9. Hidden Things and Truthful Things

It took a while for Jo to find. He only remembered that it was somewhere in the seventh floor. This being a castle, the seventh floor was fairly large, so Jo skipped dinner and spent the few hours between his last class and curfew to pace through its halls, walking to and fro in circles, all the while thinking that he desperately needed a room to appear.

Eventually, it did appear. A door slowly slid into existence, bricks sliding out of the way to form a frame. Sighing, both tired and relieved, Jo turned the knob and opened the door.

It was a blank, empty room, barely larger than a cupboard. He'd only asked for a room, whatever that meant. It both made sense and made him begrudgingly appreciate the castle's sense of humor. Jo clicked his tongue, closed the door, stepped back and, with a room full of hidden things in his head, paced three times.

The door expanded, its knob growing into a handle. This time, Jo pulled the door open and found himself exactly where he wanted to be.

He stepped inside, the door closing behind him. Piles upon piles of random trash lay before him like hills. It felt like being in a landfill shoved into a department store, some of the stuff reaching as far as the ceiling even as the headspace blew past any other room Jo had ever been in. Fortunately, the smell was less sewer garbage and more akin to a dusty old bookstore.

"Alrighty," Jo muttered, looking around and immediately giving up on finding anything specific. He raised his wand. "Accio Ravenclaw's diadem."

Nothing.

"Accio horcrux."

Nope.

"Accio… Voldemort's murder crown?"

He didn't think it would work to begin with, but it was worth a try, and it served to make him chuckle a bit. It looked like he'd have to do things the hard way.

Jo started walking. He weaved between coat hangers and bookcases. At times he crouched under bridges formed out of stacked desks. Crumpled clothes covered everything. He saw a row of vials filled with strange green liquid which churned without provocation. He saw a net of vines growing—still growing—out of a relatively small pot. Once, he saw an honest to goodness magic lamp, but when he rubbed it only a small puff of smoke spewed out, which made him think that whatever had been inside it was long gone.

After some twenty minutes, Jo found a cauldron full of galleons. He hummed, then found a sturdy-looking cupboard nearby. After some thought, he summoned a spell book, flipped through it, tossed it aside, summoned another, tossed it aside, summoned another, and finally a rather powerful strengthening charm. He applied it to the cupboard, walked into it, closed the door, and, raising his wand, summoned all the money.

And I do mean all the money.

What followed was several minutes of thumping and clanking, like rainfall against a windowpane. When the cupboard stopped shaking, Jo pushed the door open, huffing in effort, until he finally got enough room to squeeze out. He was met with a veritable sea of gold, silver, and copper, a truly Scroogeian image which made him wish diving into solid piles of metal could be as fun as it looked in the movies. There were British pounds and dollar bills and euros and pesos and what he thought were even Vietnamese dongs, but mostly he found an untold number of galleons and sickles and knuts, or in economic terms, several hundred pounds of precious metal. Needless to say, he would not be trading those in to the goblins. That meant finding a muggle buyer, but he could figure that out later.

Jo summoned a wallet, then another spell book which told him the incantation for the extension charm, and finally begun to spill all the money into the endless void he'd made for himself. It was only halfway through this effort, using both arms to slide the coins in waves, when Jo remembered that what he was doing was technically illegal. Lost or not, it didn't really belong to him, did it?

He decided to just never tell anyone.

When there was no money left, he stuck the wallet in his pocket at patted it in satisfaction. He didn't know how much that was, would have to count it later, but it had been a lot. I can tell you now that this all added up to around 154 million dollars worth of currency.

The Room of Requirement is ridiculous. Think about how much random shit is in there. Why would someone willingly drag a cupboard of all things up to the seventh floor just to stick it somewhere no one will ever find it? If you ask me, that room just steals from everywhere else in the castle. It's the only way it makes any sense. Things get lost around the castle and then end up there, where they can serve as a nice bit of background detail for the movies.

