11. The ROR

One sunday morning I was up early, Eddie was still sleeping, and he was impossible to wake up, so once again I headed out with Felix.

But today I had a goal, I wanted to find the Room Of Requirements, THE room to find for any reincarnator, for any protagonist, the main man, one and only... you get the gist... ME...

The room was something that always held my fascination, a room that would cater to my very imagination! Litereally!

Upon reaching the 7th. Floor, I found the painting of the trolls, and since I just wanted to test it out, I walked back and forth at the opposite wall, thinking [I want to find a place to hide things], three times later, and a large doorway appeared.

Felix didn't seem impressed, pulling the handle and hearing the creaking of the wood, we entered the room. Inside was mountains of stuff, it's hard to actually fathom how big this room is, and just how many things are in here, it seemed to go on for literally ever!

An idea occurred to me, seeing all the old furniture, I could actually make quite a bit of money on selling all this, fix it with some minor magic, and sell it in the muggle world as genuine antiques. I bet most of the furniture is hundreds of years old, if not at least decades!

So I started exploring the room, I didn't look for anything specific, just looking through all the piles and seeing all the stuff that was in here. It had the potential of being a million pound a year business, and maybe even have it run for a couple of years.

If I could find some muggle born wizards, I might even be able to have a restoration business like this, and work on other people's furniture, planning a future business or career seemed the smart thing, I didn't have infinite money, and I never saw my self as the hero that would land endless praise or something like that.

Felix interrupted my train of thought as he suddenly tensed and hissed, digging his claws into my shoulder "Arghh! Felix, be careful with those! What is it?"

I looked down at the pile in front of me and right there was an old discolored looking diadem, and now that I looked at it I could immediately feel the intent, and the wrongness coming from it in waves. I felt an immense pressure to wear the diadem, the knowledge that I could get, THE POWER!! A burst of magic tore through me from the Diadem, pushing everything around me away besides it.

Frowning slightly, wait, that's not my will, I'm not some power hungry idiot! I felt a burning sensation inside of me that radiated out from my core to fill my entire being, it felt like it burned the wrongness away from me. I looked at Felix, he was rubbing his head in my neck and cheek, trying to coach me out of my stupor.

This was dangerous! I immediately backed away, how could all the reincarnation stories pretend this wasn't powerful and dangerous magic! How the hell did they think you could just grab it, ignore it or use it without consequences! I stumbled back, I needed to focus! I needed to get it to Dumbledore, or Professor Knotts!? No matter what I couldn't just leave it here, no matter how much I wanted nothing to do with this foul magic! I felt like puking my guts out just by the feeling of the magic, it felt so wrong!! It was utterly indescribeable!

I didn't know anything about cursed artifacts, or Horcrux magic. I tried grabbing some table legs that were broken, and picking up the Diadem, but I couldn't grab it properly! With a sigh, I cast a Wingardium Leviosa on it with my wand, and had it float out in front of me. Keeping the magic going I carefully walked out of the ROR and as I headed back towards the entrance of the room, I realised I had walked for far longer than I had thought.

I felt the magic of the diadem keep trying to distract me, influence me, coerce me to wear it, it felt like trying to focus on a single thought, only to be distracted by a thousand other things, only here, the thoughts only led to one thing. Wearing the diadem! It was scary to think what would happen if I wore it….

I lost my focus....

It felt like the world turned slightly, like that really bad drunken state, your mind can't process it, everything is going in slow motion, and theres a slight haze to everything.

Suddenly I was kneeling on the ground, everything was red, was that blood? I smeared the blood on the diadem with my left hand, in my right I somehow had a knife, the Diadem suddenly started to glow a dark crimson.

I lost my focus....

I had the diadem in my hands, it was beautiful, it felt like a dream, like a haze around my vision, with only it in my hands, nothing else mattered. I raised it up to eye height, it was so beautiful, how Rowena managed to make something this powerful was beyond my imagination, but not for long, soon I would unravel it all!

I lost my focus....

The waves from the diadem were tingling my skin, there was so much magic in the air, it was so beautiful!

I lifted it up above my head, I could feel the magic burrowing into me, affecting me even more, but I didn't care. Just as I was about to place the diadem on my head, flames erupted in front of me, with Dumbledore walking out of the flames with Fawkes in front of me and blasted the diadem from my hands blowing me to one side and the diadem to the other. He looked like a warrior, and Professor Knotts was right behind him, looking very serious!

Professor Knotts stepped towards me, he started chanting while waving his wand above me, I felt wrong inside, like I was deathly ill. He looked so focused!

