Astronomy only took place on Wednesday evenings, and no homework was assigned after the first class of the school year. So once the afternoon lessons were over, the first-years found themselves with nothing to do.
Avada wasn't about to let such a precious stretch of free time go to waste. The location of Hogwarts' most mysterious and versatile room, the Room of Requirement, was already etched in his mind. And once he managed to get inside, his plans would take a huge step forward: Ravenclaw's Diadem, the broken Vanishing Cabinet, and a secret research space of his own...
What was more, there were all sorts of fascinating things to study: the magic behind the Room of Requirement, the magical structures of Ravenclaw's Diadem and the Vanishing Cabinet, Voldemort's fragments of soul, and more. If he could fully analyze them with Magic Sense and use what he learned to develop related spells...
Avada would stake his life on it: to him, no treasure in the wizarding world was worth as much as the Room of Requirement!
So after leaving the Transfiguration classroom, he hurried off to the Great Hall with the other Hufflepuffs, planning to head for the Seventh Floor after dinner.
Even as a Hufflepuff, he couldn't skip a meal.
"Hey, K!"
Avada turned toward the voice and saw Baron emerging alone from the corridor opposite, waving at him.
"Fancy seeing you again."
He greeted his Hufflepuff classmates, then stepped out of the group for the moment and walked alongside Baron. "How was your first day of classes?"
"Pretty good." Baron's lips curved into a slight smile. "Most of it was stuff my parents had already taught me, but casting spells with a wand myself was a whole new experience. How about you?"
"Not bad. I'd already studied most of the spells over the summer, so they weren't hard to pick up. Professor Binns's voice was a little hypnotic in History of Magic, but the subject itself is pretty interesting."
"You find History of Magic interesting too?"
Baron sounded delighted to have found a kindred spirit. "I just came from History of Magic. You wouldn't believe it—by the end of class, I was the only one still awake! Even the students who'd done well in our other classes were nodding off!"
"I don't have to imagine it." Avada shook his head with a laugh. "It was the same in my class. I'm starting to wonder if Professor Binns has some talent for hypnotic magic. He'd only said a few words, and the whole room was already snoring. The stuff he taught was actually pretty fascinating."
"Exactly."
Baron sighed. "My parents have always told me that the glory of our bloodline lies in its history, and everything we enjoy today comes from the gifts of the past. As Pure-blood wizards, remembering history and protecting the truth are our duty. And we must remember not only the deeds that brought us honor, but also those that stained it, so we can reflect on them and avoid repeating them. Only then can our glory endure through the generations and flourish."
"That's admirable..." Avada had meant to praise Baron and chat a little more about History of Magic, but his brow suddenly furrowed. He reached out and stopped Baron in his tracks.
"What is it?"
"There's a little trap up ahead." It took Avada only a few seconds to understand the magic's structure. His frown soon eased, and he even felt like laughing.
"Finite Incantatem."
He drew his wand and flicked it lightly. A beam of white light spread out and swept over the corridor ahead. One patch of floor turned into a small pool of mud, then wriggled a few times under the spell's effect before changing back into ordinary tiles. He put his wand away with a flourish and looked playfully toward the corner beside them. "You can come out now, upperclassmen."
At his words, two red-haired boys who looked nearly identical shuffled out, their heads bowed in dejection.
Baron's pupils contracted. He remembered the Slytherin upperclassman's solemn warning the previous night about a legendary pair of Gryffindors.
"Merlin's beard, what a disaster."
One of them groaned in dismay. "We spent half a term developing that portable swamp, and some little kid who's only just learned the Levitation Charm figured it out!"
"How did you do that?"
Avada watched the Twins scratching their heads in confusion and made up an answer. "Bad luck for you. I've studied a pretty wide range of subjects on my own, and that happened to include identifying and disarming traps in Defense Against the Dark Arts."
"You must be Gryffindor's troublemakers, the prank masters Fred Weasley and George Weasley, right? I'm K, from Hufflepuff. Nice to meet you."
"Oh, so you're the one—the one whose name must not be spoken!"
The Twins exclaimed excitedly, then turned to Baron. "And you must be his 'Eater of Meals'!"
"Slytherin. Baron Shafiq. It's a pleasure to meet the two 'Prank Magi.'" Baron rolled his eyes and shot back without missing a beat.
"Prank Magi?"
The Twins froze in unison. They exchanged a glance, their eyes lighting up with delight.
"How did we never think of that title before?!"
"Haha, the highest achievement in pranking—a 'Prank Magus,' on a par with an Animagus and a Metamorphmagus!"
"No wonder a Slytherin who can make friends with a Hufflepuff is so good at coming up with names!"
Then they dashed off in a flurry, whether to flee the scene of their crime or to loudly spread their new title around, Avada couldn't tell.
Baron's forehead twitched with anger. "That title is an insult! An insult! I should've called them Detraction Magi!"
"They'd probably like that even more."
Avada laughed. "We'd better wait for the title to catch on, then let Professor McGonagall, a real Animagus, deal with them. For now, we've got to go be 'Eaters of Meals.'"
"I finally understand why the upperclassmen looked like that when they mentioned those two yesterday. They set a hidden trap for first-years, openly admit they're Prank Magi, and even compare themselves to Professor McGonagall..."
"Is that how Gryffindor courage is supposed to be used?"
Baron was still fuming by the time they were nearly finished with dinner. He bit into his chicken leg with noticeably more force than before.
After parting ways with Baron, Avada waited until the corridors were nearly empty, then sneaked up to the Seventh Floor and stopped opposite the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls. He gave the wall that concealed the entrance to the Room of Requirement a casual sweep with Magic Sense.
Yeah, no clue.
First, he'd get the Horcrux.
"The Room of Requirement only opens for someone who truly needs it..."
"As if. No one needs the Room of Requirement more than I do. I'm the only one who knows how important the things inside are."
Avada repeated to himself, I need a room to hide things in. I need a room to hide things in... as he walked back and forth along the stretch of wall three times. In an instant, the magical structure inside the wall joined with the mental energy leaking from him, undergoing an incredibly complex and strange transformation. A door appeared out of nowhere in the wall, and beyond it lay a vast, hidden space that had suddenly come into being.
Avada pushed open the door and stepped into an enormous, brightly lit room. Though it was already vast, all manner of clutter nearly filled every corner. Flames burning underwater, books turning their own pages, what looked like an unfinished, handmade Golden Snitch...
Countless complicated and unfamiliar magical structures filled Avada's Magic Sense. His head began to ache, but he couldn't help marveling at the fact that he'd forgotten another use for the Room of Requirement—
Over the thousand-year history of Hogwarts, countless students had hidden their proudest creations—or contraband they'd acquired from who knew where—in this room, leaving it piled high with magical objects!
And most of their workings weren't especially complicated. They were far simpler and clearer than those of a Horcrux or this miraculous room itself. That meant Avada had an endless supply of research and experimental material. With Magic Sense to help him, his progress would reach heights no one else could imagine.
"I've struck gold, I've struck gold..."
He instinctively wiped the corner of his mouth, almost reveling in the magical structures around him that he could just barely understand, as countless flashes of inspiration burst through his mind.
At that moment, he could only curse his utterly ordinary memory for being unable to retain all those structures and fleeting sparks of inspiration!
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