Golden Stars

Chapter Twenty-Seven:This is Harder Than We Thought

Sophie Foster POV

"Will you teach us how to use the map first?" I asked Vladimir, pulling it out of my bag of everything we possibly needed that I totally forgot about.

"Ah," said Vladimir. "Yes, Give it to me. I have the stone,"

I handed the map to Vladimir and everybody watched as he took it in his hands and admired his own creation.

"In Diana's notebook," said Linh "It said that you must recite the verse and defeat a curse to open the map," Linh fumbled for a second because of her head injury, but quickly uprighted herself. "So I'm assuming you're just going to do all that for us?"

"Yes," said Vladimir. "But the curse part is just Diana's mysteriousness. There was no such curse attached to this map when I made it," Then he took the Map, laid it out in his lap, and started rubbing the stone on it. "Open up, reveal your secrets, spill what has been untold," he chanted from memory.

And then, as if the piece of parchment heard him, suddenly, black ink started forming words and small pictures on the page listing many different powerful plants.

"Woah," said Fitz, gaping at the Map.

"Wow," said Biana. "It was that easy? And we were so confused!"

Vladimir stopped gazing at the Map and looked at Biana. "You all will have to remember this verse to open the Map. But when you start the quest, nothing will be that easy anymore,"

"Oh," said Biana, spirits dropped.

"How many plants did you record on this map?" asked Hermione.

"Thirteen," replied Vladimir. "The thirteen most powerful plants in the Wizarding World, but only known to those who read the map,"

"There it is," said Harry, pointing to the valley that said 'Marigolds of Mystery,' on it, "That's where we need to get to,"

"Yes," said Vladimir, "Now, let me teach you how to use this map," he turned it the other way so all of us could see. "To get a specific direction to the plant you want to visit, tap it with your want and state your current location," He looked up at all of us, "But one of you will have to do it. I don't have any magic left,"

"I'll do it," Keefe said. He tapped his want on the place that said 'Marigolds of Mystery,' and said "Hogwarts,"

Then, the ink on the map seemed to move around and rearrange itself until it showed the Hogwarts grounds, and way past the Forbidden Forest, to the other side of the map, where the Marigolds of Mystery were.

"That's a long way to go," I said.

"The way will not be easy," said Vladimir. "But It's the only path there and the Neverseen and Deatheaters don't have as much help as you do. If you start quickly, they may be at least a day behind you all,"

"Aren't you supposed to tell us everything we need to know first?" Glimmer said.

Vladimir sighed. "Yes, I was getting to that," he said tiredly, "See," he pointed to the part of the map that said Hogwarts Grounds, "When I went to study the flowers, I used to use this special pathfinder. But now, it has lost most of its power and is now mostly useless. But it does have one use, which is that it can bring you back to Hogwarts at anytime you need, as long as you use it like a normal pathfinder,"

"It only works in the Wizarding World though, so don't try to use it in the Lost Cities when all of this is over," said Vladimir. He got up, went over to one of the dusty shelves, and pulled out this wand -like thing that was made of what looked like gold with intricate carvings in its sides and a round crystal at the top. He handed it to me . "Put this in your bag. You may need it for your quest,"