[
The ensuing vault cursed like the first one,
One that... terrifies the dead ones.
It dwells on the stage of completeness,
Sheltered by the oil of green revenge.
If you want to taste the reward,
accolades you need to appreciate.
But are you ready? It will be anything but easy.
The roads we walk have demons beneath,
Are you ready to face what lies underneath?
]
Quinn hummed in giddiness, staring at the riddle on his left and the third-year Hogwarts Arithmancy book on the right. It was a pure coincidence, but while doing his Arithmancy homework in the Arithmancy, he noted something written on the Arithmancy book.
It was the symbolism of number six, and according to Arithmancy, number six was the number of completeness.
It was also a perfect number, and a perfect number was a rarity. A perfect number was when all the numbers divisors, excluding the number itself, are added, and the sum equals the number itself.
Divisors of six (6) = 1, 2, and 3.
[Sum of divisors = 1 + 2 + 3 = 6]
Ancient Greek Arithmancy master Euclid had discovered the first four perfect numbers, 6, 28, 496, and 8128.
Seeing that Hogwarts didn't have floors in double digits, correlating this with Friar's last riddle, Quinn was sure that stage's meaning here was the floor.
The stage of completeness was the sixth floor of Hogwarts.
"I don't want to scan the whole damn floor just to find the entrance," grumbled Quinn. He slid the riddle paper in front of him and reread it again.
Last time, the riddle had minimum information about the actual vault, and it was more of an introduction to the cursed vaults in general, but this time, the entire puzzle was focused on the second vault.
"Hmm, now, what does oil of green revenge mean?"
Sitting in his office, Quinn tapped on his table, looking around the room, wondering about the wording. The ticking of the clock could be heard clearly in the quiet room.
The tapping of the table turned rhythmic as he tapped out a tune. Slowly all five fingers and palm came into play, performing a tap-tune with his hand beating against the table. His head started to bob with the music.
*Slap!*
The sound of Quinn slapping his forehead with his other hand reverberated in the quiet room.
"... What are you doing, man?" scolded Quinn. He got up from his chair and paced up and down in the room. Trying to think of a solution.
Time ticked away as Quinn tried all kinds of things like doing a handstand, laying down on the floor, sitting lotus style, eyes closed, and anything that might work, but nothing worked.
After an unidentified time, Quinn ended up watching a non-magical painting on his office wall. It didn't move because of charms or did anything magical, but Quinn liked it because of its simplicity and the simplistic color palate.
"Colors are amazing," spoke Quinn, his eyes reflecting the colors in the oil painting.
"Hmm?" Quinn tilted his head and rewound through his thoughts.
"Wait a minute."
He turned his head to the riddle page on his desk and back to the painting on the wall. He repeated it twice before saying,
"Oil... Painting... Oil painting... Portrait... Magical Portrait... Friar, you beautiful fat monk." From the start of the sentence, Quinn's voice rose with every word till he came to the final conclusion, and facts all fell into their place.
Quinn didn't wait for a single second before he put on his Hogwarts robe, and while he did that, his table packed itself, and the page of the riddle flew into his hand. He pocketed the page and spoke to himself as he exited the office.
"Oh yeah, I am feeling it now. There is no point in being nut if you can't have a little fun."
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
Like every floor of the Hogwarts castle, the sixth floor was vast and grand. Full of different corridors and turns, with rooms that hadn't been opened in hundreds of years because the castle was so huge that the occupants never needed all the extra accommodations.
Ghost and portraits were a charming feature of Hogwarts. Its magical nature attracted ghosts to tie themselves to the castle, while people's time in the Hogwarts castle, while they were still alive, was so significant that they liked to send their portraits to the school.
Even to this day, a lot of dead people sent their portraits to Hogwarts.
'Maybe I will do the same when I am all old, sickly, and dead,' thought Quinn as he ran his way to the sixth floor.
He reached the floor and walked to the first portrait he saw.
"What's your name?"
The man in the portrait looked at Quinn before stroking his mustache as he introduced himself,
"Tatum Blakesleye is my name; mustache is my game."
Quinn cut him off and said, "Tate's homestead? No, that isn't anywhere near green revenge."
He looked at the next portrait, "What about you?"
"Lady Ebba Hornee."
Quinn shook his head, "From the fortress, that doesn't match either."
Quinn went one by one to every portrait and asked their names. Trying to relate them to green revenge, but nothing matched.
He stopped after a couple of tens of portraits and grunted, "Okay, this is taking too much time. Need to speed up the process."
He took a deep breath and gathered his magic, and initiated the magic he wanted to use. Quinn opened his mouth and spoke, but not a single sound came out of it.
But to every portrait in his sight, they could hear the same sentence.
"Everybody, tell me your names."
Every single portrait that could see Quinn heard the sentence, and they began moving closer to Quinn by traveling between frames. Some portrait people away from Quinn also came to see what was happening. And, tons of portrait people peered at Quinn from the picture frames on the walls.
