Secrets of the Office Main Story Closed

Lamik Fillestar continued to assess the door frame. There was one of two possibilities here:

1. The door was broken in by magic.
2. The door was broken in by sheer strength.

Magic tend to do things simply, unlock a door (Alohomora) or perhaps remove/transfigure the door and/or the frame into something else. The damage to the door-frame did not seem particularly magical. Lamik's mind went to the part-giants. They did not seem particularly magical. Surely they were magical creatures but they did not seem to posses magic. Just uncanny strength and endurance. 

"Would half giants be able to destroy the doorframe?"

Lamik inquired. Very probably.

So who (or what) and why would someone break into the Headmaster's Office and steal the sorting hat and all of the paintings?

Euphrasia Millie would enter the office while Lamik finished his assessment of the door-frame. Other students were milling about, not at all fearful it would seem that the Headmaster (or for that matter another Professor) would show up. She was not the only one with this idea. Not at all. In fact there was a similar even ongoing in the Gryffindor Common Room.

"I'm guessing you guys saw the Prophet too?"

Indeed they had. She would notice the missing portraits. There were 30 portraits, 30 former headmasters, unless the acting Headmaster was included (making it 31). It was not an accidental task, removing all of those paintings. They also were not particularly easy to hide. A cursory search by Euphrasia yielded the expected -- the paintings appear to be gone. 

Lamik would make his way over to Solomon's desk. The desk was rather simple, made of a deep dark hardwood with a worn work-surface. The desk appeared to be well-cared for. Not particularly ornamental considering the other wonders in this great space that were displayed in glass cabinets under a basic lock and key. The desk itself had a tiny hair-like seam down the center, was otherwise in perfect, gleaming condition. An inkwell and a quill in its holder sat as if in waiting on the desk. A small bit of wax and a brass stamp.

There was a bit of wax splotched on the otherwise pristine desk. The wax had already cooled, but it was not cracked or otherwise dry in this wintry room. There were no drawers (refer to picture above, less the hat) in the desk. The writing space seemed more utilitarian than anything else.

Juniper Irving would enter through the open door with a broken frame. She would not discover on this day how much of a figurehead the headmaster actually was. How he had no power to change her History of Magic grade, although she could take solace in the fact that it was usually students troubled over the post secondary Transfiguration expectations that 'tarnished their perfect record.' At the very least, she was unique. But sadly, Solomon was terrified of Professor Galim, the woman was ...something.

"Yes..." 

Juniper answered Euphrasia, feeling like a bit of a stand out. 

"I take it we're not waiting for the Headmaster?"

They just about never wait for the headmaster. It was a characteristic of the Gryffindor House. They were going to figure out who did this, potentially several other side plots, break a few rules along the way but magically get house points at the end of it all to ensure continued possession of the House Cup. OK, Solomon was not Dumbledore (probably). There would probably not be a sudden extra point award the final hour of the cup's point acquisition in the favor of Gryffindor.

Juniper would look at the dust. There was a great deal of recent disturbance on most flat surfaces. the Heqadmaster's Office had seen a great deal of recent traffic (this thread, this thread and this thread). Foot steps of ash. Fingerprints scattered throughout. Bits of wood fiber on the floor. A couple of scattered bits of burnt shell. No, pygmy puff bones.

"Anyone find anything interesting yet?"

Elena Jangleton would ask as she entered the office. Curious lions wandering about an empty office. She would spy the most obvious change in the setting - the lack of portraits on the walls. 

"Has anyone even seen Headmaster Lear recently? You would think with such a case, he would be here ASAP."

Nobody had, although the former Professor of Care of Magical Creatures was not much of a social butterfly since he had taken the station of Headmaster. Strange in fact, he was much more outgoing with the students as a Head of House than he was as a Headmaster. Even if there were some strange rumors surrounding the bearded man and his outings. The often resulted in injury, an unhealthy dose of PTSD but never death. The outings ceased when he became headmaster, he seemed to recede into this very office where he sat and went from a famed adventurer to a Professor to some sort of desk jockey. And now, it was as if he was not even here at all. Yet the school still ran. 

