The first days of their third year at Hogwarts brought the usual bustle of new schedules and old friendships—though not all friendships had survived the summer. In the Ravenclaw common room, Otto, Caoimhe, and Finlay compared their new electives—Ancient Runes, Divination, and History of Magic—before calling Callum over. He brushed them off, saying he wanted nothing more to do with them or their adventures. Otto felt the sting of it, but there was no changing Callum’s mind. The fallout from June’s Midnight Market had left its mark.
At dinner in the Great Hall, the mood lifted. Hagrid had returned from his sabbatical, his booming voice carrying across the hall as he greeted students. Finlay, meanwhile, made a beeline for Professor Trelawney, startling her with his enthusiasm for her class. She recovered quickly, delighted to have such an eager pupil.
That night, the three of them made their decision: it was time to return to Seylon’s Tower. Wizzlethorpe’s vanishing cabinet waited in their dormitory, but slipping away unnoticed was another matter. The prefect nearly caught them, so they set their alarm for the small hours and crept through the wardrobe before dawn.
The tower’s upper floors fell quickly. In Lyra’s old bedroom, they found a porcelain doll that spoke with a hollow voice. It told them that Seylon had created her to replace his dead daughter, but had never loved her the way he loved the real Lyra. The doll’s loneliness hung in the air like dust.
Deeper in, the Hive level greeted them with its strange organic walls and glowing fungi. They discovered a chest of magical items and, more importantly, the purpose of the resurrection mushrooms growing throughout the chamber. By mixing the fungi with water, they watched spectral serpents coil through the liquid, revealing the key to the riddle on the sealed door. Otto ate one of the mushrooms and suddenly understood the serpent’s question. Caoimhe answered it—“tears”—and the door opened.
Beyond lay the Serpent Shrine, where a gilded snake coiled around a pedestal, waiting. It spoke in Parseltongue, and Otto, still under the mushroom’s gift, understood every word. The serpent posed its questions about Seylon’s purpose, and Otto answered them all correctly. The shrine yielded passage to the final floor.
The Trophy Gallery stretched before them, a vast chamber filled with mounted creatures and gleaming artifacts. Otto’s sharp eye saw through the illusion almost immediately—every trophy was a fake. Replicas, illusions, mundane items dressed up to look extraordinary. All except one: a unicorn horn, small and unassuming among the grandiose fakes. The only genuine artifact in the entire room, a gift from Lyra to her father. Otto reached out and touched it.
He vanished.
Finlay and Caoimhe didn’t hesitate. They grabbed the horn and were pulled after him, the Portkey depositing all three in a place none of them had seen before: the Hidden Library. Towering shelves stretched in every direction, crammed with ancient volumes. Each of them found a book that seemed meant for them specifically—though they couldn’t read one another’s texts, as if the library itself decided who could see what.
Caoimhe, never one for locked doors, aimed a Bombarda at a sealed wall. It blasted open to reveal a chamber where books flew around the room. And in the center, hunched over an open volume and a desk, was Primrose—alongside a boy the party didn’t recognize.
They tried to get closer by climbing a towering pile of books to eavesdrop, but Otto lost his footing. Books cascaded down and both figures spun to face them.
The boy, whom Primrose later identified as Silas Carrow, seemed desperate to leave. Negotiations went nowhere fast. Otto struck first, hitting Silas with Petrificus Totalus. The boy crumpled. But Primrose fired back, freezing Otto with the same spell. Silas recovered and went back to copying text from the book with frantic speed.
Caoimhe leapt into action. Her Immobulus caught Primrose square, knocking her unconscious. Silas stumbled but kept his wits—he threw himself toward a battered suitcase, tumbled through it like a portal, and vanished. Through the open suitcase, they caught a glimpse of what looked like a storage room, and the distant sound of footsteps. In his wake, he left behind a small explosive device ticking on the stone floor.
Otto, freed from his paralysis, reacted on instinct. Wingardium Leviosa caught the device and flung it away before it could detonate.
In the silence that followed, they took Primrose’s wand. Finlay revived her with Anapneo, and then the questions began. Otto, furious, grabbed her by the collar and demanded to know what she was doing in the tower. Primrose resisted at first but eventually, shaking, told them everything.
She had been receiving letters—from Harry Potter himself, she insisted. The letters had guided her to the tower, told her what to look for, praised her for her bravery. The party stared at her in disbelief. Caoimhe told her flatly that Harry Potter had not been writing to her. Primrose’s face crumpled. She started crying, but she still believed it.
Under further questioning, they convinced her to copy down what the book had contained: the locations of hidden rings that Seylon had crafted—powerful relics scattered across the world.
Armed with this information and dragging a tearful Primrose behind them, the party went straight to Headmistress McGonagall’s office. She was not pleased. She reprimanded all of them for entering restricted areas of the castle and breaking school rules. She assigned detention with Professor Wizzlethorpe for the lot of them.
Then came the real blow. Four hundred points from Ravenclaw—gone in a sentence. McGonagall said she would be contacting the real Harry Potter about the letters.
The party left her office in stunned silence, their pockets full of secrets and their house hourglass nearly empty.