Chapter 6

[Vincent Crabbe]

Stepping through the door, Vincent was greeted by quite the scene.

It was almost like a library for a single person. There were rows and rows of shelves at the back, with a sofa and a couch at the front. A coffee table sat in the middle of those and a desk was propped against the wall to his side. In front of the sofa, there was a huge window that led to a landscape that clearly wasn't anywhere near Hogwarts. It probably wasn't even real.

'It really goes above and beyond what you ask. The absolute best service, as it were,' Vincent thought to himself with a wide grin as he took in this discovery. It was massive for them to have access to this room. They'd have to be careful no to get caught, but it probably wasn't going to be too bad.

Sure, the Weasley twins had the Marauder's Map, but what could they possibly check on Crabbe and Goyle of all people for? That was the low hanging fruit, as far as they were concerned. Surely pranksters of such infamy had better shit to do than target the two of them.

Everyone had even less reason and fucks to give about the two of them to catch them.

Thus, they should be reasonably safe, at least until they started drawing more attention, that is. Once that happened… Well, they'd have to look for either a way to hide from the Map or get the Map, whichever seemed more likely. 'That's a problem for the future though,' Vincent reminded himself. Nothing to do about any of that for the moment. Not like their magicless asses could do anything regarding the Map for the moment.

Shaking his head to focus back on the present, Vincent moved towards the shelves. Slowly, he ran his fingers through the spine of some of the books, checking the titles. 'There's books from all years here,' he noted, very happy to see that. Sure, some of them looked old, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Although…

'Old doesn't mean good either,' he thought. Fanfics and stories loved to say how some ancient tomes, scrolls or magics in general were beyond what could be used in modern day, but that made no sense. Development didn't work like that, after all. It was like saying that bows and arrows were better than firearms. However, that also didn't mean that old things couldn't be useful or better than modern ones.

It'd just be a process to comb through all that.

'The good thing is that we won't have to visit the library, or at least not as much,' he mused, stepping back from the shelves. Taking the sight in, he decided to check some things. 'I want books with information about Occlumency,' he thought, closing his eyes to focus better.

When he opened them, he found himself looking at a single shelf, but there were more books than he expected anyway. Looking at the titles, most of them seemed rather random, which he imagined was because they held information in smaller amounts. Maybe there was a reference to the art at some point or another. There were actual books on that though, and those were the ones Vincent was after. 'That's great,' he thought, greatly relieved.

He didn't want to know what'd happen if anyone tried to peek in his or Gregory's mind. Sure, his transmigrated friend didn't know all that much, but he knew enough. It'd be better if they could shield their minds from invasion… Hell, they didn't even really need a reason for that. It should be common sense to want to defend one's memories and thoughts, really.

'I want books with information about Horcruxes,' he thought then, closing his eyes again. When he opened them… 'Expected.' There were only a handful of books and none of them looked like they would have any meaningful information. Still, a mention or a comment here and there would be better than nothing. He'd definitely be combing through those at some point.

With that out of the way, there was one more, rather important, thing to ask the room for.

'I want a wand suited for me,' Vincent asked of the Room. That thought got him nothing, however. He looked around just in case, but no, there were no wands around. 'I want wands?' he tried then and almost sighed in relief when five wands of different lengths, woods and designs appeared in front of him. 'Thank God- Er, Merlin,' he thought, sighing in relief.

So, taking the first one, he got to work testing them. The results he got were… varied. One of them felt absolutely terrible, he didn't even finish chanting the first spell, barely flicking it before the thing tried to blow up the wall in front of him and sent him to the floor on his ass. Another sort of worked, but it was worse than the wand he already had. Half the time it seemed to do whatever it wanted. There was one that worked a little better than his original, but he didn't think it was worth changing it and risking someone noticing. Not that he thought someone would. He was fairly sure that had no chances of happening considering how little everyone seemed to care about them, but it was worth noting.

Then there were the last two, which worked fairly well. No one true wand for him there though, which was expected, but Vincent was happy to have a wand that gave him less trouble than his original. Hell, one of the wands seemed to give no trouble at all. If he didn't remember the awe-inspiring description of what one's wand was supposed to feel when first touched, he'd have thought that was the one for him.

Alas, all he got from it was a sense of… indifference. It worked for what he wanted and that was it. There was no sense of… anything else. He was sure that a true wand that was his would feel different. Then again, he could be wrong. He'd have to wait until he could visit Ollivander to confirm that one way or another.

For the moment, he was happy to have something that'd work with him.

'Well, I have some time to kill, I guess,' he mused then, looking at the wand in his hand. Gregory was probably just out of his detention and going to get some late lunch or something. 'Yeah, can get some practice done while I'm here.'

