The next day was a Friday, and the stormy weather from yesterday lingered. I got up early again, and headed down to breakfast.
Today's timetable was only a small over improvement over yesterday's; Double Charms, followed by double Herbology, then Care of Magical Creatures, then Astronomy.
Much like Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick spent the first fifteen minutes or so of the lesson lecturing us on the importance of OWLs, before getting into Summoning Charms, which- like everything else we had tackled yesterday- proved quite difficult.
On the bright side, I did have somewhat of an easier time in Charms than I had had in Transfiguration. My wand was still pretty unreliable, though.
Speaking of which, I had a theory for why it was behaving this way. A wand chooses the wizard, and this one had chosen Draco. It stopped responding properly because the old Draco was now gone and replaced by me, a completely different soul. This was also my theory for why I could see the Thestrals, but Draco couldn't in canon.
If this was true, then that meant I needed a new wand. My memories told me there was a branch of Ollivander's in Hogsmeade, so I could get a replacement whenever there was a trip. Till then I'd have to manage with this wand.
After class was over, Professor Flitwick proceeded to set us our largest-ever amount of Charms homework, which included a fourteen-inch essay and additional practice of Summoning Charms.
Great, because the twelve-inch essay from Snape on moonstones, ten-inch History of Magic essay on the Werewolf-Vampire wars, and practicing Vanishing Spells for Transfiguration wasn't enough already.
Damn, OWL year really did suck.
After Charms, I made my way over to the greenhouses for Herbology along with the rest of the Slytherins as well as the Ravenclaws. Professor Sprout entered the class immediately after, and to no one's surprise, also spent the first fifteen minutes talking about the importance of OWLs. I really wish they'd cut that out. Like, we get it, OWLs are important. Plus, it also kept reminding me of how much homework I had to do and that was not a good feeling.
After she finished talking about OWLs, Professor Sprout pulled out a pot with a rather ordinary looking flowerless plant in it.
"Right, now, who here can tell me the name of this plant?" Professor Sprout said. Two students raised their hands, both Ravenclaws.
"Yes, Ms. Patil?"
"It's dittany, Professor," she said.
"Excellent, five points to Ravenclaw! Now, who can tell me what dittany is used for?"
Recognizing the name of the plant, I raised my hand this time, as did a few others again.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"
"It's used for medicinal purposes. Applying essence of dittany can heal shallow to moderate wounds."
"Or just chewing the raw plant itself. Five points to Slytherin," Professor Sprout said.
If I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't super spectacular in Herbology or anything. The only reason I knew what dittany did was because of that one scene in The Deathly Hallows where Hermione uses it to heal Ron's arm.
Soon the greenhouse was full of low chatter and the clanking of various tools as we got to work. Professor Sprout divided us up into pairs. She put me with another Slytherin girl named Daphne Greengrass. She was pretty, with long blonde hair, blue eyes and a cute button nose. She and Draco were acquaintances at best, but apparently it was still enough for Pansy to look displeased about. Either that, or it was just because she did not consider Goyle a good Herbology partner.
Or possibly both.
I met Pansy's gaze and she quickly looked away. Going back to my work, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Daphne looking at me with a mildly amused expression on her face.
I guess people had really bought Draco's act of being oblivious to Pansy's crush on him, because Daphne said, "Y'know Draco, you're pretty clever in your own way… but sometimes you can be remarkably thick."
I held back a snort. "Yeah, well… you're not so bad yourself."
She responded by punching me in the arm, causing me to drop the dirt-filled pot I was holding straight onto my foot.
Yeah, I probably deserved that.
[…]
After lunch was Care of Magical Creatures. The sky was still cloudy, with an occasional drop of rain as we made our way across the grounds to where Professor Grubbly-Plank was awaiting us, near Hagrid's empty cabin. There was a long trestle table in front of her laden with twigs.
