Chapter 8:
Harry Potter was feeling slightly uneasy.
His argument with Professor Snape about an hour ago had driven into him that his powers, while a secret for the most part, hadn't gone unnoticed by the people around him. Terry had once mentioned to him in a casual conversation that he often felt that Harry was holding back in class. Although the perception of him as a prodigal kid who tried to hold himself back to blend in with his friends wasn't anywhere near to the truth, it was still more than he'd ever thought his Ravenclaw friend would have ever noticed.
He had to be more careful with hiding his Gamer powers.
With so many forces out there that were or could become hostile to him, including Voldemort, he had to focus on making himself less of a target. Dumbledore had only known about his shields and ended up almost killing him all because he thought that he could be dangerous. If anyone knew about the true extent of his powers and the things he could do, he would skyrocket to the top of every single dangerous wizard's hit list.
Pushing those thoughts out of his mind and looking down at his cup, he realized that the ice cream he'd claimed for dessert had melted, and there were no more bowls of ice cream on the table left unclaimed. After making sure Hermione and Terry were busy chatting away about the problems they thought the Divination classes had, he whispered under his breath, "Could I possibly have another bowl of ice cream?"
The ice cream bowl in front of him vanished for a split second with an almost inaudible pop and then reappeared with some freshly served vanilla ice cream. Harry grinned. There were some great advantages in having somebody you knew in the kitchen.
"Thanks, Dobby. You're the best," he muttered under his breath.
The bowl disappeared for a split second again before it reappeared with some lovely chocolate syrup on top of the scoops of vanilla ice cream. With a grin, Harry dove into the delicious dessert.
Fifteen minutes later, when he only had a spoonful of ice cream left, the doors to the Great Hall slammed open and Argus Filch, the caretaker, came running into the hall looking incredibly distressed. Despite his enraged expression, Harry was shocked to notice that he had tears in his eyes.
The unpleasant man walked faster than Harry had ever seen him walk on his way to the High Table, where he spoke with the Headmaster in angry whispers for a second. His voice seemed to be loud enough for the students closest to the High Table to catch what was being said, but from Harry's spot at the middle of the table, nothing was audible.
Before he could ask around a bit about what was going on, the Headmaster abruptly stood up.
"Students, stay inside the Hall! Prefects, the Hall doors are locked. Do not, under any circumstances, open them. Professors follow me! There has been an incident," he said before he promptly followed a clearly devastated Filch right out of the doors, which swung shut and locked with a click the moment the last Professor left.
There was a momentary beat of silence, before the Great Hall erupted in a giant mess of noise and chaos.
The Slytherins were, for some reason, the loudest. Harry watched as Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and the other Slytherins repeatedly slammed their goblets onto the table with wide grins and shouted something indecipherable at the top of their voice. The Slytherin prefects were making attempts at stopping the noisemakers but were pathetically unsuccessful.
"What's going on?" Harry asked Hermione in a loud voice over the din.
"I don't know!" Hermione yelled back, "But the Slytherins are yelling something about some sort of Chamber!"
"What's that!?" Harry asked, faintly remembering reading something about it ages ago. Upon seeing Hermione shrug, he turned to Terry, "Oi Terry! What's this Chamber thing the Slytherins are on about?"
"I don't know!" the black haired boy replied through the din, "But some of the others are saying that it's some sort of pureblood legend that the Slytherins believe in."
Harry ransacked his mind for anything that would match that description but found nothing. His repertoire of knowledge focused around the study of magic, and he had never really gotten around to learning about legends and stories that were prevalent in the wizarding world.
"Let's follow them!" a third year Ravenclaw yelled from beside them, interrupting his thought process, "Let's follow the staff! We need to see if the Chamber is really open! Don't let the Professors hide this from us! Open the door Prefects!"
This was met with a roar of support from the Slytherin side of the room, as well as a lot of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Even Gryffindor joined in. By the looks of it, half of them knew what this Chamber was, half didn't, and none of them liked the idea of having stuff of this magnitude hidden from them.
The roar soon condensed to a repeated chant, of "FOLLOW THEM! FOLLOW THEM! FOLLOW THEM! UNLOCK THE DOOR!"
The prefects, who were standing in front of the High Table in a line were keeping the food that the students were throwing at them at bay using shield charms, while they repeatedly refused to open the door, which could only be opened by a special password that only the prefects knew.
The door would only open when all the prefects said the password together, which was why the efforts of the few students trying to force the door open were futile.
Harry watched, wondering whether or not he should interfere, as the students relentlessly kept trying to convince the prefects, until one by one, they started giving in.
Ravenclaw prefects gave in first, then Slytherins, and then the Hufflepuffs, until the only prefects that were left standing their ground were the six Gryffindor prefects. And they were showing no signs of backing off.
"No! No! No! Absolutely not! The Headmaster has expressly prohibited to let you out!" Percy Weasley insisted vigorously, "What if it's some sort of dangerous emergency? We don't know what it was about!"
"Bullshit Weasley!" yelled a Slytherin prefect, "You heard the same thing that we did! It's about the Chamber of Secrets! Stop trying to suck up to the Headmaster! You becoming Head Boy is not as important as the school covering up something as big as this!"
