Harry Potter and the Scabbard of Excalibur [AU]

All In Front of You

I cannot believe we are doing something this stupid. And yet - I can very much believe it, because you're Harry Potter, this is Sirius Black, and we're pranking Snape.

After five minutes, Professor Pettigrew returned, slipping back into the dungeon corridor using the same crack he'd clambered into in order to access the Potions classroom. He swiftly transformed back into human form and nodded. "Clear," he said. "Is everyone ready?"

"Yes."

"Yes," Neville added, a little discomfited and surprised at such an undertaking being led by his own professors.

"Alohomora," Harry said. And then, Sirius and Mr. Peter went inside and began ensorcelling and laying down the enchantments on various objects in the room. Meanwhile, Harry began to carve a runic matrix on the very doorstep, while Neville stayed behind to make sure no one was coming. As predicted - the operation was fast. The Professors were excellent in matters of enchanting, and Harry's runic arrays would handle the rest of the work. Although not many passed by their hallway, Neville's watchkeeping was superb anyway, scattering minor distractions in the immediate vicinity of the doorway and controlling them in order to make people look away whenever they passed by..

Operation, 'Teacher, Teach Thyself' was over in fifteen minutes. Afterward, Sirius made sure to lock the door and scrub the security record that it had been made to open completely from its history, such that anyone casting spells to figure out anything of the sort would be left relatively clueless as to the perpetrators' identities.

Maybe it wasn't glamorous, for its absence of immediate effects, but according to Mr. Peter, the payoff would be huge in the next week. He was almost saddened that he wasn't able to leave his own class in order to observe the shenanigans unfold - half the sweetness in pranks was the ability to reap what you sowed; the affronted or disgusted grimaces on their faces, or the sheer anger when they realized they'd been had. In the aftermath, upon reaching the Marble Staircase, Professor Pettigrew approached Harry with the Marauders' Map, saying, "Mischief managed," over it, and thereby demonstrating how it could be magically returned to simple paper. And then, he gifted it to Harry.

"Call it an early birthday present," the man had said, to Sirius' immense exasperation. "And your runework was impressive, Mr. Potter. Five points to Hufflepuff. You did good as well, Mr. Longbottom; five points. I commend you on your extracurricular skills."

"Thank you, sir," Harry replied with a noble salute.

And so, the four Marauders, both the old and the new - though Harry was spiritually standing in the place of several others - departed in opposite directions, in order to allay any concerns of their whereabouts. It was probable that even uninformed and clueless, Ron would eagerly vouch for Harry and Neville, but it'd be better to actually do some work to establish that alibi - they'd play some plunkballs and then return to the Hufflepuff Basement and maybe rest for a while. At least, that was the plan.

"That... was interesting," Neville said, as they walked away in the direction of the Great Hall. "I'd have never thought that Professor Pettigrew and Black are that... well, infantile. Not that I'm complaining, though. Snape deserves it."

"They used to be troublemakers in their school years from what I've gathered, alongside my dad, mom, and some other man that I don't know about," Harry replied with a shrug. "Kind of like us, but... with less secrets between them, I suppose."

"Secrets?" Neville asked him, discomforted by the idea of secrets between them. Neville glanced down, towards his hand, and then raised it - displaying both rings, with the ruby and sapphire jewels. "Are you talking about these?"

"I... yeah, I guess I am. I've suspected that you had some kind of secret stuff going on pretty much since the beginning of the year, Neville - I didn't want to make a big deal about it. I care about our friendship more, than I care about pushing you on things you want to keep private." Inside, Harry was feeling the slightest bit of anxiety. It was a mistake to bring up this conversation topic. It could easily go astray and completely push them apart. "If you don't want to talk about it, though, I completely get it. I'm willing to zip my mouth and pretend this conversation never happened."

"I'm..." Neville seemed to be seriously considering and weighing the nature of Harry's words. A contemplative, uneasy look had appeared on his face, with a deeply thoughtful scrunching of the eyelids. "Actually, I think you deserve to know. I do have secrets, Harry, a lot of them, and I think you deserve to know as my friend."

"Really?" Harry was surprised to hear that.

"Yeah," Neville said. "I mean, you might be in danger simply by associating with me, for all I know."

Harry's eyes widened a little. "It's that serious?"

Neville scanned their environment carefully and slowed down. "Do you want me to tell you?"

"Yes," Harry said immediately.

Neville nodded in response, not saying anything but directing Harry to a small alcove in the corridor. Inside was a small table, and cushioned seats on opposite sides, perfect for two people. As soon as they situated themselves within and adjusted the cushions, Neville glanced around once more, then reached for his wand and cast a spell, with precise and trained motions; it was a complex spell because the wand movements alone took him almost ten seconds to complete. At the end, he spoke the incantation.

"Muffliato." Around them, the distant hubbub of the castle and the quiet rustling of the torch flames quieted down, almost imperceptible even when Harry strained his ears.

"Isn't that a Fifth Year Charm?" Harry furrowed his eyebrows.

"Yeah," Neville said without a wink of shame. "Alright, so, around... maybe a week prior to our first meeting, at the Hogwarts Express, before I went to school, I had this incredibly vivid, lucid dream. I was lying in bed and sweating, tossing and turning, and when I stood up, my room was gone. Instead, I was in some kind of... mystical grove, surrounded by crazy plant life. A lot of the flora there was magical, I'm pretty sure, and ever since we started Herbology and I browsed through the library, I realized many of those plants actually exist in real life - which is crazy, because I'd never seen them before. Do you get what I mean? I had a prophetic dream of some kind."

