Chapter 148: Plan in progress
James the next day having Regulus' approval cast the Cornflake Skin spell on him. A Jinx that causes the target's skin to look as if it were made of cornflakes.
Regulus' face, arms, and legs were filled with cornflakes. Thus he had to go to the infirmary. He didn't tell Madame Poppy or the teachers that James was the one who attacked him.
This put Regulus in the infirmary for a couple of days and prevented him from attending Professor Eustace's punishment. They had to have time to carry out James' plan.
"If I understand correctly... You want to use the vault of fear as bait to lure Professor Eustace. Then we will catch him red-handed and expel him from Hogwarts, right?" asked Snape with a raised eyebrow after hearing James' plan.
Currently, the entire group that fought the ice golem was gathered in an empty classroom in the evening that was becoming customary. Peter and Toby were also there. James had already cast the appropriate spells so that no one could spy on them.
"Exactly. We won't be able to keep the treasures in that vault, but we have to make sure Eustace leaves Hogwarts. If he gets information out of Regulus he'll know about all of us, and we'll be next on his list," nodded James.
"Isn't it better to tell the truth and have Dumbledore with the professors deal with Professor Eustace?" asked Peter fearfully.
"Are you an idiot? If we do they'll know it was us, who broke into the vault and got the treasures. They will take the treasures from us, and we will be punished" said Snape, looking at Peter like he was an idiot.
James was surprised that Snape was the one to say such a thing. Snape could save himself from the most severe punishments since he wasn't the one who opened the vault in the first place by releasing the ice curse. What did that were James and Regulus, who could have the most severe punishment.
Snape, Lupin, Sirius, and Gwen could be said to have saved Hogwarts from the curse, but from James and Regulus, it would not be such a good thing since they were to blame for releasing the curse, although they did not know about this curse and it is not their fault that there are deadly vaults at Hogwarts. They are just teenagers.
From the marauders or Gwen, you would expect them to say that, but not from Snape. Since he's indirectly defending him.
"Snape is right. Besides, we have no convincing evidence to accuse the bald man. No one will believe us. It's his word against ours," said James.
The only thing they had was the stock of the vaults, although they could show proof that the vaults existed, Eustace could say that he knew nothing about it, and they would have no way of proving it. Plus, their best witness (Allan) had had his memory wiped.
Sirius looked at Snape in surprise and with an evil eye at Peter.
"We can't let them catch us. At worst they could expel James and my younger brother," Sirius said seriously.
"I don't think they'll go to such extremes, but it's better to put all the blame on the bald man and keep as much treasure as possible," said Gwen, and James nodded.
Could they be expelled? Yes. The possibility is too low for him. Who created deadly vaults? Is it James and Regulus' fault? Teenagers who had no idea that such vaults could exist at Hogwarts. Also, they are from the Black and Potter families.
In any case, they could sue the school for having such dangerous things. Especially, if they do so with the ice vault, but if they keep looking and open the next vault, that argument will no longer be valid.
If the plan goes well, they will keep the treasures, and Eustace will be expelled. If they are caught they will be punished or maybe not even that. The worst-case scenario would be expulsion, but James doesn't think they will be punished that way.
"So what do we do now? How many days do we have before Regulus recovers?" asked Lupin.
"It'll take a while to get all the cornflakes out of him. I would think we'll have about four days minimum and a week at most," replied James. Their time was limited. They had to act fast.
"What's the plan to lure Professor Eustace?" asked Toby, as James had not yet specified how they would do it.
"The bald one," Sirius corrected. He wouldn't tolerate them calling that bloody bald guy who gave them useless and embarrassing lessons a professor.
"Have they deciphered the scrolls for the new vault yet?" asked James, looking at Snape and Gwen.
"Not quite. We're just short. Why?" asked Snape with a raised eyebrow.
"Finish it as soon as possible. We must find the location of that vault to guide the bald man there," replied James. Eustace should open the vault and that the moment this one taking the treasures and other things be caught by James and the others.
"In two days at the most, we'll have it figured out, but you still don't explain how you'll get Eustace to fall into the trap," said Gwen, looking at James steadily.
"We'll spread rumors about the vaults. Especially about the ice one that was the cause of almost shutting down Hogwarts," James replied with a slight smile and began to explain how they would do it.
They would use the school newspaper that Sirius and company created. It was the Hogwarts newspaper and was read by all four houses. They had achieved a lot of success, and Sirius was already a few days away from being able to buy the new Nimbus.
James would create a fake book that talked about the Vault of Ice and a bit about the Vault of Fear since he had almost no information about the latter. This book he would give to the most gossipy reporter in all of Hogwarts, Xenophilius Lovegood.