"That is not what this is about! This is about all of you overreacting and turning into a mob over something as baseless as Filch whispering about some Chamber to the Headmaster! We're the prefects Nomques! We can't just disobey the Headmaster's orders!"
Harry's curiosity was piqued. Whatever this Chamber legend was, many students seemed to believe that the teachers would cover it up or something.
Ping!
Quest Alert!
Convince Percy to let the students follow the Professors!
Reward,
1,000 Exp
Failure,
Loss of reputation amongst fellow students
YES/NO?
Not the most rewarding quest, but indeed, quite relevant to the situation. Pressing yes, Harry quickly used Gamer's Mind to find a possible solution to the stand-off.
He stood up, and loudly said, "Then don't!"
The hall fell silent, and Harry continued, "You can tell the Professor that some of the students cast one of those Jelly Brain jinxes on you and forced you to say the password. The jinx is taught in the fourth year, so they won't be able to pin down which house or person did it. Nobody will lose points, we'll be able to see if they're trying to hide anything or not, and the Prefects won't be blamed at all."
There was a moment of silence, in which they could almost see Percy physically struggling with the idea of defying someone he believed to be an authority figure, before he finally sighed.
"Fine" he grudgingly said, "But no running or trampling each other. Walk at a sedate pace."
Ping!
Quest Success!
Convince Percy to let the students follow the Professors!
Reward,
1,000 Exp
Ping!
Skill has levelled up due to clever use!
Politics Lv- 3 (20%)
This is your ability to manoeuvre in political situations by methods of persuasion, blackmail, guile, and manipulation. The higher the level, the more chance of success!
(Lv of Lying + Lv of Bullshitting)% chance of success, less based on how extreme the motive is.
Harry waved away the screen, happy to get some quick exp and a level up to a pretty low-level skill. The fact that this counted as a political situation quite intrigued him as well.
When he refocused on Percy, he saw that the prefect was asking for something, "Did one of you catch what spot Filch was talking about?"
"The second floor Girl's bathroom!" a Hufflepuff answered loudly, and soon, the prefects opened the door, and the students headed out and up the Grand Staircase towards the second floor.
"Good one Harry!" Dean said, wading his way over to them through the crowd with Ron in tow.
"Yeah" Ron exclaimed enthusiastically, "I don't think I'd have ever thought that Percy would agree to disobey Professor Dumbledore's orders!"
"This Chamber business does seem pretty serious doesn't it? Any idea what it is?" Terry asked as Hermione looked on curiously.
Ron shrugged, "No idea mate. I only remember the name because Bill once told me a story about some sort of room that Slytherin built for himself."
'Room? A Founder's Room? Slytherin's Room?' Harry mused
Due to making a logical connection, take +1 Wis!
Harry waved away the screen, storing away that fact for later use and refocusing on his friends.
"Maybe the Slytherins have heard some more detailed version of the story or something? We should probably look it up in the library," Hermione suggested.
"Agreed," Harry said, looking at Hermione "Even if this is a false alarm or something, I reckon we should read up on some wizarding legends and stories. We've been focused too much on the academic aspect of things and not enough on the cultural side."
"Well, you can forget about this being a false alarm. Look!" whispered Dean from his other side.
Harry looked away from Hermione and towards what Dean was looking at.
Something was shining on the wall ahead. They let the crowd guide their path as they slowly approached the spot, where the teachers were standing around a sobbing kneeling Filch, some of them staring at the writing, some occasionally waving a wand at it.
Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.
The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware.
"What's that thing…hanging underneath?" said Ron, a slight quiver in his voice.
As they edged nearer, Terry almost slipped. There was a large puddle of water on the floor. Harry grabbed him and kept him on his feet as the entire group of hundreds of students slowly inched towards the message, eyes fixed on a dark shadow beneath it.
Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's cat, was hanging by her tail from the torch bracket. She was stiff as a board, her eyes wide and staring.
It was at that moment that Professor McGonagall finally noticed the massive group of students. "What are yo-"
"It's alright Minerva. Let them be," Professor Dumbledore said, saving the student body from the Transfiguration Professor's wrath. He gently detached Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket and laid her on the floor beside a blubbering Filch before kneeling down and prodding and poking the cat with his wand.
"Is she dead?" Ron whispered to Harry, but he might as well have said it out loud, for the whisper echoed loudly from one end of the hall to the other, clearly audible. Filch let out a loud moan of despair, making Ron wince.
"No she's not Mr. Weasley," Dumbledore gently said, pocketing his wand and standing up.
"She's not!?" Filch choked out, his voice almost pitifully dripping with hope, "Then why is she all…all frozen and stiff?"
"That…will require some more time to determine…Gilderoy, would you mind terribly if we were to use your office for a second?" the Headmaster asked the blond haired man, who, miraculously, hadn't said a word until now.
"Of course, Headmaster. Just upstairs…please feel free."
"Thank you," said Dumbledore, "Come with me, Argus."
The silent crowd parted to let them pass. Lockhart, looking excited and important, hurried after Dumbledore and so did Professors McGonagall and Snape, while the other Professors began herding back the students.
Dumbledore's voice suddenly echoed through the corridor again, "Mr. Potter, would you come with us please?"
Meeting his friends' confused looks with his own equally confused one, Harry shrugged, and pushed his way through the crowd and caught up with the group of Professors. He'd intended to stay back and Observe the entire scene, but apparently, that wasn't going to happen.
