Published at 27th of May 2024 12:08 am

Chapter 109: Slithering Letters

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9 January 1993, Hogwarts

Harry woke up in his dormitory while everyone else was asleep. It was later than he usually got up since he decided to take the day as a break. It was the weekend and he had made up his mind to spend more time with his friends, even at the expense of his magical development. Even if he had all the power in the world, one of the things that the Potter scion feared the most was dying alone. Ever since he returned to the castle, he felt oddly relaxed, like a weight had lifted from his shoulders.

The only small issue would be the small amount of awkwardness that was present between Harry and his friends. Ever since he gave them the bean ultimatum, they have been acting a bit weirdly around him. They haven't decided on which road to take, and seeing that Harry started going back to his previous self and actually hanging out with them, they sort of felt like the whole thing resolved itself. Plus, the lack of any attack for almost two months made the whole Chamber of Secrets thing slip away from everyone's mind. Harry's friends probably made an agreement between themselves not to mention the bean exchange, and the Potter scion was more than willing to let the entire thing slide until they eventually cave in and make their decision when Riddle inevitably starts attacking again. It was best to just enjoy the relaxing time in school while he still could.

Speaking of the castle, the atmosphere in Hogwarts after the winter holidays were over, was very tense, and it had everything to do with Longbottom returning. The young Gryffindor's status as a Parselmouth and the fact that no attacks occurred while he was suspended, pretty much made him the culprit in the school population's eyes. The fact that he had gotten away with what was basically a month-long vacation, and a slap on the wrist didn't help matters. Well, there was also his yearlong Quidditch ban and expulsion from his house's team.

The Longbottom scion was particularly vocal about it when he complained to McGonagall about it being an unfair punishment since the entire house would suffer and not just him. Let's just say that the Transfiguration professor wasn't amused. But most of all, Harry could tell that his alienation from the rest of the student body was really affecting him. For all he tried to pretend that everything was normal, Harry could see his fury slowly grow with every person that avoided him or sneered at him. The boy was a few days away from snapping. Harry decided to just stay away from him as much as possible and save himself the headache.

As for Ron Weasley, according to his brothers, the boy had experienced the worst Christmas in his life, when his mother confiscated his gifts and made him eat roast beef sandwiches on Christmas Eve. The boy wasn't even allowed to leave his room. Apparently, while being suspended he had shamed the Weasley family, and he was being punished for it.

The final member of the Golden Trio practically withdrew to herself. Hermione Granger had been oddly silent ever since the incident. She stopped raising her hands during class and wilted every time a professor so much as looked in her direction. Spending almost a month in isolation had really hurt the muggleborn's self-esteem, especially since she was treated as a pariah. Slytherin students particularly glared at the girl, since it was their common room that she broke into, but it never devolved into anything serious. Snape didn't need to tell them how harassing a muggleborn is not a good idea, especially with this whole Heir of Slytherin mess going on.

Even when Longbottom and Weasley's suspensions lifted, the three of them still acted somewhat more distant than they were before. They must have felt invincible in the school since Dumbledore was never going to expel the boy who lived. It would have been political suicide to stop him from pursuing his education, or even worse, drive him to get it in another country, and that's not mentioning the plans that the headmaster had for the Longbottom scion for the next few years.

So, yeah, the Golden Trio thought on a very fundamental level that they could get away with anything in the castle as long as they had 'good intentions'. If Longbottom hadn't been publicly caught, the headmaster would have either threatened or convinced the witnesses to stay silent. Yeah, that timed dispelling of the Polyjuice was one of the best moments of brilliance Harry ever had.

Still, the Potter scion had to regret the tension that his decision to discreetly reveal the intruding Gryffindors caused. The entire house became alert for any other intruders, and even a few paranoid students started to trade code words to verify that they weren't impostors.

Harry changed out of his pyjamas and into his normal clothes. After he was done changing, he put on the new addition to his outfit, a black fedora made of Acromantula silk. Daphne had gotten it to him for Christmas. She had even made sure that no one enchanted it, knowing that Harry would have been the one to do it. He really liked it and there was honestly something about turning a hat into a pocket dimension with an undetectable expansion charm. The Potter scion had even started to learn space magic, since it was a very useful field of magic that wasn't commonly mastered, probably due to how complicated the arithmancy was, and also the fact that any mistake tended to have drastic and often deadly effects.

There was this witch, who tried to expand the space of her handbag, only for her to accidentally turn the inside of the bag into some kind of proto singularity. And since the bint didn't even think about containing the gravity, it sucked her inside and kept her trapped inside. Similarly, there were horror stories about expanded magical tents that collapsed with people inside, squishing the participants into balls of meat. So, yeah, any kind of advanced spacial manipulation was somewhat regulated by the ministry, and you needed to be certified to be able to sell any spatially expanded item. Thankfully, Hogwarts seemed to have enough books on the subject, particularly in the restricted section. And if that collection was unsatisfactory, Harry could just ask Arcturus Black to send him more books on the subject.

