The library doors closed behind Lilith without a sound.
Some of Hogwarts' wards stirred at her entrance. Subtle, layered things meant to discourage mischief. She felt them brush against her illusion, test its edges, then accept it without complaint. The castle believed what it was shown, much like Dumbledore and other professors. No one had been able to detect Lilith's illusions so far is because her illusion couldn't be called an illusion. It was closer to an actual change in itself, than an illusion.
Madam Pince sat rigidly behind her desk, quill scratching with near-religious intensity. Her gaze flicked up once, sharp and proprietary, then dismissed Lilith as unremarkable. A second-year. Small. Quiet. Harmless.
Lilith catalogued her anyway. Distance to the shelves. Reaction time. Line of sight.
Then she noticed the hushed voices.
Soft hushed laughter carried from one of the long tables near the windows. Four girls sat together, books spread haphazardly between them, their focus drifting far more toward each other than the text in front of them.
Abigail Dursley leaned back in her chair, feet hooked around the rungs, grinning as she whispered something that made Ginny Weasley snort and clap a hand over her mouth. Astoria Greengrass listened with careful interest, chin propped on her palm, eyes flicking between speakers. Luna Lovegood sat cross-legged on her chair, reading a book upside down with serene concentration, as if the world's orientation were merely a suggestion.
They didn't look up when Lilith entered.
Lilith looked away first. Acknowledgement created threads. Threads became leverage and she was not ready to give Harry any sort of leverage, for that psychopath to go after her organization.
She turned toward the deeper stacks, shoes whispering softly against the stone floor, moving with the unhurried certainty of someone who knew exactly where she was going. The shelves marked Founders, Early Hogwarts, Legendary Accounts waited near the back, older wood reinforced with preservation charms layered over centuries.
This was where myths went to be embalmed.
She trailed her fingers along the spines as she walked, eyes scanning titles she already knew by heart. Salazar Slytherin: Visionary or Traitor. The Serpent's Shadow. A History of Hogwarts, volumes one through nine.
The Chamber of Secrets was mentioned, of course. Always was.
As rumor. As children's fear. As a cautionary tale conveniently devoid of specifics.
Lilith drew one of the heavier volumes free and carried it to an empty desk near the back, setting it down with care. She opened it midway, not bothering with the preface. Prefaces were written to guide interpretation. She preferred raw material. And where best to start then the place of the legend itself.
The only issue? This will take time.
Far below Hogwarts, the Chamber was warm.
Not the damp, echoing cold of abandoned stone, but a steady, living warmth that radiated from the runes now etched on the walls and the enormous coils of the basilisk sprawled comfortably across the floor.
Alive.
The great pillars still stood, but they were no longer looming. Vines—real ones, coaxed into existence and sustained by magic—curled around them lazily, broad leaves catching the light. The air smelled faintly of herbs, clean water, and something rich and savory.
At the heart of the chamber, in front of the statue of Salazar Slytherin was a table.
Enormous, reinforced, etched with runes so subtle they barely registered as magic at all. Upon it sat what could only be described as an absurd quantity of food.
Whole sides of roast meat, still steaming. Crates of enchanted fruits split open to reveal jewel-bright flesh. Bowls of stewed roots and grains infused with nutrients no ordinary cuisine bothered with. Even a few experimental dishes which were results of Harry's restless tinkering, rested to one side, glowing faintly as if embarrassed by their own complexity.
Salashra, the basilisk, was coiled comfortably nearby.
Her immense body gleamed in the warm light, scales polished to a mirror-smooth sheen not by vanity, but by care. Gold-green eyes half-lidded, she leaned forward to delicately spear a slab of meat with the tip of one fang, lifting it with surprising grace before consuming it in a single, satisfied motion.
"Mmmph," she rumbled, voice echoing softly through the chamber. "Four days. Four."
Her tail flicked lazily against the stone floor.
"In my time," she continued, mouth full but dignity intact, "guardians were respected through fear. Through reverence. Through proper ritual sacrifice."
Another bite.
"Now I am fed like a pampered hatchling."
She swallowed, then huffed—something like a chuckle, something like a sigh.
"Seasoned," she added grudgingly. "Properly seasoned."
Salashra shifted, coils tightening slightly as she leaned closer to the table, inspecting the spread with a critical eye. One massive claw nudged a bowl into better reach.
"And the chamber," she mused, glancing around at the transformed space. "Warm. Dry. Comfortable. Not a draft to be felt anywhere."