"Is there anything I can do Professor?" he asked the Headmaster, keeping up with his purposeful stride with a slight jog.
"Indeed Harry. We will talk after we reach the good Professor's office."
As they entered the darkened office, Lockhart lit the candles on his desk and stood back. Dumbledore lay Mrs. Norris on the polished surface and began to examine her. Harry sank into a chair outside the pool of candlelight, watching.
The tip of Dumbledore's crooked nose was barely an inch from Mrs. Norris's fur. He was looking at her closely through his half-moon spectacles, his long fingers gently prodding and poking. Professor McGonagall was bent almost as close, her eyes narrowed. Snape loomed behind them, half in shadow, and seemed to have divided his time between staring at Harry and giving baleful glares in the direction of Lockhart, who was hovering around all of them, making suggestions and being generally irritating.
"It was definitely a curse that froze her up…probably the Vestigiatitis Torture Curse…I've seen it used many times. Turns the entire body vestigial…Very sad you see.
Lockhart's comments were punctuated by Filch's dry sobs as he lay slumped in a nearby chair, unable to look at Mrs. Norris, his face in his hands, muttering in between his sobs about how some students must have done this. Much as he detested Filch, Harry couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him.
Dumbledore was now muttering incantations in…
Ping!
Recommended Language: Swahili
Activate All Speak: Swahili?
YES/NO
Harry pressed yes, but there was little he could gather from the series of random and fast strings of words and incantations, so he deactivated it soon after.
Dumbledore continued muttering spells under his breath and tapping Mrs. Norris with his wand but nothing happened. She continued to look as though she had undergone a process for taxidermy. Lockhart continued to ramble on about some nonsense as the photographs of himself on the walls all nodded in agreement as he talked. One of them had forgotten to change out of its bathrobes.
At last, Dumbledore straightened up.
"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore, "But how, I cannot say…which is why I need your assistance, Harry.
"And what could Mr. Potter possibly do to diagnose this mysterious ailment?" Professor McGonagall asked, eyeing Harry curiously.
"More than you think Minerva. Mr. Potter, could I possibly trouble you to call for your avian friend? I'm afraid Fawkes is indisposed at the moment." Dumbledore requested.
Eyeing the Professors in the room, Harry nodded, before he poured some mana into his voice, and called for his phoenix friend, "Hedwig!"
With a spectacular burst of flame, Hedwig materialized above them and flew down onto Harry's shoulder. Professor McGonagall was downright staring, almost as if she hadn't believed before this that Harry had a phoenix, and Professor Snape just looked slightly constipated. Lockhart gave him a grin and a thumbs up from behind them.
"Thank you, Harry. And hello Miss Hedwig" Dumbledore greeted, receiving a chirp of greeting back, "This is Mrs. Norris. She has been petrified by some unknown means that I am unable to determine on my own. Would you mind terribly if I asked you to tell me if she smells unpleasant to you?"
Hedwig sang a small note of acquiesce, before she flapped her wings and flew over to the desk, where she hopped over to Mrs. Norris and brought her beak close to the petrified animal. Filch's sobs quietened, and the entire room waited with bated breath to see if what would happen.
The moment Hedwig took a breath, she jerked back with a loud unpleasant caw, before she burst into flames and reappeared on Harry's shoulder. Harry gently rubbed her back, trying to comfort the clearly disturbed bird as he looked at Dumbledore questioningly.
"I must apologize for that Miss Hedwig," Dumbledore said to the albino firebird, before he turned back to Mrs. Norris's body, "We can eliminate any student from suspicion now. There is absolutely no chance that any student could have done this."
"But what happened Headmaster?" Snape asked from the shadows.
"Phoenixes have very poor tolerance for the smell of the effects of purely dark magic. It is not something humans can smell. Phoenixes can only sense very high amounts of it, and when they do smell it, it is very repulsive to them" Dumbledore said, summoning an apple for Hedwig and handing it to Harry, who held it as Hedwig gingerly nibbled on it.
"So what does this mean now Albus?" McGonagall asked, not once taking her eyes off Hedwig.
"That means," Dumbledore said, "that this is some very dark magic. Fortunately, we do have a cure that can counter any form of Petrifaction, no matter how dark it is."
"Mandrakes," Snape said, comprehending what the Headmaster was saying. Harry immediately recognized that as the name of the plant which Dean, Ron and Neville were talking about this morning.
"Indeed Severus. A Mandrake Restorative Draught would easily restore Mrs. Norris. Professor Sprout's Mandrakes should be reaching maturity by New Year's," Dumbledore said before patting Filch's back, "Cheer up Argus! We'll have Mrs. Norris up and chasing students very in no time at all"
Feeling a bit awkward, Harry asked, "Er…should I leave now headmaster?"
"Ah yes yes," Dumbledore said, "You can indeed. However Harry, could you please drop off Mrs Norris at the Hospital Wing before you head back to your dorms? The Professors and I have a few things to discuss. Here, I'll write a note for you"
Harry nodded, as Dumbledore quickly penned down a note for him.
"Remember to tell Madam Pomfrey to contact her friend at the Menagerie and make Mrs. Norris as comfortable as possible" he added.
