Chapter 221: Race Against Time

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"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"

Quinn walked towards the entry/exit wall to the vault — the teal portal, which was ever-present no matter what he did inside the vault, had shrunk down on itself like someone had pulled the water plug in a sink, and all the glowing teal-colored water got sucked in till there was no more, leaving behind the gray-colored darb, rough wall.

"No, no, no, this isn't good," Quinn's palm went over to his forehead, "this isn't good at all.. . what's the time?"

He fetched his pocket watch out of his pocket and glanced at the watch face and hands that showed the time half past midnight.

"Three o'clock, how much is that.. . fifteen.. . fourteen and a half.. . I've got fourteen and half hours," said Quinn after calculation as he started paced around the vault.

Today was a Tuesday(day changed to Wednesday at midnight), and because sixth-year Ravenclaws didn't have Astronomy lessons at midnight today, Quinn was able to start his nightly vault escapades well before midnight. There was a reason why Quinn preferred to do his vault work in the night as no one would come looking if he went occupied for hours. This was also the reason why Quinn had to carefully manage his time during both his expeditions of both the Aquatic Vault and Underground Vault, as he preferred to go in the Great Lake and Forbidden Forest in the evenings while there was still light.

"Umbridge's class is at three," he muttered quietly, "I have to get out of here and go back before that."

Quinn's class timetable tomorrow had him attending Arithmancy, Charms, Ancient Runes, History of Magic, and Defense Against The Dark Arts — in that order. Fortunately for him, there was no Potions class and

Defense Against The Dark Arts was his last lesson at three o'clock. He was a Prefect and an outstanding student; as such, he could skip one class in every subject, and no Professor would mind except Potions with Snape and Defense Against The Dark Arts with Umbridge as neither of the two gave rats ass who Quinn was and what his track record was. He would get detentions from both if he missed class without valid justification — which he didn't have in this case.

Quinn was a hundred percent fine with scrubbing potion cauldrons in detentions with Snape, but no way in hell was he going to offer himself up to Umbridge, so she could waste his time for hours on end every day for months (the vindictive woman would definitely go that far.) So he needed to get out of the vault in time to get to Umbridge's class to retain his freedom.

Even if he ate one of the Weasley twins' purposely sickness-inducing products as an excuse, everything would be for naught if he couldn't get to Madam Pomfrey, who was needed to sign off on sick notes for which he needed to get out of this vault.

"Luna, I've to contact Luna," Quinn reached into his pocket and took out a leather bracelet with a silver plate — the same kind that Luna wore on her wrist all the time and was connected to this one through the Protean charm.

[I'm bzy. Not attend class. Tell E&M 2 say not well, sleep in dorm.] — he wrote on the silver and then made it so that it stayed till Luna replied back in the morning.

"Hopefully, that will do the job," Quinn said, putting back the bracelet into his pocket. "Trust the Bro Code.. . Trust the Bro Code.. ."

He turned back towards the inside the vault and took in the room. The now shorter pedestal column and the visible archway inside the wall. His magic surged out from his core, flowed out from his legs, and rippled into every corner of the vault. Illusion magic laid its charm over his own eyes, and now he could see the entire layout of the hidden lock mechanism in yellow.

"Let's get started," he said somberly — time was of the essence.

Quinn glanced towards the right, and a part of the lock mechanism lost its yellow color and dulled into a muddy and barely visible brown — it was the part of the mechanism responsible for the first disc.

"Eight more to go.. ." Quinn took out the block of rock used for miniature, and with a wave of magic, it turned into yet another series of intricately connected pieces of the mechanism.

He sat down on the ground with his feet crossed and stared at the miniature floating in his hands. "Disc two, Combination #194, Simulation start."

The moment the sentence left his mouth, the miniature stone gears started to move rapidly for the first ten seconds, but after that, with each passing second, the movement got slower, more deliberate, more careful, and seemed to demand more Quinn's mind real estate than before.

Clack.. . the sound of stone colliding with stone stopped all the movements in the miniature.

"Combination #194 failed," said Quinn without a hint of frustration; he had already gone through this enough times.

The stone miniature turned to dust which floated around his hand for a second before it rushed back to solid — it was reset into the initial position before Quinn had moved it around.

"Disc two, Combination #195," he said once again and the trial-and-error with the knowledge of hundred ninety-four failures behind.

"Disc two, Combination #238," said Quinn, and for a whole fifteen seconds, the mechanism moved at high speed before once again slowing down and finally getting stuck at a point equating to failure.

