The End

Additions to Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has anything to do with Alias, which was created by J.J. Abrams and owned by ABC. This chapter title is lifted from the song "Ballrooms of Mars" by T.Rex.

Chapter 7: Monsters Call Out

The History of Magic classroom had a teacher's desk, but no chair, so Michael was leaning into a corner at the front of the room, glancing over his book one last time when his students began to arrive. He looked up and smiled at them as they took their seats, but they didn't seem to notice, too much of their attention was devoted to the door, the window, their watches, and a violent game of hangman that Michael could just barely make out on a scrap of parchment across the room. When everyone had arrived, the students began to direct their dull expressions to the front of the room, so Michael stepped forward, placed his book on the teacher's desk, and cleared his throat.

"My name is Professor Vaughn. Professor Binns decided to take the day off."

Slowly, the surprised students leaned out from behind each other's heads to get a better look at him. A few had gone slack jawed.

"I'm currently training to become a History of Magic teacher," Michael elaborated, "so I volunteered to cover for him tod-yah!"

There was a sudden hiss of whispers from the students as Professor Binns slid through the blackboard in his usual manner and came to rest right where Michael was standing. Michael jumped clear, shivering and watched, amazed, as Binns began reading drearily from a transparent stack of notes, completely oblivious to all around him.

Michael sighed. This wasn't going anything like he'd planned. He'd heard Binns' story, but if he'd known that the ghost was such a hopeless creature of habit he might not have insisted on teaching his classes, ever. As Michael watched, a few of the students gave him one last hopeful look, and then returned their attention to Professor Binns, expressions of resigned stupor hovering on their faces.

He cleared his throat pointedly, distracting Professor Binns from his notes. The students who weren't too far gone looked up at him.

"I'm sorry, Professor Binns, but I was under the impression that you were taking the day off," Michael tried.

"Were you?" Binns wheezed. More students were forcing themselves to wake up and watch the discussion.

"Yes," Michael replied. "That's why Headmistress McGonagall asked me here. She said she'd discuss it with you."

"She did," Binns confirmed after a pause.

"Well, I understand if you wish to continue teaching today," Michael said, quailing slightly under the glares he was getting from the students for suggesting that he'd back down so easily. "But, maybe, since I'm already here, you'd like to take the day off anyway."

Professor Binns seemed to battle with himself for a moment, then he said, "Very well." Without another word he disappeared back through the blackboard.

"Alright," Michael said, as he stepped back over to the desk under the excited gaze of the students. "Today I'd like to talk to you about the development of Quidditch as a popular sport. Can anyone tell me the name and origin of the game that eventually became Quidditch?"

***************

Since Michael had been called upon to teach his first History of Magic lesson and Harry, Ron, and Hermione were off doing whatever they do, Sydney spent the morning alone in the library. The Wizards seemed satisfied to put off working on a plan for the Death Eaters for as long as possible, but Sydney wanted to get it over with so she could get on with her life and, most of all, back to a place where things make sense, most things, at least. Thus, she'd been forgoing her pointless research in Muggle Studies in favor of searching for leads on the Death Eaters, a more important, if frustratingly futile, endeavor.

Sydney sighed and returned her attention to a book she'd found on Voldemort. It failed to elaborate on several points she thought were important and was infuriatingly out of date, but still contained more information than most other resources she'd found. By far, the book's most annoying attribute was the way that the author insisted on calling Voldemort anything other than his real name. She'd observed it a few times in the people around her, and had come to the conclusion that most Wizards were afraid to say his name, something she couldn't figure out. In her experience, it was generally helpful to be able to discuss something by name if they were trying to come up with a plan about it.

Scolding herself, Sydney once again forced her attention back to the book, but jumped up in alarm when her eyes fell on the passage she'd been reading, which was now covered by the strangest looking insect she'd ever seen. If she had to give it a label, she'd call it a spider, but that wouldn't capture the absurdity of the sight in front of her. The insect couldn't have been much larger than her palm, but it seemed to have gotten the idea that it was much larger, because it was glaring at her while standing on its back five legs and waving is front two legs at her threateningly, as though daring her to go ahead and try to read on. Sydney bent closer to inspect it and discovered that it was covered in acid orange stripes and its path across her book was marked by small punctures caused by the sharp claws at the tip of each leg. Now that she'd gotten over the initial shock, Sydney couldn't help but smile at the insect's audacity. Picking up a quill, she brushed the spider away, picked up the book, and left.

