‘Ruby?’ Gideon mouthed silently. He had to clear his throat to ask, ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Why are her eyes misted over like that?’ Talia added.

‘We’re not certain, but she may have been cursed. She’s breathing normally but is unresponsive. Her cloudy eyes are the only other thing symptomatic of a problem. We hoped you two might have some answers,’ Professor Dandridge answered.

‘Is it possible that she is somehow involved with the fires? Perhaps someone coerced her?’ Madam Longbottom asked.

‘No!’ Gideon asserted strongly. ‘Ruby has nothing to do with the fires!’

‘Then, do you have any idea what she may have been doing out of bed in the middle of the night?’ Professor Long questioned.

Gideon and Talia both shook their heads. Why would Ruby have done that?

‘Will she be alright?’ Talia asked.

‘Ruby will be transferred to St Mungo’s soon. I’m meeting her parents there today and I’ll be visiting regularly to check on her treatment,’ Professor Dandridge explained. ‘I assure you that she will get the best care possible.

‘However, any information you can offer will be useful. On the wall of the Astronomy Tower near where she was discovered, we found a message. I would like you both to see it and tell me whether it means anything to you.’

Gideon and Talia agreed, then with a last look at Ruby, the group were led from the room by the headmistress. They soon reached the foot of the Astronomy Tower and began to climb the winding stairs. About halfway up, they came to a halt and Professor Dandridge indicated to the message on the wall.

‘As you can see, Ruby wrote the message with her wand. It appears it was left in a rush. Does it mean anything to either of you?’

Gideon knew Ruby’s handwriting to be extremely neat, but the message was untidy and had been written at an angle. He imagined that she must have written the message in a panic. It read, “P 4 6 4 G 7”.

Talia looked as confused as Gideon. He racked his brains, but the message was nonsensical. They had never discussed codes of any sort unless you counted runes. These letters and numbers could hardly be mistaken for runes, though.

‘I don’t know what it means,’ Gideon begrudgingly admitted. He screwed up his fists in frustration. Ruby had left a final, desperate message, and he had absolutely no clue what it meant. What kind of friend was he?

Talia looked equally frustrated as she wiped a make-up smudged tear from her eye. ‘I don’t know either,’ she finally conceded.

‘I would like you both to think about the message and Miss Williams’s recent actions. If anything comes to mind, please inform Professor Voronov or Professor Long. You can see her again before she’s moved, then I would like you to take the rest of the day off.’

‘I’m sure you understand that for security reasons, we have not told the rest of the student body that there was another fire. Miss Williams’ absence will be explained due to illness. Her parents will be informed of the truth, of course, but it’s possible the culprit will reveal themselves accidentally if they mention knowledge of the Astronomy Tower fire or her presence there.’

Gideon and Talia nodded in understanding. They got to see Ruby again, along with her siblings. Gideon was apprehensive about facing them. He worried that they would blame him for her condition.

‘You’re Ruby’s mates?’ asked Esmeralda, the tallest among them in an accusatory sort of way.

‘This is Natalia Dinescu,’ Saphira, the next tallest told her elder sister. ‘She’s in our house.’

‘And this,’ Jade began.

‘Is Gideon Drake,’ Jasper finished. ‘He’s in our house.’

Esmeralda surveyed them both for a moment before saying, ‘Ruby speaks highly of you both.’

‘We’re so sorry that this happened,’ Talia offered.

Gideon didn’t feel brave enough to say anything but mumbled a note of agreement with Talia’s statement.

‘It’s alright,’ said Jade.

‘Our Ruby’s a fighter,’ Jasper assured them

Amber, the youngest of the Williams siblings was teary-eyed and didn’t speak while they visited. Soon, Ruby was taken away on a stretcher and the siblings followed. When she was moved, Gideon and Talia realised that she had been wearing her cloak and flowery high-tops with her dressing gown and pyjamas.

They walked through the castle aimlessly without a word after that, neither knowing which of them was leading the way. It was Talia who finally broke the silence, ‘If she knew something, why didn’t she tell us!’

‘“Knew something”? What do you mean? What did she know?’ Gideon asked.

‘Do you really think Ruby would go wandering through the castle at night for no reason, and just happen upon the next fire?’ Talia challenged. ‘No. All her hard work must have paid off. She must have had one of her feelings or visions or whatever.’

‘You think she knew the Astronomy Tower was going to be the location of the next fire?’

