Previous Chapter - Harry takes the Hogwarts Express back to school. He and Hermione argue a little and spend most of the trip not talking to each other. Neville and Ron are both happy with their new wands and Harry promises to help them with a few exercises to get used to them. Dean talks a little about his families reaction to magic.

Chapter 21 - The Hidden Room

-my-friend-tom-

It was most of the way through the first week before Harry had time for Tom's test. Harry had been inundated by friends asking about his holidays, and in exchange telling him of the presents they had received and activities they had got up to. This tended to go later each night until he was too tired to attempt something Tom had said was better handled whilst fully alert. Harry didn't mind, he was slowly coming to grips with the fact that he had friends that he hadn't needed to buy with offers of protection or chosen just because they could offer him something in return. Sure, he still sometimes considered what each of his friends could offer him, but that wasn't the reason why he spent time with them or listened and laughed at their jokes.

Amongst all the noise and confusion of the first few days Harry had mostly forgotten his annoyance with Hermione. She however was remaining somewhat standoffish and though she was participating in the study sessions she tended not to ask Harry any questions directly.

After a rather unpleasant afternoon of Potions Harry begged off both the exploding snap tournament and the offered study session with Hermione to head to bed early. He mentioned a minor headache, making it out to be worthy of a few extra hours sleep but not bad enough to commit himself to Madam Pomfrey's attentions. He had been disappointed that Snape looked and acted just the same after the sabotage of his library. Even if the fire hadn't started the books were gone but Snape was acting like nothing had happened at all. It was frustrating.

A noise dampening charm and a moment's meditation allowed him to fall into a light sleep for a few hours. A faint buzzing from his alarm charm woke him and after quickly checking that the other boys were already asleep, he retrieved his invisibility cloak, now thankfully devoid of the tracking, identification and the complicated compulsion charms that he had found on it. After a lengthy discussion with Tom he had moved all the charms to a pair of old socks rather than dismiss them totally.

As he quietly moved about the deserted castle using his enchanted glass to see the way he chatted about tracking charms until he reached a fairly empty stretch of one of the seventh floor corridors.

'Okay Harry. That's the painting. Now you need to walk back and forth in front of it whilst concentrating on the desire to hide something.'

"Hide something? Behind that wizard being beaten up by the trolls? This hallway is one of the most empty I've seen."

'Don't worry about where. The key is to concentrate on the desire not the details.'

Harry was a bit unsure about it. Normally Tom's instructions were a bit more specific but shrugging he did as he was told.

"I need to hide my quill. I need to hide my quill. I… wow… an invisible door?"

Harry moved to the door. It was a rather plain but solid looking wood door that had been recently polished. It was a slightly older style door to most of the rooms in the castle but Harry was sure he had seen a few ancient looking doors that had the same design.

'Not invisible. I believe it is conjured. Any charms cast on it fail when it disappears and the door always reappears looking just like it does now no matter how marked it becomes.'

"You believe? You're not sure?"

'I don't pretend to know everything Harry and this castle has more over a thousand years of secrets within it. Now stop dawdling.'

Harry opened the door and blinked at the massive room that it opened on to. It was wider, longer and taller than the great hall. Tall high windows allowed a little light from the moon outside to shine in upon row upon row of what looks like piles of everything and anything.

'Enter the room and close the door Harry. The room itself is safe. I used to come here a lot when I wanted a place to hide what I was doing. It's not possible to create traps on the room itself that will remain after you leave.'

As the door closed behind him a dozen torches high upon the walls burst into flame. Harry pocketed his glasses and began walked cautiously through the crazily balanced stacks of books, furniture, toys, clothing and so many other things.

'It's an amazing place and I'm sure we can find a few things in here to supplement your gold however I did spend many hours here in my later years retrieving a large amount myself. However first let's do the test.'

"What is this place called?"

'I called it the hidden room. I am unaware of it's correct name. Are you ready?'

Harry was staring at a towering pile of old books and spoke with a distracted air, "You want me to cast some spells in here?"

Tom seemed amused, 'Nothing so complicated. I want you to walk along the row one to your right until the stuffed troll. If I am right then at some point I will fall back into the darkness. At that point I want you to retreat until you can hear me.'

"I'm going to lose contact with you? Just like what happens in DADA?" Harry was confused. What had this room got to do with the defence against the dark arts room. He gave a sniff. It smelt old and dusty but nothing else.