Anyway, Daphne's gift was very stylish, and he liked it. The girl seemed to brighten up every time she saw him wearing it, which was a nice feeling. They had all decided to stick with a budget of ten galleons for the gifts this year, since Blaise's mother, who often bought his presents for him, tended to go overboard. Harry had given her a very old book about druids that he had found while pilfering the Room of Hidden Things. He honestly didn't know what to give her. She seemed to like the book, but it wasn't as thought out as his hat had been.

He had decided to just bite the bullet and start scavenging the Room of Hidden Things for his purpose. To be perfectly honest, the elves did a good job at cleaning up everything, and to his disappointment, there wasn't a pile of lost gold and silver in the room. Since the elves were the ones to actually put everything, they wanted to throw away there, anything that seemed valuable, like gold, was given back to the headmaster. All the books were just normal schoolbooks that were lost over the years. There was a lot of information that wasn't in the new books and more than a few classes that were cancelled. Harry didn't know that there was an entire class just to focus on conjuration. It was a NEWT class of course, but it was interesting that it was later lumped with transfiguration.

However, it was in the briefcases that Harry found the most treasure. Well, there were hundreds of them, and most of their enchantments had worn out. Thankfully, the spacial expansion worked fine and held pretty well. The luggage usually contained personal items, which often included gold pouches, a few books, some clothes, and a few artefacts that probably used to be charmed. Harry had gotten over a hundred galleons already just from finding gold in briefcases. It wasn't much in the grand scheme of things, but it was still enough for him to forgo visiting the bank in the summer.

Anyway, Harry had learnt a lot of spells to sort through the mess and used it to separate sections of the Room into books, briefcases, and whatever else there was. Almost everything was just garbage, that he put aside to practice vanishing charms on them later.

So, long story short, Harry's spent his time productively. The only thing he regretted was the fact that he had to delay most of the business meetings that he had planned to have during the Christmas holidays since he accepted Arcturus Black's invitation to spend Christmas with him, and while he liked the man, he didn't trust him enough to handle any kind of financial matters that concerned the Potter family. He would have to sneak out of the castle to attend the meetings. He already knew of a few hidden entrances so getting out wouldn't be an issue. The problem would be the fact that his absence would need to stay unnoticed so that no one tries to get involved in his personal affairs.

He didn't really regret spending time with Arcturus. Not only had the man given him most of the materials he needed to craft his colt, but Harry also found that he genuinely liked the man's sense of humour, and his war stories were very wild, to say the least.

The Black Patriarch's expression after seeing the Colt being made was hilarious. When Harry explained what it was, his eyes kept widening with every word and his jaw dropped just a little bit further the more he realized what it was that Harry created.

An instrument of perfect death. A weapon capable of killing anything with a soul.

To say that he was impressed would be an understatement. Harry was sure that if he wasn't already the head of House Potter, the man would have forced the Black crest on him and paraded him around like a trophy.

To be perfectly honest, Harry didn't think he could replicate the process of creating a weapon of that calibre again. He didn't know how he could explain it, but it was like the path he had taken to create it just wasn't there anymore.

And that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The Colt wasn't a weapon to be used lightly. It was why Harry kept it in a warded box in his trunk. Every single one of these seven shots had to count. They had to matter. And reserving one bullet for a magical weapon of mass destruction that threatened the lives of an entire generation of wizards and witches, was an easy decision to make.

Honestly, Harry wasn't that concerned about the fight with the King of Serpents anymore. The Colt, coupled with his Basilisk Glare resistant goggles, and his arcane hearing to warn him from any hidden danger, Harry thought that his chances at killing the beast were pretty good.

The Potter scion looked back and saw that Blaise was still asleep. He sighed in exasperation and decided to just stay in the common room until his friends woke up.

He decided to sit down in his usual spot and read a book. This time, it was a basic theory about extension charms in general. It was interesting if a dry read. Which was a shame, because the topic was fascinating.

Of course, his reading was interrupted by a letter levitating towards him. The Potter scion didn't know who would contact him like this, but his eyes widened when he understood who the sender was. There was a green wax seal on the letter. It had the shape of the same crest that he wore on his robes every day, the Slytherin crest. This was a message from the court of Slytherin.

The moment he opened the letter, it floated up and started speaking in a soft female voice, "Harry Potter, you are hereby summoned by the Court of Slytherin regarding an issue pertaining to the unwritten rules on the house. Please follow the glowing green line to your meeting place in the next five minutes. Thank you for your cooperation. The Black Bishop of Slytherin, messenger of the court."

A green line appeared from the letter and spread to the familiar secret entrance of the ritual rooms. The court's headquarters must be there. Thankfully, the common room was deserted, so, no one heard his summoning.

Harry could ignore it, he really did. Alas, he was a curious boy. And who didn't want to solve a mystery? The Potter scion grinned to himself, "I have a feeling that this will be interesting."

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