Elena would pull out her wand and cast the spell Lumos. She would assess the walls. The walls were aged, where the paintings used to hang the spaces were slightly darker. It was as if she could make out an outline of each of the paintings. The nails were still in the wall where each portrait should have hung. It had been decades since these portraits had been moved last. She would also notice off to the side of the room the wall looked a little different here. There was a message that seemed to react to the light. 

I shatter when I am not kept.

Meanwhile Katrina dug through the ashes in the fireplace. She would find something in those ashes. as the ashes were sifted between her fingers, little bits of something hard would stay behind. Many burnt, resembling strange seashells. Some jagged but others intact. The girl would appear to recognize them.

"They look like Pigmy Puff skulls!"

The poor girl would exclaim. The fact that she recognized the bones was a concern for another day perhaps.She would be one of many fledgling sociopaths, no worries Kyle DeRook is still single. The horror would wash past her, curiosity took the better of her as she assessed the bones. She was not wrong, they were definitely Pygmy Puff skulls. The Headmasters favorite household pet. He was known for having scores of the little balls of fluff. He had so many that naming them became a chore so he named them all the same: Greg. Allegedly he loves these little guys. How in the world did they all end up in the fireplace? One would have to shudder to think - were they like Lemmings drawn to the fire or did something truly terrible happen here?

Lamik Fillestar studied the contents of the desk silently. He picked up the stamp and inspected it closely, before sighing and palming it in his other hand. "The part giants broke in, I think. Other then that and the missing paintings, nothing." The boy said quietly to Elena. To his surprise, as soon as he said it the girl managed to find something. "I shatter when I am not kept." He said after reading it. Following a few moments of quiet thought, Lamik spoke up again. "It's like a riddle, huh? A heart is the first thing that comes to mind, I guess."

With nothing else to say about the message, Lamik turned back to the desk. The boy ran the Index finger of his free hand over the tiny seam, then noticed the wax. "That's not that old..." He said to himself. The desk itself seemed off. Other then the wax and the crack, it appeared as though Lear had taken extremely good care of it, and though the wax could be seen as the mistake of someone who was in a hurry, there really was no clear reason for the seam to have formed and not been repaired. After taking a deep breath, Lamik took out his wand, aimed it at the fracture, and waved it with the required movement for his intended spell. "Diffindo."

It was surprisingly easy to snoop through a Headmaster's personal effects when there was a whole room of your fellow housemates doing it, too. Juniper quickly shelved any moral quandaries and found herself happily playing detective along the dusty surfaces of the office.

Besides, there was a lot to examine. It seemed there had been at least a few snooping fingers here already, and the dust was crisscrossed and covered in tracks. Problem was making any sense of it.

She knelt and picked at what first glance looked like delicate little shells. Then she made the connection.

"Hey, @Katrina Walker... I think I'm finding puff bones over here, too."

But why over here? It almost made more sense to find Pygmy Puff remains in the fireplace. The little fluff balls did seem... flammable. Was it only their skulls in the hearth? Had their little heads been removed? What sort of twisted nutjob would...

Juniper started to take stock of exactly what types of bones were lying around the office, hoping to disprove that last thought.

She found some fibrous shards of wood strewn about the carpet as well, and around these there were footprints... ash had been tracked across the room.

It was all a bit overwhelming, and Juniper tried to remember what little she knew about tracking... she'd heard somewhere that it had more to do with noticing patterns and recurring themes. She sat back and tried to take in the bigger picture.

Other students were having more success. One girl uncovered a hidden message on the wall in a corner of the room. @Lamik Fillestar made an insightful comment relating the riddle to a broken heart. A moment or so later, he was blowing up the Headmaster's desk.

action: look at the footprints more closely

action: sadly take stock of Pygmy Puff bones

Am I allowed two actions in a single post? If not, Juniper can ignore the Pygmy Puff bones for now.

The light illuminated the bare walls and at first, it proved useless just giving off the illusion it was some ordinary old walls but words began to appear, faint but prominent forming into a message."Hey guys!"She called out sharply reading out the message pondering to herself.I shatter when I am not kept. She presumed it was something to do with the portraits..but what? Her mental gears were working in overtime..it was almost as if the answer was on the tip of her tongue but she couldn't quite grasp it. "You're saying part-giants broke into this office and waltzed off with a mass horde of paintings."She replied to Lamik but yet..the idea didn't seem that out of the blue."Even so, someone had to have seen something. There's just no way they could just walk in and whoosh, gone unless Apparation..but I thought you couldn't Apparate in and out of the castle."