Gingerly taking the stiff body of Mrs Norris from a hesitant Filch, Harry grabbed onto Hedwig's tail feathers and disappeared from the room with a burst of flame. The fire receded from his vision after a moment, and he found himself just outside the doors of the Hospital wing.
"Why don't you head back to the dorms Hedwig, I'll be there in a few minutes," Harry said.
Hedwig nipped Harry's ear, before she flapped into the air and flamed away, leaving Harry with a petrified old cat and his thoughts.
This petrifaction wasn't an accident. That much was self-evident. It almost definitely had something to do with whatever plan Malfoy put in motion. It was becoming more and more apparent that this heir person was that someone that Malfoy had sent to the school.
Looking down at the miserable cat, Harry wondered if he could help the animal.
Putting his hand on the cat's abdomen, Harry made his mana pool into his hands, making it glow from the inside, before he muttered, "Healing Touch."
A bunch white light started from his hand, but unlike the time he'd used it with Anny, the light didn't ripple across the cat at all, instead continuously pooling in his hand. It continued to do so for a few more seconds before it gave up and dissolved back into his own mana.
Ping!
ERROR! : Healing Touch Unsuccessful!
Primary Error Code: Unknown
Secondary Error Code: Status Unmatched!
Patient status classified as BEAST. Required status for skill usage classified as BEING.
Recommendation: Usage of Healing Skill
Harry stared at the new screen, slightly flummoxed. This was new! He couldn't heal animals with this power! Why!?
Shaking his head, Harry decided it must have something to do with his Healing Touch skill having come from human-made magic and his Healing skill having come from a unicorn, before he used Healing on the cat.
Ping!
You are attempting to heal somebody with several ailments! Please chose one to heal:
Broken Fibula
Petrifaction
Harry selected the Petrifaction, and to his utmost annoyance and infuriation a familiar window popped up.
WARNING: Petrifaction has status Ancient Magic on it, increasing cost of removal by 3000MP.
Total Cost - 3300MP
Harry stared at the window in shock before pulling up his own stats.
HP - 1675/1675
MP - 1425/1425
Oh no no no no…this was bad…this was very bad.
With his current rate of growth, he would need more than twenty level ups before he could cure this, even with the help of his Wardstone Perk.
If this Petrifaction thing happened to some student, then the only way to help them would be the potion. This was bad.
Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, Harry opened his Mage Sight. If he couldn't help somebody who was petrified, then the least he could do was diagnose them.
What he saw, caused him even further unrest.
There was mana in the cat's body, but it wasn't flowing as normal and healthy mana should have been. Instead, it was entirely frozen. Completely still at every single point. Unmoving, unresponsive…petrified.
The curse, or whatever it was, went much deeper than any spell he'd ever seen. Harry finally understood why his Healing Touch had shown that Unknown Primary Error.
The Healing Touch skill worked by traveling through the flowing eddy currents of the patient's mana and using the patient's own mana to completely heal them, which was why the skill didn't take any mana from Harry as cost.
But here…here the patient's mana was frozen…vestigial…useless.
This Petrifaction was beyond his ability to heal. At least for now.
Harry sighed, and was about to switch the Mage sight off, when he suddenly caught sight of something and stopped.
In glowing letters, invisible to any eyes except those gifted with Mage Sight, there was written a message on the paper note that the Headmaster had handed him, which was still clutched in his hand.
Keep an eye on Draco Malfoy
And in one striking moment Harry realized that he'd never even considered the possibility that Draco Malfoy knew of whatever plan that his father had cooked up. While it seemed very unlikely that Lucius Malfoy was the type to involve, or even trust his son, the thought was not outside the realm of possibility.
Dumbledore, who knew that Harry did occasionally talk to Draco, must have decided to tell him to keep an eye on him since a fellow student talking to the younger Malfoy would set off lot less alarm bells than it would if the Headmaster did it.
He promptly decided to keep an eye on the Malfoy heir, and headed into the Hospital Wing, where he handed over the petrified Mrs. Norris to the matron, who, after some questioning, let Harry go.
It was getting late, Harry thought as he walked towards the Ravenclaw tower. The rest of the guys would probably have fallen asleep by now. If he were being perfectly honest with himself, he was getting a bit sleepy too. It had been a long first day.
He had a couple of plans to test out tomorrow, which could possibly help in case any student fell prey to this crazy plan Malfoy had cooked up.
Harry idly wondered whether the Room of Requirement was any good at finding grown Mandrakes.
The next morning, Harry realized that the Room of Requirements was very good at finding grown Mandrakes.
Rotten ones.
After a bunch of digging around and asking the Room for any information on the Room itself, Harry learned that the Room of Requirements worked on the basis of Transfiguration, and could only create non-organic andnon-magicall things. Any organic or magical object that it furbished to its user wasn't created, but summoned from somewhere that Harry found no information about.
In short, NO food.
Thus when he asked for grown Mandrakes, the room presented him with the only Mandrakes it could summon from its storage. Old, rotten and useless ones.
So Harry waved goodbye to that idea as it went down the drain.
Bugger.
Furthermore, his second idea, which was to contact Nicholas via Hedwig this morning, also went down the drain.
By lunch, Nicholas sent Hedwig back with a letter, saying that there were no above ground and legal sources that were selling Mandrakes, since they weren't in season anywhere on the planet.
