Barrier

After accepting that I would not be getting my ring back for some time, we all headed back upstairs. When I made it back to the room containing Octavius, I glared at him and said, "You could have warned us that there was a time trap down there."

Octavius turned his head in confusion, and defended, "I told you there was an enchantment down there, and I don't know what the hell a time trap is. All I remember is when I was snooping around the place, one second I was down there, and the next thing I knew, I was trapped in here."

Sighing in frustration, I had wanted to blame him for how close to disaster Anna had come to. But, from the sound of it, he didn't know what was down there.

Before I could go on, Cedric interrupted us and said, "Alex, it's getting pretty late, we should probably be heading back soon."

After calculating the amount of time we had been down here, I realized he was right, and it time to get going, so I said, "Sorry, Octavius, we need to get going back to school."

Octavius looked ready to protest, so to comfort him, I explained, "The good news is we found dozens of books, and I bet one of has the describes the enchantments your trapped behind. Once I learn how to dispel the enchantments, we will return and free you."

Hearing about his impending freedom seemed to mollify him. "How long will that take?" Octavius questioned.

I glanced down at the enchantments imprisoning him, trying to get a better sense of them, and said, "It depends on how long it takes to translate the book, it looks like you have at least three wards locking you inside. My guess is at least several months."

Octavius groaned, and said, "Well, I've been in here for so long, what is a few more months."

Bidding Octavius farewell, we all headed back to the surface. The trip back to Hogwarts was brief and uneventful, and by the time we arrived, it was nearly dinner time. After dropping off everything at the room of requirement, we all headed off to the great hall, promising to meet back up after dinner.

After dinner, we all met back up at the room of requirement, and we started with the books. We began separating them into two main piles, with one containing ancient spell books and in the other, all the research journals that Aelius had recorded his experiments. Although I was interested in Aelius's research, I wasn't even going to bother translating his research until I had mastered Latin. Instead, I turned my attention to the spell books; they were the ones that most likely contained the information that I needed to break out Octavius from his cage.

Eventually, Anna came over and handed me a book and said, "I'll bet that this is the book containing the information that we need."

Carefully opening the ancient book, although I couldn't read its contents, there were many depictions of wards inside the book. Grinning back at Anna, I said, "You're right, this is it, it's annoying it's in Latin, but once it's translated, we can get to work."

In a casual tone, Anna questioned, 'Are you going to translate it yourself, or ask someone to help you."

Not taking my eyes of the detailed drawings, I absently answered, "I've made great strides with my Latin studies, so I am going to translate it."

I missed the happy look that appeared on Anna's face, and she replied, "That's good. How long do you think it will take?"

Looking at the thickness of the tome, I said, "Hopefully, not too long, I'm more concerned about how long it will take to master the spells."

Soon, it was time to call it a night, and we all headed back to our dorms.

It ended up taking me over a month to translate, and by February, I had started getting the hang of translating Latin into English. One thing nice about translating the material is that as I translated the book, I was also learning the material.

Of all the things I learned, one of the most interesting was the need for layering wards. There would never be a single wondrous all-powerful enchantment, to create the best protection, you had to layer your spells.

It seemed that the best way to go about creating practical barriers and wards was to leave an exception or loophole in your spell. Then cover that exception with an additional enchantment. By creating a loophole in a spell, it allows the spell to become much more powerful, whereas if you tried to create a general all-purpose ward, you might succeed, but the effects would be rather weak.

The more I considered this, the more it made sense. All of the wards and enchantments that I've heard about seem to have an exception within them. For example, the unplottable charm it prevents a place from being put on a map, which would let others know of its location, but the spell does absolutely nothing should you walk up and see it in person. This rule can even be seen in the Fidelius charm, which is the most durable protective charm that there is. The spell makes a place absolutely unfindable unless you are told about it from the secret keeper.

I was able to identify that Aelius had used three different wards to trap Octavius. The first was a ward against vampires. Next, it seemed a barrier against physical objects, probably to prevent Octavius from throwing something at deadly speeds. Finally, an enchantment against non-physical objects from passing through. It seemed that Aelius took no chances with Octavius. One interesting thing I learned was all these wards only work one way. If we needed to, we would be able to pass stuff to Octavius.

