The Encoded Notebook

Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were slouched in their favorite chairs in front of the common room fire, stupefied with boredom, when Hermione Granger came thumping downstairs from the girls' dormitory. She seemed rather irritated about something.

"What's up, Hermione?" Ron asked, yawning.

Hermione slammed the notebook she was carrying onto a nearby table and said peevishly, "Someone's been in my notebook. Nothing in it makes sense - it's a load of gibberish."

She picked up the notebook, opened it to a page in the middle, and thrust it under Ron's nose.

It read:

IXTVBUME, IXTVBUME, IXTTC VBUMC IXTVBUME,

MPBDI ZE EXGPMIHST JRPBEP,

VIPMIPU VP LP XRF BSF LBRF

XU CXZST VHMI EDBLLC ASPPE,

XZU IPBFE DXZRF FX VHMI QHRRHST

VHMI EXGP HSMPUPEMHST EMZQQ,

QXU SXV MIPC'UP LBUP BSF QZRR XQ BHU,

FPBF QRHPE BSF LHME XQ QRZQQ,

EX MPBDI ZE MIHSTE VXUMI ASXVHST,

LUHST LBDA VIBM VP'OP QXUTXM,

WZEM FX CXZU LPEM, VP'RR FX MIP UPEM,

BSF RPBUS ZSMHR XZU LUBHSE BRR UXM.

"Wonder how that happened?" Ron said disinterestedly, handing the notebook to Harry so he could see the senseless jumble of letters.

"Hey," said Harry, "this looks like a cryptogram."

"A crypto-what?" Ron asked, bewildered.

Hermione snatched the notebook away from Harry. "You're right, Harry!" she said excitedly. "Someone's encoded it!"

"What," Ron demanded loudly, "is a kartowham?"

"Cryptogram," Hermione corrected him. "It's a bit of text that's been encoded by substituting letters with different letters."

"Oh," said Ron, still looking confused.

Hermione sat down at the table and pulled a quill out of her pocket. "This will be fun to figure out!" she said brightly.

Ron goggled at her. "Couldn't you just fix it with magic?"

"Nonsense, Ron, this is loads of fun," Hermione said, her eyes fixed on the mixed-up words.

Harry got up from his chair and looked over Hermione's shoulder.

"Look," he said, pointing, "there's a clue at the bottom."

"Ns are Ss and Xs are Os," Hermione read.

"Okay," Harry said, "so let's substitute S for N and O for X..."

"Snox?" Ron said, looking confused again.

Harry and Hermione sighed.

"Not snox, Ron," Hermione said. "Look, maybe if you come over here and help, you'll see how fun these can be."

"Not bloody likely," Ron muttered, but he got up from his chair and sat down beside Hermione.

* * *

After half an hour of getting nowhere with the coded text, the trio were getting frustrated.

"Can I please just use my wand to do this?" Ron asked crossly.

"No," Hermione said. "That takes all the fun out of it, Ron, as I've been telling you for the last thirty minutes!"

"Here," said Harry, trying to avoid another of Ron and Hermione's famous fights, "let's look at another part of the notebook, see if there's an easier one."

"Oh, all right," Hermione said crossly. She flipped through the pages until she found a shorter paragraph of code.

It read:

JVOJQ, UOQGVEJQ, CBO OGKJ DJJI

MY LDGO GLGROU ODJ URV MY EQJJI,

YMQ ODMUJ LDM OGKJ, CBO IM VM JGQV,

ABUO FGW AMUO IJGQTW RV ODJRQ OBQV.

UM RY WMB UJJK CJVJGOD MBQ YTMMQU,

G OQJGUBQJ ODGO LGU VJZJQ WMBQU,

ODRJY, WMB DGZJ CJJV LGQVJI, CJLGQJ

MY YRVIRVE AMQJ ODGV OQJGUBQJ ODJQJ.

The clue beneath the code revealed that Ts were Ls and Zs were Ss.

"This one looks just as hard," Ron groaned.

After fifteen minutes, the trio had made some progress on the text, and Ron was starting to get into it.

"Are we going to figure out the entire notebook?" he asked excitedly.

Hermione and Harry groaned.

"Let's take a break," Harry suggested. "My eyes are starting to burn from staring at those little letters."

Much to Ron's dismay, Hermione closed the notebook and tucked it into her robes.

"Hey," he said, his eyes on the notebook as it disappeared, "I could work on it for a bit, by myself. Please? Pretty please?"

Hermione sighed, brought the notebook out, and handed it to Ron, who squealed with excitement and took off up the staircase to the boys' dormitories.

"We've created a monster," she said, watching as Ron scampered off, his robes swirling madly.

* * *

About an hour had passed since Ron had disappeared with Hermione's encrypted notebook. Harry was playing Exploding Snap with Fred and George, and Hermione was working on her Arithmancy homework.

Suddenly they heard a triumphant howl coming from the direction of the boys' dormitories. A moment later, Ron came thundering down the stairs, a look of maniacal glee on his face.

"I figured it out!" he shouted, tossing the notebook at Hermione.

"The whole thing?!" Hermione gasped.

Ron's face fell. "No," he said, "I thought you'd get mad if I did the whole thing. Do you want me to do the whole thing? I could, you know, I wouldn't mind..." his face lit up excitedly.