Quinn shrug-nodded in amazement at the number, "Alright, a little more than I was expecting, but why not? Go ahead, speak your names together at the same time."
He closed his eyes and focused, diving deep into his magic, channeling it to enable the occlumency he had developed throughout the years. His mind thrummed with activity, and then it came.
Portraits were copies of their subjects while they were painted, which meant they too had personalities. The portraits began speaking their names; some took the lead, some followed after the first group, while others hung at the back of the group before speaking.
A cacophony of names came crashing into Quinn as he sorted through every single name that was thrown at him.
"Bonifatius Tegula." "Eustorgius Nerva." "Rodachan Nolani."
.
.
.
"Amara Nero." "Sionn Henness." "Adela Dreschnerg."
.
.
.
"Hrabanus Lentinus." "Eardwulf Fryee." "Madison Ecclestone."
.
.
.
"Sidonius Dorso." "Roswita Bohng." "Cyneric Harlowe."
.
.
.
"Eustorgius Nerva." " Vindictus Viridian." "Hildebrand Forsbergs."
Quinn visualized every single first and last name in his mind, looking at their meanings from their root language and culture. Every name appeared in front of a mental image of Quinn, and it would immediately turn into its closest meaning before Quinn would swipe his hand, and it would disappear, and the process would be repeated with a new name.
Celtics, Roman, Germanic, and Old English meanings floated in his mind; tens and tens of words flashed in his mind at an occlumency-aided speed that was remarkable for someone Quinn's age.
"Wait, a second!" shouted Quinn. He swiped his hand from left to right, and a pair of words appeared in his mind.
Vindictus Viridian.
'Vindictus is derived from the Latin vindicta, meaning revenge, and the surname Viridian from the Latin Viridis, meaning green.'
'Revenge' and 'Green' floated in Quinn's mind, and he switched the words to get ...
"Green revenge," he whispered and slowly opened his eyes. "... I found it."
He looked at the horde of portrait people and asked, "Who among you is Vindictus Viridian?"
A lady stepped in front of the group, and that confused Quinn, "You are Vindictus Viridian?" He thought it was a guy's name.
The lady shook her head and spoke, "No, Mr. Viridian left. He doesn't like noisy places, so when we spoke all the names, he left because it got too noisy."
Quinn clicked his tongue and asked, "Where can I find him then?"
Another portrait spoke from the herd, "Y-Yeah, we can't tell. Mr. Viridian doesn't like that, says that it just attracts more noise."
Quinn looked at the entire herd of staring eyes and asked, "Anyone else who wants to speak up?"
No one spoke and just shifted on their painted feet. Quinn was surprised by this and thought Vindictus Viridian might be an important man.
"Alright... ladies and gentleman, you were helpful. You may leave and go back to your lives... I mean frames." The portraits weren't alive, so telling them to continue on with their lives was wrong.
"Sorry about that," said Quinn before walking away to a place with no portraits. He leaned against a wall, crossed his arms, and began thinking.
'Let's see. Who is Vindictus Viridian?'
He wanted to check if there was someone with the name in his memory. A faraway look appeared in his eyes as Quinn dived into his mindscape and started looking for anything that would mention Vindictus Viridian.
After a minute or two, Quinn finally found a mention of the name in his memory and was surprised to see that Quinn did know a lot about Vindictus Viridian.
"Professor Vindictus Viridian, potioneer, author, and Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the early eighteenth century. Now, I see why the portraits weren't willing to speak about him."
During his lifetime, he published a famous book on minor dark charms known as Curses and Counter-Curses: Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges.
A book that was still extremely famous among students in Hogwarts and could be found with a large part of the student population. In other words, he was still a best-selling author centuries after his death.
Focus returned to Quinn's eyes as he moved away from the wall and exhaled, "He will be on the sixth floor. It won't be difficult to find him."
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
"Damn, it was hard to find you!" exclaimed Quinn as he stared at the portrait of Vindictus Viridian. He had to look at every portrait frame, and through extraordinary events, Vindictus Viridian's portrait frame was the last one he found.
Vindictus Viridian looked up from a book he was reading and stared at Quinn, "You are the boy who was asking for names. Why have you come to find me, child?"
Quinn observed the portrait frame, which covered the whole door to a room, and said, "I want to get in there."
The portrait of Vindictus Viridian was guarding the room to the Room of Rewards, a secret room at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that noted students' various achievements. It was different from the Trophy room on the third floor. Quinn didn't know how it was different, but he didn't care about that.
'Damn, Friar really thought this through, didn't he? If I just thought about the next part of the riddle. I wouldn't have spent all that time searching for this,' thought Quinn.
The next part of the riddle was about rewards and accolades. If Quinn figured that out, there was a chance he might not have to spend so much time wandering around.
"No, you can't. Students aren't allowed to go inside," said the portrait of the ex-headmaster.
"Why?"
"Because I say so," said Vindictus while going back to reading his book.
Quinn squinted his eyes before asking, "Is it because there is a rule against entering the room, or is it just because you just don't want to open the door?"