Think about how much money you lose in your own house. Now expand that to cover a centuries-old castle with a constantly rotating population of hundreds of children, many of which are themselves part of Wizarding aristocracy already. Jo was fortunate that Wizard culture was so set in its ways, not having followed the muggle world in switching to fiat currency. Some coin designs and markings varied through the generations, but gold was gold, and gold never goes out of print.

So Jo carried on, now richer than he'd ever been in either of his lives.

In all honesty, he did briefly consider running off with it. Go directly to Gringotts, figure out how to convert all the muggle money into Wizarding money, melt it all down, sell it to someone on the outside, and peace out into an eternal vacation, Howarts and all its residents be damned. During this small interval of time, as his commitment to repairing all the consequences of his actions wavered, Jo learned something truly dark about himself: he'd do it, and it didn't seem a very difficult decision at all. He was all set to run right then and there. At least he was, until he placed that choice within its greater context.

Should Voldemort win out in the end, he'd likely go on to terrorize the rest of the world in some way or another. Or at least he'd try to, and God knew how that would go. Jo would have to read up on Wizarding geopolitics; how powerful was Voldemort truly, outside of Britain?

I'd rather not find out, Jo thought, and that bit of fear made the decision for him. Not the lives of all those he'd inadvertently compromised—this he could now admit to himself, at the very least—and not the few relationships he'd managed to string together, small as they were. Not even his sense of responsibility toward a favorite story form childhood was strong enough to impede his preemptive escape. It was all due to his own long-term self-interest. Endless vacation didn't sound very fun if along with it came a possible magic fascist rising to power.

Not exactly something he'd have liked to learn about himself, but there it was. Oh well. At this point, Jo felt so useless he could only be grateful that the internal revelation hadn't been any worse. Not even his newfound wealth could blunt the spiral of depressive thoughts which carried him down with each step. Much of it had to do with his recent mistakes, but some also had to do with his current fruitless search. Where the hell was that diadem?

There was simply too much stuff. Jo stopped, looking about him, the heat of frustration coloring his face and inflaming his chest. It would take weeks to sort through it all, perhaps even months. If only the place wasn't so damn big. If only it didn't have all this useless—

Wait a minute.

Horcruxes couldn't be destroyed, right? Not by any normal means. As for the rest of the clutter… Well, where were those spell books again?

After some backtracking, Jo found them where he'd left them, right along with the cupboard. He'd need that again too, of course, though a bit more secure for what he was planning. A quick read through the books gave him a few more spells he'd need—a fireproofing spell, a blast-resistance spell, several shield charms… On second thought, he'd better take these books in with him.

Facing the cupboard, he waved his wand at it, layering it with spells. It took a few minutes just to apply them all, and it took another few minutes for him to test them. Jo tried his best to disintegrate the wooden thing, firing reducto after bombarda after sectumsempra at it until he was satisfied, finding on its aged surface not so much as a scratch from his efforts. He piled the books inside, then wavered, then cast the extension charm on it, summoned more books, piled them on, summoned a few more, piled those on. By the end of it he had his own sizeable collection, and it still wasn't enough to satisfy him, but Jo figured he could keep stacking them up forever.

He had to force himself inside the cupboard, all the while fighting back the nagging in his head which told him that he was merely adding onto an ever-expanding list of rash decisions. What else could be hidden in there, among the rubble of such storied history? What treasures, what memories? The room was a monument onto itself, a collection of time, holding entire libraries of secrets in its mounds and heaps of knickknacks.

For all Jo knew, this room truly did go all the way back to Hogwarts' founding, and it alone could account for all the castle's long legacy in its purest, most beautifully detached form. So many had walked those hollowed halls; students and their teachers, masters of art and their apprentices, future world leaders, acclaimed geniuses and unacknowledged researchers, authoritarian dictators and idealistic rebels, joyful pranksters and their studious counterparts, monster slayers, musicians, quidditch champions in the infancy of their careers… so much material and spiritual runoff, all hidden from sight and stashed here, in a room most would never discover, but one which in its own way expressed the human condition as the work of human hands never could. Piles upon piles of random trash.

