Thirteen years after The Battle of Hogwarts, two wizarding children are about to embark on their own adventure. They both have been lied to their entire lives, one to protect her from the wrath of the wizarding world, and the other to protect him fr...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
They looked around the room, still half in shock, seeing the bloody runes on the floor, the body, and the merry fire. James walked over to the table, began to shuffle through the papers, and was soon joined by Bel. They were an odd assortment of letters, pages torn from textbooks, and hand-written notes. James held up one of the unfinished letters. "He really was mad. He signed it Iakob Grindelwald. Spelled with an I and a k. Mean anything to any of you?" he asked, passing the sheet around the room.
"Sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it," Bel murmured, glancing at Scorpius and Cat who both shook their heads. "We're going to have to take some sort of proof back to the castle. No one is going to believe this."
"We can't very well haul whatever-his-real-name-was back to the castle, he's got to be two hundred pounds, and we walked for ages to get here," commented Teddy. "What about that little book thing? Anything left of it? Seemed to be important," asked Rose from the doorway.
James looked up and laughed without humor. "I burned it--probably what finally killed Riddle." He looked back at the mass of parchment on the table, and the corner of an old water-stained piece poked out from the bottom of the pile. James tugged at it, and it slid into his hand. It was stiff and heavy with age, so dark it was almost illegible, but upon closer inspection he saw it was covered with the same runes that marred the floor. "Hold on, I might have found something. I think this is one of the three missing pages Jacob was going on about. I don't know where the rest of it is, but this has been lost for ages, right? Surely finding it will prove enough of our story that McGonagall or whoever will have to at least come see for themselves!"
"Should we grab anything else, or just start now?" Scorpius queried. "It has to be past midnight by now, and surely someone's noticed we're missing by now. The quicker we get back, the less fuss they'll make and maybe they'll listen that much faster."
"He's probably right," Bel said, turning to James, who nodded. "If everyone's got their wands, lets get out of here. Hopefully we'll be able to get a ride from Hogsmeade back up to the castle."
The tunnel out of the cave was shorter than they remembered, or perhaps some sort of enchantment had died with Jacob. Soon they could see the light of the outside world, and to their surprise the party emerged into the first rays of sunset. "I would have sworn we'd been in there half the night," muttered Cat in a shaky voice.
"At least until it was dark out," agreed Albus. "I guess you don't need a time turner to make time do funny things when you're scared witless."
They continued walking, down along the rocky slope away from the cave mouth, until they reached the grass where the snake had been. Bel continued walking, but several of the others stopped, looking warily at the tall waving grass. "The snake should be gone now," Bel insisted in a voice that sounded much more confident than she felt. I certainly wouldn't stick around to be captured again once I'd been freed. We'd better hope that it didn't because I don't have anything to offer it this time.