"Everyone here? Good!" Professor Grubbly-Plank said loudly as we arrived. "Let's crack on then. Who here can tell me what these little fellas are called?" she indicated at the heap of twigs in front of her, which leapt into the air and revealed themselves to be tiny, pixie-like creatures made of wood, with tiny brown arms and legs, two twiglike fingers on each hand and a flat, bark-like face with a pair of glittering eyes.
Recalling what they were from the books, I raised my hand, as did Hermione Granger. Luckily, I was standing closer to the professor so she picked me.
"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?"
"They're called Bowtruckles," I said. "Tree guardians, they usually live in wand trees."
"Excellent, five points for Slytherin." Grubbly-Plank said. "Yes, these are Bowtruckles, and as Mr. Malfoy correctly says, they generally reside in trees whose wood is of wand quality. Anybody know what they eat?"
"Woodlice," I responded quickly, before Hermione could get the chance. "But fairy eggs, if they can get them."
"Attaboy, take another five points. So, whenever you need leaves or wood from a tree in which a Bowtruckle lives, it is wise to have some woodlice available, to distract them long enough to get what you need. These little fellas may not look like much, but if angered or threatened they will try to gouge your eyes out with those sharp little fingers of theirs.
"Now, gather round everyone. Take a few woodlice and a Bowtruckle, I've got enough for each of you. You can study them more closely; I want a sketch from each of you with all body parts labelled by the end of class."
The Bowtruckle drawing wasn't easy work. I had to hold the little guy in one hand and draw the sketch with the other. Twice, I didn't pay attention and accidentally gripped the Bowtruckle too hard, causing it to bite my finger in retaliation.
Finally, after literal blood, a little bit of sweat, and no tears whatsoever, it was finished. I held up the drawing and looked at it proudly. They say you can only have one magnum opus, and I think this-
"Looks like a stickman figure," Daphne said dryly from behind me.
"Well… yeah, but to be fair, I am drawing a literal stick man," I said defensively. "And I'd like to see you do better."
The shit eating grin on Daphne's face made me realize that I had made a mistake uttering those words. She showed me her sketch, and sure enough, it was virtually flawless. How she was able to make that in half an hour in these conditions was truly beyond me.
"I hate you" I muttered.
After Care of Magical Creatures, was Astronomy, which typically took place at nighttime on the top level of the Astronomy Tower. We were supposed to bring our own telescopes and stuff and observe the stars and planets. As someone who thinks space is cool as fuck, I was actually looking forward to it.
However, thanks to the cloudy weather today, there would be no examining the heavens, just studying from the textbooks. As the afternoon dragged on, we made our way to the Astronomy Tower, not to the top floor, but to the classroom on the level below that.
Turns out, Astronomy was still pretty cool, even without actually looking through telescopes and shit. After the OWLs Are Very Important™ speech, Professor Sinistra began teaching about the moons of Jupiter, starting with the four big ones.
Long story short, Astronomy trotted over an extremely low bar to become the most enjoyable lesson I'd had in the past two days.
At long last, the bell rang and my second day at Hogwarts came to a close. Next stop, the Great Hall. Dinner awaits!
The food was as incredible as ever, of course. As I was munching down on my shepherd's pie, a tall, heavily-built guy with blond hair entered the Hall and walked over to me. I recognized him as Graham Montague, Slytherin seventh-year and the new captain of the House Quidditch team.
"Evening, Draco," he said. "Listen, I've let the others know, we're holding tryouts for the team on Sunday. We're down two Beaters and two Chasers. Be sure to drop by, all right? I wanna pick people that fit in with the rest of us."
"Sure, no problem," I nodded, and he walked away.
That had completely slipped my mind. Draco was on the Quidditch team! Yet another thing to add to the ever-growing list of shit I had to do, alongside homework, OWLs, Prefect duties, and destroying the fucking Horcruxes (eventually).
…but I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to try Quidditch. I mean, it seemed pretty fun, after all, and I figured I could use a bit of that judging by how the rest of the year seemed to be looking for me.