Her gaze lingered at the hall, which was earlier covered with grime and filth but now sparkled with magic and warmth instead.
"Hmph. Spoiled," she declared, though her tone lacked any real complaint. "Absolutely spoiled."
She ate again, slower this time, savoring the food. Somewhere above, the castle shifted faintly as students moved through its halls, unaware that one of its oldest residents now lived not as a guardian, but as something closer to… family.
Salashra's eyes closed briefly in contentment.
"Four days," she repeated softly. "He is always on time."
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Draco Malfoy was exhausted.
Not the petulant, sulking sort of exhaustion he'd once known—the kind that came from losing or being denied something, but the deep, satisfying burn that settled into muscle and bone after work well done. His arms ached. His legs felt like lead. His robes smelled faintly of grass, broom polish, and sweat.
Quidditch practice had run long.
Again.
He made his way up from the pitch, broom slung over his shoulder, boots crunching softly against the gravel path that led back toward the castle. The evening air was cool against his flushed skin, breath fogging faintly as he climbed the steps two at a time, mind still half in the sky.
Seeker.
The word still felt unreal.
He'd tried out with intent, nothing half-hearted, nothing assumed. Vespera had made that clear from the start. No legacy positions. No politics. You flew well or you didn't fly at all.
Marcus Flint hadn't flown well.
The memory brought the faintest curl of satisfaction to Draco's lips. Flint had argued, blustered, even tried to throw his weight around like the old days. Vespera had listened, unimpressed, then removed him from the team without raising her voice once.
A sixth-year. A keeper. Sharp-eyed, ruthless in drills, precise in feedback. She ran practices like a campaign, not a brawl, and the team was better for it.
Draco had earned his place.
That mattered.
He passed through the stone archway that led toward the dungeons, the air growing cooler with every step. His muscles protested as he descended, but he welcomed the sensation. It reminded him that he was changing. Becoming something more than a surname and expectations inherited from ghosts.
As he walked, his thoughts, traitorous things, drifted where they had been drifting all week.
Harry.
His cousin had vanished.
Not dramatically. Not with rumors or explosions or whispered panic. Just… absence.
Harry hadn't been at breakfast. Or lunch. Or dinner. Not once in the past week. He hadn't attended classes either—not that he ever did, given he was exempted from all of them. Five masteries made Hogwarts curriculum feel almost ceremonial in his case.
Still.
Draco frowned slightly as he turned a corner.
The only place Harry had been seen at all was in the Basics of Magic class.
Teaching.
Of course he was.
Draco snorted quietly at the thought. Trust Harry to be absent from everything except the one place where he was shaping the next generation's understanding of magic from the ground up.
He'd asked Daphne. Pansy too.
Neither had answers.
Their group hadn't seen him either. When Harry wasn't teaching, he was sleeping. When he wasn't sleeping, he was gone. No notes. No explanations. No dramatic entrances or exits.
Just silence.
That was what unsettled Draco.
Harry didn't disappear without reason.
He reached the familiar stretch of corridor where the damp stone bore the subtle greenish tint of Slytherin's wards. The torches here burned lower, steadier, casting long shadows that shifted like watchful things.
Draco slowed his steps.
Harry had done this before.
Not the disappearance—but the focus. That sharp narrowing of attention where the rest of the world became background noise. Every time it happened, something followed. Something big. Something that rewrote rules people had assumed were immutable.
New magic.
New structures.
New truths.
Draco exhaled slowly, gripping his broom tighter.
He's working on something, he thought.
Not with excitement.
With certainty.
Something that would, sooner or later, turn the magical world upside down yet again.
The Slytherin password slipped from his lips, and the stone wall parted smoothly, green light spilling out to welcome him home.
As Draco stepped inside, he couldn't shake the feeling that while everyone else was living their lives—training, studying, celebrating—
Harry was somewhere else entirely.
And whatever he was building, it wasn't meant to be small.
He took the stairs to his dormitory two at a time.
The door shut behind him with a soft thud, sealing out the noise of the common room above. He dropped his broom into its rack, loosened his tie, and rolled his shoulders, feeling the lingering stiffness from practice finally begin to ease.
A hot shower did wonders.
Steam filled the small bathroom, curling around stone and silver fixtures as Draco stood beneath the water, eyes closed, letting the heat sink into tired muscle. He scrubbed away the sweat and grass-smell of the pitch, mind finally slowing enough to drift without circling the same thought over and over.
By the time he stepped out, hair damp and skin warm, the edge of exhaustion had softened into something comfortable.
