บท 28: Snow Day

Time passed quickly and it was already mid-December. Ben had been working hard despite the cold weather, his body had gotten a lot tougher now and he didn't feel as cold as everyone else.

Ben woke up to a Hogwarts covered in several feet of snow, he had never seen this much snow before and wanted to go out and play in it. Suppressing the child in him, Ben skipped his breakfast and made his way towards the Room of Hidden things.

For the past month and a half, Ben had focused on his potion brewing which had been a breeze with the help of The Room of Requirement. The room provided Ben with anything he needed and even cleaned the mess afterwards.

Entering the Room of Hidden Things, Ben found a self-stirring cauldron stewing on top of a bucket containing the magical fire hidden behind a huge pile of broken armour.

At this point, sneaking into the restricted section of the library was a piece of pie for Ben, he had found a copy of Moste Potente Potions and started brewing the potion in the RoR. Procuring ingredients was the hard part, while some ingredients were provided by the room, some he had to order by mail. He still had to swipe boomslang's skin from Snape's office since it was not a commonly available ingredient and was a know component of the poly juice potion. Ben managed to steal a jar full of it while Snape was busy teaching Gryffindors and Slytherins, being Invisible has its perks.

Looking at the mud-like liquid bubbling, Ben could not help but smile. The poly-juice potion was a necessity for Ben's future plans and he had spent almost a whole month on it. The potion took multiple steps and most of the time was spent preparing the ingredients for it.

Ben brought out multiple transfigured vials and filled them with the thick potion. The effect of the potion can last anywhere between ten minutes to twelve hours depending on how well it had been brewed. Ben decided to test its effects later and focused on his other project.

In another corner of the room was a large wooden cabinet that looked exactly like the cabinet on the first floor of the castle. Ben pulled out his wand and waved at it.

"Reducio"

The shrinking charm and its counter-charm, the engorgement charm were second-year charms. Ben had been practising these charms along with transfiguration. He had managed to make this Vanishing Cabinet replica using the broken furniture in the room.

He pocketed the now shrunk cabinet and walked out of the room. The vanishing cabinet was something he wanted to get his hands on before it got destroyed. He had to practice a lot to get his shrinking and engorgement charm to the required level. Luckily, using these spells on objects was a lot easier than using them on animals and people.

Ben was in a good mood today, he made his way down to the first floor using a shortcut. Almost everyone in the castle was in the Great Hall having breakfast, after making sure that Dumbledore was indeed in the Great Hall and Filch was not lurking anywhere close. Ben found the Vanishing Cabinet and switched it with the replica.

With the real Vanishing Cabinet in hand, Ben made his way to the Room of Hidden things, where he found a nice place put it. Now all Ben needed to do was to get his hands on the twin cabinet and he will have a permanent passage in and out of Hogwarts.

Ben didn't have any classes till the afternoon, so he decided to spend his free time enjoying the snow. He bought an Apple pie and a few Sweet rolls from the store and made his way out of the castle.

In the courtyard, Ben saw Quirrell being chased by several snowballs aiming for the back of his head. The Weasley twins were not far behind. Ben decided not to get in trouble today and headed down towards the frozen lake. On the way down he successfully transfigured snow into a huge snowman.

Over the frozen lake, Ben created a sculpture of Articuno out of ice, he transfigured individual feathers and then put them all together with the Mending charm. The clear ice refracted the sunlight making the frozen turkey look majestic.

He saw a few fifth-years making snow angels, that actually flew to the sky, there were two snowmen fighting it out in the transfiguration courtyard and snowballs were flying everywhere. After absolutely destroying the poor kids in snowball fights, Ben made his way towards the first floor for the DADA lesson. Filch and Snape had already started spoiling everyone's fun, the Weasley twins were the first in line for punishment.

Ben met the golden trio near the library, they must be looking for any information on Nicolas Flamel in there. Ben exchanged some pleasantries and continued on his way.

The Golden Trio had successfully formed after the troll incident, Hermione really did change the group dynamic significantly, earlier there was no way the boys would have entered the library this often.

Ben found Dumbledore's twinkling eyes staring at Potter these days, after all, he'd been planning on using them on Harry Potter to make him completely loyal to himself.

Dumbledore knew that Potter was the key to saving the world from Voldemort, and to make sure that Potter played his role as the chosen one, Dumbledore had to make Potter completely loyal to him so that he doesn't stray from his path and get influenced by outside forces, such as the Ministry.

By the end of next year, Potter will be manipulated by the old goat to the extent that he will be able to summon Fawkes with his loyalty in the Chamber of Secrets.

This subtle indoctrination was going to start next week, during Christmas break. Dumbledore was even willing to bring out the Mirror of Erised for that.

Ben too had big plans for the next week, and for that, he had to get his hands on the Vanishing Cabinet at Borgin and Burkes.

A/N: MC is about to make some big moves. Support me at Patre@n/DreamyApe