164 Chapter 161
His argument with Professor Snape about an hour ago had driven into him that his powers, while a secret for the most part, hadn't gone unnoticed by the people around him. Terry had once mentioned to him in a casual conversation that he often felt that Harry was holding back in class. Although the perception of him as a prodigal kid who tried to hold himself back to blend in with his friends wasn't anywhere near to the truth, it was still more than he'd ever thought his Ravenclaw friend would have ever noticed.
He had to be more careful with hiding his Gamer powers.
With so many forces out there that were or could become hostile to him, including Voldemort, he had to focus on making himself less of a target. Dumbledore had only known about his shields and ended up almost killing him all because he thought that he could be dangerous. If anyone knew about the true extent of his powers and the things he could do, he would skyrocket to the top of every single dangerous wizard's hit list.
Pushing those thoughts out of his mind and looking down at his cup, he realized that the ice cream he'd claimed for dessert had melted, and there were no more bowls of ice cream on the table left unclaimed. After making sure Hermione and Terry were busy chatting away about the problems they thought the Divination classes had, he whispered under his breath, "Could I possibly have another bowl of ice cream?"
The ice cream bowl in front of him vanished for a split second with an almost inaudible pop and then reappeared with some freshly served vanilla ice cream. Harry grinned. There were some great advantages in having somebody you knew in the kitchen.
"Thanks, Dobby. You're the best," he muttered under his breath.
The bowl disappeared for a split second again before it reappeared with some lovely chocolate syrup on top of the scoops of vanilla ice cream. With a grin, Harry dove into the delicious dessert.
Fifteen minutes later, when he only had a spoonful of ice cream left, the doors to the Great Hall slammed open and Argus Filch, the caretaker, came running into the hall looking incredibly distressed. Despite his enraged expression, Harry was shocked to notice that he had tears in his eyes.
The unpleasant man walked faster than Harry had ever seen him walk on his way to the High Table, where he spoke with the Headmaster in angry whispers for a second. His voice seemed to be loud enough for the students closest to the High Table to catch what was being said, but from Harry's spot at the middle of the table, nothing was audible.
Before he could ask around a bit about what was going on, the Headmaster abruptly stood up.
"Students, stay inside the Hall! Prefects, the Hall doors are locked. Do not, under any circumstances, open them. Professors follow me! There has been an incident," he said before he promptly followed a clearly devastated Filch right out of the doors, which swung shut and locked with a click the moment the last Professor left.
There was a momentary beat of silence, before the Great Hall erupted in a giant mess of noise and chaos.
The Slytherins were, for some reason, the loudest. Harry watched as Draco Malfoy, Theodore Nott, and the other Slytherins repeatedly slammed their goblets onto the table with wide grins and shouted something indecipherable at the top of their voice. The Slytherin prefects were making attempts at stopping the noisemakers but were pathetically unsuccessful.
"What's going on?" Harry asked Hermione in a loud voice over the din.
"I don't know!" Hermione yelled back, "But the Slytherins are yelling something about some sort of Chamber!"
"What's that!?" Harry asked, faintly remembering reading something about it ages ago. Upon seeing Hermione shrug, he turned to Terry, "Oi Terry! What's this Chamber thing the Slytherins are on about?"
"I don't know!" the black haired boy replied through the din, "But some of the others are saying that it's some sort of pureblood legend that the Slytherins believe in."
Harry ransacked his mind for anything that would match that description but found nothing. His repertoire of knowledge focused around the study of magic, and he had never really gotten around to learning about legends and stories that were prevalent in the wizarding world.
"Let's follow them!" a third year Ravenclaw yelled from beside them, interrupting his thought process, "Let's follow the staff! We need to see if the Chamber is really open! Don't let the Professors hide this from us! Open the door Prefects!"
This was met with a roar of support from the Slytherin side of the room, as well as a lot of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Even Gryffindor joined in. By the looks of it, half of them knew what this Chamber was, half didn't, and none of them liked the idea of having stuff of this magnitude hidden from them.
The roar soon condensed to a repeated chant, of "FOLLOW THEM! FOLLOW THEM! FOLLOW THEM! UNLOCK THE DOOR!"
The prefects, who were standing in front of the High Table in a line were keeping the food that the students were throwing at them at bay using shield charms, while they repeatedly refused to open the door, which could only be opened by a special password that only the prefects knew.
The door would only open when all the prefects said the password together, which was why the efforts of the few students trying to force the door open were futile.
Harry watched, wondering whether or not he should interfere, as the students relentlessly kept trying to convince the prefects, until one by one, they started giving in.
Ravenclaw prefects gave in first, then Slytherins, and then the Hufflepuffs, until the only prefects that were left standing their ground were the six Gryffindor prefects. And they were showing no signs of backing off.
"No! No! No! Absolutely not! The Headmaster has expressly prohibited to let you out!" Percy Weasley insisted vigorously, "What if it's some sort of dangerous emergency? We don't know what it was about!"
"Bullshit Weasley!" yelled a Slytherin prefect, "You heard the same thing that we did! It's about the Chamber of Secrets! Stop trying to suck up to the Headmaster! You becoming Head Boy is not as important as the school covering up something as big as this!"
"That is not what this is about! This is about all of you overreacting and turning into a mob over something as baseless as Filch whispering about some Chamber to the Headmaster! We're the prefects Nomques! We can't just disobey the Headmaster's orders!"
Harry's curiosity was piqued. Whatever this Chamber legend was, many students seemed to believe that the teachers would cover it up or something.
Ping!
Quest Alert!
Convince Percy to let the students follow the Professors!
Reward,
1,000 Exp
Failure,
Loss of reputation amongst fellow students
YES/NO?
Not the most rewarding quest, but indeed, quite relevant to the situation. Pressing yes, Harry quickly used Gamer's Mind to find a possible solution to the stand-off.
He stood up, and loudly said, "Then don't!"
The hall fell silent, and Harry continued, "You can tell the Professor that some of the students cast one of those Jelly Brain jinxes on you and forced you to say the password. The jinx is taught in the fourth year, so they won't be able to pin down which house or person did it. Nobody will lose points, we'll be able to see if they're trying to hide anything or not, and the Prefects won't be blamed at all."
There was a moment of silence, in which they could almost see Percy physically struggling with the idea of defying someone he believed to be an authority figure, before he finally sighed.
"Fine" he grudgingly said, "But no running or trampling each other. Walk at a sedate pace."
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