The message still seemed to bother her but she couldn't put her finger on it. I shatter when I am not kept..Judging from the riddle, she guessed it was talking about the portraits..perhaps some sort of cryptic warning highlighting what would happen to the state of those paintings if they were removed from their original state? She eyed the bones near the fireplace whom one of the girls exclaimed identifying them as Pygmy Puff skulls and looked back at the doors. She glanced back at the broken door and back at the fireplace. It was a stupid..very stupid but the only one that made sense at the moment. "Ok, somone very clearly not meant to be in here forced their way in here through the door and by some great power whisked all 30 paintings off. Now, I don't think they would be stupid enough to walk right back out that door with precious of a cargo, someone would notice. They had to have a secondary means of escape and I am willing to bet it has something to do with that fireplace."She remarked walking over her wand still alight with Lumos as she examined the fireplace.

It was odd to find the tiny skull by the fireplace. What was going on? Did the innocent little fur balls jump in the fireplace? Unlikely if not impossible. No innocent little creature would knowingly jump into fire. A girl she didn't recognize spoke about the part-giants coming in. But, would the giants care about the little puffs?

"If it were the giants... would they care about the Pygmy Puffs?" Katrina spoke to @@Juniper Irving. Referring to another girl's @@Elena Jangleton comment. It was hard enough to talk loud enough for everyone to hear as well as pushing aside her awkwardness on speaking out. She didn't want her fellow Gryffindors to have a bad impression of her.

Katrina looked closer at the Puff skulls. She looked deeper inside the fireplace to see if she could find anything else. It doesn't seem to be anything else to find! Katrina sat back on her heels and sighed. What happened?

Katrina stood and inspected closer at the edge of the fireplace and the (possible) mantel. She ran her fingers down the edges of the bricks. Could Floo powder have been involved? Katrina had never transported by Floo Powder but knew the idea of it from books. Most of her knowledge came from books-- including how she knew the bones were Pygmy Puff. She sat half-lost in her thoughts.

Action: Inspect skulls and fireplace while making mental inquiries.

Lamik mused over the riddle - I shatter when I am not kept. He would have to ponder what that meant, the heart came to mind. An odd riddle that hardly explained why, not that Lamik knew but the Hufflepuff students might have recalled for the former Professor's adoration of riddles and puzzles. Was he trying to tell them something? Absolutely. The question was why or why.

Thus far there was only a hypothesis. The part giants broke into Headmaster Lear's office as evidenced by the broken front door. The paintings were missing, presumably taken by either Headmaster Lear or by the part giants. In addition to the paintings missing, the sorting hat was also gone. Inside the fireplace were the bones of Headmaster Lear's precious Pygmy Puffs.

Lamik would notice a seam in the desk as well as a dollop of wax on the aged but otherwise well-kept writing surface. He decided he needed to destroy the desk. With a flourish of his wand, the boy cast Diffindo and the desk was split in twain. It did not take a great deal of effort or magic, after all the desk was quite old, centuries in fact. Splinters littered the floor. Lamik would note that there -was- something hidden inside the desk, or at the very least there was a hiding spot. A small cubby hole in the heart of the desk. There was nothing there, unbeknownst to Lamik another student had already pried inside this desk and liberated the furniture of its contents.

Juniper Irving was trying to take stock of the pygmy puffskein bones. As morbid as it was, it would seem that Solomon's beloved pets were burned whole. Evidence of ash and bits of bone that were already 'toasted' would suggest that curious hands had already been here, looking through these remains (adjacent threads). They were not the first to know, she would not know that it was only earlier this very day that a pair of intrepid hooligans had broke into this very same office and looked around already as well. Whole or decapitated.... who would do this to an animal?

Someone not very nice.

What would come as a shock to her is the number of footprints scattered throughout the room in the ash and dust. There were a number of smaller footprints, those belonging to her and her allied snoopers. As she had gotten further from the fireplace she would see foot many footprints near the door, as they (as well as others) traversed the same few steps she would notice one thing that did not belong. 

