#If you can correctly guess the clue pm me and I will 100 percent give you a prize

[john-silver-stargazer-blog]

Where the Sidewalk Ends // Selfie

The school was eerily quiet without all of the sounds of its bustling student body. And now that the Castle was largely devoid of witnesses, it meant that John could finally get down to what he’d come here to do: win big.

He clunked his way into the library and peered inside. After the disaster of the May explosion had been cleaned up, John had worried that the library would be under intense surveillance but, no, there seemed to be no one in sight, including staff. Grinning, John eased inside, shut the doors behind him, and pulled out a crumpled paper from his coat. It read:

“If the treasure you would seek, listen closely to what I speak;

only my true successor will find its place, all those unworthy will find disgrace;

Find the place where there are more spines than men, go to the east and count pace to ten.”

Legend told that the Enchantress Morgana amassed a great fortune before she was eventually struck down by Merlin; but not before she purportedly hid said fortune on a remote Caribbean island. In the diaries of Salazar Slytherin, the noble Hogwarts founder made mention of having found and hid that treasure somewhere within the castle.

However, because Slytherin recorded this entry during the twilight years of his life—when he was more belligerent than coherent—most historians chalked this up the delusions of an old man’s imagination. Of course, many students and wizards alike had searched the castle for such a treasure but with no luck.

In his heart, though, John knew that this couldn’t have been just the fancies of a barmy old codger. Slytherin was a blood-purist and straight up dick, but the man was sharp and proud. Silver had always had faith in his house and as such he had always been certain that there was more to this legend that met the eye.

And that suspicion had been confirmed after a poker game in Leeds one year ago.

--

One year earlier…

John hadn’t expected much when Crabby, who’d run out of sickles, had wagered the rusty copper gadget. Honestly, the lad had a habit of tall tales: “Oh, yeah, dis here machine can sees da future!” or “No, Johnny, I swear dat dis pickle-fork can sense danger!” but since he was a pal, and John had been beating him handily, he let Crabby toss down the spindly decoder onto the money pile. Sure, he’d wailed something fierce when he (inevitably) lost, but John took up his winnings all the same.

“What’s this thing even do, Crab?” John dangled the gadget from his metal fingers.

Crabby shrieked and made to grab for the item, but John swiftly held it out of the shorter man’s reach. “It’s a decoder! Ya know, for decoding things!”

Ah. Clearly Crabby didn’t have any idea what the thing actually did; he probably swiped it from some old wizard’s garage sale. At any rate, John didn’t think much of it and went about his life just the same.

A few months after John found himself reading through Slytherin’s complete works yet again. Now, John wasn’t much of a reader himself—he much more preferred practical application—but the writings of Slytherin were something that John couldn’t tear himself away from.

John’d always returned to reading the passages the wizard had written about the treasures of Morgana. Salazar had described it in such poetic detail: the size and shimmer of rubies, gleaming emeralds, milky opals… the thought of it was enough to drive any man crazy. Loads of people thought that Salazar was a nutter and never really found the treasure, but something in John’s gut told him otherwise. Salazar Slytherin was kind of a dick, a blood purist, and a paranoid narcissist, but the one thing he wasn’t was a quitter. John knew that the founder of his own house would have rested at nothing until he’d uncovered the famed treasure of Morgana.

“And there I stood, the vast cavern of riches before me. I knew that Morgana had left all of this for me, for someone truly worthy of her legacy.”

A tickle crept up John’s nose, and the big man let out an enormous sneeze, shaking his chair and propelling his body forward. The copper decoder fell out of his coat pocket and clattered noisily onto the desk. John grabbed up the gadget—he’d nearly forgotten about the stupid thing.

“Back into me coat you git, little bugger.”

John made to put the thing back into his coat when he realized he’d gotten snot onto his book. “Oh fer fucks’ sake!” Rubbing at the boogers with his coat, something incredible happened. The glass circle of the decoder turned a lavender, and suddenly John could see words through them that hadn’t been there before.

“If the treasure you would seek…”

--

And so here John was a year later, in the library where there were more spines than men, about to uncover the mysterious location of Morgana’s treasure. He faced the East and counted his paces exactly until he entered the stacks labeled, “Magical Medicine, Maladies, and Mundification.”

John eagerly entered the aisle and was momentarily disappointed when the treasure didn’t immediately leap out to great him.

“Alright Johnny, get a grip.” He muttered to himself, stalking up the row and searching for anything that stuck out…

…and again…

And again…

And again…

He paced up and down the stack of books like a caged tiger. This was ridiculous! What was he even supposed to be looking for? John scowled down at the paper in his hands where he’d hastily scrawled the directions. No mention of what he would actually find when he got here.

Glaring, John scanned the spines of each and every book in excruciating detail.

Bezoars and Breathing: A Guide to Respiratory Magic didn’t really seem like it would contain a map to the treasure so he moved on. Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions(1), The Healer's Helpmate(2), Healing at Home with Herbs(3), while all common books, were too newly printed to be of any use.

As John moved down the row the books got older, mustier, and more leathery. A Dullard’s Manual for Easy Bloodletting seemed closer to what he wanted but after paging through it, John tossed it over his shoulder angrily. With a snarl, John ripped Bald's Leechbook(4) from the shelf and set it ablaze when it, too, turned up no results.

Damn it all to hell! John was getting mighty impatient with this fuckery when suddenly he went cross-eyed.

“What in Merlin’s tits?!” John rubbed at his human eye and stared hard at the shelf again. Sure enough, his metal eye stayed firmly in its proper place while his other zoomed off into another direction. “Ah! Ye cheeky bugger,” John chuckled, realizing that there must have been a light distraction spell on the book he was looking at. While his human eye was susceptible to the magic, his metal eye could easily cut through it, alighting on a hefty tome labeled, Canon Medicinae(5,6): Annotations by the Great Salazar Slytherin.

John snorted as he opened the book, amused that Slytherin had gone so literal with his spine hint. He withdrew his decoder and leafed through the book, coming to a stop when a page made the decoder glow with a familiar lavender.

He eagerly drew the tome closer to his face as words scrawled themselves across the page.

Well met ye seeker to get this far,

But the journey is not yet done.

In vain your efforts may have been

As the search has just begun.

 Across the isle you must venture,

If the treasure’d be yours.

To a place with walls of stone,

And sealed with iron doors.

 There the muggles kneel and beg,

Blubbering words by rote.

Belonging to a simpering Earl,

who wears a checkered coat.

 When John gets to the bottom of the page he blinks hard and goes back to the top to read it again. And a third time, and a fourth time, until his eyes begin to blur and he lets out a guttural yowl. Of course he shouldn’t have expected it to be that easy!

John tries to light this book on fire as he did the last but Slytherin, that fucker, must have put an enchantment on the ruddy thing so it couldn’t be destroyed. Pettily, John jams the book back onto the shelf backwards and clomps out of the library.

The last riddle had been fucking easy, and it had been accessible. Now John only had a vague idea of where he needed to start and that was clear across the fucking country.

John slams into his office, knocking his things off is shelf in the process. He settles into his squashy chair and resigns himself to several nights of not sleeping while he un-muddles this clue.

 It is looking more and more like Slytherin was a barmy old codger… and worse, one who was obsessed with shitty rhyme schemes.

John Silver lays his head on his desk and sighs wearily.