Chapter 65: Raids II

"You can leave anytime you know, just don't rat me out," he replied in a firm tone, not wanting to force his friend to continue if she didn't want to. Making his way quickly over to the key rack, he examined the keys before finding the one with a label underneath identifying it as the key for the 'lockup room.'

...

Opening the locked door revealed a massive storage room; in fact he couldn't see to the end of it, due to the darkness. Both walls were lined with wooden shelves and storage cupboards, only breaking for the occasional window, while another line of wooden shelves ran down the middle of the room, each one was laden with numerous random items.

Stepping into the gloomy room, his eyes darted side-to-side quickly even as he cast the lumos charm once again. He decided to take the far right side near the windows, due to it being easier to see what was on the shelves with the tiny bit of moonlight coming in on that side of the room. Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he saw Penny still standing in the doorway, clearly battling with her insatiable Ravenclaw curiosity and her natural disposition to be a good girl who didn't break the rules. He was curious which would win out in the end.

"Are you coming in? Or are you just going to stand there like a lemon all night?" he teased lightly, as he stepped further into the room.

Looking over the many shelves he realized just how much stuff had been confiscated over the years. He could see everything from simple stink bombs, joke sweets, and other harmless pranks, some 'randy' books and mundane magazines, such as Witch Weekly and Playwizard, lots of firewhiskey, some muggle footballs, pretty much everything you can imagine the students of a magical boarding school to have was here.

Seeing just how much random stuff was in the room he doubted that he would find the magical map created by his father in just one night of searching, unless he could find a quick way to narrow down the search area.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned to see that Penny was looking at the same set of shelves he was; he resisted the urge to grin at her interest and the fact her curiosity had won the battle, before a great idea came to mind.

"Penny, do you happen to know a spell which can be used to summon or locate a specific object?" he asked curiously, since he hadn't found any magic like that in any of his first or second year charms textbooks or supplements.

There was a pause as the older Ravenclaw considered his question, the light from his wand making her look rather pretty. "Yeah, but you have to tell me what you're looking for first so I can visualize the object," she clarified, nervously looking over her shoulder to check on the open door to the storage room.

He walked past the 5th year and shut the door behind her, "Penny, relax, as long as we don't make much noise, and do nothing to draw attention to ourselves, there's no reason for him to even come in here should he return," he argued, making sure the door was completely closed, not wanting any light to escape the room, not wanting to draw any attention to the door being unlocked. "The item I'm looking for is called the Marauders' Map. It's a map of the layout of the entire school, enchanted to show the position of anybody within Hogwarts' walls in real time," he explained.

Nodding her head in understanding, her blonde ponytail danced side to side as she flicked her wand purposefully through the still air, "Accio Marauder's Map" Penny voiced confidently. Unfortunately, nothing happened, no movement, no sound of rattling, nothing. His first thought was that Penny had cast the spell incorrectly, but he truly doubted that that was the case, she was a very capable student and witch after all.

"Either it's not here, or it has an anti-summoning charm or enchantment on it, either way we have to search this room for it by hand," Penny explained, before looking around the room, then back at the door once again, in case they had been overheard.

"Ok. By the way, what year do you normally learn that charm?" he inquired, since he hadn't seen it in any of his books and it could prove very useful after all.

"It's a 4th year spell. All you need to do is generally visualize what you wish to summon and flick your wand like this. The targeted object's distance from the caster obviously changes how much magic it ultimately takes to successfully summon.

And it's also important to remember that physical barriers, like closed doors or locked drawers between the summoned object and the caster, won't disappear merely because you summoned the item. With a bit more mental intent and experience with the charm you can change the way it comes to you, like making it come slower, or more gently, or stop in front of you when near or having the object go into a bag or box, etc."

Penny explained with a text book worthy answer, effortlessly summoning one of the Witch Weekly magazines to her from a nearby shelf. He watched intently as the magazine came slowly towards Penny and hung in mid-air in front of her, in order for Penny to take hold of the magazine at her leisure.

"Well, let's continue to look around and see if we like the look of anything, no point wasting a trip here after all," he said boldly with a grin, before remembering about the door.

"Maybe you should put a silencing charm on the door? And a notice-me-not charm as well?" he suggested to his co-conspirator, causing her to move into action after realizing how prudent those ideas were. He watched her intently as she cast the spells upon the door.

