章 63: Year Three - Chapter Fourteen
"O Fortuna Velut luna Statu variabilis-"
The Chamber of Secrets had wonderful acoustics. The music reverberated across the room, the walls, rippled as if physical through the air and rang deeply within my chest. A Gargoyle's mouth snapped open, this one a snazzy looking pear-shaped woman with one arm outstretched. The spell for the Symphonic arrangement didn't really need a human singer, apparently, just one willing to lend its voice to the magic.
Hence, I had found myself a singer, and the spell had truthfully granted the Gargoyle the ability to sing Opera pieces.
"Verum est, quod legitur!" the Gargoyle throatily sang, "fronte capillata sed plerumque sequitur, occasio calvata."
The drums kept the rhythm. The violins played accordingly. Everything was going along swimmingly well.
"In Fortune solio sederam elatus, prosperitatis vario flore coronatus; quicquid enim florui felix et beatus, nunc a summo corrui gloria privatus," the Gargoyle continued singing. The opera's words weren't even needed. Clearly, there was no need to memorize, just to sing along and not fight the feeling, and the Gargoyles wouldn't naturally have any reason to disagree with it. I needed more Gargoyles though; one wasn't enough to deliver the proper acoustics of a Chorus.
It was still noticeable progress, and I enjoyed every second of it until the song was over, and I stopped the orchestra.
Then, I settled down on my plush chair and flipped through a book on enchanting your stuff so as to not lose it.
There was a distinct lack of chimneys in the room, which meant that I either needed to build one in, or acquire thicker blankets. It was November, late November at that, and the weather outside was simply dreadful. Some students had their practice, other students had their homework, and I had my book of ancient fairy tales from a British perspective.
I reckoned those who had homework were the happier ones of them all.
I briefly considered stepping out of the Chamber of Secrets, but judging by how the process of leaving and entering had now become quite tedious, I reconsidered it. Was there really a reason to leave my comfy spot for the rest of the day?
"Hey, Fury," I said, catching the dragon-Gargoyle's attention. Its head swiveled towards me. I'd need something like a hundred more charms to get him to work even better, but the spark of sentience was starting to appear within him. "Go to the other end of the room, and guard it from anything and anyone that isn't me."
The Gargoyle did just that, walking slowly on its stone claws to the far end of the corridor, and then taking up a position that flawlessly mimicked that of a statue. I flicked my wand towards one of the many stones I had brought in from the lake's shore, and it began to float. The Gargoyle didn't move. I then threw the stone in his direction, and sharp jaws slammed shut on the offending pebble, crunching it to pieces.
The Gargoyle did not move. "Great," I said with a whisper. "Now, stop guarding and return to your previous position."
Fury did just that, coming to a leisured halt by the side of my armchair and sitting down on its four legs like a trustworthy dog. A trustworthy dog that was a stone dragon with wings.
My eyes fell on my experiments' desk, where the shrinking charm had met the transfigured swords, and I was now checking the duration of both charms. It wouldn't do to hold a miniature sword in one's pocket, and suddenly lose a leg to it growing back to its proper dimensions. If the permanent charm worked, then I'd have miniaturized swords that would need but a Size-Enlarging spell to return to their natural size.
Then, my eyes returned on Fury.
Then, they moved towards the plethora of pipes that riddled the walls, the sewer walls further away, and finally the ones that clearly were meant to lead outside and deposit garbage in the lake.
The Gargoyle could not whimper, nor did it whimper in fear as I raised a hand.
"Man, experimenting with magic is so easy," I muttered, "Why aren't wizards doing it all the time?"
Poor Fury, he never understood what hit him until it was too late, and he stood at the size of a small mouse in the same spot he had been but a second before.
Thus properly satisfied with my current progress in creating new magical wonders and experiments, I finally went through the ordeal of placing a bubblehead charm over my head and a 'Keep-clean' charm over my robes before making my way to the bottom of the kitchens' garbage chute and pulling myself up by using magic.
"Carpe Retractum," I intoned, an orange rope-like thing shooting out of the tip of my wand and sticking to the kitchens' ceiling. I soared out of there and landed in the kitchen, amidst countless wide eyes. I stepped out of the kitchen having to mercilessly shoo the House Elves, but not without first acquiring a warm cup of coffee.
