Week Two - Task #08. "Alley of Echoes"

[Prof. Sindor Aloyarc]

A featureless alley behind the florist’s shop has become a local curiosity. People claim they hear their own thoughts echoing back at them, but wrong somehow.

You step into the alley, heart pounding. Your own thoughts bounce back disjointed, rearranged and unfamiliar.

“I know your wand. I remember your spark.”

You cast a quiet detection spell, but no known enchantments register. Instead, you find a small metal pin stuck between the bricks: Ministry grade, standard surveillance tech but modified.

It’s not your tech. Someone’s listening.

Task:
Discover what whispers you're hearing by solving the following Cryptogram and Send Me Your Solution through a private message.


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Alternatively you can share an HOL appropriate Secret below describing something silly or serious that most people might not know about you, using 100 words or more for full credit.

[Prof. Sindor Aloyarc]

Solved by:
River Fenwick
Aisling Lestrange

[Emily Spencer]

Ah, secrets! Many who know me would say that I am an open book, and in some ways, they would be right. However, even I have my secrets, and I will reveal one of them to you now.

Being a paramedic has taught me to put up a good front. As the British would say, I have a good ‘stiff upper lip’, and am able to separate my feelings from whatever needs to be done at the time. I hav been placed in very uncomfortable scenarios due to the nature of my profession, and carried on as if nothing were the matter. Those who I work with would say that I was unflappable; they would be very wrong.

Not to sound rife with false bravado, but few things truly scare me. One exception is birds. I’m talking anything from a little hummingbird to a great eagle. If it has wings and flies, this girl is out of here! I am ashamed to admit it, but I have even knocked my daughter out of the way in a blind panic when a bird got into the house. Not my proudest moment, but my Slytherin instinct for self-preservation kicked in full gear. It was every man (or woman) for themselves!

It’s not only live birds, either. Big Bird from Sesame Street, the stupid emu from the Geico commercials, and even Harry Potter’s dear owl, Hedwig are enough to induce nightmares. I am rather ashamed to admit it, but I was probably the only person in the Harry Potter fandom that did not shed tears when Hedwig died. I didn’t even like Fawkes! Terrible, I know.

And there you have it, a secret about me.