The Raven's Claw

Chapter 5

It had been dark and gloomy in the Library. Beneath the floor, the trio could barely see each other.

"Lumos," said Alastair, with Tess and Ash echoing him. They looked around in the wand-light. The room they were in appeared to be quite large; they could only see the walls directly behind them and the floor vanishing off into the darkness.

"This place is definitely magical," said Ash. "We should be standing in the third floor classrooms right now."

Behind them, the Library floor stones floated back up into the ceiling, though it hardly changed the amount of light in the room.

"I wonder if - " began Alastair.

"Shhh!" hissed Ash, cutting his friend off. They were quiet for a few seconds. It was utterly silent in the room. It hardly felt as though they were still in the school.

"What are you listening for?" asked Alastair, finally.

Ash had his head cocked to one side, listening. "Giant, clanking footsteps," he said.

"There aren't any," replied Alastair.

"I know," said Ash, sounding relieved.

"I hope this is it and not just another clue to another secret room," said Tess

"So do I," said Alastair. "Adventures are for Gryffindors. I can't take the nerves."

"Well, let's get it over with, then," said Ash, striding boldly ahead, his wand stretched out in front of him. He stopped, suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Alastair, stopping behind Ash

"I'm stuck," replied Ash.

"Stuck on what?"

"I don't know. Help me."

Alastair edged forward, his wand aimed low. He could see that Ash wasn't stuck on anything; he was just standing there.

"That isn't funny," he said, coming alongside. Then he realized that he couldn't move either. His arms and head were free, the rest of him just wouldn't respond.

"Come on you guys," said Tess on the far side of Ash. "Oh, I'm stuck."

"Great," said Ash. "That's all three of us blundered into the same trap."

Beneath them, the stone each student was standing on began to glow dully. Ash started to struggle, though only his head and arms moved, his lit wand flailing through the air randomly, like a drunken fairy.

Ahead of them, suspended in the air appeared a scroll. It unrolled, and they could see it was blank. On the floor below this, two more stones began to glow. Lying on the first was a quill; on the second was a wand.

The three students waited, but nothing else happened.

"Er... The quill writes on the paper?" suggested Alastair.

"Oh, okay," replied Ash, "I'll just go and get it then shall I? Hang on a moment."

"Don't be snide, Ashton," said Tess. "We use magic, it seems."

"Oh," groaned Ash. "Rowena Ravenclaw has set us a thousand year old exam. Do you think we're going to be stuck here till we starve if we fail?"

"I don't see any student-sized skeletons around here, Ashton. But by all means, keep complaining. Perhaps that would help us out of this quicker. Wingardium Leviosa." She flicked her wand and the quill lifted off the floor and up to the parchment. All three objects vanished. In the air appeared the image of a horse trotting. Below it was the image of a person, and, in the other, a winged horse. The image of the horse in the air stopped trotting, and shook its head.

"You have to admit, this is pretty strange," remarked Ash.

"It's like watching a Muggle film projector," said Tess.

"A Muggle what?" asked Alastair. Neither he nor Ash had taken Muggle Studies classes.

"Oh, never mind," said Tess. "It's not important."

"I think it's the person," said Alastair. "In the first one the quill was used on the scroll; in this one the person rides on the horse."

"Okay," said Tess. "Wingardium Leviosa." Nothing happened. "It won't move."

"Maybe someone else needs to do it this time," suggested Ash.

"Well come on then," said Tess. Ash managed to levitate the image of the person up to the horse and all three vanished, this time replaced by a book above a lone wizard, who was carrying a wand, and a group of wizards and witches, who all seemed to be having a conversation.

"Okay," said Ash, getting into the swing of the questions. "It's probably the group right? To share the knowledge between themselves, rather than just keeping it for himself, like this selfish little guy here." He pointed to the lone wizard. Alastair wasn't sure if he imagined it, but the wizard seemed to be rather affronted by that comment.

They proceeded through the questions in this manner, each answering in turn by moving the correct object. Though the questions became more difficult as they came along, between the three of them they were able to answer all correctly. By the time the twentieth question appeared, they were in high spirits. This time there was a Muggle, in thousand-year-old clothing, above a wizard and an apple.

"Oh, this one's easy!" said Ash. "The wizard rides the Muggle." Alastair and Tess laughed.

"No, the wizard takes the apple and hides from the Muggle, who doesn't know about wizards or magic," said Alastair.

"Why would the wizard take the apple?" asked Tess.

"He's hungry," replied Alastair. The wizard, in front of them actually turned around to look at the apple.

"See!" said Alastair.

"Okay, so he's hungry," said Tess. "But the apple is the correct answer, because the Muggle really shouldn't know about wizards or magic."

It was Ash's turn to complete the answer. "Sorry old chap, you'll have to go without," he said to the wizard as he lifted the apple up to the Muggle. As it got there, the three images vanished. The two glowing stones exploded into ceiling-high blue flames. The three students leapt backwards.

"Was that going to happen to us if we got one wrong?" asked Ash, looking rather sickly. The stones that they had been trapped on had been glowing in exactly the same manner. None of them moved, staring at the flames, which lit the entire room in a spooky way.

"Look!" said Tess, grabbing Alastair's arm with one hand and pointing with the other. Beyond the flames they could now see there was a raised platform, on which was a heavy-looking book, the cover of which was glittering in the blue light. She turned to Alastair, and their eyes met. "This is it!" she whispered. Alastair nodded.

"Well, come on, then," said Ash, standing behind them. He had recovered from his shock.

They headed toward the platform, Alastair and Tess walked between the two huge flames. Ash decided to exercise discretion and went around.

They stopped at the platform and stared. Lying on the cover of the book was a necklace with a huge sapphire and a heavy gold chain.

"Wow," said Tess, reaching out slowly to touch the necklace. As her fingers touched the gem, she gasped, her eyes going wide.

"What is it?" asked Alastair.

"It's..." began Tess. "It's amazing. I know..." She trailed off.

Alastair picked up the necklace, and was unable to stop from gasping, himself. It was like a bright flash inside his head, and then he knew. The book was Rowena Ravenclaw's. Her grandmother had given the necklace to her, so many years ago. She had enchanted the necklace to hold everything that was in the book, and to pass it to whoever touched it. The diary itself was charmed to never decay or fall apart. It contained her entire lifetime of knowledge.

"What is it?" demanded Ash. Alastair handed the necklace to him, which Ash promptly dropped. His eyes had gone wide, like Tess' had, his hands moved to his face. Alastair picked the necklace up off the floor and replaced it on the book. Tess ran her finger over the gemstone.

In the final entry in the diary, Rowena Ravenclaw praised whoever had found the book, saying that even among the Ravenclaws, only the cleverest, most intelligent and most observant would get to it. They knew now that they were to leave the book and the necklace behind for anyone else who managed to find it. She intended the knowledge to be shared, but only to those who proved themselves worthy by finding it.

Alastair wasn't sure how long the three of them stood there, trying to absorb all the new information in their heads. He knew of her life, her teachings, her philosophies, the spells she knew. Alastair's mind was awash with this sudden rush of information.

"Wow," he whispered.

When they finally left, they did so in a daze. None of them spoke, feeling overwhelmed. Alastair looked back across the room to the book, sitting so innocuously on its podium. The day felt surreal to him now. As they reached the corner of the room they had entered through, behind them the blue flames flickered and died. In front of them, the stones lowered themselves from the ceiling as they watched.

Back up in the library, with the floor returned to normal, and the secret room once again hidden from the school, the three students stood around a moment, looking at each other.

"Well, what do we do now?" Ash asked.