But this time, Quinn didn't immediately start with the following combination in mind and closed his eyes to think about the two-hundred thirty-eight failures. Every combination he had spun flashed in his mind as his eyes raced behind his eyes. He didn't open his eyes, but the miniature turned to dust and reset back to state-zero, and started to parts spun slowly, irregularly, some even rolling back a couple steps back before going a different way, and after three full minutes, the chains connected to the two sides of disc were pulled, and the disc was pulled apart into two clean hemispheres.

"Disc Two, Combination #239, success," said Quinn before slamming his fist into the ground sending a flooding surge of magic into stone.

The room once again began shaking with tremors as the real-life pieces of mechanisms began moving under the commands of Quinn's magic — eventually, after a minute of tremors, the pedestal sank in a level deeper, and the archway shifted deeper inside the wall.

Quinn got up and ran to the archway site, and as he expected, a slight gap in the floor had revealed itself; it was just big enough for Quinn to shoot light inside and find it was.

"A staircase," he muttered as he looked at what seemed to be the first step of a staircase that went down. '"If I keep solving the mechanism, the archway will continue to shift inside.. . I need to solve this; the key to the exit must be down the stairs." He extended his sense into the stair, and it was just a solid block of stone, but there was a magical interference that restricted his sense from going past the first step.

He turned away from the hidden stairs and looked at the portion of the mechanism responsible for the second disc plate, and his illusion turned it to the murky brown for his eyes.

"On to the third disc," sighed Quinn as he looked at the miniature that was already in the third form, "this is going to take a while.. . "

Quinn had already solved the first portion before coming into the vault today and had good progress with the second portion that allowed him to completely solve it in around thirty-five minutes, but the third was a brand new territory; he had to start from scratch.

"No time to waste."

He sat down and got back to work.

- (Scene Break) -

The sun slowly rose from the horizon, gently shedding its light over everything and anything that stood below it; the birds chirped at the advent of the morning, and even the plants seemed to bloom up in the presence of glorious sun that provided them with life.

In Quinn, Marcus, and Eddie's dorm room, a ray of sunlight sifted through a crack in the curtains and slowly crept over Eddie's bed, gradually making its way towards his closed eyes as he sprawled on his bed in slumber. Soon, the lone ray of sunlight did its solemn duty to hit the eyes of everyone who dared to have their curtains open even by mistake.

Eddie's brow furrowed as the light disturbed his lidded eyes, so he shifted in bed just to face directly towards the curtain allowing the light's job to get easier. The furrow deepened by the second until Eddie was full-on frowning, and his eyes couldn't take it anymore, so they set off the internal alarm of discomfort and sent the signal.

He sat upon his bed with a rushed jerk as the mumble — "Burn the toad!" — escaped his mouth. For a whole minute, Eddie's entire upper body leaned forward as he sat on the bed before he groggily moved his feet off the bed and got up like a stringless puppet. He stumbled his way into the bathroom with a change of clothes clutched messily in his left hand and his right ruffling his messy bed hair into more of a mess.

After the sound of a flush, running tap water, and ruffling of clothes, Eddie Carmichael exited the bathroom with exercise clothes, open eyes, clean teeth, and a washed face. He threw his bedtime clothes into a hamper, wore his shoes, and was grabbing his wand from his bedside when he noticed,

"Where did Quinn go?"

Eddie looked at the clock that hung in their room to see if he was late, but that wasn't the case.

"He must be down at the common room," said Eddie guessing, and after making sure everything was ready, he climbed down the dorm stairs and entered out into the common room. "I'm ready, let's go.. ."

But Quinn wasn't in the common room either.

Thinking that Quinn must've left early, Eddie exited the common room and jogged down to their usual spot, but even after waiting ten minutes, Quinn didn't come. Eddie ran their usual route with a frown on his face to see if he could find Quinn somewhere along the route, but the result was the same — Quinn wasn't to be found.

"Where did he go?"

.. .

Around the same time, Quinn was sitting in Architect's room holding one of the pillars as the room shook as if it was being hit by a severe magnitude earthquake. When it finally stopped, Quinn got up and walked a couple steps to reach the archway, and the archway had moved almost a foot.

He silently stared at the slowly revealing staircase as the illusion he cast on himself one again turned a part of the mechanism to murky brown.

'Now, I've to find which part of the remaining is for the fourth disc plate and then figure out how to open it,' he thought, not choosing to speak at all and then walked to the middle of the room so that he could get a good look of every part of the room.