Elena Jangleton left the wall, the cryptic message revealed might have also been a warning regarding the paintings themselves. A measure to assure that the portraits were safeguarded. She would make her way over to the same fireplace Juniper had previously discovered to be a pygmypuff graveyard. The fireplace, besides the remains of the headmaster's pets seemed relatively normal. The mantle was in good repair. The stone base was covered in soot from the past, fatal fire. She would look inside, the chimney seemed normal. But there was something unique about the Headmaster's fireplace. Where security was relatively tight throughout the school, the Headmaster's Office was connected to the floo network but it was not commonly used and was most often blocked off.

Did someone escape through the floo network? 

Katrina Walker asked if the pygmy puffs would be beneath the part-giant's notice. They were afterall annoying but far from dangerous. Killing them in cold blood just seemed cruel. While it could have been a mistake, like lemmings rushing off a cliff, it seemed unlikely as it went against the instinct of such small creatures. Although Professor Griffith would likely know that answer best.

They had more questions than answers as she took looked in on the same places as Elena. While there was not much here, there was something. A riddle. A crime. They had what every investigation needs to start -- knowledge of a crime ever happening. 

What they needed to do now is confer with the Professors, with other students that might be more clever than them. This might be something completely different from Potter's conviction, but the timing was incredibly suspect. Their Head of House Elaine Pendrast knew a lot about dark magic, she was at one time the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor in Hogwarts. Then there was Professor Nadège Benoit, one of the most tenured Professors in Hogwarts. Come to think of it, how long had she been a Professor. Not very long, the turn-over in Hogwarts was incredible. How about Prefects? There were a few that were on their second tour, such as Quinn Healy and Reid Kovacs. Did they remember anything from when Potter was arrested? Probably not, but they might know something even if they do not realize it. Then there was the investigation (OC: that is also finishing up) in the Gryffindor Common Room. There were several students that seemed willing to take things into their own hands, little did they know a concurrent investigation was ongoing in another room.

A small reward will be seen in your accounts for participating in this thread. The investigation wont be solved in a single room. IC interface with other players (and staff). While they OC have no idea what is going on (I have told them nothing) they know more than they think they know.

Lamik closed one eye as the desk splintered, wooden shards flyong everywhere. The boy hoped that his hunch was right; that there was really something hidden inside the desk- possibly something that would help them figure out what was going on with Solomon Lear. Luckily, he was right. Sort of. Upon close examination of the damage that he had caused, Lamik realized that there was a small compartment inside the desk where something could have been hidden. Unfortunately, if something was ever stored inside it was long gone. Lamik had ruined the desk for nothing. The annoyance that this caused the boy made him completely forget to attempt to repair the desk, and so he left it in its terrible shape.

After searching the room a bit more for something to investigate, Lamik came to the conclusion that he wouldn't find anything new. What he did know was that something terrible had happened, and he had to find out what it was. "Bye guys." The boy said with a slightly frustrated edge to his voice. Without another word he put the wand back into his robes and left the room, eager on finding a professor who could shed some light on the situation.

Lamik destroyed the desk then left. It took Katrina a minute to realize he was looking for a secret compartment. There was obviously nothing else to find here. Katrina stood up and walked around the room looking for something/anything that could help find the clues.

Wouldn’t Professor Griffith know the answer? Katrina spoke up, “Juniper, Professor Griffith would know more about this stuff. You should go ask her.”

As much as Katrina longed to help, asking a teacher was WAY past her comfort zone. She wished there was more for Katrina to do here, but this place already seemed stripped bare.

A million possibilities flew through her mind. Maybe the half-giants came in. But what for? Maybe Harry was cursed or was under a potion and he came in here to use the floo network to kill Umbridge. Maybe the Headmaster got sick and angry hags came in and stole the paintings. Maybe it was all the Pygmy Puffs going mad and breaking things. Maybe a few house elves got fed up and trashed the place while the Headmaster was inspecting the murder.

Whatever happened in this room, the 12-year-old realized it was way past her control. She left a half-hearted wave as she headed back to her common room for some homework.

Action: leave scene