Sydney didn't have a destination in mind, but she'd proven incapable of concentrating and knew she needed a quiet place where she could sort her thoughts out before she'd accomplish anything. Dismissing the possibility of the substitute teachers' common room because it was the most likely location of Harry, Ron, and Hermione, Sydney wandered down seven flights of stairs until she finally happened upon an empty classroom. However, the moment she stepped inside it became immediately obvious that she would not be able to meditate in there, not that she minded in the least. Sometime after it had been retired as a classroom, the space had become a storage closet for all kinds of strange devices. This was how she preferred to learn, to be presented with something new and have the chance to play with it until she figured out what it did.

She wound her way about the room, inspecting the knickknacks as she passed them. Some lit up or spit out puffs of smoke at her approach and others ignored her completely, although whether this was due to design or distaste toward Muggles was unclear. One particularly obliging trinket, a strange, clocklike device, started ticking merrily when she got close. She picked it up, hoping a closer look would reveal its purpose, but hadn't made any progress before she became aware of a faint tapping at the windowpane.

Before another second had passed, Sydney had replaced the clock and hidden herself under the nearest desk, a paranoid move, perhaps, but she was fairly certain that she wasn't really supposed to come in that classroom uninvited, based on its contents. However, after a moment's tense waiting, she realized it was no human hand that had come knocking, but a tree branch, set in motion by a gust of wind. As she listened to the taps the corresponding letters sprang unbidden to her mind, as they did with every series of clicks since she'd learned Morse code: R S Y B T A A R P N E A S B T A R S Y.

Sydney suddenly found cause to pay more attention now that the sequence seemed to be repeating itself. She tried to tell herself that it couldn't be, that such a thing was impossible, but the realm of possibility was so much larger inside Hogwarts that she decided it would be foolish to ignore it. She located a piece of parchment and a pen, and a few moments later, she had confirmed her suspicion about the sequence. The letters were still jumbled, but if they did contain a message, as she suspected, it wouldn't stay hidden for long.

As it transpired, it was one of the easiest codes Sydney had ever cracked, the letters of the word 'tapestry' alternated with those of the word 'Barnabas.' So why would a tree, or rather, whoever gave the tree that message, think a tapestry of this Barnabas was so important? And for that matter, how had a Wizard come to know Morse code?

***************

Sydney hadn't realized just how many tapestries there were in the castle until she tried to find a specific one. She'd casually asked a happy looking Hermione if she knew of a tapestry of someone named Barnabas that day over lunch and the Witch had directed her to the seventh floor then stealthily asked how she'd heard the name. Sydney had concocted some lame excuse about reading it in a book, but it didn't take a genius to notice that Hermione didn't believe her. At that point, Sydney had vowed to keep the three Wizards out of her investigation, at least until she found out whatever she was looking for.

She'd hoped that once she found the elusive cloth the rest would be self explanatory, wishful thinking considering that she didn't even know what was so significant about this place. However, she hadn't anticipated finding nothing noteworthy at all. She tried feeling around the wall behind the tapestry for a seam, asking its occupants for information, and even tried poking the cloth with her wand, but nothing helped.

Growing frustrated, Sydney began pacing in front of the tapestry, pondering her dilemma and wondering what on Earth she was looking for. When this didn't help either, she threw herself against the nearest wall and sank to the floor. It was then that she noticed something strange.

A door had appeared in the wall across from the picture, at least she thought it had. She certainly didn't remember it being there before.

Sydney approached slowly and opened the door. She'd thought that the abandoned classroom where she'd heard the Morse code in the first place was home to many strange things, but within this room was the widest array of objects she'd ever seen: shelves upon shelve of devices, many of which defied description, but most looked potentially lethal. Sydney supposed that this room appeared whenever a passerby needed to hide something, and thus, as was her case, when they needed to find it again. Astonished, she toured the room, careful to give the piles of contraband a wide berth. Its inner proportions were immense, far bigger than its location within the castle should have allowed.

Sydney had already explored half the room before she remembered why she found this place. However, without any idea as to why the Morse code had indicated this location and with so much to find here, it seemed unlikely that she'd make any progress at all without any more clues, and none seemed forthcoming.

