Michael Brown

"Luna, can I ask you a question?" I said, deciding it was a good time to ask about something very important for my future endeavours.

"Of course, Michael" Luna replied, taking her eyes off her notebook. She was writing something there, but she looked at me upon hearing my question.

"So, I read in one of the school books that Salazar Slytherin, one of the school's founders, decided to hide a monster under the school, putting it in a place called chamber of secrets. There was however no information about the nature of the monster in the book, which made me quite curious." Seeing that she was listening to me, I continued "Do you perhaps know what kind of monster it was?"

While it was probably quite a sudden question to ask, I actually had several reasons to do that.

Firstly, if I was monitored by people responsible for my fake memories, asking about the chamber of secrets would probably make them think I was actually relying on these memories, instead of rightfully distrusting them. It would be to my advantage, as they wouldn't expect me to intentionally come into contact with the heir of Slytherin and join forces with him to overthrow them.

Secondly, I was planning to talk with Tom Riddle quite soon, so learning more about basilisk was probably a good idea. I was almost certain that contrary to its depiction in the series it was actually a benevolent creature, especially since it was serving a noble hero like Tom. As I was planning on cooperating with Tom, I would probably be expected to interact with basilisk quite often.

Thirdly, I didn't know when Dumbledore would start attacking his students and blaming it on basilisk, so asking about the monster later would be seen as extremely suspicious. It was better to casually talk about it before all the drama and petrified students.

"Hmmm, unfortunately I don't know" Said Luna, after contemplating on my question "My dad once said that Monster's attacks in the forties were meant to cover up the invasion of the ratmen, who decided to conquer the surface from somewhere in Germany, but he didn't say anything about the monster itself"

I was about to respond, when I realized what Luna had just said. There were skaven in the wizarding world?! And they attacked the surface from Germany during world war 2?! Wait, did that mean…wait, no. Now wasn't the time to think about it. We were talking about the monster. I would think about the ramifications of the skaven invasion later though.

"Well, I gave it some thought and I think I know what the monster is. It's a basilisk" I said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Saying that would allow me to openly talk about basilisk without alerting anyone, so I was quite happy my plan worked. Seeing that Luna was looking at me questioningly, not knowing why I chose basilisk, I decided to explain. "Basilisk is a giant snake, right? And Salazar Slytherin loved snakes, as he was parseltongue. It makes perfect sense for the monster to be a basilisk don't you think? I mean, what other monster would fit Slytherin better?"

After saying that I started nodding my head, quite proud of coming with such a logical reasoning. However, instead of enthusiastically agreeing with me, Luna just watched me in silence for a while, looking like she was thinking about something, before responding.

"What about hydra?" She said innocently, making me freeze on a spot. What did she just say? Seeing my growing confusion, she continued speaking "It's simple. Basilisk is one snake, but Hydra is nine snakes, so Hydra is much more snakey than basilisk"

As she said that, looking extremely sincere and innocent despite ruthlessly destroying my plan, I started to think about her choice. Despite my artificial memories trying to convince me it was obviously a basilisk, Luna's theory had some merits. Hydras was an almost immortal creature, a powerful serpent and it certainly sounded much more mythical than basilisk. To be honest, in most media basilisks were some weird bird-like monsters, but hydras were always snake-like.

Wait, wasn't the metal gate leading to the chamber of secrets depicting several snakes connected to each other? Yes, it actually made sense. Hydra also sounded much more benevolent than basilisk and Tom wouldn't work with evil creatures. It appeared that I was almost manipulated by the Ministry, despite my caution. It was only thanks to Luna that I wasn't tricked.

"I think you might be right. But that would mean…" I started, but before I was able to continue, I was rudely interrupted by one of our classmates.

"Can you both shut up?" Whisper-shouted one of the Ravenclaw first-years, who was sitting right behind us. "We are in the middle of charms class! Do you want Ravenclaw to lose even more points?!"

Despite his rude words, he wasn't exactly wrong. We were currently having a class with professor Flitwick, who was explaining some technical aspects of spellcasting at the moment. It wasn't really that interesting, but he said we would learn our first spell at this class, so I guessed it was something worth waiting for. Well, technically we were tasked with transmuting a match into the needle in our transfiguration class, but no one was able to do that so far, so it didn't really count. I was actually quite excited to learn a spell myself, despite having to use a magical parasite for that, so I probably shouldn't disrupt the class.

"Sorry, Theodore" I said. Truthfully, I didn't really care about the point system, as it was just a cruel means of keeping students in line and sabotaging future opposition, but I knew that most of the students actually wanted to win the cup, despite how impossible it was for any house but Gryffindor to win it. It would probably be better to make others realize the futility of caring about points, but I knew that it actually wouldn't be an easy task, especially with people in power sabotaging my efforts.

"It's Marcus, you jerk" He said, before turning his head away. Well, that was quite awkward. It wasn't my fault though, as I had no way of learning his name sooner. For some reason, despite almost a week of school, none of Ravenclaw first-years tried to talk with me or Luna. I wasn't complaining, but it was certainly weird.

Thankfully, after almost half an hour of talking about some unimportant and boring magic theory, professor Flitwick finally decided it was time for us to learn something a little bit more practical.

"Well, now that I explained everything properly, I think it's time to learn your first spell, just like I promised" said our gnome teacher, making everyone in the classroom focus on him. Seeing students' reaction, Flitwick smiled and continued "Everyone please take out your wands, so we can begin"

I didn't even wait a second before taking Kenny out, awaiting further instructions with a bated breath. Of course I intellectually knew that I wouldn't learn anything truly useful, as all of the teachers at Hogwarts were agents of the Ministry and they wouldn't teach their students anything capable of threatening magical overlords. I also knew that I wouldn't learn any advanced spells, like Patronus charm or Fiendfyre, as it wasn't something a first-year would be able to learn. And yet, despite that, I was very excited to finally learn how to cast a spell. Thanks to the movies I watched as a child (if my first life was actually real, of course), being able to cast spells with a wand was a childhood dream of mine, which is why I couldn't wait to learn the most basic and famous spell there is, wingardium leviosa. It certainly wasn't the most powerful spell, but moving stuff using only the power of my own mind sounded genuinely awesome and was on my list of things to learn as soon as possible.

"Now everyone, the spell you will learn today is quite simple, but it's actually one of the most useful spells you will learn during your education at Hogwarts" It was finally happening, I was about to learn windgarium… "Lumos"

After professor Flitwick cast a spell, the end of his wand began to glow, illuminating the entire classroom with a bright, white light. After two seconds of blinding brightness the light faded and the room returned to its previous state, with students rubbing their eyes.

"Lumos is one of the simplest spells, meant to illuminate the surroundings of the caster. You could say it's a very 'flashy' spell, hah. It may not seem very impressive, but it's an incredibly useful spell, especially for wizards and witches who plan to explore the wizarding world" Flitwick said, before starting to explain how to cast the spell properly, showing everyone a proper wrist movement.

Lumos, huh? It wasn't a bad spell either, I guess.