Chương 152: Vault of Fear
James hurried to the castle. Upon entering, he was more cautious and stealthier, as curfew was nearby. The professors must have been searching for the scattered students.
His destination was the library located on the second floor of the castle, so it didn't take him long to get there. That was where the vault of fear was hidden, specifically in the Restricted Section.
He arrived at the library. Hundreds of narrow rows with shelves containing tens of thousands of books. As it was only a few minutes before curfew there was no one in the place. Not even the librarian.
As he was about to head for the Forbidden Section, he saw the space on one of the shelves begin to ripple. He was showing the presence of a person.
"Finally, you arrive," said Gwen, who deactivated her disillusioning spell.
"Why didn't you go with the others?" asked James confused.
"No time to explain. The bald guy already arrived a few minutes ago. Let's go," said Gwen, taking James' hand and heading for the Forbidden Section.
The reason why she waited for James was simple. She didn't like hearing from Sirius that James went to the Dragon Club with Narcissa Black. Although she knew he did it to distract her, she didn't like the idea of James being with Narcissa.
She didn't tell him because she knew he would scoff at her calling her jealous, and she wasn't. Well, just a little bit.
'I hope nothing bad happened,' James thought. It took him longer than he thought to get rid of Narcissa.
They entered the Forbidden Section easily. The only thing protecting this section was a simple rope.
"Shelf number eight. Book number thirteen," said James, remembering where the secret entrance to the vault was located.
They stood in front of shelf number eight. Book number thirteen was moss green in color and worn. On the shelf were dozens of books.
"Another thing... That strange boy came into the library," said Gwen, trying to remember the strange name.
"Xeno?" asked James, and Gwen nodded.
James frowned and didn't say anything else. It wasn't good to have a variable in the plan, but if it's just one person there shouldn't be much of a problem.
James without wasting any more time grabbed the book and moved it. He couldn't get it completely out of place. It was some kind of mechanism. After moving the book there was a creaking sound of wood.
The bookcase began to move slowly, revealing a secret entrance behind it. It was another staircase, but this time it was a descending spiral staircase.
James went first and began to descend. Gwen followed close behind. As narrow as the spiral staircase was two people couldn't go down side by side.
"It's getting darker and darker," commented Gwen, noticing that the darkness was getting darker the further down they went.
"Yes. Lumos," said James, flicking his wand. Gwen did the same. The tip of each wand lit up allowing them to see in the darkness. The descent continued.
They went down for five minutes until finally, the spiral staircase came to an end. They came to a small square stone room.
The walls were cracked and thighed. The lighting was dim. Two lanterns each held a candle that barely gave a little light.
"Cover your eyes," James said as he cast Lumos Solem to illuminate the entire stone room. Thanks to his contact lenses, he was not blinded and could observe every corner of the place.
There was nothing. Just old, cracked walls and moss. There was no door, no guardian. Just a dim atmosphere and little light.
"They cast a protective spell," James said, and Gwen nodded.
There were protective spells used to hide a specific area. This way intruders would only observe an unremarkable area when people were living there or a structure to hide.
These spells would be difficult to detect if used over large areas, but here they were in a square room that was not very spacious. It wasn't hard to detect magic.
James knew it wasn't good that someone had cast a protective spell. The only person who could cast this spell would be Eustace.
"Did we destroy it?" asked Gwen.
"We destroyed it," nodded James.
Each one looked to the front and began to cast offensive spells of great power: Bombarda, Incendio, etc. As expected, the spells hit a kind of translucent barrier.
Within minutes the barrier was destroyed. The real room was revealed. At the end of it all was a large square door. It had engraved runes and strange scrawls on it.
What caught James and Gwen's attention was that on one of the side walls, three people were lying on the floor. They were Sirius, Lupin, and Xeno.
'Damn,' thought James running towards his friends. Luckily, he quickly noticed that they were only unconscious and tied up with thick rope.
"Are they okay?" asked Gwen.
'Yes. Just unconscious," replied James.
'I only got sidetracked for a few minutes,' thought James as he cut the ropes with Gwen's help.
Luckily, Eustace just knocked them out. The bad news was that it looked like he had already entered the vault, and Snape was nowhere to be seen.
"Rennervate," said James, pointing his wand at Sirius. This was the counter spell to the stun charm.
Sirius started to stir and slowly opened his eyes in confusion, "Where am I?" he stammered as he struggled to his feet.
"James? Oh, that's right, that bloody baldy!" exclaimed Sirius, suddenly regaining his energy and jumping to his feet.
"Easy there. Let me wake up Lupin," said James and threw a Rennervate at Lupin, who after a few seconds woke up confused like Sirius earlier.