‘I’d bet my wand on it! She went to investigate and see if she was right.’

‘But that’s crazy! Why would she go on her own like that?’

‘I hate to say it, Gideon. But she’s been desperate to prove that you’re innocent of the fires. I think that’s why she’s been overexerting herself to improve her Seeing.’

Gideon’s stomach fell. ‘Then, this is my fault,’ he concluded.

‘No, and Ruby would be the first one to say so,’ Talia assured him. ‘If only we’d been there!’

‘If they didn’t split us up into different houses, we could have been…’ Gideon sighed. ‘What now, then?’

‘We’ve got to figure out that message!’ Talia stated resolutely.

Unfortunately, doing that was easier said than done. It became Gideon’s top priority, but he had as much luck deciphering Ruby’s code as he did with his now abandoned research on the supposed mystery rune.

As if losing Ruby wasn’t bad enough, he was also seeing less of Talia outside of their shared classes. They had agreed that their time was best spent looking for answers. It was lonely work, but Gideon was determined.

One small consolation was that Ruby’s hospitalisation had earned Gideon a modicum of sympathy and students stopped trying to jinx him. In the twisted recesses of his mind, though, he thought he deserved to be cursed for what had happened to her. There were now two people he cared about lying in St Mungo’s.

In a dark moment, Gideon briefly entertained his ongoing suspicion that he may have been directly responsible. However, he quickly shook off this idea. He told himself firmly, that awake or asleep, he could never have hurt Ruby, and decided that he owed it to her to trust in her belief that he was innocent.

***

Gideon perhaps missed Ruby most during History of Magic, which under the tutelage of Professor Sambor had changed dramatically. The subject that students had often slept through, now produced some of their most enjoyable lessons.

In striking contrast to his predecessor, the chestnut brown-haired professor was highly entertaining and enthusiastic. He was also highly knowledgeable and had obvious teaching experience. The lessons were interspersed with amusing jokes and stories, to which Gideon would often find himself turning to the side to see Ruby’s reaction, only to remember that she was gone.

At first, the students had been disappointed to find that Professor Sambor only gave out one house point per question answered. However, they soon learned that their entire lessons often resembled fast-paced quizzes, meaning most people left the class contributing to their house point totals in some way.

‘So, for homework,’ the professor announced at the end of their lesson on Friday the first of April, almost two months after Ruby had been taken to St Mungo’s, ‘I want you to explain the fall of Urg the Unclean and describe what you would have done in his place to keep the rebellion going. Bonus points for accuracy and creativity!’

In the Care of Magical Creatures lesson that followed, Talia greeted Gideon the way she often did now, ‘Any luck?’

Gideon replied to her the way he always did, ‘Nothing.’

‘There has to be something we’re missing,’ Talia complained as she examined a patch of mushrooms to see if they were actually the horklumps they were looking for, strange creatures that resembled fungi.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know what, and honestly if I don’t take a break, I don’t think I’m going to figure it out,’ Gideon grumbled.

‘Me too,’ Talia agreed. ‘Maybe we should take a step back and re-examine things?’

‘We’ll get together Sunday, compare notes and see if we can come at this thing from another angle, but tomorrow we’ll take a break,’ Gideon suggested. ‘Let’s watch the match and see if it jogs anything loose?’

‘Sounds like a plan,’ Talia agreed. ‘I’ll skip the match, though. If I don’t give Kuroh some attention, he’s going to scratch my eyes out!’

As a large shadow that could only be Hagrid’s eclipsed them, they were asked, ‘Y’alrigh, you two? How yeh getting on?’

Gideon held up one mushroom shaped creature that was wriggling hopelessly in his hand.

‘Ah, good, you found one. There’s plenty more horklumps around, though. The trick is ter get em to reveal themselves by dangling an earthworm in front of em,’ the teacher suggested as Talia gave his advice a try. ‘Any word on Ruby?’

Gideon knew that Hagrid was going to ask this. He did so once a week. ‘No change I’m afraid. Ruby’s parents say she’s doing fine, she just won’t wake up, and the healers are unfamiliar with her symptoms. I’ll tell them you asked about her.’

‘Good man,’ said Hagrid cheerily. ‘She’ll be back soon, you’ll see.’

