Fred and George and the Toilers of Trouble (Year 1) ✔

Chapter 8:2

With eager smiles painting their young faces, the twins thrust their arms into the silver web and sliced it to curtains.  Wands glowing, they entered the passage and were immediately met by the smell of cold, settled earth.  Hiding in the darkness straight ahead was a downhill channel of crumbled black rock, twisting vines, and slabs of wood that appeared to direct them away from the castle in a path toward some secret, frightening place.

To their left, a cavity in the wall led to an alcove, sheltered in darker stone, with a narrow archway completing the entrance.  There was a round wooden table inside, with inlaid iron filigree and four ornately carved chairs of dense limestone, the kind of carving that could only derive from an advanced shaping spell.  Each chair was patterned in distinctive designs and engravings, at the center of which was the insignia of one of the four Hogwarts houses.  All of the emblems were intact except for the Gryffindor lion.  The front half of the animal had been completely removed, leaving the hind legs and tail.  At the rear of each stone chair was the etching of a name that corresponded to the house crest on the front.  The first chair read 'GRYFFINDOR'.  The second, 'HUFFLEPUFF'.  The third seat, 'RAVENCLAW'.  And although the fourth was unreadable, having been scraped away by a series of crisscrossing grooves, they knew it had once been 'SLYTHERIN'. 

"These are the thrones from the riddle," George muttered in soft awe. "The concealer of thrones, he is covered in stone.  This must have been a meeting place for the founders.  Do you think?"

Fred inspected the names closely. "Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.  Makes sense."

George rested his hands on the table and admired the strange runic carvings on the walls and ceiling. "This room is a thousand years old!"

"They weren't the last ones to use it, though.  Look!" Fred urged, as he aimed his glowing wand.

In an unsteady scrawl, they found the word 'Moony' cut roughly into the back of the Hufflepuff throne.  Checking the Slytherin chair, they saw the name 'Wormtail'.  The last two were 'Padfoot' on the Ravenclaw throne, and 'Prongs' on Gryffindor.

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs," George contemplated. "We've arrived at our destination."

"Woah!  What is this?" Fred blurted, leaping to the wall.  Grunting, he tugged fiercely on a leather strap coming out of the stone. "Help me pull.  Don't you...recognize...what this is...?"

Bending low, George saw that his brother had found a large trunk set into a void within the wall.  He joined Fred, and together they were able to slide it into the passage. 

George swiped the grit and grime aside and felt the surface of the arched lid. "How do we open it?  There's no latch."

"Must be locked with magic.  The right spell will spring it open," Fred wheezed, patting the dust from his hands as he stood. "D'you think it's the treasure?"

"Possibly," George replied, casting the glow of his illuminated wand to the ceiling.  There was something written into the archway — a message that resembled the roughly handled script of the names.  The letters were encrusted in a powder of dust that sparkled in the faint light of the wand.  The carving read:

I solemnly swear that I am up to no good

"Up there, Fred!" said George, his voice entranced.

Fred turned his eyes toward the twinkling words as he read them aloud, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.  That has to be the phrase we came here to find!"

"I haven't a doubt."

Together, they carefully spread the parchment across the wooden table.  Under soft wandlight, they watched how the spoken phrase triggered the page to transform.  Jagged, black lines leaked from within the paper, like frost across a window.  As more and more of them filled the page, the lines rapidly bent and swirled into each other.  A few of the ink lines were tinted green.  They curled and joined with the twisting black shapes at the top of the page to form words in decorative green lettering.  It proclaimed: