Albus Potter, Classmates and Elves

Ch 39 Mapping and Apparating

When I have to do a major rewrite I am most thankful for my beta readers.

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The incident with the Crystal Balls happened the first part of the last week of November. By the end of that week Albus and his friends met at the doorway to The Chamber of Secrets. Professor McGonagall and the head Hogwarts Elf Plato led Albus and his friends into the Chamber of Secrets. Sidney Stanford, the longtime Defense against the Dark Arts professor, accompanied them. They walked around the perimeter of the connected rooms, and looked at a map Albus had brought with him. "These are the far corners of this area, as far as we know," Albus pointed out to them on the map that he laid on a table Professor McGonagall had conjured from rubble. What they knew of the rooms was in the middle of the parchment. The passageway to the hallway outside of the Slytherin dormitory, plus the very edge of the dormitory, were on the map, as was part of the small tunnel that led out of the chamber that allowed the small basilisk to leave to feed, and small animals to get into the chamber. The inlet and outlet of the stream that led through the chamber was also displayed, as was the filled in tunnel that Albus's father and his friends had used to get into the chamber.

Albus directed the other three young Magi to corners of the chambers, and he took a fourth corner with the map in his hand. All four started to say a spell at the same time, and a few additional features began to show up on the map. When they were finished Albus brought everyone together.

"There is nothing else outside what we can see as the outside of The Chamber of Secrets," Albus pointed out as he laid the map back down on the table. "The only additional information is more detail in the secret office that Salazar Slytherin and Tom Riddle's used. There are additional areas in there that we should be able to find."

The group went into the modest sized room, and made a more detailed map of the office. They opened several hidden cupboards, finding some parchments, books, and a fair number of suspicious ingredients and objects. Towards the end of their search they found another Crystal Ball. Albus reached out to grab it, but stopped when he realized it felt too similar to the evil one in Professor Trelawney's classroom.

Albus looked at Professor McGonagall. "Professor, do you think we should have the same people who took the other Crystal Ball over here to look at this one?" Albus wondered.

"I think that would be an excellent idea, Mr. Potter," Professor McGonagall agreed, after she withdrew her own hand from hovering over the Ball.

Professor Stanford and a few elves took the rest of the material up to a well-guarded room where he had stored all of the centuries of material from generations of Defense against the Dark Arts professors. He and his wife, Professor McGonagall and a very small number of people were the only ones who could get into the room. Harry Potter joined them, and accompanied Sidney Stanford and Minerva McGonagall up to the room. After sorting and putting the material away, Sidney invited the other two back to his quarters.

"While there are a fair number of Magi teaching Defense against the Dark Arts, and other Magi studying the subject," Sidney started after they were seated, "I do not trust most of them, at least not enough to let them know about all the material I have here. However, there are four other Magi, two witches and two wizards, that Kim and I do trust." Sidney nodded to his wife Kim, who was currently teaching the third, fourth, fifth and sixth year students. "We all have material we will not share with anyone else. One couple is in Switzerland, teaching what you could call college level courses in Defense against the Dark Arts. They are distant relatives of your wife, Harry, Liam and Emilia Prewett. They have been a great help. Kim and I trust them more than anyone else studying Defense against the Dark Arts. There is a fair amount of overlap in the material we have, although the Swiss have more."