'Possibly. I'll explain more if it happens.'

Harry shrugged and started walking, "So tell me about how you found this room."

'Okay. That's as good as anything else to talk about. I found it early in my fifth year. I was meant to be on patrol with Verity Swott, the other Slytherin Prefect, that night but had instead used the time to sneak into the Headmaster's office and copy a few pages of one of the books in Dippet's collection. I was returning from the office when I heard voices coming towards me. It was Dumbledore, he was the transfiguration professor at the time and a right pain. I think he was talking to Mole, the charms professor, he was a decent wizard but not up to Flitwick's level.

Well I certainly didn't want to encounter any professors whilst I was carrying a handful of rather dark magic spells, if I was thinking I would have had them in my bag but I was too keen to read them that I had them open. Probably why I was so distracted. I quickly turned around and headed back past the tapestry of Barnaby and the Trolls when I heard voices coming from the other way. It was Verity Swott telling someone that she was heading to the hospital to check up on me. Of course I never went there and I hadn't expected her to get caught wandered alone. I was panicking a bit by now and not really thinking straight. I turned again and headed towards the only cover I could see, the two suits of armor you passed on the way here. I wasn't sure I could get there before Dumbledore and Mole but it was my best chance. Then the door to this room appeared and without giving it a second thought I came in.'

"Close call."

'Indeed. I must have spent an hour in here looking around before leaving. I returned the following night and I star…'

Harry paused as soon as Tom's voice faded away. "Tom?"

There was no answer so he took a few steps back. "Tom?"

'This is not good.' Tom's voice had lost it's playful tone.

-my-friend-tom-

"So a Horcrux is a part of your soul?" Harry was frowning and trying to wrap his head around this.

'No, the Horcrux is an object or creature merged with a fragment of soul.'

"So I'm a Horcrux?"

'Nope. Though together you and me have many of the same characteristics of a Horcrux. You were never meant to be a reservoir of a fragment of Voldemort's soul. What I believe happened is that an eddy of magic was created where your mother's magic and Voldemort's curse connected That eddy of magic sucked in the fragment of soul that is me and was somehow stabilised by it.'

"So is that what Quirrell has as well?"

'No Harry. Quirrell is, I believe possessed either by the fragment of soul within a Horcrux or Voldemort's remaining spirit.'

"I'm still confused. What's the difference?" Tom had explained it a few times already but it still wasn't making all that much sense to Harry. Tom had already told Harry that the Horcruxes needed to be destroyed but he hadn't tried explaining the connection between them and the fragments of soul before.

'If it's a Horcrux possession then we need to work out which object it is and destroy it. If it's a spiritual possession then we can't alert it to the fact that we are looking for Horcruxes, otherwise it will do it's best to move them.'

"But you think it's a spiritual possession?"

'I do. That would explain the changes after Albania. It's a likely destination for Voldemort's spirit as there are areas of dark magic there that the spirit could have fed off to regain strength. However that doesn't preclude that possibility that Quirrell was possessed by a Horcrux first and then sent to Albania.'

"Arghh.. My head is spinning Tom. What do we do?"

'Protect you first of all. I'm very glad you picked up those obsidian crystals. We need to set up some wards. I imagine Quirrell will take any opportunity to cause you pain in revenge for what happened. Luckily it doesn't seem like his goal is to kill you.'

"What do you mean? I could have died if I had fallen off my broom."

'True, but it would have been unlikely. Plenty of people fall off brooms and survive. The chance of accidental magic at your age is great enough to make it a pretty poor option for murder, add to that over a hundred wizards any of whom could have cast either a spell to slow your fall or cushion your landing. No, he must have just been trying to terrorize you.'

"Well it worked."

'You're tougher than that. He's obviously not here just for revenge, no there is something else happening here.'

Harry slumped back down on his bed. He always knew he was going to need to go after and destroy Horcruxes when he was older. But he always assumed that it was going to happen after Hogwarts. This was way too early. He wasn't ready. Tom knew he wasn't ready.

He wanted to scream, he wanted to run away. He took a few deep breaths. He counted slowly to ten. He wasn't alone. He had Tom.

'And you have your friends.' Tom's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Harry nodded. He did have friends. True they couldn't fight, they knew less spells and were even less powerful than him, but they could watch his back. They could alert him to danger.

"Will I need to fight Quirrell?"

'I hope not. You are not ready to face him.'