Further worsening the situation was the fact that Nicholas and Perenelle had cut all access to their shadier contacts before faking their deaths. So the magical equivalent of the black market was out of his reach as well. Nicholas had moreover added that it was highly unlikely that Mandrakes would be available even on the black market until the next January.
Bugger.
All that was he could do now, was to make the Game give him some sort of Botanical skill and help Professor Sprout's batch grow faster, which wasn't going to be easy since the game was a sarcastic little bitch when it came to respecting Harry's wishes about what abilities he should get.
Bugger.
After getting buggered thrice on the same day, Harry decided that he would give his brain and arse some much-needed rest, and headed to the History of Magic with the Ravens and the Gryffindors for a good hour of nap-time.
But even that small relief was not to going to be granted to him.
Halfway through the class, Hermione put up her hand, much to the ghostly Professor's surprise. Apparently, her early morning library research about the Chamber of Secrets hadn't been as fulfilling as she would have liked it to be.
"Miss?" Binns asked, acknowledging Hermione.
"Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets," said Hermione in a clear voice.
Dean, who had been sitting with his mouth hanging open, gazing out of the window, jerked out of his trance, the Patil twins simultaneously looked like two meerkats that had caught sight of something of interest and Neville's elbow slipped off his desk.
Professor Binns blinked.
"My subject is History of Magic, Miss Gangrene," he said in his dry, wheezy voice. "I deal with facts, not myths" He cleared his throat with a small noise like chalk s!-ping and continued, "In September of that year, a subcommittee of Sardinian sorcerers…"
He stuttered to a halt. Hermione's hand was waving in the air again.
"Miss Grant?"
"Please, sir, but don't legends always have a basis in some fact or the other?"
Professor Binns was looking at her as if he'd seen a ghost. Harry was sure no student had ever interrupted him like this before, alive or dead.
"Well," said Professor Binns slowly, looking more awake than Harry had ever seen him before, "yes, one could argue that, I suppose." He peered at Hermione as though he had never seen her properly before. But the whole class was now hanging on Professor Binns's every word. Even the most unobservant of students could could have told you that he was completely thrown by such an unusual show of interest.
"Oh, very well," he said slowly, racking his ghostly memory, that somehow seemed to have perfect recall of all things Historical, but couldn't remember a student's name, "Let me see…the Chamber of Secrets…You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four witches and wizards. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution."
He paused, gazed blearily around the room, and continued.
"For a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then a rift began to grow between Slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between Slytherin and Gryffindor, and Slytherin left the school."
Professor Binns paused again, pursing his lips, "Reliable historical sources tell us this much," he said. "But these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin built a going-away present to the school in the form of a secret chamber that could only be opened by his true heir. This "Chamber of Secrets" contains a monster that only the Heir of Slytherin can control and that, once released, would purge the school of all those born of Muggles."
There was an uneasy silence as he finished telling the story. Professor Binns looked faintly annoyed.
"The whole thing is complete nonsense, of course," he said, "Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist."
What followed was by far the most active discussion of facts and logic that Harry had ever seen happen in this classroom. Seamus had argued that nobody could have found the Chamber unless they were the heir and Padma argued the use of dark magic or some sort of password that only the heir would know, both of which Binns refuted.
Hermione had asked one final question about why this legend wasn't more well known.
To that, the haggled looking ghost replied, "It's a fairy tale Miss Granger. A bad one at that. Why would it be more popular?" before he shut down any and all discussion about the topic and went back to his lecture.
The next couple of weeks passed without any major incident. For the first few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris.
Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds. When he wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red- eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly' and "looking smug."
Late evening on the nineteenth of September, which was a Saturday, Harry found himself nibbling on his food, watching as Terry and Hermione raced to finish their six and a half feet of Potions compositions for Monday's class.
"Harry! Why aren't you doing your compositions!" Hermione exclaimed, when she looked up from her parchment.
"It's already done," Harry replied. He'd finally gotten another level up to his Calligraphy during the essay as well. The skill now sat as follows,
Calligraphy, Lv-11 (21%)
You can write with any writing instrument with your mastery of the art of script. This skill can make a significant difference in runes, arithmancy and other forms of written ritual magic.
Special moves:
Runomancy attack: Runic Burst
An attack which upon activation unleashes a number of rune amplified spells on your foe. The spells are chosen randomly out of your combat spell arsenal. The number of spells is only limited by the amount of times you choose to attack your enemy or your mana pool.
Attack- (Number of spells x Wis)% more damage + Dex
Cost- (Cost of wandless magic x 50%), Cooldown period +5 seconds for every spell
It wasn't anything revolutionary, but at least it was a level up.
"What?! When?!" Terry exclaimed aghast, "Snape gave us the assignment yesterday evening!"
"Yesterday evening," Harry said, picking up a goblet and sipped on it.
"Smug little overachiever," Terry crossly muttered.
"Oh sorry Terry, I didn't hear you there. What was that?" Harry asked mockingly.
"Nothing at all Mr. Potter," Terry replied in an overly saccharine voice.
"Knock it off you two. Terry, get back to the essay. We still have a conclusion to write," Hermione said, before she re-inked her quill and dived back into her writing.
"Well," Harry said, placing down his goblet, "I'm off to sleep. I'll catch you guys tomorrow at breakfast."