Disappointment seeped through her as she turned to leave, but then her eyes lit upon a small box. It was made of wood and looked exceedingly old, but somehow it didn't show any signs of decay. However, it wasn't the box that caught Sydney's attention; it was the symbol on it: a circle with two angled lines on either side, the eye of Rambaldi.

Sydney wasn't sure what to think. Rambaldi's artifacts tended to show up in unexpected places, but she'd never suspected Hogwarts would be one of them; the place was inaccessible to Muggles, after all, which begged an important question.

Sydney shook the box and found that there was something inside, but she saw no hinges or seams to indicate an opening so she pocketed the whole thing and left.

***************

"How did teaching go today, Michael?" Hermione asked over dinner that evening.

"Alright," Michael replied, with a shrug. "The students seemed happy that Professor Binns wasn't there. He showed up at the beginning of the first class, though. I think he forgot that I was supposed to teach today."

Harry, Ron, and Hermione all snorted into their plates.

"I wish I could have seen that," Harry laughed.

"Sorry," Hermione giggled, catching Michael's confused stare. "I suppose we should have thought of that. Binns can't stand any sort of deviation from his routine."

"It's alright," Michael said. "I guess it was a little funny, come to think of it." Sydney shot him a look and his smile faded slightly.

"I saw Nearly Headless Nick this afternoon," Ron added. "He said he found Binns two doors over, reading his notes to an empty room."

"Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Milo Rambaldi?" Michael asked suddenly. The Wizards' smiles faded at the abrupt change in subject and they took a moment to ponder the question. Sydney, still adamant about not letting the Wizards in on their investigation, had asked him to pursue the Rambaldi question, since it seemed more than likely that Hermione would notice the connection to the inquiry about Barnabas if Sydney did all the talking. This, at least, had an incrementally better chance of sliding by undetected. Initially, Sydney had been reluctant to ask at all, but this method had the benefit of letting them find out if the man actually was a Wizard before they went and combed the entire library for information about him.

After a moment, Harry and Ron shrugged and returned to their plates, but Hermione looked at Michael with the most piercing stare he'd ever seen.

"How do you know about him?" she asked.

"He was a fifteenth century prophet," Michael explained, trying not to meet Hermione's eyes, "chief engineer to Pope Alexander VI. He made a lot of inventions and designs that were centuries ahead of his time before he was excommunicated for heresy. Sydney's old boss, Arvin Sloane, was practically obsessed with finding his artifacts, most of which have turned out to be extremely powerful. It just occurred to me that he might have been a Wizard, and I was wondering if you'd heard of him."

Sydney tried to make it look like she had no idea this conversation was about to occur while simultaneously shooting Michael a look that told him she didn't approve of him giving so much information away so easily, but Hermione loosened up immediately and said, "He was a famous Seer, often punished for creating the things he saw in his visions and leaving them around for Muggles to find. After he was excommunicated he faked his own death in Italy and came to England. He lived another hundred years after that."

Sydney stood up so quickly that she knocked her chair over. She didn't like the sound of that at all. If it was true, then there could be a dozen more workshops and hundreds of artifacts that had escaped the church's purge of his works, and all of them could be more powerful and dangerous than any discovered before. What's more, now everyone would think that they were protected because they were hidden behind Muggle repelling charms, but if she and Michael could get through them, then so could someone as fanatical as Sloane. It was as though her worst nightmare had come true.

"Did he continue his work once he got to England?" Michael asked, sensing Sydney's realization.

"I suppose so," Hermione guessed, glancing beyond Michael to Sydney then back again. "He stayed here at Hogwarts for awhile, after that I'm not so sure."

That was all Sydney could stand to hear. She left the table abruptly, leaving her dinner virtually untouched. Her first stop was the library, where she pulled out the biggest encyclopedia she could find. The article about Rambaldi was infuriatingly brief, containing even less information than Hermione. Conspicuously absent were any books by or about Rambaldi and her frantic rampage through the history books only yielded a few tidbits, most of which weren't helpful at all. Unable to stand the fruitless search any longer, Sydney grabbed a copy of Hogwarts: A History off the shelf and told Madame Pince she was borrowing it.