[}-o-{]

[Theodore Nott]

"-Meanwhile, I'll be flying at High Hoop height. That's the best height to be in to find the Snitch, after all," Malfoy explained, using a model of the Quidditch pitch with flying player models. "The Ravenclaws won't even have time to make points, I tell you."

Theodore looked at the display with a disinterested expression, humming in a tone that showed just as much emotion. The Malfoy Heir directed a glare at him then, but it lasted barely a second before he rolled his eyes and turned away from him. That was disappointing. He'd have liked to draw more of a reaction.

It wasn't that he didn't care for the impromptu strategy explanation. He liked Quidditch as much as the next guy, but he just didn't like Malfoy. Thus, the entire thing immediately lost whatever interest he might have held regarding it. 'And I have to put up with this guy for five more years?' he thought, holding back a grimace.

"I mean, I know you are envious of my spot in the Quidditch team-"

"That you bought?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. His lips quirked up seeing the twitch of the blonde's eye and the slight pinking of his cheeks. If he was going to get like that every time someone mentioned it, then maybe he should have gotten in the team before buying them all brooms. Then again, maybe his father or Malfoy himself didn't think he could manage, which would be hilarious.

"-But that's no reason to be like this. This is the Slytherin Quidditch Team we are talking about here," the blonde said, slowly as if Theodore were some slow child or one of his two guard dogs. "You should show more care for something this important, Nott. Then again, I don't know why I expect better from you."

It was his turn to have his eye twitching.

He had to curse the moment when he thought that trying to make moves against Malfoy was a good idea. Especially when he was clearly not ready for that battle. Still, it wasn't like his situation was a lot worse than it had been in first year. His family hadn't come out of the war as well as the Malfoys and the Heir of that very family wouldn't let him forget about that even if he tried.

"Really, Nott? Getting lost staring at nothing?" Malfoy asked him with a mocking grin. "I'd expect that from Crabbe and Goyle. You just have to find ways to make yourself look worse, don't you?" he added, making him glare at him.

"Where are they anyway?" Zabini pointed out, from where he laid on the sofa across from them. Davis was at the end of said seat, away from him, sitting stiffly like she always was when Greengrass wasn't around. If it weren't for the fact that the Greengrass Heiress would make him pay for it, he might have insulted her to draw Malfoy's attention away from himself. He could only do that so much though, before he might actually get in serious trouble with someone he couldn't afford to.

"How would I know?" Malfoy asked, shrugging. "Goyle should be done with his detention by now, probably went to get something to eat. Crabbe might have stayed eating until now, for all I know."

"They leave a lot more than before, don't they?" Zabini commented, drawing an even more unimpressed look from Malfoy than he already was before. "What?"

"Paying a lot of attention to them, are you, Zabini?" the blonde asked, rolling his eyes. "They are barely here when they are here, what difference does it make?" he added.

"Not so unimportant when you go to confront Potter, are they?" Nott pointed out with a grin, getting a glare from the Malfoy. He didn't care for it this time, because he knew he'd hit a nerve there. If there was one thing that could get under the blonde's skin, that was the Potter Heir.

Unfortunately, that already short moment of victory was cut even shorter when the Common Room's entrance was opened. Not because of that, specifically, but because the people they were talking about came in then and there. Sure enough, Crabbe was eating a snack that he'd brought with him, looking like a happy camper.

"Why am I not surprised?" Malfoy asked, looking at the two like a person that didn't expect anything from someone and was still disappointed. To be fair, he probably was.

"Want one?" Crabbe asked, showing that he'd brought two snacks and offering one to Malfoy, who scrunched up his face. "That a no?"

"No, Crabbe, I don't want that," he said, dragging a hand over his face. "Why do I bother?" he muttered, sighing.

"Because they cover for you when you-?"

"Shut up, Nott," Malfoy hissed.

"You want one?" Crabbe asked then, taking a bite from his snack while offering the second to… Nott himself? He blinked, looking between the sandwich and Crabbe. Why was he offering him the snack? What?

"I'll take that, if it's all the same to you, Crabbe," Zabini answered before he could even process the bizarre occurrence. Theodore didn't even think he remembered the last time either Crabbe or Goyle had talked to him. Especially without being addressed first, he was sure. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it," the boy replied, grinning happily. Theodore almost envied the two idiots that. Give them some good food and they were happy as can be. "What were you talking about?" he added then, looking at the Quidditch pitch model.

"The strategy for the Slytherin-Ravenclaw match. Come on, I'll tell you," Malfoy said then, happy to bore someone to repeat the same explanation for who knew which number of times and even though it'd all fly over the two brutes' heads.

[}-o-{]

[Vincent Crabbe]

"Cool, isn't it?" he asked, back at the Room of Requirement after spending the required time with Malfoy and being "let go" once more. It was annoying, but so long as they gave some time to the blonde, made fools of themselves a few times and such, they were fine. Sooner or later the guy would grow bored and dismiss them. Either that, or he'd do it just because he could.