They acknowledged his goodbye with some obscure gestures and hand waves that Harry took to mean that they would see him then as well, before he headed out of the hall and towards the Ravenclaw Tower.
However, he wasn't going to sleep. Tonight was a special night. Something he'd worked hard for.
Reaching the tower, he simply muttered the word Duro, which was the keyword to turn the bed curtains solid and make sure that they wouldn't open for anybody except the user.
Having made sure that his dorm mates would be thinking that he was asleep, Harry fed Hedwig some chocolate, let her fly into his enlarged robe pocket, and dropped into an ID. Once in the isolation of the red-tinged dimension, Harry used Unicorn Boost to run all the way to the seventh floor, where he popped out of the ID and used his thoughts to mold the Room of Requirements into a room of his preferences before he let himself in.
The Room had taken the form of a large barren chamber devoid of anything but a few tables with a basketful of feathers and a jug of water beside it.
Harry let Hedwig out of his pocket before he walked over to the table and dipped a single feather into the water. He pulled out his wand and started what was hopefully going to be his last nightly exercise on this particular spell.
"Fulguris" he intoned, and a tiny thread of wireform lightning joined the wand's tip to the feather, and instead of incinerating it or completely burning it up as Harry had done the last few times he'd practiced the spell, left the feather only a bit singed.
Once more, he thought to himself.
He dipped another feather in the water. Then, he focused his Gamer's Mind, and any and all expertise he had on the Mind Arts, on making his concentration as razor sharp as possible.
"Fulguris" he intoned, and an even thinner wire of lightning than before connected to the feather for a split second. Harry's eyes lost focus for a moment.
When Harry refocused on the feather, it was dry. A ringing sound echoed in his ears.
Ping!
You've leveled up a skill due to focused usage to master a spell!
Mind Arts, Lv-7 (12%)
The act of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings, either with others or one's own self. One of the rarest magics today due to its regulated teaching.
Cost-35 MP per use
Branch A - Magic Sensing - Allows you to sense flowing currents of magic that are in flux.
Branch B - Legilimency - Allows you to invade the mind of your target.
"YES!" he yelled out loud in celebration. It had taken five whole months to master this spell. So many sleepless nights both at the Flamels and Hogwarts…It had all finally paid off.
With a grin, he called for his best friend, "Hedwig!"
The phoenix flew over with a melodious trill. Harry grabbed onto her tail feathers, and said, "Let's go show the old man what I just did shall we girl?"
An affirmative chirp was the only reply he got before she grabbed hold of him and they were both engulfed in a vortex of fire.
When the fire receded from his vision, Harry was in the Flamel apartment's living room, with two wands mere centimeters in front of his face. Harry calmly stared the owners of those wands in the eyes and flatly said, "Getting paranoid in your old age are you?"
"Harry!? What are you doing here!?" Perenelle asked as the two ancients lowered their wands.
Harry grinned as he wordlessly showed them the dry feather.
Nicholas's eyes widened, "You're joking," he said to him as he grabbed the feather from his hand and started waving his wand over it.
Perenelle's eyes flashed golden for a second as she slipped into mage sight to confirm what Harry was implying. Her eyebrows disappeared into her hairline as a proud smile spread across her face.
"No he's not" she asserted, confirming what Nicholas's spells were no doubt showing as well. That the feather had a lightning spell cast on it.
Harry had passed the first test of alchemy. Absolute control over the Fulguris spell.
"Half the time," Nicholas shook his head in amazement, "It took you just above half the time to finish those spells. I gave you till December, and you bring them to me before October starts. That's faster than I mastered the spell…how?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's just the place, maybe it's my Occlumency. Something about Hogwarts just boosts my learning speed," like the Location Boost, Harry mentally added, "Or who knows," he joked, "maybe I'm just better than you old man."
Nicholas raised an eyebrow, "Whatever helps you sleep at night, you little runt. Reality is that you just had a better teacher."
"You keep feeding your ego that much and you'll end up getting a heart attack," Harry shot back before he changed the subject back to more pertinent matters, "But enough of that. Tell me. What's next? What's after this spell?"
"I…I was going to give you the next batch of books as a Christmas present of sorts, but I suppose I'll have to find a new one," he sighed, before continuing, "The Library is a bit of a mess right now, and I'll have to clean up a bit to find the books that you'll need to prepare for the next lesson of alchemy. Which, I suppose, you'll get when you come back for the Christmas break. It's all about the Healing aspect of the art."
Nicholas shook his head before he headed up the hallway towards the Library, leaving Harry with Perenelle and Hedwig, who was happily nibbling away on the apples in the living room fruit bowl.
They sat down on the duvet and started chatting about how Harry's school year had gone thus far. Perenelle, who had expressed concern about the Mrs Norris thing over the letter, was even more concerned about the entire thing after she heard a more detailed description from him verbally, even going so far as to offering to pull Harry from the school, which Harry promptly and vehemently denied.
Soon, the conversation drifted to a lull, and they both watched Hedwig as she hopped and flapped her way all around the room, curiously testing everything to see if anything had changed while she was gone.
A question, that Harry had always had, and never quite voiced brought itself to the front of his mind.