"No, no, that's all right," Hermione said hurriedly. "So what did you figure out?"

"Just the two we were working on," Ron said proudly. "Look, see, right here..."

Harry, Hermione, Fred, and George all crowded around Ron as he showed them the first bit of code and pointed to the space beneath it, where he'd written the translation.

HOGWARTS, HOGWARTS, HOGGY WARTY HOGWARTS,

TEACH US SOMETHING PLEASE,

WHETHER WE BE OLD AND BALD

OR YOUNG WITH SCABBY KNEES,

OUR HEADS COULD DO WITH FILLING

WITH SOME INTERESTING STUFF,

FOR NOW THEY'RE BARE AND FULL OF AIR,

DEAD FLIES AND BITS OF FLUFF,

SO TEACH US THINGS WORTH KNOWING,

BRING BACK WHAT WE'VE FORGOT,

JUST DO YOUR BEST, WE'LL DO THE REST,

AND LEARN UNTIL OUR BRAINS ALL ROT.

"It's the school song!" Ron announced proudly.

"Well done, Ron!" Hermione said, smiling at him.

"That's not all," Ron added, "I did the second one too, see?"

He flipped to the second bit of code.

ENTER, STRANGER, BUT TAKE HEED

OF WHAT AWAITS THE SIN OF GREED,

FOR THOSE WHO TAKE, BUT DO NO EARN,

MUST PAY MOST DEARLY IN THEIR TURN.

SO IF YOU SEEK BENEATH OUR FLOORS,

A TREASURE THAT WAS NEVER YOURS,

THIEF, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, BEWARE

OF FINDING MORE THAN TREASURE THERE.

"That's the rhyme engraved on the doors at Gringott's," Harry said.

"I found another one we could do," Ron suggested, grinning. It's really long, look..."

He flipped to yet another page.

It read:

LBZWQC OAQG XQJVCQ IVK, SRAOQ GBJQEI OAQG XQRAZL,

ESV VJ KG SAOO RQON IVK, SRAHRQDQC IVK SVKOL JAZL,

VZQ BMVZW KG GQDQZ SAOO OQE IVK MVDQ BRQBL,

BZVERQC SAOO ECBZGNVCE ERQ LCAZPQC XBHP AZGEQBL,

ESV BMVZW VKC ZKMXQC RVOL VZOI ZQEEOQ SAZQ,

ERCQQ VJ KG BCQ PAOOQCG, SBAEAZW RALLQZ AZ OAZQ.

HRVVGQ, KZOQGG IVK SAGR EV GEBI RQCQ JVCQDQCMVCQ,

EV RQON IVK AZ IVKC HRVAHQ, SQ WADQ IVK ERQGQ HOKQG JVKC: JACGE, RVSQDQC GOIOI ERQ NVAGVZ ECAQG EV RALQ,

IVK SAOO BOSBIG JAZL GVMQ VZ ZQEEOQ SAZQ'G OQJE GALQ;

GQHVZL, LAJJQCQZE BCQ ERVGQ SRV GEBZL BE QAERQC QZL,

XKE AJ IVK SVKOL MVDQ VZSBCL, ZQAERQC AG IVKC JCAQZL;

ERACL, BG IVK GQQ HOQBCOI, BOO BCQ LAJJQCQZE GATQ,

ZQAERQC LSBCJ ZVC WABZE RVOL LQBER AZ ERQAC AZGALQG;

JVKCER, ERQ GQHVZL OQJE BZL GQHVZL VZ ERQ CAWRE,

BCQ ERQ GBMQ VZHQ IVK EBGEQ ERQM, ERVKWR LAJJQCQZE BE JACGE GAWRE.

"What is all this?" George asked curiously, examining the notebook. "It looks like a load of nonsense."

"It's a kartowham," Ron said knowledgeably.

"Cryptogram," Hermione corrected.

"Whatever," Ron said, waving his hand at her. "It's when you take a bunch of words and substitute the letters in the words with different letters to create a code."

"Why do you take your notes in code, Hermione?" Fred asked.

"I think we've found Hermione's secret to success," George teased.

"I don't take my notes in code," Hermione said shortly. "Someone put a spell on my notebook."

"Well," Fred said, "Let's get to work on it!"

"Hooray!" Ron cheered.

The group settled down to work.

* * *

"There," George said, breathing a sigh of relief. "It's done."

"Why did you copy that down into your notebook, Hermione?" Harry asked, frowning. The cryptogram, once it had been decoded, had brought back some bad memories.

"Well, you know, I just thought it was interesting..." Hermione said timidly.

Fred shook his head. "That was ridiculously difficult," he announced. "Do Muggles actually do those for fun?"

"Yes," Harry and Hermione said defensively.

"Can we do another one? Can we? Just one more?" Ron pleaded, eagerly hopping up and down and looking at Hermione expectantly.

Hermione sighed. "All right, Ron."

Ron grinned and started flipping through the notebook for a likely paragraph.

Harry and Hermione's eyes met over Ron's head.

"Let's hope this is just a phase," Harry said quietly.

Luckily, Ron was engrossed in the cryptograms, and didn't hear a word Harry said.