[This Lordship Business Series]: I Have Been a Brother to OWLS, 7/?

[lomonaaeren]

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Part Seven—Darkest of the Dark Arts

“Harry, what did you find?”

Harry snorts. “It’s not my fault, Hermione. I was chasing Salazar when he went after this wall, and this door appeared.”

He glances up. Ernie brought Susan, Ron, Hermione, and Theo, or they brought themselves. Harry isn’t sure who Ernie ran into first, and he doesn’t think it matters that much.

“I’ve never been aware of a door here,” Hermione says, and lays her hand on the wall for a second. “No one told me about it even though I’m a prefect now. Ron, have your brothers ever mentioned something?”

“No, but I think I might know what it is. The Room of—”

“Requirement,” Theo says, and he’s hissing the word. Harry glances at him in concern. Theo’s eyes are fastened on the door and the rubbish in the room beyond, and so wide that he honestly looks upset. Harry steps backwards so that he’s next to his friend.

“Is something wrong, Theo? What’s the Room of Requirement?”

“A legendary room in the castle that can give you whatever you want, whatever you need. Supposedly it’s just a legend, like the Chamber of Secrets. Supposedly, Rowena Ravenclaw created it.”

“That sounds like something Ravenclaw would do,” Hermione says eagerly. “She invented a diadem that was supposed to increase the wearer’s wisdom, although it’s been lost for centuries and no one knows—”

“What would your Niffler want with a rubbish room?” Susan asks, ignoring the way that Hermione glares at her for the interruption. “I know that he collects objects, but it doesn’t seem like there’s anything worth anything in here.”

“We don’t know that, do we?” Theo’s eyes are darting back and forth between Harry’s face, the cage that Salazar is locked in, and the door. “Just because we can’t see much from here doesn’t mean some of the rubbish isn’t valuable.”

Harry nods. “And I waited like a good little boy. So let’s go.” He tilts the door further open with a little push of his fingers, and strides forwards.

The others yelp and scramble after him. Harry is glad to see that Ron is bringing along Salazar’s cage.

He probably will get loose and run around in here at some point, but at least this way, they have a chance of seeing where he went.

The room sprawls around them, vaster than Harry would have thought could be encompassed by these walls. Then again, if it’s the Room of Requirement, it’s as big as it needs to be to contain all this junk. And most of it is junk. Harry spots a Cleansweep broom stripped of all its twigs, a Snitch with no wings, many empty mirror frames, and too many broken wands to count.

“Harry! Look at this!”

Harry leans over, curious, and then blinks as he realizes that Hermione is holding up what seems to be a silver staff with the bottom third or so snapped off. “What about it?”

“It looks like one of the historical staves that wizards and witches used before wands! What do you think it’s doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry mutters, glancing around. Despite the silver of the staff in Hermione’s hand, he’s becoming uneasy. There aren’t that many shiny things here. It makes him realize that he has no idea what Salazar was seeking.

And that makes him wonder, more uneasily still, if the thing Salazar wants is rare and dangerous, like some of the Dark objects Salazar wanted at Grimmauld Place, instead of just sparkling.

Harry draws his wand. Theo’s back touches his, and he realizes his Slytherin friend has drawn his wand, too. Harry smiles gratefully back at Theo and then faces further into the room, eyes darting around.

They walk on, dust and particles of precious stones and metal crunching under their feet. Ron is exclaiming over some of the older brooms. Harry would ordinarily be interested, too, but right now, it’s hard to take his eyes from the shadows around them and the large cabinets and the occasional things with shut doors. Who knows what’s hiding in them?

A flash of pain shoots through his scar, so suddenly that Harry hisses aloud without meaning to. His friends immediately swing to face him, orienting on him in a way that makes Harry blush. Theo looks over his shoulder and steps lightly to Harry’s side, one hand reaching out to cup the air—

No, not the air. A drop of blood falling from Harry’s scar.

“My lord.”

The dark tone in Theo’s voice means that things are about to get very bad, very fast. Harry turns back towards the door of the Room, but feels something shaking behind him, and flinches as he turns and sees an object soaring at his head.

Theo blasts it with a curse before it can land. It clatters away into a corner, and Hermione and Ernie go running to inspect it.