"There you are!" someone spoke as I barely took a step out of the fruit portrait.
I realized it was Megan, and she had the look of someone who needed my hand in killing someone and hiding their bodies. It was the look of someone ready to ask for a favor, and yet not finding the courage to fully ask it unless prompted.
"I'll grab the spade and you can point me to the body," I said. "They'll never find the corpse."
Megan stopped, giggled at what she believed was a joke, and then came to a halt right by my side. "I wanted to go practice potions, but I doubt professor Snape would open the practice laboratory for me alone."
I nodded and gestured for the hallway in front of us, "Let us go then."
As we walked, Megan remained quiet. She was holding on to the Potions' book for the current year, and seemed vividly interested in the portraits and the armors. I yawned as we reached for the stairs, descending them with quite the practiced ease. Maybe we would be in luck, and Professor Snape would already be in the Potions' room, letting other Slytherins practice.
We were actually in luck.
Since the classroom was open, and there wasn't a need for me to stick around, I gave Megan a confident smile and made to leave. She grabbed hold of my robe's sleeve, and coughed ever so awkwardly. "Uhm...I'm going to be practicing with the Wideye potion, and since it takes a bit to brew, would you mind keeping me company?"
"Sure," I said, setting up by her side the potion equipment. The book in the middle between us, the unspoken rule of the Potions' Practicing was that whispers were allowed, but if they annoyed the professor, then death was preferable to calling for aid.
"Hello professor," I instead said cheerfully when the man lifted his gaze and found Megan and I in the back rows. I even gave him a little wave of the hand.
"That will be ten points from Ravenclaw, Mister Umbrus," Severus Snape answered instead, the code-phrase for 'Hello there, Mister Umbrus, I'm a tough and gritty secret spy but I personally want you in my NEWT class.'
I then glanced back at Megan's cauldron, "Snake fangs and Billywig stings?"
Megan nodded, "Yeah," she whispered. She pointed at the recipe. "First, add the fangs and the desiccated herbs to the mortar, then the dried Bylliwig stings-"
I looked at the cauldron, which was already on the fire. "But it says to heat it only after adding the stings to the cauldron," I tapped at the sentence in question, "And what do you call that?" I jabbed my thumb in the direction of the fire beneath the cauldron.
"Oh," Megan muttered. "It was that simple," she added, a blush forming on her cheeks. "I must look awfully silly."
I shrugged. "Mistakes happen," I whispered back, turning off the fire to let the cauldron cool down. "The easiest mistakes are the ones we tend on missing until someone else hits us in the face with them," I continued with a chuckle.
"But you never make mistakes," Megan said.
"What?" I blinked, "You already forgot about all those poor creatures in Transfiguration and those explosions?" I murmured.
"Well, but those weren't real mistakes," Megan continued, "You didn't feel bad about making them." She looked at me. "If you don't feel bad about a mistake, then it means you don't really care about it, no?"
"That's not necessarily true," I answered instead, humming as I neared the back of my knuckles to the side of the cauldron. It wasn't cold enough, I reckoned. "Mistakes are teaching moments. As long as you survive those, and try something different, mistakes are merely stepping stones on the road to our dreams. The important thing is to never give up."
"You should have been a Hufflepuff," Megan said, stars in her eyes.
"I would have been a terrible Hufflepuff," I answered instead, recalling just how I had spent the early afternoon comfortably seated on an armchair, swishing my wand to let my laziness dictate my daily experiments. "I'm not really that great of a guy. Literally anyone else could take my place and no one would notice."
Megan shook her head at that, not believing a single word I had just said.
Then again, neither did I.
For the sake of appearances, and because I never did like showing off or being arrogant when I could avoid it, it was my excuse, and I would be sticking to it until the day hell froze over and the dead walked the earth once more.
We quietly got to work on our potion, no further words on my House placement exchanged.
All in all, it was a pleasant late afternoon.
The next day, I had a meeting of destiny.
Rubeus Hagrid, it is time to bury the hatchet.
Let loose the Rock Cakes of war!
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