Paragraph 16 : The Builder

The string of memories ended there, for they could now see the fountain in which they had set foot earlier, and the empty room beneath the floor of Tewkes' church the door of which was leading to the magical lift. They waited a fraction of a minute, waiting for something more to happen, but that was ostensibly it. They climbed above the railing of the basin, and made way, one by one and in silence, towards the lift. One after the other, they ascended the pit till reaching ground floor. This time, Mr. Radote seemed uncertain about what they should do next. Eleanor, however, had something on her mind. She asked Mr. Radote to bring them back to the hall where they had changed the stack of gold dust into letters. Although Mr. Radote was surprised, he didn't object to this initiative, and the four others, seeing that the only adult with them had nothing to say about this suggestion, didn't say anything against it either. They pressed their fingers onto Mr. Radote's arms, and Apparated back in the smooth-walled room. The message was still visible on the surfaces, though dusk's dim light made it harder to read it, and rain was over. Eleanor went to Mr. Radote, and whispered something in his ear, while he was bending his head forward to make his ears level with the mouth of the tiny Eleanor. When she had finished conveying her plan to Mr. Radote, he raised his wand, and cast the spell 'Extractum'. The golden letters flew back to the middle of the room, piling up. Ann frowned. Then, Mr. Radote walked towards the gold stack, bent over once more, moved his wand close to it. As expected, the pile of gold turned into a heap of bone powder, and a hollow sound resonated in the high-ceiling hall, as if a person was whining and howling an indiscriminate sentence. Mr. Radote kept his wand near the sinister accumulation, and muttered 'Reforma'. The sound stopped, and the gray-white powder flew to the walls, and the shapes it adopted made another message apparent - the powder had been enchanted to glow in the dark.

I, Aethelred of Thrall, born in the year 1403, devoted my life to Dark Magic. Having retrieved a copy of Werther Gorth's book which mentioned the fountain of memories beneath Tewkes' church, I decided to build this Hall as a tribute to Gorth's book's monumental influence on Modern Dark Magic. 1468

They looked silently at the inscription for a few minutes, trying to take in everything they had learned in the afternoon. Ann broke the silence, and said in an excited voice, loud enough for the rest of the group to hear - all of them were scattered across the immense hall

We now have so many important indications. We know that the book is hidden in the guise of a Galleon, we know broadly where some of the copies were initially located, and we know that this guy of Thrall had it at some point

Mr. Radote crushed these ecstatic expectations :

We overall know that to make this book reveal its true nature, one has to use dark magic. You have done very well, all of you. You have solved as much as students can solve. Now, I hope you won't be foolish enough to go further, and that, instead, you will defer the rest of this quest to wizards who are able to handle it. I will send an owl to Hogwarts' administration so that they can find a way to make your hard work and dedication matter

On the one hand, the four friends were disappointed of having involved an adult who in the span of a few hours went from being extremely helpful to signaling the end of the process they had started a month ago. On the other hand, and even the hot-tempered Ann had to acknowledge it, Mr. Radote was appreciative of what they had done, which was a welcome novelty. Therefore they all agreed - Ann grumpily and the three others serenely - that they would relinquish the product of their efforts to the school's administration. Eleanor thought it was a clever move in the perspective of making students and teachers alike realise that the four friends were not after dark magic itself. Judith still wanted to take advantage of their last moments at the helm of their investigation. She proposed to sit, and have dinner together in this big hall before going back to Hogwarts. All felt it was a fitting concluding step for this day. They thus spent two hours talking about life at Hogwarts - the four friends could not share much about what they had done regarding the search for the book because it mostly implied actions they wished they would remain secret - eating some of the sandwiches they had brought just in case in the eerie glimmer of both the glowing message made up of bone powder, and the moonlight. Mr. Radote himself had a few nice stories about his time at the wizarding and witchcraft school. When they all had finished their meal and that they had all fallen silent, Mr. Radote muttered 'Extractum', and the bone dust flew back to the middle of the room, before turning on the spot into gold dust, since Mr. Radote was away from the stack. The five students pressed for the last time their fingers onto Mr. Radote's arms, and they all Apparated at the tip of the lake. They walked towards the castle, and when they reached Hogwart's grounds' limits, they all raised their wands up in the air, and cast 'Lumos' to make the trip back to the castle easier and safer : moonlight was scarce here, because of the presence of clouds. When they arrived in front of the gates, Filch went to enquire about the late comers, ready to scold them. Then he saw Mr. Radote, who knew very well how to deal with Filch and Mrs. Norris, and very quickly, the six of them were able to enter the castle without any kind of nasty remark by Filch. Mr. Radote then asked Filch to issue the five students a pass, so that they could go back to their dormitories without getting detention. Filch grumpily obliged. Mr. Radote added to Bethany, Ann, Judith, Sigismond and Eleanor :

Off you go

And the five of them, now so tired they were glad to go to bed, dispersed on their route to their Common Room.