Self Study

During the next day the group didn't meet up, while the Gryffindors that were present at the past night's debacle discussed it amongst themselves, Robert chose not to get involved in something that the Headmaster had warned to be a road straight to a painful death.

Instead he decided to focus on his studies, he knew that he was behind some of the pureblood kids in some of the practical disciplines, his mother's rule of enjoying his childhood over practicing magic was shown to not be very good for him now.

So here he was, standing at a deserted corridor in the dungeons, Robert didn't want his friends to know that he was going to practice what he planned to practice. He had waited long enough and Grandpa Arcturus would start asking about these studies.

Robert needed a room out of the way, where he could use magic that generated noise and others couldn't hear it. It'd be good if it was near his common room, since these sesion would be done mostly during the night and he didn't want to risk running into Filch while going back to bed after curfew.

He didn't find any good room in the dungeons, they were either occupied, locked in a way that he wasn't able to unlock or they were close to where students frequented.

So he moved on, the next floor he searched on was the one just below the ground floor, he didn't know it very well, normally he would skip the floor when going to the dungeons, he did notice that the majority of the people in it were from Hufflepuff.

He also didn't find a room on that floor, but it wasn't a waste of time, when he realized that he wouldn't find any room usable for his troubles he followed the students that were using the corridor.

It was a couple of Hufflepuffs, two first year girls, fortunately for Robert they weren't paying attention to their surroundings so he wasn't spotted. However, he lost them after they passed by a painting with fruits in it.

He inspected the area, he had followed the pair with his eyes and they suddenly disappeared, there might have been some sort of portal, just like the one at King's Cross Station.

Robert was wrong, there wasn't a portal there, the girls simply disappeared. Upon coming to that realisation, the boy stopped and leaned on the wall.

'I think I looked enough for today, I'm starting to see things.' he thought. His thoughts were interrupted upon feeling that the wall that he was leaning on suddenly changed.

He turned around to see a green door handle, confused the boy decided to turn it and pull. With it came the whole painting, what appeared on the other side was a gigantic, high-ceilinged room, it was full of house-elves, it was also full of food.

"What can Krafty do for student?" Robert heard from the closest one.

Like every other house-elf, he was using a potato sack as clothing, only it had the school's symbol emblazoned on.

"Hello, I'm a bit lost. Is it right to say that I'm at the Kitchen?" the boy said looking at the elf.

The elf bobbed his head up and down and said, "You's be right, this is the castle's kitchen."

Upon hearing his answer, Rob looked at the room, it had five big tables, that mirrored the ones in the great hall, both in size and in position. There were large quantities of pots and pans heaped around the stone walls, on what looked like counter-tops or stoves, and a large brick fireplace at the other end of the hall from the door.

"Is there a problem for me to be here?" Robert asked after finishing looking at the room.

This time the elf shaked his head sideways and answered the boy, "No, you's find it, so you's can come here to get food."

Those were good news, if he found himself hungry he now could just ask for some food.

Seeing as the house elf was still waiting for him to ask something of him, Robert decided to try and get his help, "I'm looking for a place where I can practice magic, but where I wouldn't bother the others."

The little elf looked at the boy and put on a thinking expression.

A few seconds later he did a little hop, put one of his hands up and exclaimed, "Krafty knows just the place! You's be going to the seventh floor, in the left corridor in front of the painting with the funny wizard and the troll!"

"You's be needing to walk in front of it three times and you's find the Come and Go Room." He finished, happy that he could serve one of the students.

Robert didn't know how to feel about it, on one hand he found a place for himself, on the other, said place was on the highest floor of the castle, he'd have to find some secret passages and really think about the time he wanted to go there.

After receiving the elf's help, Robert thanked him and left, he still had classes and he didn't want to be late.

Nothing much happened during the rest of the day, after the classes ended the Study group joined at their room on the third floor, they were trying Charms that evening.

Rob didn't have time to think about the Come and Go Room and his plans to sneak to and from it, since he was the best at Charms in their group he was the one who helped the others the most.

It had been a very productive night, they had started working on the Levitation Charm, it was a really useful one, so useful that the Gryffindors didn't have time to talk with Robert about the three headed giant dog and what they found surrounding the mystery of what was in that room.

A few days passed, the Study group was developing at a very fast pace, the professors had noticed this improvement, but they tried to keep their group secret, at least from the rest of the student population.

