling, though trying to keep the amusement from showing on her face. "Have you met?"
"Detention," he said miserably, and wouldn't say more. Neville grinned.
"He screamed the first time he met Firenze."
"I did not! It was a yelp. A good, manly yelp."
"Yeah, right, and I'm Godric Griffindor," Harry snickered from ahead of them. He yelped himself when Parvati whacked his arm and scolded him for eavesdropping, though of course she was a gossipmonger herself and was filing all of this away for future discussion with Lavender.
"There was this weird monster thing in the Forest, apparently. I wasn't there, Harry and Draco were, and I was with Hagrid. But they said it was drinking blood from a unicorn."
"It's a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn," Harry said, his tone much quieter than before. It was as though he were reciting a verse from some poem or other, the way it rolled off his tongue like something familiar. Parvati didn't seem to have the heart to hit him as he thought.
"Oh! Neville, I just realised, we can't head up to the castle yet, we just can't. There's one more thing to find in the grounds. Clue number twenty-four!"
"What are you talking about, Hermione?"
"Hush, Susan, let Neville read the clue. 'Drop your guard, dead you'll be'..."
"'Out in the sun, you're safe from my fun'," Neville finished, frowning. "Oh! I see. That's clever, that's really clever."
"And yet you got it, Longbottom, so it can't be quite as much as you think," Theo sneered. His mockery was lost on Neville, who sped up– walking away from the castle.
"What's the answer, Theo, if you're so clever?" Hermione snapped, then went after Neville. Draco laughed at Theo's expression, while Cassie and Susan seemed distressed. Neither of them could decide whether to defend anyone, as their Hufflepuff natures demanded, or let them be themselves. Giving up on coming to a solution, they instead followed Neville and Hermione up to the greenhouses.
One of them had windows that were entirely blacked out; this was the one that the group followed Neville into. "Devil's Snare," he told them, almost clapping his hands in pride of his recognition of thing. Then he frowned. "I don't know the spell to light it up."
"Caeruleus inflamari," Hermione intoned, aiming her wand at the edge of the patch. She kept it trained there as she focused. "Take the pictures already, would you? I don't think Professor Sprout would be pleased to find we had burned her plants."
Having that pointed out, they headed back up to the castle to deal with the last two clues. One of them they found in the darkness of the dungeon, illuminating it with the same blue fire Hermione had used to deter the vicious plant: shackles hanging from the wall, a row of ten, designed to hold one upright against the wall, stuck by their wrists with no way to get comfortable. Susan and Padma outright refused to look at them, though Hermione looked on in fascination. A History of Magical Punishments told about wizards trapped in places just like this, wandless, rotting away in the dark. Morbid, yes, but interesting.
"What's this last one?"
"What, number thirteen?"
"Yes. 'I alone have the secret of immortality'."
"That's it?"
"Let me see," Draco finally demanded, holding out his hand for the paper. Hermione shook her head and handed it over, grimacing.
"That sounds like something you'd have to find in the library," Parvati groaned. "Hermione, you're in there all the time, is that where you'd find it?"
"Yes, it is, and that's all very good and well," Padma answered in her place, "only the library is closed, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. Well, we could break in."
"Absolutely not," Hermione said at the exact same time as Harry. The two exchanged a look.
"We don't know why it's shut, there could be something dangerous in there or Madam Pince could be cleaning or sick or anything. We don't know what'll happen if we just charge right in!"
"Well, yeah, there's that," Harry agreed, "but plus if we go to a restricted area we can't win, remember?"
"What is with these cards?"
They frowned, turning to look at Cassie, who had paused half-way up the staircase behind them. She was scowling at something in her hand, and she moved through the stack quickly, flicking through them.
"Dumbledore, every one of them! What're the chances of all twenty cards being him?"
"Slim to non-existent," Padma said quickly. Cassie groaned in frustration. Their stares didn't waver, stunned that the quiet Hufflepuff was losing her temper. Over collectible cards, of all things.
"I already know that he beat Grindelwald and discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood and worked with Nicolas Flamel and likes tenpin–"
"Say that again," Draco said slowly. He had watched as Hermione tensed up.
Theo snorted. "Please, by all means, go insane over a picture once again. I don't mind."
"Likes tenpin bowling?" Cassie asked, confused and shooting Theo a reproachful look.
"No, before that– that name."
"Oh. Nicolas Flamel. They worked on alchemy together."
"Of course," Hermione grinned, then turned to Neville. "Quick, who wanders around the castle the most?"
"Harry," came the reply, wary. "Why?"
Hermione didn't answer, turning to the boy with the glasses. "There's a portrait somewhere on the fourth floor, of a wizard with short hair and pale green eyes, almost white, really, and his face would be a bit long like a horses. He would be using an alchemy set or a potions set, and the background would be gold. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes," he said slowly. It was just past the entrance to the passage that led from the fourth floor down to the dungeons.
"Good. We need to find that portrait, Harry, it's the last one! Nicolas Flamel, immortal. Obvious!"
"Why is that obvious?"
"He and his wife, Perenelle, they own the elixir of life. Of course they do, they have the source, like a fountain of youth– the Philosophers Stone. Immortality!"
None of them understood what she was on about, of course, except for Harry, who recognised the name from something Hagrid had said once. Whatever was hidden was, after all, between Dumbledore and Nicolas Flamel. Nicolas Flamel, the alchemist, if Hermione was right– and she must be, because she was Hermione Granger, genius prodigious muggle-born Gryffindor.
He led them to the portrait, greeting him directly. When he heard his name, the wizard in the portrait smiled.
"Clever children, are you not?"
They certainly thought so when they won the scavenger hunt none of them had really wanted to start. More so when they saw Ron's black eye, though Harry was concerned and at his side instantly. Apparently, Millicent Bulstrode had punched him in the face when he'd asked if her mother looked like a boar, just like her. Even the kind hearted Hufflepuff girls had to laugh at that.