He would tell Xeno that he found the book in the Restricted Section. How did he do it? One day late at night, he snuck in with a disillusioning spell. It wouldn't be hard to believe, since everyone at Hogwarts knows of James' magical abilities, and he could easily accomplish that feat.
The whole school would learn of the existence of two deadly vaults that release dangerous curses. The idea is to guide the bald man to the vault of fear through the newspaper.
The newspapers will gradually reveal the location of the vault of fear, the newspaper with the final location of the vault of fear will not be delivered to everyone, only to Professor Eustace. How will they do that? James doesn't have all the details ironed out yet, he will have to think as he goes along.
The first thing is to create a book that looks ancient and creates an exaggerated and fanciful history of the vaults. Makeup that it was created by a crazy wizard or something.
The next day, James and the marauders began the book-making. With five-headed imaginations, it was easy to make up wild stories of the creation of the vaults. They just had to get Eustace's attention, and the best thing was to let the whole school know about it.
The school newspaper that Sirius and the company created was clandestine. No one knew who the owners were. James told them to do it this way, as it wouldn't be good if several students got angry about the rumors Xeno was publishing about them, and it ended up in a feud or the school deciding to close the paper.
To ensure that no one knew their identities, they created false identities such as the Joker. At first, they sold the newspapers themselves, but as popularity rose quickly they began to hire third parties who kept a percentage of the sale. This made it more difficult to access the identity of the real owners of the newspaper.
The hardest part was keeping Xeno quiet and not shouting from the rooftops that he was the reporter who wrote the papers. Luckily, he liked the idea of being an anonymous reporter and the airs and graces of mystery, so he accepted and was delighted when he saw the reactions of others reading his articles and that no one knew who wrote them. He also had some conscience and knew that there might be students who would get angry if he went around telling their intimacies.
Today was Sunday which meant James' first meeting at the Slughorn Club. He was walking alongside Gwen in the direction of Professor Slughorn's office.
"Nervous?" asked Gwen with a slight smile, looking at James.
"No," replied James, being sincere. Although there would be many enemies at this "party" he didn't mind in the least. Besides, that there would also be several friends of his. Gwen, Lily, Snape, and Erika are the main ones.
'I considered Snape a friend?' thought James in surprise. Recent events had caused his relationship with the Slytherin boy to improve. Even Sirius had stopped arguing with Snape so much now.
"Doesn't anything make you nervous?" asked Gwen, annoyed stopping and approaching James. She'd never seen him get nervous. Not in the fight in the ice vault, not in his duel against Rabastan Lestrange, not when he was attending her birthday as a child and was surrounded by arrogant adults.
'You being so close to me makes me nervous,' James thought, looking at Gwen's face and taking a few small steps backward.
He had noticed that Gwen had cut her hair short, and it looked great on her. He hadn't told her, since when they met on the hidden balcony he used Gwen's lap to sleep on.
These days where he slept best was on Gwen's lap. He had to take advantage of it to restore energy and be able to continue with his routine.
"There are several things that make me nervous... Is it okay if you accompany me to the professor's office? Anastasia will be there, and she can tell your mother," asked James quickly changing the subject.
"Tsch to tell her. I don't care. She won't be able to control my friendships anymore, and I'll decide who I talk to. We already solved Emily's problem, so I can do whatever I want," said Gwen at first sounding annoyed and at the end sounding relieved.
"Right," nodded James.
In their meetings on the hidden balcony, James spent some time chatting with Gwen. The topic they talked about most was Emily. Finding a solution so that she wouldn't be mistreated by Lysandra.
James found an easy solution. Have Emily leave the Shafiq house and be removed from the Shafiq family tree. Where would she go? Easy. To Potter Manor.
As the new Lord Potter, James would start living in his grandfather's manor. His parents had already begun the move to leave Godric's Hollow.
With the fortune James and his family had, they could take on one more person, and the manor had dozens of rooms. Many are in disuse. In addition, Euphemia and Fleamont knew Emily and held her in high regard as she was James' first friend.
As for Gwen's mother, she was most likely happy to get rid of Emily and erase her from the Shafiq family tree. All they had to do was tell a false story. Like Emily was pro-Muggle, and for that reason, she was erased and expelled from the family.
If Gwen's parents were afraid that Emily would tell them that she was a half-blonde, all they had to do was make an Unbreakable Vow. The most important thing was to convince Emily, but it would not be very difficult for her to accept according to Gwen and following logic.
Who would want to stay in a house being verbally and physically abused every day?
When Hogwarts was almost over and the issue of the vaults was resolved they would take care of the final details for Emily to get to Potter Manor.
"Here we are," said James, stopping in front of a door that belonged to Slughorn's office.
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