***

Gideon woke up the next day excited for the Quidditch match. He had missed the fourth match, choosing to continue his research in the library. After all, he didn’t need to see Gryffindor’s so-called “heroes”, his brother, Anthony, and Alex Grimsby doing their thing against Hufflepuff. They had by all accounts “thrashed them”, though, so the fifth match, also against Hufflepuff, was Slytherin’s last chance to secure a strong lead in hopes of winning the Quidditch Cup.

Gio had gone ahead to the changing rooms, seeing as he was playing, which meant Gideon could walk down to the pitch with Dorian and Eoin.

‘Any news about that Ruby girl?’ Eoin asked out of the blue. It was the first time in a long while that he had addressed Gideon directly.

‘Just that she’s doing okay. They still don’t know what’s wrong with her, though,’ Gideon answered. ‘Thanks for asking.’

‘I’m sure she’ll be fine,’ Dorian assured him. ‘If she’d caught something serious, we’d all be getting sick, wouldn’t we?’

Gideon mumbled a noise of agreement, reminding himself that the others didn’t know the truth, that she had probably been cursed by the arsonist.

Soon enough, they arrived at the stadium and the teams took to the sky on the sound of Mr Wood’s whistle. Dorian and Eoin seemed to think the Slytherins were playing as well or better against Hufflepuff than the Gryffindors had. The trick to extending their lead was scoring enough goals before finding the Golden Snitch, and perhaps even delaying catching it to prolong the game.

Gideon watched as the Slytherin team effortlessly scored their sixth goal. The one time they had allowed the Hufflepuffs to get a shot in, Gio had made a spectacular save and immediately lobbed the Quaffle out to the Chasers. Gideon marvelled at how the team worked together and how the Quaffle moved from point to point around the field. The Chasers knew their positions and left no room for error.

Suddenly, something occurred to Gideon. When he, Talia and Ruby had been together, they had been working as a team and covered all aspects of their investigation. They were short of Ruby’s insight now, but Talia’s desire to support her had resulted in their first real clue—if you could call it that.

He said a quick, ‘Catch you later,’ to the boys and hurried back up to the school. Talia had once mentioned where the Ravenclaw Common Room was located. Gideon climbed the spiral stairs of the west tower and eventually met a door affixed with a bronze knocker in the shape of an eagle.

He knocked and the bird uttered a riddle, which he knew he would have to answer correctly to enter, ‘What does man love more than life, hate more than death or mortal strife; that which contented men desire; the poor have, the rich require; the miser spends, the spendthrift saves, and all men carry to their graves?’

‘Wha-huh? That’s gibberish! Oh, forget this!’ Gideon exclaimed. He thought of how Talia had once signalled to get hisattention, pointed his wand at the door and cried, ‘Sonitus!’

An incredible bang like the sound of a canon firing erupted from Gideon’s wand. He repeated the spell twice more and after a minute, the door opened.

‘Gideon? Was that you?’ Talia demanded with a grin. ‘What’s going on?’

‘The answer was “Nothing”,’ the eagle knocker said haughtily.

Out of nowhere, Kuroh, bounded into Gideon’s arms and immediately began staring at him as the cat always did. Gideon stroked him and told Talia excitedly, ‘I realised what we missed! I don’t know if we’ll find anything but, well, come on, before the match ends!’

Talia and Kuroh chased Gideon down the stairs, across the castle and up the Astronomy Tower, until they arrived at the place where Ruby had been discovered. ‘What are we doing here?’ Talia asked.

‘They removed the fire damage and Ruby’s message before reopening the tower, but we never examined the scene,’ Gideon explained.

‘There won’t be any evidence left now, though, will there? Nothing that the teachers would have missed anyway,’ Talia pointed out.

‘They might not know what they’re looking for!’ Gideon said. He knew there was little chance of finding anything, but he was grinning none the less. It was the first time in almost two months that he felt sure he was on to something, and it energised him.

‘There’s nothing here, Gideon,’ Talia said empathetically.

Gideon could hear the pity in her voice. Maybe he was being stupid, but he wasn’t ready to give up just yet, and continued to scour the floor, the walls, and windows as he wound up the steps.

‘Kuroh, come on,’ Talia beckoned for the cat. It miaowed loudly in reply. ‘Kuroh? Gideon, come quick,’ she called from above.

Gideon ran upward and found Talia pointing to the cat. It miaowed again and placed a paw on the stone wall. Gideon couldn’t believe it, engraved on the wall was the mysterious, kite-shaped rune pattern!