…

Fuck it.

Jo pointed his wand out from the cupboard and said one simple word.

"Incendio."

With that, he threw himself back and closed the door.

The next morning, Jo went straight to McGonagall's office once again, this time with Ravenclaw's diadem in tow. He'd wanted to do so right after finding it the day before, but by then curfew had already passed, and he had to sneak into the dorms before getting found out by Filch or the guy's creepy cat. He wasn't looking to get any more detention.

On his way there, he turned a corner and stumbled upon the one person he'd been going out of his way to avoid since coming to Hogwarts. Nearly tripping, Jo saw Harry Potter walking in his direction, face drawn up into a smile.

The boy was small, though not dangerously so. Jo could see he was at least half a head shorter than himself, even if his unruly hair covered a few more centimeters. Without his even meaning to, Jo looked directly at Harry's scar, and found the iconic lightning mark as a thin line of discolored skin.

"Oh," Harry said, and Jo's eyes went down to the boy's round glasses. "You're… that person who tried to prank Professor Quirrell, right?"

Internally, Jo cursed himself. The boy likely wouldn't have sent him more than a passing hello if he'd only kept walking, but his sudden stop had drawn a bit more attention. To his mounting alarm, Harry then put a hand on the scar, lips curling in a mild wince.

The diadem. Jo's hand tightened around the bag he'd stuck it into. It was a small bag, as he'd expanded it and sent the diadem inside in an attempt to prevent this very reaction from this very person. It went without saying that a nearby horcrux might produce such a reaction in Harry, and unfortunately for them both it seemed as if the boy could still pick up on the vile magic even when it was trapped within what was effectively another dimension. As casually as he could, Jo stuck the bag in his pocket, and though he couldn't be sure that it helped any, Harry lowered the hand.

"That's me, alright," Jo said. "I was actually going to McGonagall's office right now to… talk about it."

At this, Harry's face turned pitying, and Jo almost breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's too bad," Harry said. "Do you know where it is? I actually just came from there."

"I've been there already, but thanks." Though he knew he probably shouldn't spend any more time there, Jo couldn't help a brief bout of curiosity. "… What did she need you for, anyway? Get in trouble too?"

Harry shook his head, and his smile returned. "No, it's… Believe it or not, she wants me to join the Gryffindor quidditch team."

"Really?" Jo's confusion came for obvious reason. As far as he knew, Draco and Neville had both been sent to Hufflepuff—he'd seen them in his own shared broom flying class. With Harry still in Gryffindor and paired with the Slytherins, the series of events which led to his joining the quidditch team a year earlier than everyone else couldn't have happened.

Harry mistook the cause of this puzzlement. "Isn't it brilliant? I guess she must've been watching our class from her office."

"It's brilliant, alright…"

Had he mentioned Harry's prodigious flying skills to McGonagall when he'd first told her of his future knowledge? Maybe in passing, but even if he had he found it difficult to believe that she'd believed him without evidence, at least not enough to pull a move like this.

"What did you do?" Jo asked. "You must've really impressed her."

Harry shrugged. "I guess I flew better than the others." He bowed his head, shoulders scrunched up in sudden embarrassment. "Um… not that I'm better than the actual players, at least I don't think so. Professor McGonagall just told me that I was a natural on the broom."

Jo looked at him. Harry seemed to find it rather uncomfortable, but Jo kept looking, too busy with his thoughts to pay the boy any mind.

Harry was a natural on the broom. Was it possible that McGonagall merely looked outside her window, perhaps on a whim, perhaps remembering something he'd said, and the boy had been just that impressive regardless of the circumstances? Either way, it had resulted in a complete invalidation of Jo's intrusion into their world, at least in this one instance.

