Escape ↣ Harmione

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter 25 - A Hidden Message

After spending some time chatting about other things they left Bill with promises to keep in touch. They flooed back to the Burrow to wish both parents good night, and pick up the basket of food their mother had left for them, then they flooed away and returned to the flat. After putting away their spoils, they dropped onto the sofa and picked up the tape from where they left it. Pulling forth the tape player, they inserted the tape and pressed the play button. The player made an annoyed clicking sound, and the wheels in the middle stopped turning. Slightly confused they pulled the tape out of the machine and looked at it.

"It's got a label on both sides, do you think that means we should turn it around?"

"Try it? It can't hurt, and the one in Dad's shed worked didn't it, so it's not the machine."

The tape was duly put back in the other way around and the button to make it play depressed. A hissing noise was followed by a smooth female voice.

The king lies entombed,

guarded by ghosts in a watery grave.

I am the words you must speak.

Not for the faint or fair the dark descent follows,

speak again to move the earth.

Look into the face of death,

to find the treasure that you seek.

There was more hissing noise but no more words. Nonplussed they stopped the tape, and after a few minutes fiddling worked out that the arrow buttons rewound it so they could listen again. The message remained the same, and they shared a puzzled glance.

"So what do you reckon?" George asked.

"It means something. They didn't risk being caught to drop off two costume rings and a muggle tape with a mysterious message on it, for no reason did they."

"Who are we going to ask?"

"I don't know Forge. Look let's leave it for tonight yeah. We'll think about it. I don't believe that we want to be giving this to Professor Dumbledore, though."

George looked at him questioningly.

"She sent it on a Muggle tape, do you think Professor Dumbledore knows what one is? Or that you'd need that machine to make it play? And if she wanted to get it to Professor Dumbledore why not owl him? She doesn't trust him, and rightly or wrongly I'm not going to blindly hand over something to him that she didn't want him to have. The leader of the Order or not."

"Fred that's…"

"Yeah, it is. But then she could have married us couldn't she. It could have been arranged, and now they are Merlin knows where. So yeah it is, and I'm ok with that. Are you?"

George punched him. "You don't need to ask," he said with a smile that slowly faded from his face. "This was a lot easier when it was following orders and not worrying that following orders was the wrong thing to do."

"Yeah, but we can't let a little thing like Hermione Granger out brave us can we? Not when we set her such a good example, and she's done a bang-up job of following it. Although slipping off into the night is all very well for stealth but where was the pizazz?"

George paled suddenly and grabbed Fred by both arms interrupting his verbal ruminations, hauling him around to face him. "Fred! Don't ever, ever say that in front of Mum! If she thinks Hermione is following our example…" he trailed off, Fred paled to match his twin and swallowed.

"Yeah, you're right. Nothing to do with us."

They shared a nod, then with a glance back at the tape machine, and two rings went to bed for the night.