The other useful thing I learned was that wards such as these were not as useful against wizards. The book warned that even if you took a strong wizard's wand away, if they if had any knowledge about wards, they still might be able to break the wards. This would explain why they use dementors in the wizard's prison, although I am curious about the methods used by other countries to imprison wizards.

While I was happy to identify the spells containing Octavius, I struggled with being to cast them. They were complicated and advanced forms of magic. Luckily, after conferring with my father, I learned that it was easier to dismantle wards, compared to casting them. The only issue I ran into was it was impossible to practice the dispelling spell without practicing on an actual enchantment.

Racking my brains for an answer, I had two main objectives that I needed to accomplish. First being able to practice dismantling wards, and next, I needed information on Grendel. For the first time, the room had failed me, the information it had able to provide on Grendels was vague and full of nonsensical rumors. Not surprising since because Grendels had been wiped out before Hogwarts had even been founded.

I considered going to Hagrid's hut and asking him, but his advice on dealing with a Grendel would no doubt be to make friends with it. I love him, but he has a huge blind spot when it comes to magical creatures. Besides, his garmr pups had been growing rather large, and they had been making me wary of visiting. I imagine it won't be too long before he is forced to get rid of them; from what I've noticed, they are becoming rather bloodthirsty. He'll probably release them in the forest as he has with so many other creatures.

But then, I had an idea that would solve both of my problems at the same time. If I remember correctly from the books, there was a rather talented red-headed wizard in Gryffindor that had a talent for dealing with magical creatures. It was time to track down the Weasley twins.

The following day I tracked down the twins, it wasn't too tricky, chaos seemed to follow them around. I found them smirking at Argus Filch, who was scrubbing the castle floor, it looks as though someone had learned about Filch's obsessive need for the floors to be clean and had used mud to spell out Filch's name, in giant-sized words. Filch was glaring at each passing student as if everyone was a suspect in this grave crime.

When I caught up with the twins, I asked, "Admiring your handiwork."

Fred or the twin who I assumed was Fred, turned around and protested his innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about, George, and I are just admiring a man dedicated to his craft."

Adding to Fred's protest, George grinned mischievously, and earnestly said, "Besides, I'm sure whoever scrawled Filch's name with mud, just wanted him to have something to justify his job. After all, if there were no messes to clean up, Filch would be out of a job. If you think about it, Filch really should be thanking whoever did the deed."

George and Fred delivered their speeches with such earnestness and honesty, that if had I not known them, I would have believed that they were innocent. Raising my eyebrow, I said, "You would be more convincing if you didn't have mud on your robes."

Unable to stop themselves, the twins panicked and gave their robes a look over, after seeing that there was no mud on their robes, they looked back accusingly at me, so I smirked and teased, "If you are so innocent why were you looking for mud."

A sheepish look appeared on Fred's face, and he said, "You got us, mate. You look like you need something, What's up?"

Motioning for the twins to follow, I led them to a deserted corridor, and asked, "I have a favor that I need to ask."

"What is it?" George asked.

Knowing that my request would be strange no matter how I phrased it, I went ahead and said, "I need an introduction to your older brother, Charlie."

Fred and George looked at each other confusion, probably wondering how I knew about their brother. Fred asked, "What you need to speak with Charlie about."

As I looked at the twin's curiosity, I mentally weighed my options, on the one hand, I'm sure I could tell them some random excuse and get them to introduce me. But on the other, from what I have witnessed from them over the past year, they are fiercely loyal to those they call friends, even better, they have no problem breaking the rules and keeping secrets."

Taking a deep breath, I decided to tell them everything, when I had finished, the twins looked torn from being impressed, and jealous at everything my friends and I had been through.

After a moment of silence, Fred said, "Well, if anyone in this place has an idea how to deal with a wild beast, it's Charlie. But you can't actually tell him about the Grendel; he isn't as… flexible with the rules. We will have to be creative when trying to get the information."

After Fred fell silent, George added, "And as for the other issue, it should be easy for us to get him to cast a ward for you to practice against."

We spent the rest of the hour or so coming up with a plan, to get Charlie to help out without knowing what was really going on.