Regardless of the reasons, he preferred things that way anyway.

"Cool might be falling short as a descriptor, to be honest with you," Gregory said as he marveled when a random book appeared in front of him. The item swiftly disappeared and was replaced by a myriad of objects as he tried and tested summoning whatever he could think of. "Isn't this a bit of a cheat though? How come there are not more of these kinds of things literally everywhere? It's just too useful!"

"Your guess is as good as mine, man," he replied with a shrug. "Maybe whichever of the founders made this wanted to hog it for themselves. Or maybe all of them did. Maybe it was harder to make more and they just made the one. Maybe… any number of things."

"It is honestly a shame... Though, I guess in some ways it is for the best. Who knows what kind of bad things one could do with a room that can literally summon anything you want?… You are sure it is just summoning and not outright creating stuff, right?" Gregory said, opening the drawer of a big dresser that had appeared in front of him. It was completely empty.

"It's probably creating some things, like, the furniture and such maybe. I very much doubt it's creating the books though. That seems too… complex, you know? Either way, I wouldn't try to take anything from here outside. I imagine it'll either fall apart or… it might even cause problems with the room. Like transfiguration, you know how we read that things go back to normal after some time? I imagine it's something like that for the simpler things," Vincent said, voicing ideas he'd had ever since they started looking for the place. "The room has a collection of lost stuff that was stored here though, that is where I imagine the books and such things come from. And those are safe to take, I think."

Gregory nodded his head in understanding at the impromptu explanation. With any luck, Vincent had actually explained himself well. He barely understood what he was saying, so trying to transfer that knowledge onto his transmigrated companion wasn't what one could call easy.

"So, is it just things that are lost, or can be anything a person is not carrying… What does the room even consider as lost…?" his friend mumbled to himself, seemingly lost in thought. A few seconds later, however, Gregory closed his eyes for… reasons, he supposed. The dresser disappeared and in its place there was… nothing? "Huh, so it is not just things that are not being carried at least… Then what about…" his friend continued, repeating the same actions as before, but this time a pink hair pin appeared on the floor next to their feet.

"Didn't I explain that already?" Vincent asked, frowning and tilting his head. "Anyway, the house elves… think of them like servants. They are everywhere, they clean and cook and all that, usually staying out of sight. Anyway, they collect the lost stuff and put it all here. Are you trying to summon specific things? Chances are the room will either make nothing or a copy instead of the actual thing, I imagine," he explained, looking down at the hair pin and wondering what that was about.

"Kind of, yeah." Gregory said sheepishly. "This here is probably Davis' hair pin. I heard her moaning that she couldn't find it anywhere this morning during breakfast. I guess those elves put it here? Wonder why they didn't just give it back…"

"Or it's a copy and the real one is still waiting to be found… or found already," Vincent pointed out, already feeling a headache. Why did his friend have to try and find the holes in logic when magic didn't have logic anyway? "I imagine things are put here when school lets out. At the end of the year, if anything's still here, then it gets stored… maybe waiting for people to ask for it or something like that. I'd have to check Hogwarts info to see if there's a way to ask for stuff back."

"Or that, yeah…" Gregory said with a roll of his eyes. He was too absorbed in his investigation it seemed. It sort of reminded him of when they have to read for potion classes. "Though. I wonder if that possible duplication feature only applies to mundane things. The first time I tried to summon that broom Malfoy likes to sleep with… That kid has a problem, by the way."

"Simple things, like what it can create out of nothing, I imagine," Vincent said, shaking his head. "Brooms have enchantments and stuff. Then again…" he trailed off, looking at the Quidditch model set he'd asked for with actual flying pieces. "Hm, maybe there's a limit on that or something. Maybe there were enchanted models in the lost stuff… Anyway, the important thing is that the room is hidden if we want it to, it can provide a perfect setting to practice and it has a lot of books we can use without having to go to the library."

"I guess that we won't miss Madam Pince," Gregory said with a shudder.

"You think?" he asked wryly. A woman like that shouldn't be watching over the library. She seemed to hate it when they went there for anything, be it using books there or taking them out. What was the point of a library if you couldn't touch the books? "Important though," he continued then, summoning a table and the wands that were in the Room on top of it. "You can check these ones. Who knows? Maybe one of them will work better than your current one."

"Let's see," Gregory said, as he reached to grab one of the wands on top of the table. Vincent had all but a second to duck before the wand flew with force from the table in his direction as soon as his friend touched it. Both of them turned to see the thing that almost poked one of his eyes out lying inert on the floor.

'I thought you liked me,' Vincent thought, feeling betrayed. That was one of the wands that worked the best for him and it had almost murdered him. 'Wizarding World do be like that at times, I guess,' he thought, taking a deep breath in to calm himself.