In one of the many idle moments during the summer, he'd once compared the situation of the Flamels having to keep their lives a secret with the secret of his own. And lately, being as surrounded by his friends as he was, that question had troubled him quite a bit. Stuffing down his hesitation, he decided to screw it and ask it.
"Do you ever feel alone Perenelle?" he asked, catching the attention of the ancient witch, "You have this secret that you can't tell anybody around you. Doesn't it just weigh on you like nothing else?"
Perenelle didn't say anything. Harry turned to look at her, only to see that she was staring at him with an odd look in her eyes. And then, she blinked, and her eyes turned golden.
"Join me Harry," she said gently, and Harry knew what she meant. With nary a thought, his Mage Sight activated, and he joined Perenelle in gazing at the mana that flowed all around them.
"You see it too, don't you? The one thing that connects us all…Magic…people usually like to believe that magic is a tool, but I've always had a little bit of a different belief. It's not magic that is a tool, but those of us who are magical. We are the mediums for the magic to show its presence in the world"
"That sounds almost religious," Harry pointed out.
"I suppose it does…" Perenelle mused, "It is the closest thing to religion that I've ever believed in. The belief that magic has sentience, and that it cares for me. It comforts me, that thought, in the times when the burden of the past and the loneliness of the present feel a bit too heavy on my shoulders."
She paused for a second, before she continued.
"Do I feel lonely? Yes. Sometimes. Not so much since you've joined the family," she said with a smile at him, "But do I feel alone? No. Never. How could I, with the belief that I'm a part of something so much bigger?"
Harry stared at the mana of the house, continually moving and churning all around him, and let the smooth flowing waves of mana calm his senses. He felt a bit more at peace with his own secret.
Of course, Perenelle just had to ruin the moment.
"You don't have to keep it a secret, you know," she said.
"Keep what a secret?" Harry asked, feeling a bit wary. Had the Flamels somehow uncovered his Gamer powers?
"That you're gay."
That was unexpected. Harry's eyes almost popped out of his head, before he pulled himself together and eloquently expressed his reaction to that question, "What!?"
"You do know that we will accept you no matter what your sexuality is right?" Perenelle continued, although the teasing smile on her face gave her away, "We're both pretty modern about it. Nicholas seems to have a habit of picking up gay apprentices. Did you know that his last three were all gay? It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that you are too."
"Goddamit woman! I am not gay!" Harry cried indignantly, elbowing the woman in the arm, who then, in pursuit of retribution, found a ticklish spot near his midriff and launched an assault on him.
Their combined laughter echoed through the hallway down to the Library.
Nicholas, who was cleaning up all the mess in his lab while searching for some books, paused for a second to listen to the merry laughter of his family before he shook his head and resumed his work.
He had a small smile on his face.
The next few days passed pretty glumly, as Harry tried to evenly split his time between researching some stuff about the Game project, getting started on the massive pile of books Nicholas had handed him, and keep up with his school work.
His subjects skills had started regularly leveling up as well, now that he was back at Hogwarts. He was still holding out hope for some sort of special reward when those hit level 10.
Potions, Lv-9 (85%)
Your skill in brewing and creating potions with your magic is shown in this skill.
Transfiguration, Lv-8 (25%)
Your skill in transfiguration branch of magic with your magic is shown in this skill.
Charms, Lv- 9(8%)
Your skill in the art of charms with your magic is shown in this skill.
Herbology, Lv-7 (63%)
Your skill with flora, magical and nonmagical is shown in this skill.
And between all this hustle and bustle, Mrs. Norris had eventually entirely slipped his mind.
The first week of October was when the Quidditch tryouts were held. Harry hadn't been very interested in the entire thing, but he and Hermione had gone to watch Ron, Terry and Dean try and fail to make their house teams. While Dean had only gone to try out for fun and wasn't very upset when he didn't make it, Ron and Terry had taken the loss pretty badly.
"As long as they've got Wood, I've got no chance of getting in the keeper's spot," Ron had told Harry glibly, as he defeatedly returned the school broom to the cupboard he'd taken it from.
"Don't say that Ron, you'll make it next time," Harry had assured him, although he knew that his redhead friend was nowhere near as good as the Gryffindor captain. Even if he didn't like the sport, Harry could always respect skill, and Oliver Wood had spades of that.
For Terry, it had been third-year Cho Chang who had pushed him out of the race. Fast and lightweight, Cho Chang had proven a good fit for the spot of the Ravenclaw seeker, although Terry had given some decent competition to her. He had spent two whole days after the tryouts looking as if someone had murdered his pet rabbit.
And so the life at Hogwarts went on.
Harry had expected this particular October Monday to be nothing but boring and normal. It soon turned out to be anything but.
It had all started in the first period, where Harry had partnered himself with Ernie Macmillan, since Terry had come down with a terrible cold and had been ordered to rest in the dorms for the day.
It was during that period that Harry realized something. Ernie Macmillan wasn't called the Neville Longbottom of Hufflepuff for nothing. About halfway through the period, Harry had turned away just for a second to finish dicing the Redcap skin, and Ernie made a very dangerous mistake. He added ground Erumpet horn powder to an infusion of Aconite.
A very stupid mistake to make, but even more importantly, a very dangerous mistake to make.
The resulting explosion had thrown the entire class to the floor, and Harry was left with a rib sticking out of his side.