"The latter," answered Vindictus, not looking at Quinn and reading his book.
"Alright, if this is how you want to play." Quinn turned away from the portrait and walked to a place where a Vindictus couldn't see him and took out Recon.
"Let's see if you are so stuck up after this." He looked at the map and found the thing that would help him show up Vindictus.
He closed Recon and walked back to the portrait.
Portrait-Vindictus sighed as he looked at Quinn, "Boy, I will repeat, you aren't getting -."
"Summa Praemium."
Portrait-Vindictus stilled in his chair and turned to face Quinn, "What did you say?"
"Summa Praemium. Now, open up. Let me through. Reveal the treasure... Get out of my way, grandpa," said Quinn, smirking his face off. He had read the password for Room of Rewards from Recon and now was rubbing it in Vindictus' face.
Portrait-Vindictus didn't say a word as the door to the Room of Rewards opened up, but he did stare at Quinn the whole time.
Quinn stared back at the ex-headmaster as he strutted his way into the Room of Reward.
The inside of Room of Rewards wasn't filled with trophies or awards. But with shelves and shelves of black leather binders, with names written in gold on the spines of the binders.
He didn't touch anything in this room because of paranoia and just took slow steps to explore the room. He didn't want to make any unwarranted moves in here. Quinn had no plan to have a repeat of the last year.
After an infuriating amount of time, Quinn finally concluded that he could walk normally in this room without triggering any deadly trap.
"Phew... that was stressful," sighed Quinn. He finally relaxed his tense body and just looked at the room. It wasn't anything special, just shelves of black leather binders and nothing else.
The first thing he did was cast tons of detections charms on one of the black binders to check if they were safe to pick up, and the result was that there was nothing on the binders other than preservation charms.
Quinn picked up the binder and opened it to read it. There were tons of parchments inside the binder that told a story about a student named Paige Winthorpe. She was a student around three hundred years ago, and in her time as a Hogwarts student, she was made a prefect in her fifth year and continued her way to become a Head Girl in her seventh year. She was a top scorer in her exams in her time, and it showed in the report cards attached in the binder. Paige Winthorpe wasn't only good at academics; she excelled at sports and part of the Slytherin Quidditch team from her fourth to the sixth year. In short, Paige Winthorpe of Slytherin was an exemplary student.
Quinn picked up another binder and saw similar facts about another student and another one and one more. He went through five of these binders, and every single one of them was some kind of valedictorian or similar, someone who shined in Hogwarts in a way or another.
"Do I have to read all of these binders?" asked Quinn as he remembered about the line in the riddle.
[If you want to taste the reward,
accolades you need to appreciate.]
It made Quinn think he needed to 'appreciate' the accolades that were written in the binders. They showed the student career of the brightest students of Hogwarts, and these binders showed their accolades.
Quinn looked at the hundreds and maybe thousands of binders and dreaded going through this much material. He enjoyed reading, but only if it added to his knowledge or if he enjoyed reading something. And, he had just read those five binders and Quinn was sure that it would get boring real quick.
"I-I am going to through the room once again. Have to check it to find if I missed something," said Quinn, hoping that he missed something. He didn't want to read everything in this room.
.
- (Scene Break) -
.
October arrived, spreading a damp chill over the grounds and into the castle. A sudden spate of colds among the staff and students kept Madam Pomfrey, the matron, busy, her Pepper-up Potion worked instantly, though it left the drinker smoking at the ears for several hours afterward.
Quinn, too, had spent an amount of time in the Hospital Wing, brewing Pepper-up potions for the season-changing cold, helping the matron with the brewing load. In return, she answered every healing-related question he had.
A profitable exchange for both.
On the vault of side things, Quinn had little luck finding anything in the room. So, he had no choice but to read the binders. He would spend a lot of time in the Room of Rewards reading about many students.
It turned out that the Room of Rewards was reserved for the very best of the students of Hogwarts, and every year, the professors would sit and have a meeting to decide who would be admitted into the Room of Rewards.
Those binders held every remarkable detail about the students and the teachers' remarks about the student. Stunning recommendation letters and proof of character from faculty if the students needed them.
Quinn was sure that if any students had these, they wouldn't need a resume for the start of their career. Just pick one of these binders and walk into a place of hiring, and they would seriously give you a look over.
But, despite that, Quinn still didn't enjoy reading them, but he didn't have a choice. He just read the black binders and practiced magic while reading them.
Portrait-Vindictus tried to change passwords, but his efforts were for nothing as with Recon, no room in Hogwarts was blocked to Quinn. Of course, except the Chamber of Secrets that opened up with Parseltongue.
Speaking of Chamber of Secrets, while Quinn was immersed in reading the black binders, October passed, and Halloween arrived.
And, Halloween at Hogwarts with Potter's fate was always eventful.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn West - MC - Solving Riddles, reading tons, brewing medicine.
Portrait-Vindictus - Portrait of Ex-headmaster - Likes quiet.
Poppy Pomfrey - Matron - October is her peak season.
-*-*-*-*-*-
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