***************

Harry had never been the recipient of much good luck, at least not on a day to day basis. It was a fact he had learned to accept over the years, but he couldn't help but curse his terrible fortune as he wandered up the stairs, hoping he was following the same path Sydney and Michael had taken. The Wizards had been concerned about the Muggle's strange behavior throughout dinner, but after Michael had left to follow Sydney they hadn't been able to deny that something was wrong. Deciding that the situation, whatever it was, required care and tact, Hermione had suggested that only one person follow the pair, and when no one volunteered, she pulled out her wand and sent it rotating in her hand, promising that it had an equal chance of selecting any of them. Harry hadn't been convinced, and after it landed on him he'd vowed to look up the spell the first chance he got to ensure that it was sufficiently random.

For the time being, however, he had more important things to worry about, like ensuring the well being of their Muggle companions. His route was unusual, a shortcut he hadn't taken in months, and every step was dredging up more memories. Then suddenly he wasn't just remembering anymore. Harry mounted the next staircase, carefully stepping over rubble as he descended. Ron and Hermione were close behind him. They were trying to be as quiet as possible, since they had recently given up the Marauder's Map and their information was quickly becoming out of date. It was with the greatest horror that they heard a cold, cruel voice.

"You have betrayed me."

It echoed so much that they had no hope of determining where it had come from, nor did any of them have any idea who had betrayed someone else, but they slipped under the invisibility cloak and shrunk against the banister, hoping they hadn't already been seen and trying not to make any noise.

However, their fears were ill-founded, for a moment later another voice replied, "No, Master."

There was something about this voice, however, that was sorely familiar.

"That's Snape!" Harry exclaimed, ducking out from under the cloak and making to stand up and rush forward.

"Stop!" Ron and Hermione hissed, pulling him down.

"We can't just sit here and do nothing!" Harry said. "Snape killed Dumbledore!"

"Harry, at least wear your cloak," Hermione pleaded, grabbing his arm to prevent him from standing up.

"I want him to be able to see me when I kill him," Harry replied.

"We can't go after them both," Hermione said.

"We can when there are three of us and two of them," Harry replied.

"Think about it, Harry," Hermione said. "We don't know that there aren't any other Death Eaters over there."

"They're both much more powerful wizards than us," Ron pointed out.

"Harry," Hermione pleaded. "If you were to go over there and fight right now, who would you duel first? And how do you plan to hold off the second one?"

Harry shrugged. He didn't really think such details worth considering at the moment.

"You know what you have to do here, don't let revenge get in the way," Hermione continued.

Harry scowled at her and yanked his arm out of her grasp, but Voldemort spoke again before he'd even made it down another step.

"Do not think I cannot tell you are lying. It does not matter how accomplished you think you are at Occlumens, the Dark Lord always knows."

"I assure you, Master," Snape continued.

"And yet you persist in feeding me lies," Voldemort said. "I know your loyalty has been to Dumbledore since before my powers broke at the hands of that Potter. I know you have been passing information to the Order of the Phoenix for the past three years while still maintaining the illusion of servility to me. But I have been feeding you lies as well. Don't look so surprised, why shouldn't I have pressed my advantage? You have been giving false information to the Order all this time. Why else would everyone assure you that we were staying in Albania if we were about to attack here?"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione glanced at each other, struggling to comprehend what they'd just heard.

There was a pause, then the second voice said, "You will not succeed, the Order will stop you."

"I doubt it," Voldemort replied, "but I suppose I must wait and see. You, however, will not be given that pleasure. Your usefulness has run out, and you will now greet the same fate that meets all who betray me. Avada Kedavra!"

Harry, Ron, and Hermione winced as a body audibly slumped to the floor and Voldemort stalked away. After the footsteps faded, they made their way down the rest of the stairs then turned a corner to where the discussion had taken place, already suspecting what they'd see. Sure enough, black robed, sallow skinned, greasy haired Professor Snape was lying in a heap in front of them. All three were stunned. The person they had suspected more than any other of betraying Dumbledore's trust had died proclaiming his belief that Harry and the Order would prevail.