Harry frowned, he wasn't expecting Tom to say that. Normally it was Tom being positive and him being reluctant, "But I'm good with the blasting and cutting curses. I can cast plenty of shields and you told me my reflexes are great."

There was a long pause before Tom answered.

'Your reflexes are great. Technique is good. Unfortunately you are just don't have enough power yet. Sure you could take out a dozen muggles in a second and could seriously hurt, possibly kill some of the first or second years. You could hold your own in a duel with any third and most of the fourth years, but you don't have enough power to put them down. You certainly couldn't take on an average combat knowledgeable wizard in a fair fight. Their innate magical resistance is still stronger than your best spells, if you were real lucky you could get away with banishing a dagger into their heart or throat. However that won't help you against Quirrell, he'll have a low level protego up before you have a chance to send anything at him. A stronger one if it's anything heavier in less than a second. His reflexes will be ritually or potion enhanced and he'll have basic magical awareness on at all times. His body would be moving before any spell you could cast could impact him.'

Harry felt a shiver run through his body. Why was Tom telling him all this? Tom had always been so complimentary on his performance, on how quick he was improving. Telling him that he was ready to walk the streets alone, to catch the train alone, to... to deal with the muggles. That was it, Tom never said he could handle a wizard.

"You have been teaching me how to fight muggles."

'Indeed. Because at your age they are the biggest threat to you and one that I can teach you how to deal with. Also the spells you have learnt will be useful when your magic matures. I'm sorry Harry. I never expected you to have to face this type of threat this early on.'

Harry's internal voice was devoid of all emotion, "What do I do?"

'For the moment you focus on defence. I'll come up with a strategy to deal with Quirrell. I'll teach you spells to allow you to get away such as the stunning spell.'

"The stunning spell? Stupefy? But you told me that's next to useless."

'Not quite. I told you it's got very limited use. However in this circumstance it's probably your best bet. I expect, or at least hope, he's working alone. You don't have the power to do any sort of cutting or blasting charm that could do more than injure and irritate him. However a lucky hit with a stupefyify could daze him long enough for you to get away. Also the stupefyify is just as effective if it hits a leg or upper arm. It'll even work if it hits a hand or foot if the positioning is correct. It's useful when retreating as you don't need to concentrate so much on aiming and the only shields that work against it are fixed. It's awkward trying to shield against it whilst chasing someone.'

"Can we start learning now?"

'It's late Harry. You should sleep.'

"Do you think I'll be able to sleep now?"

A pause then, 'No, probably not. Okay let's find an empty class room.'

-my-friend-tom-

Harry spent the next day in a daze. He only paid half hearted attention to his classes and if it wasn't for Tom providing the answers to any questions he was asked he probably would have scored a detention rather than just lost a few points.

He skived off DADA altogether. He tried his best to use meditation exercises to centre himself before the class but he just kept falling apart and in the end Tom just told him to go back to the common room and get some rest.

Tom had to order him to go to dinner.

"Where were you Harry? You missed DADA."

Harry stifled a yawn, "I wasn't feeling well. Had a lie down and fell asleep."

Hermione frowned, "Did you go see Madam Pomfrey?"

Harry blinked at her and then just gave a slight shake of his head as he turned towards the already laden table. Grabbing a spoon he started dishing out food on to his plate caring very little about what he was getting.

"If it was bad enough to skip class you should have gone to see her. Otherwise you should have come to class. You can't just skip class Harry."

Harry took a deep breath and started eating. What was with Hermione lately? She had been really getting on his case ever since christmas.

"Harry, please don't ignore me."

"I'm not ignoring you Hermione. I'm just hungry. I want to…" he paused when he felt the brush of magic on his occlumency shields.

"Tom?"

'Yes Harry?'

"What was that?"

'What was what?'

"You want to what?", Hermione was speaking over Tom.

"eh.. I felt.. I mean I want to eat before dinner disappears. Harry shoved a big forkful of meat pie into his mouth so he could focus on his conversation with Tom.

"I felt a soft warm brush on my occlumency shields. But I wasn't looking in anyone's eyes."

'Warm? Is the warmth still there?'

Harry chewed slowly on the pieces of meat and vegetables as he tried to sense his shields. It was difficult to do with his eyes open but soon he felt the wall he had built out of unimportant memories.

"No it feels just… no hang on… yeah part of it feels warmer. A nice comfortable warmth on a few of the memories."