[6: 30 AM]

- (Scene Break) -

"Hey, do you know where Quinn is?" asked Eddie to Marcus as the latter walked out of the bathroom, ready to go to the Great Hall for breakfast.

"Hmm, no, I don't. Why?" asked Marcus.

"He wasn't there when I woke up today, and neither was he down in the grounds," said Eddie as he fixed his hair in the mirror.

"Did you go to the office?"

"Yeah, but it was locked."

"Room of Requirement?"

"No, I didn't go there."

"Well, he'll turn up," said Marcus, shrugging, "let's go; breakfast is about to start."

Both boys walked down to the common and saw Luna sitting in an armchair with a pencil and parchment in her hand, scribbling on it.

"Let's go, Luna," said Marcus.

Luna looked up from her parchment and handed her leather and silver bracelet to Marcus.

"Isn't this.. ." said Marcus recognizing the bracelet. He looked at the silver and read, "I'm busy. Will not attend classes. Tell Eddie and Marcus to say that I'm not feeling well and sleeping.. ."

"Where did he got busy this early in the morning," said Eddie.

"I don't know," said Marus, "but well, he's asking us to tell the Professors that he won't be attending; we'll do that.. ."

"Even to Umbitch?" asked Eddie.

"Never said we have to say it first if she forgets that Quinn is absent.. ."

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"Yeah, not going to happen, that.. . No way Umbitch forgets Quinn."

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"He must've something in mind," said Marcus, figuring that Quinn must've some rule in the code of conduct that allowed him to get away from Umbridge without punishment.

"Let's hope that's true.. . we can't have him doing detentions."

If they only knew the truth.

.. .

"Ha-hah-hah-aha, I-I s-solved it-t!" laughed Quinn as he watched the pedestal sink deeper as the room shook harder than ever.

It took some time to isolate what part belonged to the fourth disc, but he figured that it would be easier to solve when he found the portion as Quinn had three portions under his belt, and he had begun to see patterns that the Architect liked to use. Stigweard Gragg might have planned this intricate lock, but he was still human, and human loved patterns. Quinn even went as far as to isolate the fifth and sixth portions so that he could leave the solving instead of identification for later.

But it turned out that the mechanism portion for the fourth was twice as large as the previous three, marking the complexity of the fourth portion higher than the first three. In the end, Quinn was still able to charge ahead and really apply himself to solve the fourth.

"Now, onto the fifth!"

He was about to change the color of the fourth portion, but Quinn noticed something strange in the placement of the mechanism portions.

".. . The fourth and fifth.. . are connected.. . together.. ." said Quinn, his voice trailer longer and slower as thoughts clicked in his mind together.

The fourth and fifth had now fused together to become the part of the new, bigger, more complex mechanism portion — it was four times as big as any of the first three ones.

".. ."

[8:00 AM]

- (Scene Break) -

"Quinn West.. ." said Septima Vector calling out for her Arithmancy classes' role call and was about to automatically put a tick in front of the attendance parchment when her hand stopped as she didn't hear a response.

Septima Vector looked up from the attendance with bewilderment. It was for the first time in four years that she hadn't heard a call back when she had said that name.

"Quinn West?" she said again, looking around the class, but Septima couldn't find the face she was looking for; what she did find was Marcus Belbly's raised hand as he sat beside Eddie Carmichael.

While Quinn took every class besides Muggle Studies and Divination. Eddie left behind Muggle Studies, Divination, and Astronomy as part of his NEWT level curriculum. On the other hand, Marcus left out Divination and Astronomy from his (both had Outstanding in their Potions OWLs to pass Snape's ridiculous NEWT standards.) Though they were contemplating if they should drop Care with Hagrid back and Wilhelmina Grubbly-Plank out as the substitute Professor.

"Yes, Mr. Belby?" asked Septima Vector, expecting an answer about Quinn's whereabout given the common knowledge about the Ravenclaw trio of best friends.

"Quinn isn't feeling well today, so he's resting in the dorm, Professor," said Marcus.

"Oh my, is he alright?" asked Septima.

"Yes, Professor. He just needs a little rest, that's all," said Marcus.

"I see, then I hope he'll feel well soon," said Septima, and even though Quinn was absent from the class, she ticked him present to not let the perfect attendance get broken.

.. .

"Disc 5, Combination #58 failed!" said Quinn, grunting with frustration.

