Challenge 044: Code
It was a rainy, grey day that Harry was about to step out into. Work had been hard lately. It wasn’t the endless investigating that bothered him, it was all that damn paperwork. Explaining in triplicate how he accidentally broke Mrs. Kresley’s teacup was beyond annoying…but alas, necessary. Harry thought about the huge pile of paperwork that waited for him at his office and groaned. Perhaps the weather was a reflection of his mood.
Just as he was about to step out and apparate himself to London, his lovely wife Ginny came cantering over to him from the kitchen.
“I made you a special lunch,” she told him. “I know you are sick of the Minstry cafeteria.”
Ginny grinned up at him and placed a quick peck on his check. Harry felt his spirits rise just slightly, as they always did when he was in the presence of his happy wife.
“Oh and I left you are special note. You’ll have to decode it to figure out what it says.”
Ginny threw her arms around him and gave him a good squeeze before ushering him out the door. Before she closed it fully, she handed him an umbrella and shouted after him.
“Don’t forget…I heart you!”
“I heart you too!” Harry said, repeating their favorite way to say I love you. He then turn on the spot, and the next moment he was standing outside the Ministry of Magic.
Once in his office, Harry found himself eager to read Ginny’s note. So he opened the lunch his wife had prepared for him and fished out the little pieces of paper. It read,
VRIMROISUSYIHIHX.
I Heart You! xxx, Ginny
What on earth was that supposed to mean? It couldn’t possibly be all one word. But he didn’t have a clue where to being in deciphering it. And much to his chagrin, when he tried using magic to solve it instantly, a new note appeared beneath the first one.
Sorry sweetie! But no magical cheating on this one. Do it the muggle way!
Always remember…I heart you,
-Ginny
Flummoxed, he gave up, sat the note aside and began to work through his mountain of paperwork.
A few hours later, he was eating the roast beef sandwich Ginny has prepared for him and thinking over the note. He had taken a course in ciphers and secrets as a part of his auror training and still had his books on it somewhere. He walked over to his office bookshelf and pulled out the book labeled “Scintillating Secrets and How to Keep Them”.
Returning to his desk, he began to skim through it. Unbeknownst to Harry, hours passed as he poured over the text book in front of him, trying to break this seemingly simplistic code. So much time passed in fact, that when he next looked up it was nearly time to go. About five minutes later, Ron poked his head into Harry’s office.
“Hey you heading home soon? We could walk down to the atrium together.”
“Not quite yet,” Harry responded. “I’m trying to figure out this code that Ginny gave me. It’s driving me nuts.”
“Here,” Ron said, “Let me take a look at it. Hermione gives me these things all the time. Even when I ask her not to.” Ron smiled a bit, obviously thinking about Hermione’s encrypted love notes.
“Have you tried a Caesar cipher?” Ron asked.
“Yeah it just gives me gibberish. There’s got to be a keyword somewhere, but nothing I can think of fits. I’ve tried Quidditch, and Hogwarts, and all sorts of stuff.”
“Wouldn’t you think she’d give you more clues if there was a key?” Ron asked.
And just like that the scene this morning came rushing back to Harry, the last thing Ginny had said to him was “Remember, I heart you!” and then it was there again in her reprimand against him for trying to cheat. Harry had thought she was being sweet and loving, because she said that to him all the time. But what if she had been giving him the keywords all along?
Harry quickly lined up the words I HEART YOU with ABCDEFGHI, filling in the rest of the alphabet once he got to H. He could then begin to fill in the letters in the code.
Over time VRIMROISUSYIHIHX became WEAREHAVINGABABY.
“What’s it say?” Ron eagerly asked, having grown impatient waiting for Harry to substitute the letters.
“We are having a baby.” Harry said, with an inflection that indicated he was merely pleased with having made sense of the puzzle and not that he fully realized the magnitude of what he’d just said.
“Wait what?” Ron tried to clarify. “Is that really what is says?”
“Oh my god, Ron.” Harry sat back in his chair once it fully hit him. He was stunned and excited and just the least bit scare out of his wits. “Oh my god, We’re…Ginny is…I’m going to be…”
Ron pulled Harry up from his chair and gave him a solid hug. “Congratulations, Harry! I’m going to be an uncle!”
“Ginny!” Harry exclaimed suddenly. “I must go see Ginny.”
Harry rushed out of his office, forgetting all about his trench coat and umbrella. When he finally arrived back at his house, he was soaked to the bone, but he didn’t care. He was going to be a father, and he was eager to see his wife and share in her joy.
“Ginny! I figured it out!” He yelled as soon as he opened the door.
Harry could hear her footsteps coming down the stairs, and soon she was flying into his arms, not caring that he was all wet.
“Are you happy about it?” Ginny asked him.
“Are you kidding? I’m thrilled, elated, jubilant even!”
“I heart you.” Ginny said as she nestled against Harry’s chest.
“I heart you too.”
Points:
976/30 = 32.53 33 + 10 points for bonus items = 43 points for Gryffindor