Then, as though a key had turned a lock in his brain, Gideon remembered where he had first seen the odd shape. It hadn’t been in the library or in his Ancient Runes textbook. How could he have forgotten?

‘Good kitty!’ Gideon praised. ‘This is it, Talia! I remember now, it wasn’t just on the floor of the bell tower, I saw this mark first in the ruins of the old Charms classroom! You know what that means? This symbol has been at three of the arson locations!’

‘Great, but we still have no idea what it is,’ Talia sighed.

‘That’s fine, as long as we know it means something! It’s not just a crack in the floor, it’s something that connects the fires and what happened to Ruby.’

Kuroh miaowed again, louder than before. ‘Well, well, well,’ announced a voice from the stairs below.

‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Gideon groaned. ‘What are you doing here, Grimsby? Are you following me?’

‘I just happened to notice you slip out of the stadium and I thought to myself, where might he be off to?’ The boy replied, shaking his shaggy hair out of his eyes.

‘And you just happened to wander up here?’ Gideon accused.

‘What do you want, pretty boy?’ Talia demanded aggressively.

‘I’ve been thinking that Professor Dandridge’s story about storm damage repairs was odd,’ Alex responded smugly, ‘It sounded like it could have been an excuse for one of your fires. So, I thought I would take a look up here on the off chance you might return to the scene of another crime, and here you are!’

‘You’re an idiot!’ Talia snapped. ‘Come on, Gideon.’

Kuroh loyally hissed at Alex as they passed him and headed down the stairs.

‘Do you think he heard us talking?’ Gideon wondered.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Talia responded. ‘It’s a wonder he can hear anything through all that hair!’

***

The high of discovering what seemed like a solid clue began to dissipate over the next few days. Gideon and Talia met on Sunday to discuss everything they knew but they couldn’t come up with anything. Returning to the library seemed like their best bet for an answer but they weren’t happy about it.

As he lied in bed wide awake on Thursday evening, after what had already felt like a particularly long week, Gideon decided to abandon the idea of an early night and took his things into the Common Room to read over again. He had looked over everything so many times, but he felt as though he was so close to something important.

It had now been exactly two months without Ruby, and he had made no real progress. Gideon scanned his notes about Professor Trelawney’s prophecy again. Looking back, Ruby had been the one who was focusing on it. Gideon had been more concerned with the rune, and afterwards, Ruby’s cryptic message.

He examined the prophecy again, trying to see it from Ruby’s perspective. Perspective. Seeing it from Ruby’s perspective? Gideon’s mind was trying to make a connection, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Seeing? Seer? Ruby was a Seer. You see with your eyes. Gideon looked down at the words of the prophecy, “They work in secret and shadow, but their deeds do not go unseen”, “Innocent eyes will be closed”.

Could the prophecy be referring to Ruby? The more Gideon considered it, the more it made sense. Ruby had been aware of the presence of the arsonist when they had used their magic, sometimes even before. As a Seer, she was Seeing “their deeds”. When she had discovered them, her “innocent eyes” had been closed.

Gideon’s heart raced as he re-read the prophecy again. “the fifth point will be marked as the summer sun dawns”. That was surely referring to a specific time, the beginning of summer, perhaps June? So, by June there would be “five points” “marked”? June was a way off. What about the other four “points”? When would they be “marked”?

Wait, he and Talia had just discovered marks, hadn’t they? The rune symbol. They had found it marked at the scene of three of the fires. Could the locations of the fires be the “points” the prophecy referred to? Gideon was getting excited. He was on to something, he just knew it.

He read the prophecy over and over again, but it didn’t seem to offer anything more than what he had already surmised. Instead, he went back to Ruby’s message. With this potential new information, did it mean anything?

‘P 4 6 4 G 7,’ Gideon said under his breath, then he absent-mindedly tried something with his quill. ‘What if it’s, P4. 64. G7? There’s been three “points” that we know of. What if P4 is “point” 4?’

Could Ruby’s message have been a prediction of her own? Was she warning them about the next fire? The fourth fire? If so, was 6 4 or 6/4 when it was going to take place? The sixth of April? But that was tonight! In that case, could G7 be where it would happen?

Gideon tried to calm himself. He was taking a huge leap here, and G7 could mean anything really. ‘Or,’ he couldn’t help pondering aloud, thinking of the basic labels on his Hogwarts map, ‘could it mean, Greenhouse Seven?’