"Albus, take Thomas to your office, the diadem has started to leach off of his core, I can see it, but I don't think he has taken permanent damage so far, I will come with the diadem", Professor Knotts commanded with authority, Dumbledore acknowledged with a nod, grabbed me and fire enveloped the both of us, and I was in his office. "It will be alright mr. Lamorak, Allen knows his stuff, and If I do say so myself, I'm not half bad at dark curses myself", he led me through his office to a door at the end, which led to a large room.

The haze was still around me, so it all seemed like a dream, but like I was slowly waking up, but it was hard, like I was stuck somewhere at the bottom of a well, filled with water and sand, both trying to keep me down.

The room we were in was a large circular room, with dark marble with golden circles covering the floor, walls and ceiling. There were also all kinds of runes covering every single surface, if I had to guess it was for very powerful rituals!

Professor Knotts appeared out of nowhere, suddenly he was just there, he was carrying a large staff as tall as he was, but it looked like it was made from gold.

The diadem was floating beside him in a blue circle of runes that kept rotating around it, the waves of magic from the Diadem could no longer be felt at all!

He looked at me with a frown, he raised his staff and tapped it on the ground once, a bubble of white expanded from the end of his staff touching the ground and enveloped us all, and suddenly the haze was lifted from me, like waking up from a bad dream, I could feel the cold sweat clinging to my body!

I looked around me, and down at my hands, they were covered in blood, and hair?!?

Slightly panicking I looked around for Felix, but he wasn't here?

I looked toward Dumbledore, "Have you seen Felix?! My Amembi? It's a black cat..".

Dumbledore looked back at me with a sad look, "I'm afraid the diadem hurt him, it wasn't your fault, but there is nothing left of him..".

I was in shock, Felix was gone, the bloody diadem had taken him! But I finally got a friend!! He didn't deserve this! Why!!?!

Thomas fell to the ground, lost and sad.

Dumbledore and Professor Knott, were studying the diadem, Dumbledore with the elder wand, and Knott with his, the staff now gone.

With a heartbroken voice I cleared my throat and asked "Professors, what just happened? Why am I here?" Dumbledore smiled a sad smile at me, while he was still casting, "Well Thomas, it seems this is a very dark and powerful artifact, and you got hit with the corrupting magic coming from it, had we not found out, you would be under the total control of whatever this artifact is! You might even have died!".

I watched the professors analyzing the Diadem, I knew what it was, but I wasn't sure how I could explain it! This was really important, It was carrying a Piece of Voldemort's soul!

I sat numbly on the ground, just watching what the professors were doing, gazing down on my hands and clothes, the remnants of Felix on it. He must have fought so hard!

Why did I think it would be a good idea to take it, I should have left and brought the information to the professors!

Dumbledore stepped back and let Knott study it further, he looked at me and with a sad but knowing look on his face he stepped up to me, and offered me a lemon drop. Bucket list item right there! Dumbledore offering me candy ! Hah! I mean, which reincarnator wouldn't want that?

Fuck.. Did I already forget that Felix just died?!? I had to make sure that the diadem would be destroyed!

I looked towards Professor Knott seeing him waving his wand around the floating Diadem, "What is the professor doing? What is that Diadem? Why did it affect me like that?". Dumbledore looked thoughtful while looking between me and Professor Knott, "It appears it is a soul artifact, a highly dark and dangerous one, meant to influence and leach onto any magical it can get its hands on, which no one should ever use! Allen or that is Professor Knott, is determining the origin of the soul, he is particularly good at soul magic, it's not something I ever dabbled in, I can do some small soul magics, but Allen is a master in it! Why It affected you as soon as you were near it, is because of the strong compulsion charms cast on it, and as you touched it the magic leached onto your mind and directly onto your magical core. If you had put it on, it would have started to leach from your core and soul, what exactly that would result in, I am not sure of. It seemed your companion Felix tried to get it out of your hands, but the soul inside the Diadem fought back, and killed him.".

Dumbledore looked over to Professor Knott "Are you ready my friend?" Knott looked over towards us, he just nodded, and sheathed his wand in his holster, and held out his hand and the golden staff appeared in his hand again. "Albus, protect Thomas, while I cleanse the artifact, he deserves to see it destroyed!", Dumbledore just nodded, and stood in front of me, Elder wand held high as he began chanting something I did not understand, a barrier mostly see through but with a tinge of gold started to form around us in a bubble, and as he continued to chant runes started to appear on the barrier, as each rune appeared it seemed to make the barrier more solid, stronger. Dumbledore nodded towards Knott, "Watch carefully Thomas, It's always a treat to see Knott play with high magics! Not even I have been able to do it!".

Allen Knott, Professor of Hogwarts stood beside a floating cursed Diadem, in a large circular ritual room with marble floor and walls filled with runes that slowly started to hum with power, Dumbledore and Thomas stood to the side, surrounded with a golden shield held together by Dumbledore.