When I got back to the common room, I was tired and wanted to sleep, but it was probably best to get at least some homework done. I wanted to stay on top of my shit this year, and that meant no procrastinating. I had made that mistake in my previous life; I had no intention of doing it again in this one.
Okay, I'll do the moonstone essay for Snape tonight. The rest I could do over the weekend, as well as come up with a plan for the Horcruxes too.
I spent well over an hour finishing the essay. The end product was… fine, I guess, I'll go over it in the morning. Right now, I wanted to sleep…
Well, too fucking bad I had to patrol the damn corridors to make sure no one was breaking curfew!
Ugh. Whatever, let's get this over with.
[…]
Admittedly I had been a bit worried that I might end up getting partnered with Pansy for the patrol. Nothing personal against her, I just wasn't in the mood for talking with anyone at all. But as it turns out, there's only so much ground two dozen prefects could cover in a gigantic castle like this, so we were all patrolling individually.
That meant for the next few hours, it was just me with my own thoughts as I mindlessly wandered the corridors.
As I walked through the empty halls of the castle, my mind jumped from one place to the other. Starting with classes, then to the amazing roast chicken I had for lunch, then to that one stupid fine seventh-year girl from Gryffindor I had seen earlier today.
I don't know how long exactly I was walking around for, but it must have been an hour or two, before I needed to go to the bathroom, so I began to make my way over to the prefects' bathroom on the fifth floor.
Now, let's get something straight about moving staircases. Whimsical? Sure, but practical? Hell fucking no, especially when you need to take a shit. Just why the four greatest witches and wizards of their age thought that moving staircases in a giant castle were a good idea, is beyond me. And then, of course, they expected us students to get to class in time.
Eventually, I arrived at the statue of Boris the Bewildered, and muttered the password, "Hippocampus." The statue moved to reveal the door of the bathroom.
The prefects' bathroom was far better than the regular ones. With a polished marble floor, on one side of the room there were the stalls, and opposite them, was a huge, swimming pool-like tub sunken into the ground with bath taps surrounding it.
I'm not entirely sure why… but I got the strange feeling that that pool had been used for more than just taking a bath over the years.
After relieving myself, I exited the bathroom and began to make my way back to the third floor. Just then, a voice from behind said, "What are you doing up here?"
I turned around to see Hermione Granger at the end of the hallway, arms crossed and with a mildly annoyed expression on her face.
She looked kinda cute that way, not gonna lie.
"I was just using the bathroom, calm down," I said.
"Just get back to where you're supposed to be," she said stiffly.
"Alright, sheesh," I was about to leave, but turned around to face her again. "Uh… by the way, Granger…"
She raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"I'm sorry for calling you… well, you know what, for all these years."
"…huh?" she said after a moment, looking genuinely taken aback.
"Look, it was a shitty thing to do, and... well, I feel bad about it…"
"You're… sorry… really?"
"Really," I nodded. "Look, I know that saying sorry once doesn't make up for my behavior… but I promise I won't be a prick anymore, okay? To you, or Weasley or Potter, or anyone."
"…Right," she said, still looking unconvinced. I guess that was fair, can't expect her to warm up to me so quickly just because I said sorry once. Not after 4 years of being an ass.
It'll need time, I couldn't expect them to take my word for it, I would have to prove I'm different now.
"Well, bye for now, I guess," I said and walked away.
As I roamed the hallways of the third floor, I wondered if I should have said something more… like maybe about how I'm not supporting a racist mass-murdering dark lord like she probably thought.
I dunno… Hermione seemed skeptical enough at my sudden change of view regarding her blood status, so maybe throwing in that bit may have been too much.
Following another few hours of stumbling through the third-floor hallways - looking for disturbances that never came- the patrol finally, finally, came to an end, and I returned to my dormitory, where everyone else was currently asleep. A pair of pajamas and a soft, comfy bed were awaiting me. Thank goodness it was Friday night; I needed a long-ass sleep.