"What happened, Lupin?" asked James after Lupin had recovered. Lupin would be more accurate and not go off the deep end as much as Sirius.
"Everything was going according to plan, but we didn't think that bald guy would be so strong. He doesn't teach what he knows in his classes..." said Lupin as he began to narrate the events.
The original plan was for Sirius, Lupin, and James to hide under the invisibility cloak and wait for Professor Eustace to arrive. Within seconds of Professor Eustace's arrival in the vault, Gwen and Snape would appear.
These two would tell Professor Eustace that they reached the vault thanks to the Meddler's newspaper. Eustace as he wants to keep the treasures and whatever he is looking for would have to get rid of Snape and Gwen.
Mainly because when Eustace wants to open the vault, Gwen and Snape tell him to look for the other professors and that they are only there to verify if the information is correct or just a joke in the newspaper.
This would make it impossible to loot the vault as it would be under surveillance, and the other professors would know that Eustace was there. So, he would most likely attack both Slytherin students.
James, Sirius, and Lupin, who are under the invisibility cloak will take evidence of the evil deeds the professor is doing. Taking pictures and recording his voice. Then they would go out and help keep the bald guy from hurting their friends and try to defeat him or run away.
This didn't happen as they planned, as James had to go out of his way to get rid of Narcissa so she wouldn't find the paper, and Gwen didn't like knowing James was with another girl, so she was about to go looking for him instead of going through with the plan.
This was not all, as one more variant appeared in the plan. When the bald man attacked Snape as he told him that he would look for the other teachers, Xeno appeared and witnessed this scene.
For witnessing things he shouldn't have, the professor also attacked Xeno and in one move defeated him. Sirius and Lupin went on the attack, but it was useless. They were no match for the professor who, although he was a little surprised by the surprise attack defeated them without much difficulty.
"What happened to Snape?" asked James, trying to find a solution to save the shadowy boy.
"He went into the vault, and Professor Eustace followed him. Thanks to that we were saved. That bald bastard wanted to erase our memories and put in new ones. He succeeded with Xeno. When he was about to erase my memories Snape from behind managed to push him out of the way and run to the vault door," explained Sirius, not believing that he was saved by Snape.
"Yes... When the vault door was about to close the professor knocked us unconscious and ran straight to the vault," replied Lupin in a worried tone.
"Wasn't there a guard to protect the door?" asked James.
"No. The door was open. All you could see was darkness. You couldn't see through it," Sirius replied.
'His name does him justice,' thought James as he walked towards the ten-foot stone door.
James tried to open it by any means possible, but it was no use. Neither Alohomora nor Bombarda was working.
"What are we going to do? We have the evidence, but Snape?" asked Sirius in a worried tone. Odd to see from him especially when it was Snape.
"Snape went into the vault without a wand and tied up..." said Lupin, also worried.
James touched the cold stone with his hand. If it were up to him, he would enter the vault to save Snape, but the door, though it looked like normal stone was hard as iron. It could not open.
"I'm sorry, James..." murmured Gwen, approaching James. If she had followed the plan the others would have had a better chance to defeat the professor. As for James, he had no choice, but she decided not to go along with the plan on a whim of her own.
"It doesn't matter," James said in a soft tone. He was more relieved to know that Gwen had been away from that bald man. Who knows if he could have done worse to her than erase her memories.
"Snape will have to survive in the vault. We should set up an ambush when that baldy comes out," said James, approaching Xeno, who was still unconscious.
"Will you wake him up?" asked Sirius.
James nodded. To find out what memories Eustace had implanted in Xeno it was best to wake him up. That way they would know what plan the bald man had created in his head in those few minutes.
"What happened?" asked Xeno slowly as he rubbed his eyes. As he looked up he noticed the gaze of several people on him. He recognized everyone but a pretty blonde girl.
"Are you all right? We found you here unconscious. What's the last thing you remember?" asked James.
"Mm... I was on my way to my common room when I tripped because of an invisible step. That was the last thing I remember... What a bump," replied Xeno rubbing his never.
'This is good,' thought James with a slight smile.
This meant that Eustace was just planning to erase his memories and send them to the infirmary. James had thought that the bald man would have a more ingenious plan, but that didn't seem to be the case.
So, Snape should be safe with Eustace, 'He seems very hasty,' James thought about the professor. If it were him, he wouldn't make that plan which had many flaws.
From Eustace's perspective, the Meddler had already published the location of the vault, so more and more people could arrive. This would cause him to have to erase the memory of several people and leave them in the right place. In Xeno's case on the stairs where he was knocked unconscious.
"Where are we?" asked Xeno, looking at the strange stone room.
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