He dressed quickly, clean jeans and a t-shirt, and paused in front of the mirror.
For a moment, he barely recognized the boy looking back.
Not weaker. Not smaller.
Just… different.
Less sharp in the wrong ways. More focused in the right ones.
Crabbe and Goyle hadn't been part of his daily life for months now.
It hadn't even been a fight.
They'd simply stopped fitting.
Draco headed back upstairs.
The Slytherin common room was alive in its usual way, low conversations, the crackle of the fire, the subtle hum of wards embedded deep into the stone. Groups clustered around tables and couches, but Draco didn't slow until he spotted them.
Blaise Zabini sat with one leg draped over the arm of a chair, expression thoughtful rather than bored for once. Daphne Greengrass was leaning forward, parchment spread across her knees, quill tapping absently against her lip. Pansy Parkinson sat cross-legged on the sofa, wand in hand, flicking it idly as faint motes of light spiraled and collapsed above her palm.
Draco dropped into the open seat without ceremony.
"You're late," Pansy said without looking up.
"Practice ran long," Draco replied. "Vespera decided our formations were sloppy."
Blaise snorted. "She's not wrong."
Daphne glanced up, eyes sharp. "Seeker drills?"
Draco nodded. "Reaction timing. She's convinced seekers rely too much on instinct and not enough on predictive logic."
"That's… actually a solid criticism," Daphne admitted. "Although arguably seeker is the only position that needs instinct rather than logic."
Draco smirked faintly. "I know. It's unsettling."
The parchment between them was already filled with half-formed diagrams—runes sketched in margins, arrows pointing toward speculative spell matrices. Nothing finalized. Nothing safe enough to test.
Just thought.
"I was thinking," Blaise said, breaking the comfortable rhythm, "about multi-casting. What's the actual limit? And what if there is some types of spells that work well and some don't?"
Draco's attention sharpened immediately. "You mean layering spells at the same time, not chaining them?"
"Exactly," Blaise replied. "Everyone treats multi-casting like it's just about raw power or concentration. But that feels… lazy."
Daphne nodded slowly. "Because spells aren't equal. A shielding charm and a levitation charm don't strain the same magical pathways."
Pansy leaned back, eyes narrowing in thought. "Right. Defensive spells tend to be reactive. They wait. Offensive spells push outward. Utility spells reshape localized reality. If you try to cast two spells that demand opposing flow directions—"
"They'll interfere," Draco finished. "Cross-currents."
Daphne scribbled quickly. "So maybe true multi-casting isn't about quantity. It's about compatibility."
Blaise snapped his fingers once. "Exactly. Maybe we can think of it like instruments. You can play a violin and a piano together, but try two instruments fighting for the same frequency and you get noise."
Pansy tilted her head. "So theoretically, you could multi-cast if the spells share a common magical vector. Same intent-direction. Same anchor type."
Draco leaned forward. "That would explain why people can maintain a shield while casting movement charms—but struggle when they try to attack and reinforce at the same time."
"And why healing magic almost always collapses if you're doing anything aggressive alongside it," Daphne added. "Healing magic wants stability. Aggression destabilizes the field."
"…Do you think," she said carefully, eyes lifting from the parchment, "that any of these constraints apply to Harry?"
The question hung there.
Not dramatic. Not reverent. Just… inevitable.
For a heartbeat, none of them answered.
Then Blaise gave a short, breathy laugh. "Maybe, who knows?"
"I wouldn't be surprised if the guy had already made some other way of circumventing these constraints and doing whatever he wants."
"Yeah, that does sound like him." Daphne nodded in agreement.
Pansy's gaze slid back to Daphne, sharp with curiosity. "What's your reading now?"
Daphne didn't hesitate. "Thirty-nine thousand and change. Bordering forty."
Draco stiffened. "Already?"
She nodded, thoughtful rather than proud. "It surprised me too. But I've noticed a pattern—the more I pushed my core until it's nearly empty, the stronger it comes back after replenishment. Not instantly. Gradually. Like muscle under strain."
Pansy hummed softly. "That tracks."
Draco glanced at her. "You've seen the same?"
"Harry mentioned it," Pansy said. "Once. In passing."
She tapped the parchment absently. "He said magical cores grow when they're used to failure, not comfort. Most people stop long before that point because exhaustion feels like danger."
Blaise's brow furrowed. "And you?"
Pansy smiled faintly. "Bordering fifty."
That earned her a sharp look from all three of them.
