A Mystery in Watercolor

wizard memes and wizard cars

 She explained the situation to Ginge the next day, leaving out how, specifically, Simon and Edward had figured it out (she made a mental note to beg them not to mention the boggart). He'd reacted much like she'd expected him too, which was honestly a relief. She'd explained that she kind of wanted to keep the room with the false wall under wraps just as a backup in case she was wrong or something happened, so they'd come up with a plan to relocate his portrait after hours when hopefully nobody would be out to see it.

There was a room she'd stumbled into on the sixth floor, behind a statue of a wizard who looked kind of like Teddy Roosevelt, except the wizard had elegant robes and probably wasn't American. She'd stubbed her toe on the statue base and found a distinctly wand shaped hole between his feet (at least, she hoped it was wand shaped and not. . . well) that made a little section of the floor fall away. She thought it'd be big enough and out of the way enough for their purposes.

She'd somewhat underestimated how difficult it would be to avoid being caught. The prefects had switched up their patrol schedule on her, and she'd had to draw her path to avoid anywhere Professor Potter might be, and Ginge was so excited for the change of scenery that he kept forgetting to keep his voice down. That Slytherin prefect--Nylora, they'd said--nearly caught them in the Tapestry Corridor. Only a statue base, the portraits lining the walls, and an idea so batshit off the wall it just might work kept Leah from getting caught. That managed to scare Ginge into containing his excitement until they were safely into the secret room.

Simon was practically vibrating with excitement the whole day.

"Jeez, pal, you trying out to be a massage chair?" she teased.

"Don't tease me, it's not everyday this sort of thing happens!" His fingers tapped on the desk at a frantic pace. "Hogwarts hasn't had anything big go on since Harry Potter graduated, and--"

"And that's a good thing," Edward interrupted. "Because when there aren't world-ending calamities and Lord No-Nose attacking the campus, we can actually get semi-prepared for the rest of our lives."

"Lord No-Nose?" She'd never heard that before.

"Yeah. There was this whole thing around Voldemort's name for years; people were too scared to say it, and then during the war they put a taboo on his name so they could find the traitors. And I know he's dead and all now but-- you know, he only died like twenty years ago and some people still don't like hearing it. Like my nan," Edward explained.

"And my mum," Simon added.

"But saying You-Know-Who is too dignified and mysterious."

"Yeah, we don't respect the dead."

"So instead we came up with all kinds of names for him." Edward began listing them off. "Lord No-Nose, Snake Eyes, that son of a bitch."

"Some of my personal favorites are 'You-Know-Who-You-Can-Suck', the Weasleys' 'U-No-Poo', 'He-Who-Must-Be-Shamed', and 'That Motherfucker'," Simon said cheerfully. "I can't say any of those in front of my mum though, so Lord No-Nose is the most common. If wizards had memes, Voldy's name is one of the best."

"I guess that's a nickname too then? 'Voldy' like, what, like his girlfriend called him?"

"That's an awful thought and I hate it," Edward said. "And anyway, his girlfriend probably called him the Dark Lord."

Simon snickered. "You think he got off on people calling him the Dark Lord? And that's why he--"

"Simon shut the fuck up I never wanted that thought either."