...

He had just received word that Neville had left the Gryffindor common room with his four chosen companions, with the seeming intent to stop the stone from being stolen by Professor Snape. Neville was currently using the invisibility cloak that he had discreetly given him at Christmas, as a gift, to navigate the school halls undetected.

He had given the young Gryffindor the invisibility cloak under the pretext of it being strictly used for escape and protection; allowing Neville to escape from harm if he was ever in any danger. After all, he couldn't allow Neville to be killed by some random madman, or some ardent fan turned deadly stalker, especially with the prophecy hanging over his head. The boy had duties to the world.

However, tonight it was being used in the way that he had intended all along, so that Neville could make his way through the school's halls undetected by the prefects and staff to complete his mission. He also gave Ronald Weasley one to use as well, so that he could use it to get to his private meetings with him so that the boy could report on Neville's activities.

Another reason he had given Ron the invisibility cloak was to prevent spurious rumours from inevitably cropping up, especially if people kept seeing Ron coming to his office for private meetings alone. It would only be a matter of time before some imaginative and potentially damaging rumours would be thought up and spread by his many gossiping students.

He also gave the lad instructions that he shouldn't tell his twin brothers or boast about it either; he had reinforced this command with a rather strong compulsion charm. The very last thing he needed was for those two troublesome boys to use it to pull off more pranks. Of course both of the cloaks had several powerful tracking charms placed on them, so he knew where they were at all times, in fact he could monitor its location, and Neville's progress, from the enchanted parchment on the desk in front of him if he desired.

However, he decided instead to check on the location of the last Potter's invisibility cloak. He privately suspected that it might be one of the famed Deathly Hallows from legend, but even after years of study he had found no real hard evidence to prove this. After casting a quick spell, the magic indicated that it was still sitting somewhere inside Gringotts Bank, but he couldn't tell exactly where, due to the bank's own extensive wards interfering with the tracking charms.

Such a waste, he thought, almost shaking his head in disapproval. It was such a shame that he couldn't have simply given a fake one back and kept the original for himself, to study and use further in the battle against the approaching darkness. Cutting off that thought process as spilled potion, he decided to go back to monitoring Neville and Ron's progress.

He listened to the reports of Neville slowly making his way through the school's halls, accompanied by his friends, only to be interrupted when the small portrait he had placed to watch the door on the third floor hurriedly reported that an unknown individual outside the door had just killed the house elf charged with watching the door. The person was in fact now currently feeding the dead elf's remains to Fluffy as a distraction for the hungry pet Cerberus.

Upon hearing the news that the house elf charged with watching the door by Filius had been killed, he was deeply upset. The elf was just an innocent bystander following orders, an unwitting pawn that should never have been there in the first place. But at the same time, he did learn who the intruder was.

He now felt relatively certain the intruder was Quirrell, based on the description given by the portrait. And since he was receiving no new reports from the other portraits that the staff were moving to intervene, he had to assume that the security charm placed on the door by Filius had also been countered without any problems.

The untimely death of the elf also kept the rest of the staff from becoming involved. In fact he could now arrive and nicely 'save the day' as he long planned, as well as keep what really happened a tight lipped secret, or a rumour at best.

All in all, it could now be covered up with a simple story, Quirrell attempted and failed to steal the stone. After thinking about it for a bit longer, whilst the elf's death was truly unfortunate, it could be beneficial in the end, as it would make it much easier to cover it all up, and quite frankly, at very little cost to the light side. He could easily live with this sacrifice considering the upside.

All wars had casualties and the murdered house elf was just one of those unfortunate victims caught up in the crossfire between wizards. Then a more selfish thought crossed his mind, the thought being that at least it wasn't a student or staff member. If a student or staff member died he would have a far bigger headache with all the paperwork necessary and the inevitable political investigations into the affair.

After all, the last thing that he needed was for Lord Malfoy to use the situation as yet another tedious pretext to challenge his position as Hogwarts Headmaster once again, or trying to use it to have him removed from office. After the 10th unsuccessful attempt, it got rather tiresome.

No one in real power would care that the house elf had been killed at Hogwarts, especially someone like Lucius, who saw such creatures as disposable anyways. Dismissing such dark thoughts, he needed to focus his attention on his trap; perfect timing was necessary to ensure that everything went as planned, otherwise how could he make the prefect entrance to save the day?

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