Chapter 9

Eating in the game was something he'd been curious about, and despite now having food in his mouth, he still was. The game interfaced with his mind, so the food tasted like what he'd expect. However, out of curiosity he'd tried a bite of broccoli - something he knew he disliked in the real world, and found it wasn't bad. It tasted the same, and yet he wasn't having a negative response to it. Perhaps it was because the flavor was in his mind rather than on his tongue, but honestly he wasn't sure how that worked - why would he be alright with the flavor in the game but absolutely hate it in the real world?

The cop-out answer was 'magic' of course, but he set it aside to ask Hermione later. It made little difference he supposed - he'd get to try food he usually wouldn't enjoy, or at least wouldn't be limited with what he ate. Food in the game had certain effects, the most common of which was a replenishing of magic. He didn't know much more than that at the moment though - Harry had only been a tester for very specific things, mostly a few environs and spell casting. To ensure that even the testers could enjoy the game, most of them had a specialization - for example even within environs Harry had mostly been limited to certain places, places he'd been to in real life like Hogwarts. Others had tested things like live mechanics, or the taste of food.

Harry had no idea how the variable that was 'magic' was handled though. Magic was a wild and often unpredictable thing, the slightest mistake or interaction leading to strange results. It was why Madam Pomfrey was held in such high regard - to be the mediwitch, especially to a school of children, meant she had to be very skilled in undoing magicks that had gotten tangled together and morphed into something strange. Harry had once seen two students who had been fighting in the halls - one had cast a leg locker curse and the other a jelly-legs jinx, and when the two combined the two had found their legs had literally melded together into one solid limb. Without a counter curse, as it wasn't a structured spell, fixing such mishaps took a lot of skill and care.

The bottom line was that magic was volatile. It was amazing and powerful, but if unstructured it could do all kinds of damage. It was really no wonder that Hermione kept the magic variable of the game a secret even to him. Who knew what might happen - the game was magical enough as it was, and they were even now still trying to find ways to prevent a person's actual magic from responding during gaming, as still sometimes happened during stressful experiences. It wouldn't do if players were casting magic in their bedrooms while playing a videogame!

Those were problems for people with far bigger brains than his - it was all such theoretical knowledge and he was a more practical person, it went way over his head. Speaking of which, the mysteries of how he suddenly enjoyed eating broccoli in the game weren't going to be answered by him. Sighing in amused confusion, Harry got to his feet. It was dinner time (though the intro was instanced, so it wasn't evening for everyone, just those at the same stage as him) so he had some free time. Actually he had plenty of free time, but it wasn't worth faffing about at the early stages when he still had so much to learn, which would make things easier for him.

There was one thing he was determined to do - which was to uncover all of Hogwarts. Although the map was fairly simple (and not wholly reliable, given how you could jump from one spot in the castle to the other side of it just by stepping because of the castle's magic) it was looking to be a tough achievement. Hermione had given him a vague warning that it wouldn't be so easy - after all, very few people knew all the secrets of the castle. Sure, many people knew a fair few, but unless they all got together and figured it out then they'd never completely fill it out. For example only a handful of people knew about the Chamber of Secrets, where it was or how you got into it, and Harry knew for a fact that it was in the game because he'd had to let Hermione into it for mapping.

Whilst it was on his mind he decided to head in that direction - may as well take a look and uncover it on his map. He was also curious as to how Hermione would have made the Chamber accessible without a parselmouth - if it turned out that there wasn't then he'd be a bit annoyed - it meant anyone who figured it out would likely come after him for help. As Ron had shown though, it was possible to memorize parseltongue without being able to understand it, but you still had to hear it first to get the sounds right.

As it turned out, upon reaching the girl's bathroom, it was Mrytle who would get them in - but only if asked correctly. The ghost popped up as he entered along with an optional quest to find out the mystery of her ghost in the bathroom. It turned out to be as difficult as he expected - the slightest mis-step with his words had her diving into a toilet and flooding the place, with a notification coming up telling him to try again later. Fortunately he had no need to do so as he already knew how to get into the hidden chamber. Heading instead to the sink, it turned out that knowing the truth already qualified him to complete the quest and the sink dropped down into a tunnel.

The quest gave him a huge sum of exp for completing it, as well as a hefty amount of gold. It was a pretty huge reward for so early in the game... but it should have taken a fair bit longer - and would, Harry reflected, for anyone who didn't know the secret already. Harry smirked to himself as he watched the sink shift out of the way and a new quest come up. The quest goaded him to try his luck against Slytherin's beast, warning him that it was a dungeon quest.

Grinning with anticipation, Harry launched himself down the pipe for another long, brutally fast ride down underneath the castle and the lake.

The next time Hermione saw him, UNO was wearing a strange leather coat that shone slightly green in the light and was looking faintly smug. She eyed it suspiciously - she'd not seen any item like that in any of the stores or starter quests, and it was very distinctive.

"Where did you get that coat? Its not anything I recognise."

At this, UNO looked sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, you see, I thought I'd explore Hogwarts some more - see just how close it is to the original." He prevaricated. "And well, I suppose I might have ended up in the chamber of secrets."

He paused, clearly expecting to be verbally eviscerated for going into such a dangerous place alone, but Hermione seemed at a loss for words - her mouth hung open slightly as she stared at him. He hurried onwards in the hope of avoiding the explosion entirely. "When I went down the tunnel it felt like I entered a mini-dungeon or something. The basilisk was there, and I killed it again. It dropped a load of awesome materials - though not very much of them. I ended up going out and back in again a few times to get enough snakeskin for the coat and a few other bits." You'd think it would have dropped more, but unfortunately not.