Harry blinked and shook his head. That was strange indeed. It was as though he'd slipped into a dream, or a memory, more like, but it was rather unusual to fall asleep while climbing a flight of stairs. With a shrug, he carried on, but harder to shrug off was the feeling of guilt and confusion that accompanied that particular memory. After all, he'd had the element of surprise, he could have stepped in and changed the outcome of that confrontation at any time he liked, maybe even killed Voldemort right then and prevented a great deal of bloodshed that night. Harry still couldn't pin down exactly why he'd stayed on that staircase instead. His preferred excuse was that, like Hermione said, he'd had no way of knowing if there were any other Death Eaters present, or if Voldemort would have been able to spot him before he got a clear shot, but he knew it wasn't true. That wasn't the way Harry Potter did things. Harry Potter went into danger wand raised, damning the dangers and the consequences. Apparently, he'd forgotten that somewhere along the way.

***************

Sydney made her way back to the lost and found room, half her attention on reading the book and the rest on where she was going, so when Michael caught up with her, it was a few steps before she noticed his presence.

"They say anything interesting after I left?" Sydney asked.

"Not really," Michael replied. "They just asked if you were okay."

"What'd you say?" Sydney pressed.

"Just repeated that bit about Sloane, told them you'd want to make sure the CIA finds any artifacts before the bad guys," Michael explained. "Where are we going?"

"To where I found this," Sydney said, pulling the box out of her pocket.

"That explains how you thought to ask about Rambaldi," Michael said after glancing at it.

By the time they'd arrived at the tapestry of Barnabas, Sydney had finished explaining about the tree tapping out Morse code and her first encounter with the strange room on the seventh floor. She felt around the wall covered by the tapestry as she'd done before, but it seemed that, as she'd expected, the trigger was in walking past the place a few times. Soon the door materialized and she burst inside, but the room within was not what she'd expected. Instead of a large room filled with piles upon piles of strange devices, this room was smaller with a padded floor and its walls lined with aids for practicing every way one person could fight another.

"You found that box in here?" Michael asked skeptically as he followed her inside.

"No," Sydney replied, astonished. "It was different, filled with things people had hidden in it."

"Maybe the room changes each time a person comes in," Michael suggested, picking up a fencing foil and twirling it skillfully.

Sydney beckoned him back into the hallway and the doorway faded back into the wall. She started pacing around again until the door reappeared and Michael opened it.

The contents were once again unexpected. Within were thousands of clear glass cups surrounding a large fountain spewing jets of different colored liquid into a pool below.

"That settles it," Michael sighed, "the room changes every time."

"It doesn't have to," Sydney replied.

"How do you know?" Michael asked.

"Because this time while I was walking I was thinking 'I'm thirsty.'"

"So it made a room full of things to drink," Michael breathed. "Then I suppose last time you were thinking about having to fight for the Rambaldi artifacts."

Sydney nodded.

"We'll figure this out, Syd," Michael assured her. "Any of Rambaldi's works that are still here will be in CIA lockdown before Sloane even finds out that they exist."

"You don't know that," Sydney replied, sensing an impending breakdown and turning away from her companion to hide it.

"We will if we keep our heads," Michael said, touching her elbow. "Worrying about what might happen won't help."

"You're right," Sydney admitted.

"So," Michael said, returning to their previous conversation. "These Wizards sure know what they're doing."

"We'll see," Sydney muttered. She closed the door once again, and this time when they reopened it, the room Sydney had been looking for waited inside. "This is where I found the box."

"I can believe that," Michael said, looking around in astonishment as they began their search for more of Rambaldi's works.

It was several hours before they finally conceded defeat. They hadn't expected the search to be easy, after all, not only were there thousands of objects in that room, but they were also reluctant to touch most of them for fear of angering one. Still, they had hoped to at least find something pointing to where the rest of Rambaldi's work could be found.

"Maybe we need to open that box you found before," Michael suggested, wiping dust and sweat off his brow and cursing himself for not thinking to suggest that sooner.

"There's something inside of it," Sydney admitted, "but I can't find a way to open it. There doesn't seem to be a lid and I didn't want to smash it in case there's something written on the inside surface.

"Here," Michael said, taking the box and pulling out a pocket knife. He selected a blade and began cutting off the side of the box with eye on it. Luckily, the wood was neither thick nor especially strong, so within a minute he'd pulled a skeleton key out of the box.

Sydney took it and held it up for study. "I don't suppose there's anything in there that says where this goes?"

"Nothing," Michael confirmed, checking the box for inscriptions, "but there can't be too many options. Wizards tend to lock things with magic."

As they walked back to their rooms, Sydney and Michael discovered that statement to be even truer than they originally thought. Not a single door they passed contained a keyhole.