"Right, I guess that one didn't work," he commented, stating the obvious. "Next one?" he suggested to Gregory, who looked like someone had kicked his puppy. Vincent made sure to summon a protection wall between him and the table, this time, however… just in case.

"Right," the despondent man said with a sigh and got to it. Turned out that he didn't have much better luck with any of the other wands either. One of them just sputtered a spell out, another just felt really wrong in his hands, but at least none of them tried to murder them this time. Instead, they just… worked really badly, or did things completely random instead of what Gregory tried to cast.

"Well, there was an attempt," Vincent commented, running his fingers through his hair – His horrible, horrible hair. Dammit he wanted a haircut already – and looking at the wands. "At least yours already worked well enough, right?"

"Yeah, I guess that is true," Gregory replied with a sad sigh as he patted the original wand he had brought with him. "Well, what now, then?" he continued trying to change the subject of his botched attempts. "I guess we now have a base for ourselves with all we want without being bothered."

"There's that, but I checked and we can get books sorted from the lost collection the place has. You can ask for anything on a specific subject and it'll provide. Should make things simpler when looking for… anything particular we might need," Vincent explained, summoning a book on occlumency in his hand. "For example this. This is a book on magic to keep your mind safe from… what amounts to mind readers. You remember those, right? When I told you not to look Snape or Dumbledore in the eyes."

"...Right, I thought you just meant to keep my head down because they would take offense," Gregory said with a sigh. Vincent blinked at that. Had he been unclear? Then again, he'd had to rush through a lot of explanations, since most of the time he'd had to do so in the moment. It wasn't a stretch to think that maybe some things were only half understood. "As if mini sized reality warpers and crazy ghosts weren't enough. It turns out there are also random telepaths around," he mumbled to himself.

"It's better to assume anyone can do anything, pretty sure. Especially if someone strikes you as powerful," Vincent advised wryly. It wasn't like he didn't get where his friend was coming from, after all. The Wizarding World was bullshit.

"Okay, so, I am guessing this O-cclu-mency thing is like some kind of mind shield?" his friend asked as he squinted a bit to read the name of the book he was holding.

"Should be," Vincent answered with a nod. "I'm not very sure how it's supposed to work. Canon wasn't very clear and fan theories are all over the place. Could be a shield, could be some sort of mental exercise like the typical mundane ones, could be anything, honestly," he explained, frustrated at his own lack of knowledge. He might know how events went in canon and a bunch of details, but magic wasn't something that canon went into detail about. He was also very reluctant to trust fanon because… that was certainly a rabbit hole to go down in.

"Well, I guess this should be one of our top priorities, right? I am not sure about you, but I am not keen on someone having access to my own thoughts at all times." Gregory took the offered book and opened it before skimming through it, letting out a sigh of relief. Probably when he noticed that the thing didn't seem to have any "random wand waving" as he liked to call anything wand-related. Vincent would know, he'd skimmed through it himself.

"We should be fine so long as we don't look Dumbledore or Snape in the eyes, but yes, it is a priority. Who knows, some theories say that it helps with mental stuff, you know, better memory, faster thinking," he commented idly. "As it is, yeah, I'd put priority on this and catching up. Little else to do anyway. Half and half?"

"I guess that works. If it truly gives you better memory and faster thinking, then it would truly be a blessing for us to catch up with the rest of the classes."

"Again, theories. We'll have to read on it and see," Vincent pointed out, trying not to get his friend's hopes up. Or his own, really, because he really hoped that was right though. Not only would it help them deal with their current situation, but the benefits after that?

"It is fine, it is fine," Gregory said, waving him off. "The only way to find out is by reading the thing in the end. Either way, it will prove beneficial for us," he added in a rare bout of optimism. It seemed that he was interested in what he was reading then. The only time he was this happy was when it was time to study potions, after all.

"Guess we are getting started on this then," Vincent commented, amused, seeing his friend already lost in his book. With a chuckle, he summoned another and got to reading himself. There was a lot of work to do.

Things were looking up though, so there was that.

[} Chapter End {]

Adrian: I… don't have anything in particular to say, honestly. A fairly calm chapter and our guys are getting stuff done. Progress is made at a steady pace and things are going well… I'm sure nothing bad will happen to set our guys back.

Arc: At the very least they now have a new base for themselves. The Room of Requirement is as safe as you can possibly be in Hogwarts. Sadly, Gregory didn't find any wand that was good for him, but at the very least they can now start learning occlumency which is arguably one of the most useful things to have in the verse.

Adrian: Especially if you know more than you should, that's for sure. Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Random Arc Question: I have personally read a dozen theories about this, but how do you think the Marauder's Map works? Some form of divination? A backdoor to some kind of ward barriers at the school? Something else?

Discord Link: discord .gg/UTDransjJZ