After changing into my pajamas, I collapsed onto the bed, and almost immediately slipped away into the world of dreams, as the sweet bliss of sleep took hold of me.
[…]
(Meanwhile, in Gryffindor Tower)
It was nearly one in the morning when Harry was finally allowed to leave detention, and his hand was stinging painfully. The cuts had more or less healed but the skin there was red raw. Upon returning to Gryffindor Tower, he found the common room empty save for Ron and Hermione who were sitting by the fireplace. Ron was sitting on the ground looking at Hermione, who was going through his essay to make sure he hadn't made any errors. They both looked up when they saw him enter.
"How did it go with Umbridge?" Hermione asked as Harry sat down in his favorite armchair by the fireplace.
"Fine," he grunted, making sure his hand was hidden. "It was just lines."
"Lines? That's not so bad then," Ron said.
"Yeah, I suppose so… but she also said I'm supposed to show up again tomorrow evening as well."
"Tomorrow? But… that means you won't make the tryouts!" Ron said. "Angelina's gonna kill you."
"Maybe you could ask Umbridge to reschedule tomorrow's detention?" Hermione suggested.
"I tried. I even offered to do an extra detention if she let me off the hook tomorrow," Harry said glumly. "She said no, obviously, because 'punishment cannot be adjusted to the convenience of the guilty'."
"Ah, Angelina's not gonna be pleased, mate." Ron said, shaking his head.
"Don't I know it… anyway, why're you guys still up?" Harry asked.
"Well, we just got back from patrolling, and decided to wait up for you," Ron said with a shrug.
"You really shouldn't have-"
"Oh hush, Harry, we only got back ten minutes ago, we've barely had to wait at all," Hermione cut him off. "And… speaking of the patrol, something odd happened tonight."
"Like what?" Harry asked. Ron looked intrigued too.
"I… ran into Malfoy, and…"
"What'd he do?" Ron asked sharply.
"Apologized, if you could believe it," Hermione finished.
"Huh?" Harry and Ron said in unison.
"Why would he do that?" Harry asked
"You were probably tired and imagined the whole encounter," Ron theorized.
"Not likely," Hermione said. "He promised he wouldn't be such an arse anymore, to any of us."
"And?" Ron prodded.
"That's it. He just sort of left after that."
Harry ran a hand through his hair. "Who'd have thought that Malfoy of all people would suddenly decide to be nice to us, when the whole wizarding world thinks I'm a freak?"
"I mean, from what we know of him, he'd probably be delighted at the way everyone thinks you're off your rocker," Ron said. "I reckon it's all an act. He's trying to get close to you so he can… er, help You-Know-Who or something."
"Oh, don't be silly Ron," Hermione snapped. "Why would You-Know-Who use Malfoy, ateenager still at school, as a spy?"
"He's the only who can get close to Harry at Hogwarts, think about it!" Ron replied. Hermione opened her mouth to retort but Harry held up both his hands to stop them.
"Can we please not do this right now?" he said.
"Yeah, alright then- wait," Ron said. "What's up with your hand?"
"Er… nothing," Harry said, quickly hiding it behind his back. "Don't worry about it, it's just a rash. Anyways, I'm gonna go to sleep now… g'night!"
And with that he hurried off to the dormitory.
[…]
(With Draco)
I spent most of Saturday morning catching up on homework. It was tedious work, but I made good progress, fine-tuning the Potions essay, then completing the entirety of our Charms homework, before progressing to the History of Magic essay, with only a lunch break in between.
It was almost five in the evening when I decided to stop. If I had to estimate, I'd say I wrapped up maybe sixty percent of the homework we'd gotten so far, so I was pretty pleased overall. The remaining work could be done tomorrow.
Right now, I had something else in mind.
Now, I knew where all the horcruxes currently were. Riddle's diary was already destroyed. Hufflepuff's cup was locked away in the Lestrange vault in Gringotts. Marvolo Gaunt's ring was somewhere in the old shack in Little Hangleton. Nagini was currently with Voldemort, God knows where. And if I recalled correctly, Slytherin's locket should be somewhere in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, probably hidden by Kreacher.