"Fifty thousand puts you in mid Sorcerer," Draco said slowly.
"I know."
Draco exhaled, then shook his head with a crooked grin. "Then I suppose I've just caught up. Thirty-one thousand as of last check. Crossed the threshold last week."
"Congratulations," Daphne said sincerely.
Blaise lifted his hands in mock surrender. "Yesterday for me. Thirty thousand and nine." He paused. "I stared at the band for a full minute just to be sure it wasn't lying."
Then Draco leaned back, eyes narrowing slightly. "Do either of you know what Harry's reading actually is?"
Daphne and Pansy exchanged a glance.
"No," Daphne said.
Pansy shook her head. "He's never measured it."
Draco blinked. "You're joking."
Blaise laughed under his breath. "That's perfect."
Draco frowned. "What is?"
"The fact that Ron and Hermione designed the entire MPU classification system," Blaise said, amusement threading his voice, "largely because of Harry, because no existing metric could explain him and he's the one person who's never bothered to step on the scale."
Pansy's smile thinned, something knowing behind it. "I don't think it's avoidance."
"No," Daphne agreed quietly. "I think he is afraid of the number being so high that it would alienate him further, considering the guy always does impossible stuff."
Blaise's amusement faded into something more focused. His fingers stilled over the parchment, then he looked up, eyes bright with a sudden spark of thought.
"Actually," he said, "I had an idea. I've been meaning to tell Ron and Hermione, but I haven't had the chance yet."
Daphne turned toward him. "What kind of idea?"
"The entire thing right now," Blaise said. "is too fixed and theatrical. One fixed location, public readouts... Can be pretty intimidating for many people."
Pansy's brow lifted. "You're thinking of miniaturization?"
"Exactly," Blaise said. "Maybe they can make it into a bracelet or something that people can wear and it will tell them their personal reading and stuff."
Draco leaned forward again, interest clearly piqued. "Maybe that could have more stuff. Like maybe it could serve as an identity thing for a Hogwarts student as well."
Daphne nodded, "And it will also keep readings private."
Pansy smiled, "Yeah, but you are a bit late. Ron and Hermione already started working on that the day after they revealed the current setup."
Blaise froze mid-gesture. "They—what?"
Pansy's smile turned smug, the kind she reserved for moments when being in the know mattered. "They didn't announce it. But yes. The very next day."
Draco let out a short laugh. "Of course they did."
Daphne exhaled slowly, equal parts impressed and unsurprised. "So that explains why Hermione's been borrowing Arithmancy references on adaptive runic compression."
Blaise shook his head, a grin spreading despite himself. "I should've known. Miniaturization, privacy, identity integration; those two don't stop at good enough."
Draco leaned back, folding his arms. "A bracelet that tracks MPUs, updates dynamically, doubles as student identification, and keeps the data private unless you choose otherwise."
"And probably syncs to Hogwarts wards," Daphne said. "Attendance. Access permissions. Emergency overrides."
Pansy's eyes gleamed. "And knowing Hermione, it'll be tamper-proof, self-correcting, and ethically bulletproof."
Blaise chuckled. "So my 'idea' is already obsolete."
"Not obsolete," Daphne corrected. "Confirmed."
Draco smirked faintly. "Still funny though."
"What is?" Blaise asked.
""That Ron and Hermione are building a system to measure everyone," Draco said, gaze drifting briefly toward the Slytherin common room entrance, "in a world where one person still refuses to be measured at all."
"And the fact that they made the system to measure him in the first place," Daphne added with a chuckle.
Soon after Daphne and Pansy left the Slytherin common room together, the green-lit water fading behind them as they climbed the stone steps and merged into the warmer corridors of the castle. Their footsteps echoed softly as they walked. This route had become routine enough that neither of them commented on it.
Their first stop was Ravenclaw.
The bronze eagle knocker regarded them with its usual air of smug superiority.
Daphne stared at it for several seconds. "I still don't understand why knowledge needs a password."
Pansy folded her arms. "Because Ravenclaws enjoy watching other people suffer."
The knocker spoke, voice smooth and infuriating. "What runs but never walks, has a mouth but never talks?"
Daphne grimaced. "I hate this."
"I despise this," Pansy agreed.
They stood there in silence, neither particularly inclined to guess, when the door swung open from the inside. A Ravenclaw boy stepped out, arms full of books, pausing when he nearly walked into them.
"Sorry," he said automatically.