“Don’t touch it,” Harry says, hissing as he rests his hand for a moment on his scar. It’s as hot as the stove felt one time when Dudley forced Harry’s hand down onto it.

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to.” Hermione has conjured a bag to scoop up the thing in, or maybe Transfigured one. She turns towards him with a ghost-pale face. “I think—this is radiating Dark magic, Harry.”

Salazar abruptly squeals from his cage.

Theo Stuns him without taking his eyes from Harry. “Are you going to be able to make it to the infirmary?”

“I’m only going there if you think Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t tell Dumbledore.”

“I’ll Obliviate her myself before I let that happen.”

Harry sighs and follows his friends, leaning a little on Theo’s shoulder and then on Ron’s when Theo casts a curse at Hermione’s bobbing and swaying bag. Ron’s face is filled with concern as he glances between Harry and the object in the bag.

“What is that, mate?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, and draws what feels like a breath of cooler and fresher air as they get back into the corridor. “But I’m going to make it my business to find out.”

*

“You know how I said Rowena Ravenclaw made a diadem to grant wisdom to people?”

Harry blinks at the tarnished silver thing that’s on a plate made of lead Hermione conjured—or Transfigured—from something. It’s still radiating Dark magic, but not making Harry’s scar hurt the way it did in the rubbish room. He thinks that might have something to do with the web of spells woven over it, which are preventing it from being the kind of danger it was there. “That’s it?”

“Yes. It has the inscription. Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure,” Hermione explains when Harry raises an eyebrow at her. “There’s nothing else that would have that. I don’t think someone would even dare to make an imitation.”

Harry wonders about that. He knows there’s plenty of pettiness and laziness in the magical world. But Hermione’s right that it doesn’t make much sense to create an imitation of such a famous treasure and then chuck it in a rubbish room barely anyone knows about.

And there’s the matter of the Dark magic it radiated.

“Don’t touch it, my lord.” They’re in a different version of the Room of Requirement, this time with the kind of wards that can prevent the diadem from getting out of hand again, but Theo is still trembling with anger as he leans over Harry’s shoulder. “I think if you do, you’re going to be possessed.”

Harry blinks. Possessed. The only thing he’s ever heard of that could possess someone was Voldemort’s diary.

On the other hand, that diary didn’t make his scar hurt the way this one did. But maybe it’s slightly different. The book could get people to write in it, so it could lure them closer. Maybe it didn’t have to attack people like the diadem does.

Harry pushes the conclusions he has no idea what to do with right now away, and asks Hermione, “Why do you think Salazar was so attracted to that in particular?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Hermione says, and frowns at it. “It’s not like he could have seen it from beyond the wall, and the shine of it is pretty damaged. I always thought Nifflers were attracted to shiny things more than anything else, and what they were worth was a lot less important.”

“I believe I may have the answer to this.”

Harry glances up and nods at Theo. Theo’s face is pale, his mouth clamped shut so that his nostrils look like they’re flaring. “All right. Any idea you have is fine.”

“I’ve never felt anything like the Dark magic that radiated from that diadem, and I grew up surrounded by Dark magic and Dark objects,” Theo says bluntly. “It makes me think that the magic was attracting Salazar, perhaps because he’s spent a lot of time around Dark spells in Grimmauld Place.”

“He honestly hasn’t. Sirius and Remus cleaned the house pretty thoroughly before they let me visit. The magics that were left were just minor.”

“Then it must be something else. Perhaps he is being influenced by something we don’t know about? Someone in your dormitory or the Tower has an object that they don’t know is Dark, and he’s spent time around that.”

Harry opens his mouth to dispute that, even as Ron says, “Oi!” And then he closes his mouth again, and feels himself shiver.

“You’ve thought of something.”

“Yeah,” Harry whispers. “Salazar found a locket in Grimmauld Place that he put in his pouch, and he hasn’t taken it out again, even though Kreacher’s demanded it and threatened to kill him for it. I didn’t even think it could be that, because the locket didn’t feel Dark to me the one time I touched the chain. But…he usually lets me take anything out of his pouch after he’s been able to hold it for a while, and he won’t let me take the locket.”

“I think we need to see this locket.”