And of course, Ravenclaw's diadem was in the Room of Requirement, making it the only Horcrux I could actually get rid of while at Hogwarts.
Well, there was also Harry… but something told me that wouldn't be quite as straightforward as the diadem. Heck, I didn't even know any alternative ways to get rid of the Horcrux in Harry without killing him.
Yet.
Anyway, back to the diadem. If I recalled correctly, the Room of Requirement was located on the left corridor of the seventh floor, and… I was currently in the dungeons.
Jesus fucking Christ, that was so many stairs!
Maybe Hogwarts ain't so great, after all.
After leaving the common room, I jogged up the staircase out of the dungeons, then turned left into a corridor that led to the Entrance Hall. Once there, I began jogging up the Grand Staircase, two steps at a time.
At long last came the seventh floor, where I took a moment to catch my breath. When I got to the specific corridor where the room was supposed to be, I came to a bit of a realization. That being, the books never mentioned which exact wall the room was actually behind. Since you had to stand in front of the room and will for it to show up, this was a problem.
Okay, I guess I could… walk from one end of the corridor to the other while repeating the lines, and hoping the room shows up? It was worth a shot, I suppose.
I began walking from down the hallway, repeating in my head, "I need to see the place where things are hidden, I need to see the place where things are hidden," several times. I walked from one end of the corridor to the other, then again, and again. It was on the third time that I heard a low rumbling noise to my left. I stopped and turned around to see a door materialize in the wall, and did a small smirk on my face.
After looking around to make sure no one else was in the area, I entered the room. Inside were dozens of huge shelves, twenty feet high, maybe more, bearing a variety of objects hidden by generations of Hogwarts students over the centuries.
Apart from the shelves, there were things like old furniture, closets, broken statues and other shit all over the place too. The sheer magnitude of junk here was astounding. I'm willing to bet I could find some pretty neat things hidden around here, but that would have to wait. Right now, I needed to get the diadem.
And that's when I realized… how royally screwed I was.
How the fuck do I find a tiny diadem in this place?!
I knew accio didn't work on horcruxes, and even if it did there's no guarantee it'd work for me, given my wand's behavior. That meant I likely was gonna be stuck here for a while.
Or… maybe not, actually. This room could do anything I wanted it to!
Hey, Room! Could ya show me where that pesky diadem is?
A second later, I heard a sound like a flair igniting. I looked up to see a small brilliant blue spark, shaped like a raven, shoot up into the air a few shelves away, colliding against the ceiling and bursting.
Bingo!
I walked over to the source of the spark. It took a minute to locate the diadem on the shelves, but I found it eventually. It was so caked with dust that it looked almost brown at first, and blended right in with the surrounding objects. I blew the dust away, kicking up a whole ass sandstorm doing so, but underneath was a gleaming silver tiara, with a large blue jewel in the center.
Now, to the second part of the plan.
Destroying the Horcrux.
It wasn't as complicated as it was risky, to be honest. The Horcrux could be destroyed by anything magical that caused irreversible damage. That meant, in theory, certain spells like Avada Kedavra or Fiendfyre could do the trick. But for obvious reasons I wasn't going to use those spells. That meant the other major alternative was a Basilisk fang.
If I recalled correctly, the room couldn't summon food, as it was one of the exceptions to a certain Gamp's Law. That meant logically, it probably couldn't summon specific body parts either, and a quick test proved this theory.
I'm guessing Basilisk venom, or maybe poisons in general, were one of the exceptions as well, since I couldn't get that either.
Not to worry, I had a backup plan. Long hours of walking through the corridors at night with only my own thoughts for company, gave me some time to formulate a plan of action, tired as I had been.
The room could create passageways. It did so for Neville, creating a whole tunnel all the way to Hogsmeade. And if it could create a mile-long tunnel then it might also be able to create a path into the Chamber of Secrets. It was worth a shot.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, repeating the line, "I need to get to the Chamber of Secrets," a few times in my head. I heard a soft rustling noise, and opened my eyes. A door had materialized into the wall of the room, with a serpent carving shaped like an S.