Now that Robert had a plan to think on, he didn't spend much time with his Gryffindor friends, an occurrence that was noticed by his housemates. This was clear to him when some of the older ones started to offer help with his studies.

He had heard from the Slytherin members of the Study group that they received some help from their upperclassmen, and he found strange that none had ever offered him any.

It seemed that his friendship with Rose wasn't appreciated by his housemates as seen when one of the seventh years offered help by saying, "Rosier, now that you're not walking around with idiots what do you say I help you out with some subjects?"

Robert's answer to that was a polite decline and a promise to go to him if he had any issues. It seemed that Rob had been too amazed by the castle's atmosphere to notice his housemates and the looks that they gave him.

Now he even saw some girls send him some smiles, that gained him the admiration of his roommates.

This change of attitude made Robert decide to change how he would continue to act in Hogwarts.

The first change was in regards to his Gryffindor friends, it was during a friday evening at the Study group's room when he decided to talk about it.

"I found out why the other Slytherin didn't help me before." Robert said breaking the silence in the room.

When he saw that he had the attention of the other in the room, he continued, "It was because I was walking around with you guys." and he pointed to Rose and Hermione.

Both girls were surprised and a little afraid once they understood what he said.

"So, what now? Are you going to stop being friends with us?" Rose asked with a slightly pale face.

Robert realised that they took it badly, so he tried to calm them down. "No, I won't stop being friends with anyone just because some people ignore me. But…" he said.

The lions had a smile on their faces until they heard the ending of his speech.

"But what?" asked Hermione seeing that the boy was hesitating to continue.

"But I think that we should avoid being seen together by the others." Robert said, hoping that their reaction wouldn't be too bad.

To the boy's surprise, their reaction wasn't bad.

"I understand what you mean, some of the older students were really annoying, but they stopped acting like that. That's why we didn't stay much in our common room." Rose said reminiscing about the past days.

With the positive answer from Rose, they decided to avoid other student's eyes for now. Since that was out of the way their studying continued, this time they focused on DADA.

Robert was the one who had it easier, thus his evening was used to teach his friends the Knockback Jinx.

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It was during the weekend that Robert decided to go to the seventh floor.

He got there going through the sixth floor, when he got there he turned left and looked at the paintings.

He found one with a man trying to teach a troll how to dance ballet, it was really strange, especially when the troll waved at him.

Remembering Krafty's words, the boy walked in front of the painting three times and waited.

He expected the painting to become a door, similar to the kitchen's one, but nothing changed in it.

When the residents of the painting saw the boy moving they realised what he was trying to do, both the man and the troll stopped what they were doing and stared at the boy who looked expectantly at the painting.

This time it was the man who reacted, he pointed at the boy, more specifically behind him. Robert didn't understand why the painting was pointing at him, he looked down at himself and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

He looked up and the painting was still pointing at his direction, so he decided to look behind him.

Upon turning around Rob cama face to face with a wooden door, one that wasn't there when he arrived.

Taking a deep breath, he went to the door and opened it.

What he found on the other side was a spacious room, with shelves filled with books lining the rightmost wall, on the middle of the room, and right in front of him, was a couch that faced a lit fireplace. The left side of the room was an empty area, the walls, floor and ceiling were inscribed with runes.

He had read about those markings once when he was looking at runes used in buildings, he couldn't read them, but he figured that they'd make the places where they were inscribed more resistant.

This would do, it was exactly what he wanted, now all he needed was a way to go from the dungeons to here without much trouble.

When he finished that though a small book appeared in front of him, it looked like a diary or a journal.

Curious, he opened it and found that it was property of a Slytherin girl who studied at Hogwarts a few centuries in the past.

Not understanding why it would appear like that, Robert started reading the diary.

There wasn't much that he could use, the majority was about how cute the Head Boy of the time was and how evil some of the girl's roommates were.

It started getting interesting when he found a passage talking about the secret passages that the girl found when she went out to peep on other students.

One such passage was a stairway that went from the seventh floor directly to the dungeons, the only other opening in it was one in the sixth floor.

That was perfect for him, now all he had to do was find the stairway and make a schedule so that he would avoid students who were going to their dormitory.

He decided to look into it during the next week, if any of his friends asked about it he'd just say that he was exploring the passageways that led to the dungeon.