He could have easily healed himself then and there, but the injury was gruesome and very easily visible, which was why most of the class had already seen it by the time Harry had even realized it was there, making it impossible for him to subtly heal it without exposing his Gamer abilities.
So off to the Hospital Wing he'd been sent.
The matron Madam Pomfrey had set the bone back into place and healed it right up in a jiffy, before bandaging the wound up, but being the fussy little witch that she was, she didn't agree to even let Harry move from the bed before the next morning.
And that was how Harry found himself that night. Tied to a bed in the Hospital wing, mentally swearing up a storm at Madam Pomfrey and Ernie as he drifted off to sleep.
About a couple of hours into the night, Harry woke quite suddenly in the pitch blackness and with a thrill of horror, realized that someone was shaking him in the dark.
"Geroff!" he exclaimed loudly before he realized what it was. Or rather who it was, "Dobby!"
The house-elf's goggling tennis ball eyes were peering at Harry through the darkness, looking more distressed than he had ever seen them before.
"Dobby is sorry to disturb Harry Potter," he whispered miserably "But Dobby didn't know who else to go to sir."
Harry heaved himself up on his pillows, pulling himself together, before he asked, "What's the matter Dobby? What happened?"
"Something bad sir. Something bad. Dobby's mind has been messed with."
"Your mind? What do you mean?" Harry asked hurriedly, growing increasingly worried.
"Dobby has forgotten things, sir. Things that Dobby had merely thought and heard and never really told anybody. Where there were those memories, now there are holes sir!" the house elf said, clutching his head and looking incredibly worried and scared, as if the very thought of someone messing with his mind was repulsive.
An Obliviate, Harry realized, someone could have obliviated the elf without accounting for how differently an elf's brain works. "You think you've been memory charmed."
"Indeed yes, sir," said Dobby, nodding his head vigorously, ears flapping as he climbed up onto Harry's bed at his feet. "Dobby was ironing Harry Potter's clothes yesterday when Dobby noticed how Dobby couldn't remember many of the ideas he had about what bad master could have been doing sir! And Dobby didn't know what to do except to bother the great Harry Potter!"
"Don't worry about it Dobby," Harry said, casting an Observe on the elf. If he'd been memory charmed, then it should show up as a status effect.
Dobby
Lv-23
HP-2025/2025
MP-1350/1350
Race- House Elf
Str-5
Vit-27
Dex-12
Int-8
Wis-12
Luc-4
Dobby is a male house-elf who works at Hogwarts. His old masters used to treat him cruelly, and as such, he, like most house elves, has health issues and low self-esteem. He is a big fan of Harry Potter and is incredibly loyal to him.
He is scared since he has noticed that some of his memories missing from his head.
Harry stared at the observe. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"Is it possible that you could have just forgotten something Dobby?" he asked tentatively.
Dobby shook his head resolutely, his ears flapping about him, before he suddenly froze, his bat ears quivering.
Harry heard it, too. There were footsteps coming down the passageway outside.
"Dobby must go! Be safe sir!" breathed the elf, looking quite scared. There was a crack, and Harry was suddenly alone again. He slumped back into bed, pretending to sleep as he kept his eyes on the dark doorway to the hospital wing as the footsteps drew nearer.
Next moment, Dumbledore was backing into the dormitory, wearing a long woolly dressing gown and a nightcap. He was carrying one end of what looked like a statue. Professor McGonagall appeared a second later, carrying its feet. Together, they heaved it onto a bed, which was blocked from his sight by a hospital screen.
Harry activated Mage Sight, hoping that it would be able to see through the thin curtains.
It could.
"Get Poppy," whispered Dumbledore, and Professor McGonagall hurried past the end of Harry's bed and out of sight. Harry lay still and unmoving, pretending to be asleep. He heard urgent voices, and then Professor McGonagall swept back towards the bed with the statue, closely followed by Madam Pomfrey. He heard a sharp intake of breath.
"What happened?" Madam Pomfrey whispered to Dumbledore, bending over the statue on the bed.
"Another attack," said Dumbledore gravely, "Minerva found her on the third-floor corridor."
Harry peered at the glowing form of the statue with his Mage sight, before he momentarily turned it off and peered over the screen, trying to see the name in the window that floated over the statue.
Hannah Abbott
Lv- 6
It was Hannah Abbott. The Hufflepuff half-blood from their year. He'd seen her only this morning, chatting her head off at Susan Bones…And now she lay lifeless as a stone crafted mausoleum, her magic just as frozen and unmoving as Mrs. Norris's was when he'd tried to heal her. She was holding a minuscule circular compact mirror in her hand.
"Petrified?" whispered Madam Pomfrey.
"Yes," said Professor McGonagall.
"Good gracious!" whispered Madam Pomfrey as she pried the hand mirror the girl was holding in her hands and looked at it, "Completely shattered."
"What does this mean, Albus?" asked Professor McGonagall urgently. "The girl is a half-blood. Why would the heir even go after her?"
"It means," said Dumbledore, "that our fears have proven true. The Chamber of Secrets is indeed open again. And no one is safe anymore."
What did you think of the first scene? And the part with the Flamels? Let me know. Suggestions, Opinions and Questions are welcome as always. You can thank me for the quadruple update this time by leaving a little review. They're always a cheer-up. :)
