The Nest of the Serpents

Chapter 4: The Nest of the Serpents

We were directed to leave the hall last. After all the higher years left towards the common room, would we, the first years, be led there. After a few minutes, we finally stood up; we passed the trophy room, and geez, it was massive.

'No wonder the marauders built a map to navigate these halls', I realised whilst following the two prefects Charlus Burke and Lucinda Shafiq, both of whom were fifth-year students.

We meandered throughout the corridors and finally seemed to reach a dead end?

Burke then spoke, "Here is the entrance to the Slytherin Common room. To enter, you would need to press down upon the middlemost brick on this wall, then state the password."

Shafiq commented, "the password changes every fortnight, and when it is going to be changed, it would be put up three days before the date on the announcement wall, so make sure to check the wall frequently".

Shafiq pressed the brick and softly spoke, "Ambition".

An arching passageway appeared almost instantaneously.

'Well, this may be the exact same enchantment used on the entrance to diagonalley in the leaky cauldron, or well something derived from that piece of magic - something to explore, I guess.'

The common room seemed to be an obscure shape, as it appeared as if it were to be expanding. As if seeing our confusion Shafiq then interrupted us suddenly - as if she thought that she would not get enough time for her to explain. "Now you guys will finally understand why we Slytherins pride ourselves to part of the best house since we are the only house to have a common room that can expand to the needs of inhabitants. If you need to have a small private space to study or a small place for you and your friends to congregate without affecting others, touch any wall and think of a room you would like to have, and then it would appear". Burke then spoke with a smirk, "Keep in mind that these rooms that are being created will stop working for you and the other offenders if you abuse these privileges; an example may be using them for 'extracurricular activities ."

An older prefect appeared behind him as he said this and spoke after Burke finished,

"I am Cantankerous Nott, a seventh-year Prefect. We will now be allocating you your rooms if you would like to have adjacent rooms with specific people separate yourselves into those groups accordingly".

Horace, Septimus and I stood next to each other.

We were then allocated a room on the first floor of the dormitories. Since it was late, we decided to go and rest and meet up at seven to explore.

In my room

"Sharpy, set up my room as it was in the manor," I spoke, whilst observing my room, which suddenly the room started to expand.

2 minutes later, it felt like I never left home

Sharpy added a walk-in cupboard, an ensuite bathroom to the room's existing features, which was not much apart from a king-size bed with green drapes.

'Well, it appears that a dungeon can be considered homely; wait, I should probably not say that aloud unless I want to be considered a dungeon bat.' I chuckled.

3:00 Arcturus's Room, Slytherin Dorms, Hogwarts Castle, Scotland

I was woken up by Sharpy, and my sleep well was terrific as always. Who would have thought that being entered into a constant state of REM sleep would be so amazing?

Because the AI can control sleep state, it means that not only do I need to sleep less than the average wizard of my age. This is emphasised because I have removed all my negative inherited traits and activated all the positive dormant genes. The only positive aspect of inbreeding is the mixing of inherited magical or non-magical abilities, but the cons outweigh the pros. Still, what is it to me? I am benefiting from the actions of my ancestors - as I should.

Furthermore, having a body composed of more robust magical channels means that I need to sleep only three hours; since my magic reduces fatigue. Despite that fact, I still try to sleep at least five hours, since who does not like extra sleep?

So, I woke up I brushed my teeth, washed my face and started my daily workout. I do not want to be built like a bodybuilder but instead have a physique like Bruce Lee, a lean body full of solid and compact muscles. Thus, instead of most people who try to increase the number of weights that they can lift, I increase the repetitions. This may seem like a waste of time, but it's not considering that all I have is too much free time; if you forgot, it's three o'clock in the morning and 3-4 hours before most people are awake.

My internal monologue as I exercised

'The only negative thing about magic is that it interferes too much with electricity, especially when there is high ambient magic in the surroundings. The only reason why the Ministry of magic can function properly is the magic containment wards throughout the Ministry to prevent leakage.'

The funny thing is that no one tried to experiment and do the opposite. Why did anyone not try to draw in magic from the surroundings to increase the ambient magic since it is known to be beneficial for many reasons? Well, they probably tried that, but the research was most likely lost during the witch hunts.

During the middle ages, wards to defend against muggles were not as developed; hence witch hunts were prevalent for a while until more defence based wards were developed.

According to records kept in the Black family archive, there was a magical for every ten muggles. But fear or downright pacifism subsequently led to inbreeding, causing the ratio of magicals to muggles to fall from 1:10 to one to 1:10000.

So especially nowadays, we need to have cautious against muggles; knowing what they are capable of, we need to ensure that lives are not lost carelessly.

AI-chan, please add that to my speech - I am not going to copy Grindelwald or anything.

Honestly, what was Grindelwald and Tommy thinking? Why are you killing off people that could serve as potential minions?

Anyways, enough ranting more important stuff to think about.

'AI using arithmancy calculate the most efficient method that we could use to initiate our minion building plan, I mean the plan of building a magical kingdom.'

The calculation will take around 12 hours, Sir.

'Ok, go ahead.

12:00:00

11:59:59

11:59:58

11:59:57

'Well, this will be annoying', so I sent a mental command to the AI to resize the countdown, move it to the top right, and turn on the autohide function.

It is a good thing that I activated this function; otherwise, it would be embarrassing to be partially blind the whole day.

I mentally patted myself on my back.