I put the diadem in my pocket and opened the door, revealing a stairwell that went straight down.
Fantastic, more stairs.
[…]
It took a few minutes, but I made it down eventually, entering the Chamber from what turned out to be the mouth of a huge snake head statue.
The Chamber was cool as fuck. There was a long, black marble pathway that ran from the Chamber's entrance to a gigantic statue of Salazar Slytherin on the other end. The pathway was flanked by a dozen snake head statues- like the one I had entered from- on each side, as well as a long, long skeleton in the middle, that had once been the fearsome basilisk. I dunno why, but seeing it dead and decomposed made me feel a bit relieved, even though I knew it had died years ago.
There was some water on the sides of the chamber, near the base of the snake statues. Not knowing how deep it was, I decided to jump over it onto the marble pathway. Also, I was literally in a sewer, so that water probably wasn't the cleanest.
There were no visible torches or windows in the chamber, yet there was light coming from somewhere, casting a sinister green hue all over the place. It was quite possibly the coolest place I had seen so far in the castle. And I mean that in more ways than one, it was freezing in here.
I started to feel a bit woozy. It was all a bit unsettling. The way the stone snakes were leering at me, the gigantic Slytherin statue looming over the whole area, the basilisk skeleton, the cold, the green hue… and the silence. Dear god, the silence… no place should be this eerily silent. The longer I stood here, the place seemed less cool, and more viscerally disturbing, which was fitting I suppose, given the chamber's history.
Okay, I need to focus. Just yank the tooth out of the skeleton and get out of here. Simple.
I approached the skeleton at a quicker-than-normal pace. I grabbed a tooth at random, it was almost six inches long, and extremely sharp-looking. Carefully, I tried to pull it out, it took a few tries to make it budge but eventually I got it. Now time to leave, any more time spent here might actually make me sick. There was just something about this place…
Props to Slytherin for making such an evil lair.
[…]
When I returned to the Room, all the junk had vanished. It was no longer the Room of Hidden Things, just a fairly large empty chamber now. I took the diadem out of my pocket and put it on the ground.
There was no real reason for me to not destroy the Horcrux now. There was no defensive magic set up to prevent its destruction like with the other Horcruxes. Riddle wouldn't have had time to set up any such measures under Dumbledore's nose. Besides, he probably thought throwing it in the Room was good enough anyway, since he believed no one else knew about the Room.
Its destruction wouldn't alert Voldemort either. Or at least, I hope not. That was a thing only in the movies, as far as I'm aware. It was rather the contrary in the books.
I took out the basilisk fang, raised it up high, then brought it down with all my might. It struck the great blue jewel in the center, breaking it into pieces.
A dark mist started rising through the cracks as the diadem began to shake violently. I quickly backed away to the exit but did not leave the room just yet. The diadem slowly rose through the air, still shaking. Then, with a small *pop* it fell, completely still, the black mist gone.
Is it… done? It- it should be… right? After all, a basilisk fang did the trick just fine in canon. No reason to believe it wouldn't here. And destroying the horcrux doesn't always destroy the object- Dumbledore having the diary and the ring proved that- so it makes perfect sense the diadem is still there.
That means that… I just killed a Horcrux! Holy shit, I did it!
Well, only one… and probably the only one I'd be able to for a while. But still, a horcrux is a horcrux!
Eat shit, Voldy!
After I finished my celebratory ritual of punching the air, I snuck out of the room. After checking the time, I decided to head to the Quidditch pitch, where Gryffindor trials would have started by now. Good way to kill some time, I guess.
[…][…][…]
That was chapter two, everybody! We got rid of a Horcrux. Woohoo!
Just a reminder, this is the only Horcrux action we'll be getting for a while. Next couple of chapters will have a different storyline.
Hope you liked the update.