"Disc 5, Combination #59. Simulation start," he said as he looked at the ticking pocket watch sitting on the ground in front of him.

[9:10 AM]

- (Scene Break) -

"What did you say?!" squeaked Flitwick as he almost fell off his stack of books. "Can you please repeat that?"

"Quinn ain't coming. He's not feeling well," said Eddie, repeating his words.

"I should go see him," said Flitwick, worried about his star student. It was the first time since Quinn dunked himself in a freezing potion cauldron that Quinn West had even missed a class.

"Please don't do that, Professor," said Eddie keeping his voice plain as Marcus shook his head repeatedly by his side in support. "Quinn is sleeping; going to our room would wake him up from sleep; he's a very light sleeper, even someone entering the room would wake him up, so let's leave him be."

"I see.. ." said Flitwick as he ticked Quinn as present on his attendance sheet, "I'll drop by before curfew to see if he's awake and find how he is feeling."

.. .

"Take that, you dumb Architect, I did it! It only took me two hours! Just two hours!" yelled Quinn celebrating what seemed to be a needlessly complex lock mechanism.

But then he turned to the walls, and his smile dropped as he watched the newly converted fourth and fifth mechanism potion merge with the sixth to create a humongously annoying mechanism series.

He silently screamed as he raised his hand to replicate the new sixth portion into a miniature.

[10:10 AM]

- (Scene Break) -

By lunchtime, everyone knew that Quinn was sick and resting, and somehow it had turned into this big thing that everyone had talked about at least once. And somehow, it had turned a colossal snowball that Quinn West was fighting for his life against some dark curse.

"How do you think he's doing?" asked Astoria, worried.

"Astoria, the rumors are exaggerated. Given that he's in his dorm room and not with Madam Pomfrey, I'm sure he'll be fine," said Daphne comfortingly, but she was a little bit concerned for Quinn's health. A little part of her mind was thinking if she could get into the Ravenclaw dorms without anyone knowing.

"I'm back."

The Greengrass sisters turned to see Tracey sit down beside them.

"What did Eddie say?" asked Astoria.

"It's nothing serious, he says," said Tracey, "he said that Quinn is just tired and needs to rest to get rid of the fatigue.. . so he isn't cursed by a dark curse," she said, eyeing Astoria teasingly.

"It could've happened! You don't know!" said Astoria definitely.

"Wait till I tell Quinn," said Tracey, grinning, "I'm sure he'll be very interested in this entire thing."

"That is true," said Daphne softly, smiling. She could imagine him talking about the mystery of the Hogwarts Rumor Mill.

.. .

Quinn stared at the partially revealed staircase under the archway. He had just solved the sixth portion, and the archway was pushed deeper inside.

"This is big enough," he muttered, "uh-huh, big enough for a Raven.. ."

He immediately transformed into his animagus form and walked on his two talons into the staircase and then fly-jumped down the stairs just to come across a dead-end.

"Of course, no shortcut here," said Quinn after getting out, "I guess I would need to use that to solve portions 7 to 9."

He sat down and closed his eyes and brought up his Occlumency to the limit. The efficiency aspect allowed Quinn to think faster and even do multitasking at an absurd level, but that was only for simple tasks and a certain level of casting. He hadn't tried to efficiency aspect for anything this complicated and didn't know if it would work or he would just ending up getting confused.

"But, it's now or never.. ."

[1:10 AM]

- (Scene Break) -

Umbridge was feeling very happy today. She had just heard that Quinn West was sick and wasn't attending classes today. According to the rules, if the student was to miss a class, they needed to have a clear reason for being absent.

She had asked around and had found that Quinn West hadn't been to the hospital wing today, meaning that even if he was sick, he didn't have the sick note from Poppy Pomfrey, and she could give him detention for missing class without proper reason.

'Finally, I can teach him about manners,' Umbridge thought as she walked towards her classroom.

Her eyes shined, and her smile sweetened when she saw Eddie Carmichael and Marcus Bebly walk into the classroom without Quinn.

'Today is going to be a good day,' she thought as she reached the threshold of the classroom. Umbridge stopped and raised her wrist with her watch to look at the time. She was about to turn her wrist when she heard the voice.

"Good afternoon, ma'am. What a lovely day we are having."

Her smile froze as she looked up just to see Quinn West walk past into the classroom without giving her a single look.

[2:10 AM]

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Quinn West - MC - I did it, biatches!

FictionOnlyReader - Author -

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