The Art of Secrets

Chapter Four: The Diadem

The seventh floor corridor was empty, just as she had expected. All of the staff, including Headmaster Dumbledore, would be in the meeting until late afternoon, the house-elves busy in the kitchen, and the ghosts keeping Peeves occupied, so there was nobody to interrupt her here, aside from Pan.

He had joined her as she was making the trek up the grand staircase, complaining about the surprising lack of mice down in the dungeons and the need for more warming stones in the dormitories, but he'd soon grown quiet when she revealed to him what she planned.

She had hours to herself, to attempt this, and as she stared at the blank wall, exactly opposite the tapestry just where Nora said, and where she had seen the door that Fred and George had used last year (though there was no trace of it now) she thought that she would need those hours.

Slowly, following Nora's instructions, she walked up and down in front of the wall three times whilst thinking show me the Room of Hidden Things.

She had debated, for a while, whether that was what she truly wanted to see, but it seemed stupidly obvious when she thought about it now. Even Nora had suggested that this could be the only place to find one of the objects if one of them were hidden at Hogwarts, and given that her father had also spoken of it (it was practically Hogwarts legend, the Room of Requirement), almost as if giving some sort of hint... it was exactly the kind of test he would give her.

With more confidence than she would have thought she spun around to face the wall, only to find that it had, indeed, turned into a great set of double doors, burnished silver handles adorning them.

"Well, what are you waiting for missstressssss?" Pan asked, tasting the air by her neck impatiently because he knew it made her cringe.

"Nothing," she sighed, "I need you to try and sssenssse the presssence of my father'sss magic."

"Of courssse, Missstressssss," he sighed, sounding rather put-out for a snake with little feeling other than general annoyance and irritation. "Now, let'sss go on."

Without a second thought, so as not to give herself time to second guess herself, she turned the handle and stepped inside, closing the door behind her quickly so she could lean against it. Pan slithered down her body and off to explore the room whilst she took a few steadying breathes, feeling more than slightly dizzy.

The room was bigger than any she had ever seen before, and everywhere she looked there were things. Broken and damaged furniture made up aisles along with giant stacks of books, what must have been thousands upon thousands, the overwhelming sense of magic in the air suffocating, much like watching Nicolas and Perenelle tamper with the wards had been before the summer when they had taken her back to the school.

Signs of that magic lingered everywhere, not just in the feeling but in the room itself, the chairs missing legs and lopsided tables and the items littered everywhere, so much that it hurt trying to take it all in. Flying catapults, Fanged Frisbees, what looked to be dragon eggshells, a dull silver in colour, an enormous stuffed troll, hats, jewels and trunks full of clothes, the moth-eaten fabrics overflowing from misplaced lids.

As her head settled and she wandered further into the room, in between the tottering aisles of cages full of unspeakable things, broomsticks and a skipping record turntable, she slowly ran her fingers over rotting wooden book cases, chipped bottles of congealed potions and corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly lining several of them, crinkling her nose at the smell, a mix of rotting things and decaying magic.

Eventually she settled in front of a cabinet and set to looking through it. The more she looked, the more she grew vaguely disturbed though. Several rusting swords lined the bottom, along with a heavy, bloodstained axe and disassembled pieces of armour, all of them tinted and rusty. She soon moved on, settling a few cabinets further down in front of a large chest of drawers.