"Probably best not to spread it around though - it's a tough battle, and part of one of the secrets of the castle. Plus the material and item drops are great, and I don't want that to be nerfed." The coat alone gave him a huge stat boost, but if everyone was farming it then it'd definitely be restricted. As it was he'd likely gotten in all those times because of a bug allowing the instant respawn.

"You know, that space down there really is a waste though." Harry pointed out. "In the real world too I mean - and the snake remains. We should really look into doing something about all that. Could you imagine having history of magic classes about Hogwarts, down in Salazar's den?"

"That would be pretty amazing" Hermione agreed, having reacquired her voice. "Though you do realise I'm going to have to report the bug on the chamber so you can't farm it anymore? Though without the basilisk, you could probably make a secret den there or something I suppose. It wouldn't count as housing I don't think, as it's still part of the castle, but we'll see. As for the real world, I'll definitely bring it up with McGonnagall - it'd be just amazing to do something with the space down there. Imagine being able to read in Salazar's hideaway! Oooh it'd be so atmospheric!" The witch practically lit up at the thought.

"Of course that's your interest Hermione." Harry snickered at her. "Personally I think it'd just be good to clean the place up a bit and make use of the space - bit of a waste otherwise." Not to mention the tactical advantage of moving around in the pipes. The snake had been able to sneak around the castle for months on the sly - it could have come in useful while the castle was occupied.

"Having the basilisk was a pretty awesome Hogwarts Secret though." Harry praised. "I wouldn't worry about other players even finding it for a while though, never mind defeating the snake. I only managed because of luck the first few times - and prior knowledge of course."

Despite his assurance, Hermione seemed pretty cheesed off with him. "Ha-UNO." She corrected herself, arms folded over her chest. "You're level fourteen for Morgana's sake. No matter your luck variable it shouldn't have possible for you to defeat the basilisk at all. It's a level 40 boss." Worryingly for Harry, her voice had risen a few octaves and it looked like he hadn't avoided her explosion so much as postponed it a little. "How did you even dent it?" His friend seemed honestly at a loss, and his outright amusement only seemed to anger her further.

"Actually, when I first went into the dungeon I was only level 7." He admitted. "And just finding my way into the chamber bumped me up three or four levels too." So he'd still been equipped with his basic starter gear, some of which he still wore underneath his new coat.

When Hermione seemed torn between frustrated anger, disbelief and exasperation, UNO grinned again more widely, very familiar with the expression on her face. "Don't worry Hermione, I don't think anyone else will be following in my footsteps for a long time." He assured. "And I'll leave it alone, I promise. Besides, I'm the helpful bug-catcher right? Its my job to find loopholes and point them out to you." Rather than seeming pleased with him, Hermione merely made a sound akin to a boiling teakettle and Harry backed away a bit, still far too amused for the amount of danger he knew himself to be in.

Abruptly though, Hermione seemed to lose her bluster and let out a draining sigh. "I suppose it is still kind of your job." Even if he was off the clock as it were, she had known in the beginning that Harry would always find a way to step out of the system and mix things up. The fact that he seemed to be enjoying himself was more important than him sticking to the script, she supposed.

"Just don't tell anyone else about the Chamber alright? They'll have to find it on their own, and maybe in the future we'll make it accessible outside of the instance too." It would be very awesome to do something with the place.

Before the war it wouldn't have been so important - aside from the tunnel access and the like - because frankly Hogwarts already had many empty rooms. Clearing the Chamber would make little difference - it would have just been another empty space without a use. Plus with Binns teaching history it wouldn't have even been of significance to that class, as he never deviated from the same book every year. Now however the castle was filled with adults as well as younger students, all wishing to learn different things and many of those once-empty rooms were getting used where they hadn't been before. There was still a large population loss what with the war, but less so than the last time Voldemort had been around. The magical community was still low in numbers, but they were banding together and breaking out of the mold they'd been in before.

While Harry hadn't visited Hogwarts much since he left, many other had and he knew it had changed significantly. Before the hallways had always been almost entirely empty during class hours, but now there were often people about. Hogwarts had become a hub for everyone wanting to learn, or wanting access to experts in various fields. Plus with the inclusion of magical creatures and a fair amount of interest in them, it wasn't unusual for people to turn up just to see them, or see what sorts of things they taught or were interested in learning. Hogwarts had become a true center for learning - for everyone.

Hogwarts in the game was similarly popular, thought admittedly that was partly to do with the fact that everyone was at starter level and thus hadn't actually made it out of the castle yet. He knew that access to the Atrium wasn't too far into the game, but the intention had been for everyone starting the game to spend some time at Hogwarts, for it to be the home base as it were. Harry was enjoying it and could see the appeal, but at the same time he was eager to progress and leave the castle for the wider world.

It'd be going a lot faster if he didn't get distracted so much though, like with the Chamber, but ultimately he was having fun and that was what was important. With that in mind though, the wizarding savior gave a jaunty wave to his friend and promised not to spill the beans on the chamber. That said, he gave a dramatic turn that made his coat swirl around him in a similar fashion to Snape's billowy robes, and strode off down the hall to Hermione's snort of laughter.

-Notes-

One thing I've noticed, because I'm using word online it seems to sometimes muck up for some reason. The most common is when I type I, it replaces it with Ii. Same with Iit, and a few others, though it doesn't seem to do it every time, just sometimes. I'm not sure why it does this, and it sometimes does it a few seconds after I've carried on with the sentence so I don't always see it. Anyway, if you do spot this error, let me know. It is very annoying but I can't seem to make it stop.