Chapter 124: Magical Travel Notes (Part 2)
George added,
"Then I noticed that the parchment was a little thicker than the others."
Phineas suddenly remembered the scene and asked, uncertainly,
"So... you got the whole book wet just to test that idea?"
Fred nodded,
"To test the idea—wasn't that how we found the hidden layer?"
Phineas was momentarily speechless.
"You soaked the entire book... so of course none of the other pages had hidden compartments! You took the whole thing apart before you even realised what you'd done?"
Lee Jordan scratched his head with a grin.
"I didn't think that far ahead, really. Not until it was already taken apart."
Phineas sighed and turned back to the parchment in his hands. Strangely, the ink hadn't blurred from the water damage. He frowned.
He doubted the person who made the book would have enchanted it just to keep it waterproof. He had inspected the book carefully before and never noticed any such detail.
That meant the enchantment wasn't about the content of the words—but the words themselves.
Still, they were written in ordinary language. Not runes, not magical script, not anything metaphorical or coded. It was just a plain travel journal. Of course, if the author had enchanted the book himself, perhaps it made sense—his own memories, his own protection. But that still didn't explain the presence of a treasure map claiming to lead to Godric Gryffindor's treasure.
The book was written around the time Gryffindor had just been born. Its author couldn't possibly have known about any such treasure.
Besides, the book itself resisted magical effects. That made it unlikely that the map had been hidden there after the fact.
That meant the book's creator and the person who hid the treasure map had to be the same.
Phineas shared his reasoning with the others.
The three of them exchanged looks. What they thought was just a random excuse for a fun adventure had turned into something far more serious.
"So you're saying this treasure map might be hiding something even deeper?" Lee Jordan asked.
Phineas nodded.
"Exactly. I suspect what's on the map might not be what it seems."
He held up the treasure map, pointed his wand, and muttered,
"Reveal your secret."
Nothing happened. The map remained unchanged.
Phineas frowned. Had he overthought everything? Or was the enchantment something far simpler, or maybe something so old that time had faded it?
He flipped the parchment over again. Traces of magic were faint but undeniably there.
"Any luck?" George asked.
Fred and George were beginning to realise—if this was really a clue to Gryffindor's treasure, it was far more than a joke.
Phineas shook his head.
"There's enchantment, but I can't tell what kind yet. It's definitely not ordinary. And... I think it really could be linked to Gryffindor."
Phineas had been seeking clues about Gryffindor's legacy for some time now. This might finally be it.
Lee Jordan offered,
"Why don't we leave the map with you, and we'll go see if we can find anything else in the library?"
Phineas waved the suggestion off quickly.
"No, absolutely not. With the way you three rifle through books, I'll lose half my library. Just give me time to figure out what spell is protecting this thing."
He stood up and began searching the bookshelves, remembering a volume on paper enchantments.
The others stood as well, about to head off, but at that moment, Puff appeared with snacks and juice.
"Master instructed to prepare refreshments for the young masters."
"Guess that means Phineas wants us to stay and help," George said, half-smiling.
Fred nodded and walked over to help Phineas comb through the shelves. George and Lee Jordan stayed seated and helped themselves to the snacks, intending to join in after a quick bite.
Time passed with little progress. Fred and George began casting various detection spells on the map using references from the books, while Lee Jordan flipped pages in a volume on magical inks. Phineas turned his attention to the scattered pages from earlier. Perhaps the same enchantment was used on both the map and the pages.
"Found it! Found it!"
George's shout broke the silence.
Everyone turned. Fred beamed,
"We changed the target of the spell. Instead of casting on the whole map, we focused on the words 'Gryffindor's Treasure'—and the map changed!"
Phineas grabbed the parchment and examined it. The simple map had vanished, replaced by ancient magical script glowing faintly. In the top-right corner was a square box containing a small rotating pointer.
When Phineas tilted the map, the pointer moved with it.
"It's pointing to the treasure's location... but what does the writing mean?" Lee Jordan asked.
Phineas squinted at it,
"I had a quick look—it's fragmented. But it looks like... a chart."
At that moment, his eyes widened. He darted back to the scattered pages. In the corners and above the page numbers were tiny symbols—pieces of something bigger.
He quickly aligned four pages—and there it was: an ancient magical code forming in the corners when the pages were combined.