168 Chapter 165
Professor Binns paused again, pursing his lips, "Reliable historical sources tell us this much," he said. "But these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the Chamber of Secrets. The story goes that Slytherin built a going-away present to the school in the form of a secret chamber that could only be opened by his true heir. This "Chamber of Secrets" contains a monster that only the Heir of Slytherin can control and that, once released, would purge the school of all those born of Muggles."
There was an uneasy silence as he finished telling the story. Professor Binns looked faintly annoyed.
"The whole thing is complete nonsense, of course," he said, "Naturally, the school has been searched for evidence of such a chamber, many times, by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist."
What followed was by far the most active discussion of facts and logic that Harry had ever seen happen in this classroom. Seamus had argued that nobody could have found the Chamber unless they were the heir and Padma argued the use of dark magic or some sort of password that only the heir would know, both of which Binns refuted.
Hermione had asked one final question about why this legend wasn't more well known.
To that, the haggled looking ghost replied, "It's a fairy tale Miss Granger. A bad one at that. Why would it be more popular?" before he shut down any and all discussion about the topic and went back to his lecture.
The next couple of weeks passed without any major incident. For the first few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris.
Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds. When he wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red- eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly' and "looking smug."
Late evening on the nineteenth of September, which was a Saturday, Harry found himself nibbling on his food, watching as Terry and Hermione raced to finish their six and a half feet of Potions compositions for Monday's class.
"Harry! Why aren't you doing your compositions!" Hermione exclaimed, when she looked up from her parchment.
"It's already done," Harry replied. He'd finally gotten another level up to his Calligraphy during the essay as well. The skill now sat as follows,
Calligraphy, Lv-11 (21%)
You can write with any writing instrument with your mastery of the art of script. This skill can make a significant difference in runes, arithmancy and other forms of written ritual magic.
Special moves:
Runomancy attack: Runic Burst
An attack which upon activation unleashes a number of rune amplified spells on your foe. The spells are chosen randomly out of your combat spell arsenal. The number of spells is only limited by the amount of times you choose to attack your enemy or your mana pool.
Attack- (Number of spells x Wis)% more damage + Dex
Cost- (Cost of wandless magic x 50%), Cooldown period +5 seconds for every spell
It wasn't anything revolutionary, but at least it was a level up.
"What?! When?!" Terry exclaimed aghast, "Snape gave us the assignment yesterday evening!"
"Yesterday evening," Harry said, picking up a goblet and sipped on it.
"Smug little overachiever," Terry crossly muttered.
"Oh sorry Terry, I didn't hear you there. What was that?" Harry asked mockingly.
"Nothing at all Mr. Potter," Terry replied in an overly saccharine voice.
"Knock it off you two. Terry, get back to the essay. We still have a conclusion to write," Hermione said, before she re-inked her quill and dived back into her writing.
"Well," Harry said, placing down his goblet, "I'm off to sleep. I'll catch you guys tomorrow at breakfast."
They acknowledged his goodbye with some obscure gestures and hand waves that Harry took to mean that they would see him then as well, before he headed out of the hall and towards the Ravenclaw Tower.
However, he wasn't going to sleep. Tonight was a special night. Something he'd worked hard for.
Reaching the tower, he simply muttered the word Duro, which was the keyword to turn the bed curtains solid and make sure that they wouldn't open for anybody except the user.
Having made sure that his dorm mates would be thinking that he was asleep, Harry fed Hedwig some chocolate, let her fly into his enlarged robe pocket, and dropped into an ID. Once in the isolation of the red-tinged dimension, Harry used Unicorn Boost to run all the way to the seventh floor, where he popped out of the ID and used his thoughts to mold the Room of Requirements into a room of his preferences before he let himself in.
The Room had taken the form of a large barren chamber devoid of anything but a few tables with a basketful of feathers and a jug of water beside it.
Harry let Hedwig out of his pocket before he walked over to the table and dipped a single feather into the water. He pulled out his wand and started what was hopefully going to be his last nightly exercise on this particular spell.
"Fulguris" he intoned, and a tiny thread of wireform lightning joined the wand's tip to the feather, and instead of incinerating it or completely burning it up as Harry had done the last few times he'd practiced the spell, left the feather only a bit singed.
Once more, he thought to himself.
He dipped another feather in the water. Then, he focused his Gamer's Mind, and any and all expertise he had on the Mind Arts, on making his concentration as razor sharp as possible.
"Fulguris" he intoned, and an even thinner wire of lightning than before connected to the feather for a split second. Harry's eyes lost focus for a moment.
When Harry refocused on the feather, it was dry. A ringing sound echoed in his ears.
Ping!
You've leveled up a skill due to focused usage to master a spell!
Mind Arts, Lv-7 (12%)
The act of magically navigating through the many layers of a person's mind and correctly interpreting one's findings, either with others or one's own self. One of the rarest magics today due to its regulated teaching.
Cost-35 MP per use
Branch A - Magic Sensing - Allows you to sense flowing currents of magic that are in flux.
Branch B - Legilimency - Allows you to invade the mind of your target.
"YES!" he yelled out loud in celebration. It had taken five whole months to master this spell. So many sleepless nights both at the Flamels and Hogwarts…It had all finally paid off.
With a grin, he called for his best friend, "Hedwig!"
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