"No problem," Daphne replied. "Quick question—have you seen Luna Lovegood or Astoria Greengrass inside?"
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No. They left together about an hour ago, I think."
Pansy sighed. "Of course they did."
"Thanks," Daphne said, sincere.
The boy nodded and walked off, the door closing behind him with a decisive click.
"Well," Pansy said, turning on her heel, "that narrows it down."
"Gryffindor or the library," Daphne agreed.
"And knowing Luna," Pansy added, "possibly somewhere that isn't technically either."
Daphne smiled faintly as they headed down the corridor, steps quickening. "Still. Gryffindor first."
While deep beneath the castle, far below the rhythms of student life and stone bound routine, the Chamber of Secrets breathed with quiet warmth it had never known before.
The old damp chill was gone. In its place lingered a steady, hearth-like heat that clung to the stone and softened the air. The chamber was newly decorated to be more homely instead of imposing and cold, and the long, coiled body stretched comfortably across the chamber's center.
Salashra ate.
Great slabs of meat. Roasted, seasoned and still steaming, lay piled before her in quantities that would have fed an entire Hogwarts house. She tore into them with deliberate satisfaction, fangs careful despite their size, savoring each mouthful. The sound echoed softly, not grotesque, but homely in its own strange way.
Nearby, Harry moved.
His shirt lay discarded on a bench of transfigured stone. His movements were controlled, methodical—slow repetitions, muscle tightening and releasing with precision rather than strain. Bruises bloomed across his skin in dark constellations: ribs, shoulders, along his spine. Unmistakably fresh.
Salashra noticed.
"Harry.." she hissed softly, pausing mid-bite. "You have bruises on your body."
Harry exhaled, steadying his breath as he finished a repetition. "Today's side effects," he replied calmly. "They'll fade."
Her tongue flicked, tasting the air. "Seems to be Cruciatus."
He straightened up. "Yes, it is."
The chamber went still.
Even the faint hum of magic embedded in the stone seemed to quiet.
"Who struck you?" Salashra asked.
"My aunt, Bellatrix," Harry said, as if stating a mundane fact.
"Why?"
"Cause I asked her to," He replied, while waving his hand to do a simple cleaning charm over himself.
"You are not prey", Salashra said at last, voice lower. "Nor foolish hatchling. Why invite torment?"
Harry sat on the stone bench and leaned back against the wall, unbothered by the cool surface against bruised skin. "Because I needed to understand it. Fully. By it I mean the curse's effect."
"Pain is simple," she hissed. "It hurts."
"Not that kind of understanding," Harry replied. "I needed to feel how it builds. Where it fractures the mind. Where it stops being sensation and starts becoming... structure."
"I'm building something," he continued. "And for it to work, I had to experience the curse at its limits. Not an imitation. The real thing."
Salashra was quiet for a long moment, "You are strange," she finally said. "Weirder than Salazar."
Harry smiled, amused. "I know."
She returned to her meal then, slower than before, but she watched him as she ate—one great golden eye tracking his movements, thoughtful, assessing.
Harry reached for his shirt.
As his fingers brushed the fabric, magic stirred; not spoken, not shaped by wand or gesture. It flowed inward, precise and disciplined. The bruises across his skin lightened, violet bleeding into yellow, yellow into nothing at all. Flesh knit. Muscles relaxed. Pain receded as if it had never been invited in the first place.
Salashra watched closely.
Not with awe. With calculation.
"You erase it too easily," she murmured.
Harry slid the shirt over his head, rolling his shoulders once to settle it into place. "Pain is data," he said simply. "Once collected, it's obsolete."
Her tongue flicked again, uneasy. "You treat suffering like a ledger."
"I treat it like a variable," Harry corrected, calm and factual. "One that shouldn't be left unmeasured."
He stood, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve, already distant. The chamber's warmth seemed to dim slightly, as though it noticed his attention slipping away.
Salashra shifted, coils tightening faintly. "You will return," she said. It was not a question.
"In four days," Harry replied, already stepping back. "Try not to get bored."
A low, rumbling sound left her, something between a huff and reluctant amusement. "You spoil me," she said, almost fondly. "Then vanish."
Harry inclined his head, a small, courteous gesture meant only for her. "Behave."
The air folded inward.
There was no crack. No rush of displaced sound. One moment he was there, the next the space he occupied simply… forgot him.
Salashra stared at the empty stone for several seconds.
Then she returned to her meal, slower now, thoughtful—golden eye lingering on the place where Harry had been, as if the chamber itself might still remember him.