'It's a compulsion Harry. Don't worry about it. If it's stuck to your shield then it can't affect you. After your meal find a quiet place and I'll explain how to examine it.'

Harry gave what he thought of as a mental nod of his head and returned his focus to his meal. He was surprised to note that Hermione was still talking.

"...and then you'll find yourself not understanding more and more. Are you paying attention Harry?"

Harry gave her a brief nod and a forced smile before grabbing a second piece of the pie and tuning her out again.

-my-friend-tom-

It was late at night and the rest of the Gryffindor boys were asleep. Harry was creeping slowly along the corridor under cover of his invisibility cloak. Though he was invisible he felt almost naked. This was the first time he had been out at night without his disillusionment, silencing and scent reducing charms. He was also sticking to the better lit corridors and making no effort to avoid the portraits.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Tom?"

'You want to know who's casting the compulsions then you need to let to see where it takes you.'

"But what if it's a trap?"

'Then run. But I doubt it. The wizards is powerful enough that if they meant you harm there are many easier ways to do it. Remember not only were they able to cast a compulsion on a powerful magical artifact they were able to successfully land a compulsion in the great hall in full view of a dozen adult wizards. It take a lot of power and control to cast spells without any visible effect.'

"I feel like I should turn here."

'Do it. Let the compulsion guide you.'

Harry was quiet as he wandered the castle under the guidance of the compulsion. Strangely enough he seemed to be wandering around randomly. He had already been to a few places that he planned to come back and visit during the daylight hours to explore properly.

Now he was nearing the library when he heard footsteps approaching. The desire to hide rose up very quickly and he had already scrambled through a nearby ajar door before he had thought about it.

'Slowly does it Harry.'

Harry took a few deep breaths as the footsteps moved past. Then he looked around yet another unused classroom. Apart from the obligatory desks and chairs there was something different in this particular room. A large and magnificent mirror that towered over Harry. It was surrounded by an orate gold frame and stood on two clawed feet. Harry looked at the inscription but didn't understand the language.

"Can you read that Tom?"

'Yes Harry, and so can you. It's just written backwards. I don't think there is special meaning to the location of the spaces, probably just random to confuse the reader.'

"I show no… no, I show not your face but your hearts desire."

Harry walked in front of the mirror and looked into the glass depths. There was a faint sensation of a warmth falling away but Harry wasn't paying attention to that. He was looking at himself but he wasn't alone.

"Tom… Is that what you look really like?" Harry's voice was hesitant.

'I don't think I am seeing the same thing as you are Harry. Describe what you see.'

"Well I see a lot of people standing around me. But you are standing next to me, smiling. It's not quite how I drew you when I was younger. Well your features are a little more defined. Your hair a little more styled. Not really sure how to describe you really. Your eyes are.. . umm… more entrancing. You're also about my age rather than the older teen I drew." Tom just looked like a normal boy to Harry. A happy normal boy. Somehow even after all the stories Harry couldn't imagine Tom as a normal boy.

"Hermione is on my otherside and my parents are standing behind us. I see a lot of other friends around us and what might be other relatives."

'The mirror of Erised. I should have remembered. Yes I would assume that what you are seeing is what I looked like when I was your age. I read about the mirror when I was younger, I didn't pay that much attention but I do recall it was listed as a powerful and dangerous object with a body count attached to it. Time to go I think Harry.'

"Can't we stay a little longer. You look pretty happy in the mirror, even Hermione looks carefree. I wish she was this relaxed all the time. Hey, my mum's put her hand on my shoulder…"

'Enough Harry! Let's go.'

"How…"

'Now!' Tom almost shouted the last inside his mind and Harry jumped and realised he really was getting drawn into the image. He closed his eyes and turned away from the mirror.

"I'm sorry Tom."

'Nothing to be sorry about Harry. You handled it pretty well. Let's get out of here. Later we can work out whatever Dumbledore wanted to achieve by having you find this room.'

-my-friend-tom-

Author Notes: Wow. 1000 followers. I guess I'll have to stick with this story now. Sorry that some feel it's a little slow, I tend at agree at times, but since there is plenty of people who like it just as is, or at least haven't complained about the pace, I intend to keep it going as is. I have a few WIP stories that'll move along a whole lot quicker. However I want to wait till they complete or nearing completion before I start posting them.

Thanks to all my readers and reviewers. Replies to reviews posted at wwwfanfictionnet/topic/135718/89507238/1/