Harry nodded. Although he comprehended the meaning of Neville's explanation, he also couldn't exactly say that he completely understood, because no matter how dogged his attempts, Harry had never been able to remember or hold onto the contents of a dream for longer than a handful of seconds. Any lingering impressions or images in his mind usually faded completely by the time he sat down for breakfast, and he never cared enough to apply more effort and dedication to memorizing and internalizing those impressions. They'd always been very slippery to him as a result.

"And here's the fulcrum," Neville said, leaning in conspiratorially. "In that dream, in that grove, I met an old lady in a white gown. Like, really, seriously weathered. She looked over two hundred years. You think McGonagall looks old, but the woman I'd seen looked sort of like a skeleton with paper-thin human skin on it. Really wasn't pretty."

Harry nodded again, silent, imagining the woman and finding her persona vaguely unsettling. His resultant grimace must've shown, because Neville also nodded, in empathy.

"Anyway, she started to talk to me, in this really husky voice," Neville said. He looked around obliquely and tracked the passage of a trio of older Slytherins, who paid them no heed. After they were gone, he kept going, "I couldn't understand most of it. She was talking a bunch of nonsense. I only caught the gist of it. Essentially, there are special people around Hogwarts - chosen people. Some group of people called the Guardians selected these chosen people to do something, to help in a fight against some other group of people called the Ancients. Before I go on, I gotta ask - do you believe me?"

"I wouldn't be listening if I didn't," Harry said, with a sort of helpless shrug. "If I thought you were lying to blow me off or making fun of me, I'd probably remark on it and call you a stupid poophead. I hope you aren't, though?" It came out questioning.

"I'm not, I promise," Neville answered seriously. "I'm laying my secrets bare."

"Alright."

"So, the lady in white - one of the Guardians, apparently - informed that the, quote, 'mind-children of Merlin' scattered rings around Hogwarts," Neville said, raising his bejeweled hand. "A single ring for each Founder. She informed me that I must collect the rings and find the other chosen people, and 'distribute' the rings 'accordingly.' I'm still not sure what that means, but she also said that doing so is how I'll hatch, and then she implied that if I don't hatch by the end of the year, bad things might happen to me. I've already got Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, as you see, but I'm yet to find Hufflepuff and Slytherin."

"Huh."

Huh. Geist was stumped for a moment. Well, he's clearly bullshitting.

Is he?

I've never heard of ugly prophetic dream ladies, and Guardians and Ancients, and whatever else he's yapping on about. Maybe you should call Pomfrey to check on his head. It sounds like the ravings of a maddened Pureblood that isn't sure what reality is anymore. A true marauder, in that sense, I suppose!

I believe him.

Of course you do. Whatever. I'm going to sleep.

"So, where did you find these rings?" Harry asked.

"As hard as it might be to believe, I literally stumbled on Gryffindor's by what's probably sheer accident," Neville confessed with a sheepish grin. "It was sorta... just, well, lying on the dungeon floor. As soon as I saw it, though, I understood what I was looking at."

Harry nodded. "And Ravenclaw's?"

"Do you remember that supernova we stared at?" Harry nodded in response. "I wasn't entirely honest with you. See, apparently, Rowena Ravenclaw had some ability to, like, imbue stars with magic. So, she made a star and put her ring in it, and then set it to explode at some point in the future and release the ring. I needed a sketch of the supernova to approximate where it'd land, and surprisingly - or maybe by her design - it landed on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. I got pretty lucky with that. I don't have a clue where Hufflepuff and Slytherin might be."

Wait... No way.

Hm?

I change my mind, Harry. I believe him, now, and I think I know where Slytherin's ring is - I saw it, in the Chamber of Secrets.

"I..." Harry stopped to ruminate. "I think Slytherin's might be in the Chamber of Secrets."

"That place really exists?" Neville asked.

Harry merely shrugged. "Probably? I mean, why else would the story of it exist?"

"Point taken." Neville nodded.

"Anyway, I definitely want to help you find the rest of the rings," Harry said. "If you're in danger unless you find and give them out to the right people, then as your friend, I have to do that. I'll go to the library and see what I can find on the Chamber of Secrets. Have you maybe searched the Hufflepuff Basement for Hufflepuff's?"

"Yeah. Pretty thoroughly, too," Neville admitted. The boy looked down. "It'd be a serious problem if someone in the past found any of the remaining rings before us, and, like, took 'em home as a souvenir."

"My Astrologer's instinct tells me that didn't happen," Harry reassured him.

Neville merely raised an eyebrow at him. "Astrologer's instinct, huh? Actually, are you sure you're not one of the chosen ones I'm looking for?"

---

A crazy day, so far - helping people cheat, pranking Snape, hearing your friend's secrets...

[ ] Confess: I Am Chosen - "I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but it'd make sense, given my past history."
[ ] Keep Yourself Obscure - "I don't think so."

[ ] Also Tell Him Your Secrets - If you'd like, you can also inform Neville that you have a Cloak of Invisibility, practice the Dark Arts, have summoned demons in the past, or have the Dark Lord's voice talking in your head. You can choose and pick secrets if you want, but given how open he's been, that's a bit skeevy.

[ ] Write-in