Harry glances at the warded cage sitting beside his chair. Salazar is awake again, tucked inside the cage, but his hungry gaze is fixed on the diadem, and hasn’t moved. “I mean, you can try. But I don’t know any charm that will pull it out of the pouch without hurting him.”

“I know one.” Theo has a slightly unpleasant smile on his face as he draws his wand and gestures at Salazar. The pink light that leaves his wand looks familiar to Harry, but Theo has been casting silently for a while now, and he doesn’t know the spell without the incantation.

I need to work on casting silently, too.

The charm strikes Salazar, who’s scratching at the cage bars and doesn’t seem to notice. Then he freezes. He trembles a little.

“Theo?”

“He’s fine, my lord. I promise.”

Harry nods uncertainly in the moment before Salazar opens his mouth and begins to vomit.

Harry stares. No wonder that pink light was familiar. Fred and George enjoy casting the Nausea Charm on people, although they haven’t done it on anyone around Harry who he’s friends with for a while.

“Are you sure this is—”

Salazar vomits again, and this time, he practically flips himself inside-out. That includes his pouch. A torrent of little golden rings and Galleons pours out, followed by the glowing locket.

Harry reaches out instinctively to snatch it before Salazar can pull the thing back into his pouch, but he gets a stinging magical slap across the wrist for his troubles. He pulls his hand back and glares at Theo, although he thinks Susan is the one Levitating the locket.

“I’m not having you possessed,” Theo says, not even bothering to apologize.

“I wouldn’t get possessed. Not when I know what it does.”

“Are either of you interested in the fact that this locket radiates Dark magic, too?” Susan asks loudly. “Or are you just going to argue all day?”

Harry turns around and stares. He honestly didn’t think the locket was that much like the diadem, but then again, he wasn’t around it without the shelter of Salazar’s pouch for very long before. Now that it’s lying on the silver tray the Room just made for them next to the diadem, it’s obvious how Dark it is.

Harry swallows.

“It might not have attacked you,” Theo says, his wand aimed somewhere halfway between locket and diadem. “But it could still possess you if you touched it or wore it for too long. And it makes you want to do so.”

Harry grimaces. Now that he’s concentrating, yeah, he can feel the lure of the locket, pulling and tugging on his attention like a child with a robe’s hem. He leans back and draws his own wand. He probably won’t have to cast anything, but it comforts him to have it there. “Any guess what these are?” he asks.

“You said that the diary could possess someone. And it had Dark magic. These have Dark magic. They could possess someone.”

“Voldemort made them, then?”

Susan stands a little straighter at the sound of the name, and Theo hisses. Ron and Hermione swallow and keep watching him. Harry looks around and realizes that no one is going to answer. He’ll have to do it himself.

“Yeah,” he says. “I think he did. Like the diary.” He traces his wand in a spiral on the air, one of the spells that Sirius taught him over the Christmas hols. It should identify how much Dark magic an object is emitting, which is at least a way to begin telling how dangerous it is.

The diadem and locket vanish behind a curtain of what looks like thick smoke. Harry thinks he hears a deep voice chuckling, and another one screaming. His hand wrings around his wand. It’s hard to work to sit there instead of flinching back like everyone else did.

But ultimately, he’s the one who needs to handle this. The one who’s Voldemort’s mortal (prophesied, even) enemy. Harry stands up and clears away the smoke with a Finite, then stands for a moment staring at the objects.

He wants to run and find Sirius, but there is the fact that the locket and diadem might take him over. Harry will at least have to bring Sirius here, where the magic of the Room is subduing the locket and diadem’s evil a little.

He straightens his shoulders and speaks with a confidence he doesn’t feel. “Nothing about this to anyone else for right now, all right? Not until we know something more definite than we know right now.”

“Of course not.”

“Yes, Harry.”

“Yes, Lord Slytherin.”

It really is disturbing, the way Theo bows his head.

*

Harry wakes up in the morning feeling weirdly well-rested, and it takes him a moment to realize why.

Salazar stayed in his cage all night instead of managing to escape and go scratch at the wall that holds the Room of Requirement.

Harry smiles at the sight of his Niffler asleep in his cage as if he never carried one of those abominable things. At least one thing is going well, then.