Jo couldn't trust the result of his own actions. Even now, he hardly knew what might happen once he put the horcrux in his pocket right on McGonagall's desk as he planned to. But perhaps he didn't need to predict everything. He'd changed much already, but it seemed there were some things which would always stay the same. It seemed to be in the boy's blood, or perhaps it was the result of a terrible eyesight and worse glasses suddenly fixed by Hermione's reparo on the train. Either way, Harry would always be good with a broom, and it seemed it had nothing to do with Jo at all.

"… Well, have a good day, then…"

"Sorry, sorry," Jo said, holding up a hand. "I got lost in thought… You're Harry Potter, right?"

Once again, Harry covered his scar, though now it was for an entirely different reason. "… Yeah, I am," he said, and his shoulders scrunched even more.

"I couldn't help but notice," Jo said. He held out his hand. "My name is Joseph, but just call me Jo."

Hesitating, Harry eventually took the offered hand, and Jo shook it firmly. "Nice to meet you."

"You too. Hey, if you don't mind me asking…" Jo rubbed his chin, thinking of how to word it. "I… Well, you're famous, right? I bet it's a pain to have so many people expecting so much of you. If you don't mind me asking, how do you deal with it?"

Harry looked away, hands fidgeting, and Jo figured he'd pushed it a bit.

"Sorry," he said, "nevermind. I was just curious."

"No, it's fine," Harry said. "To be honest, I didn't really know I was famous or anything until a little while ago." His back straightening a bit, the boy grabbed at the sleeves of his robe, brow dipped into a frown. "I guess… I just try not to think about it. I'm just trying to be normal and… well, all I can do is the best I can."

Jo considered this. "You're right," he said, and all at once felt a great weight fall from his shoulders. "You're exactly right. Thank you, Harry."

"Oh, uh… you're welcome?"

"I'd better get going, then," Jo said, smiling. He passed by Harry, patting the boy's shoulder on his way. "Good luck on the quidditch team."

"Ah, nice to meet you too."

Jo walked off toward McGonagall's office, feeling more refreshed than he had in days. No, he hadn't handled his present situation perfectly. In the future, he might make many more mistakes—would be sure to, actually. But right now, he had a horcrux in his pocket and a professor to show it to. Whatever came of that, he'd accept the consequences. In the end, that's all he could do.

From Jo's notes on Solomon's The Other World:

… Whether his allusion to abrahamic mythology is mere metaphor or a sincere expression of faith, either possibility has the same effect: Solomon creates a clear dichotomy between acts of magic and acts of mundanity, splitting them into two essentially incompatible realms. To cast a spell isn't a function of the mundane world, but one alien to it, made possible only through the work of a medium, or in his words, a binder of demons.

With that idea at its core, Solomon's following conclusions seem perfectly natural. The sorcerer becomes a separate entity in himself, rising above his fellow man as the only one capable of this communion between worlds and, in effect, bringing heaven down to earth. The 'other world', then, defines not only the forces of magic but also the lives of those with access to it, special people who stand apart from the supposed rabble. Any bias Solomon might hold as one of these special people, not to mention what bias he might hold as a king with subjects likely too afraid to deem his thoughts blasphemous, is left entirely unspoken. It's impossible to tell if this is due to ignorance or a deliberate obfuscation is left equally uncertain.

It's interesting how, thousands of years later, these very ideas have disseminated into modern Wizarding culture in such an apparent list of customs. Pure blood ideology could be considered the logical conclusion to the seed that Solomon planted, and even the Statute of Secrecy, foundational as it is to the security of Wizarding society, could be seen as the ultimate crystallization of these ideas. If an 'other world' was simply a metaphor in Solomon's time, it certainly isn't anymore…

AN: No, the text above is not based on a real book.

I've started some other projects here if anyone is interested. They're on my author page. Thank you all for reading.