Knott raised his staff and struck the ground, as it hit, a wave of blue power burst out from the point it struck, and as it passed over the runes that had been carved in the room, they each started glowing, like they were given power and purpose.

He started chanting. It sounded like he was talking gibberish, or backwards, or something, I couldn't remember what he said right after he said it. The slow hum became higher and higher, as the runes were powering up. The diadem started releasing a dark smoke from it, it lashed out at Knott, but the shield around the Diadem was holding it back. A second blue shield filled with runes appeared around the first barrier, Knott holding out his staff made the circle shrink slowly around the Diadem, as it crushed the first barrier the dark smoke poured out of the diadem, attacking with all its might some of the smoke escaped and turned into arcs of lightning and raw magic that hit the golden barrier, and the marble in the room which blew apart. Knott started to chant louder trying to further shrink the barrier and repair it at the same time, he looked like he was struggling!

Almost 10 minutes later with half the room destroyed the barrier finally reached the Diadem itself, and the smoke was only a trickle, and as the blue barrier passed through it, it pulled the last of the smoke out, and what looked like a screaming distorted face before it also disappeared, Knott fell to his knees, and leaned on his staff as he finally collapsed the barrier on the piece of soul floating in the room with a Whoomf that blasted outwards knocking him back against the wall and cracking the golden barrier Dumbledore was holding up.

Dumbledore took down the barrier and ran to Knott who was panting on the floor, he took out a potion and poured it into his mouth, it seemed to give him energy back, as he slowly stood back up. "Albus, I don't wanna ever do that again! I hate the crazy bastards that thought It would be a good idea to copy Herpo the Foul while making these cursed items! Whoever made this, almost destroyed a priceless artifact of the founders! That right there is Rowena Ravenclaw's Lost bloody Diadem!".

Dumbledore looked shocked as he stepped up to the Diadem, it had changed slightly, no longer looking as fierce as before, now looking more refined and feminine.

I also stumbled towards it, astonished that they actually cleansed it instead of just destroying it, and the magic was so cool, all things considered, I felt the thrumming of the magic in the air. And Dumbledore's golden shield! I SO wanted to learn that! He talked about high magic that even he couldn't cast? It must have been the blue magic! I want to learn that as well! Is Professor Knott stronger than Dumbledore? It was mind blowing to think about! And also so confusing because why were there so many changes to this potter verse? It was so different from the books!

Looking down at the Diadem, Dumbledore picked it up, I could feel the strong magic radiating from it, it felt completely different from before, it felt welcoming and calm, and strong! It felt like the mind clearing and focusing, a breath of fresh air.

He placed it on his head, his eyes widening and he looked around the room in awe. Professor, what is it?". He looked down at me and smiled, "My boy, I'm just marveling at the magic of The Diadem, it has opened up my mind, my senses have expanded and opened up to further understanding of magics! It shows me the colors of all the magics, and lets me understand the meaning of the different types of magics all around us. It is an amazing artifact that Rowena created, the very height of Alchemy and enchanting". Finally he took of the Diadem again, and placed it on my head, as it fully rested on my head, I felt my thoughts clear and In my vision I saw colors all around me, the different runes each had a different colored aura around it, and almost like a taste or feeling that goes with it. Making me better understand what everything did, I looked towards a smiling Dumbledore, his aura had a golden tinge to it, with blue mixed into it. It felt calm. I turned and looked towards Knott, his aura was massive, it looked like a storm being restrained and had a blue color, smoldering under a calm surface, ready to burst out! He smiled at me, and waved his hand, the Diadem lifted off my head and floated towards him.

"Albus I will take the Diadem to the ministry and have them authenticate it, and hopefully when they are done with it, it will be returned to the castle to be displayed here". He turned around and vanished from thin air, I just stood gaping at that, wasn't it something about no one but the headmaster being able to apparate in the castle? How did he do that?

Dumbledore chuckled beside me, "Amazing isn't it? He just vanishes and goes wherever he wants, most wards cannot even slow him down. I was once quite envious of his skills, but when i Learned how he got them, I could only pity his suffering, and acknowledge that he earned it.

Now I think we should get you you cleaned up and maybe get back down to dinner, I dare say we could all use a hearty meal after this, and Thomas, I know the loss of your companion may make you guilty, but remember the bond you had, it is these bonds that make life worth living. Even when they are gone, we still feel it, in our memories, our actions or even places, remember him, cherish what you had, and not what you could have.". Just before going out the door of the headmasters office, Dumbledore stopped me, "now Thomas, I must ask a favor of you, the taint of the diadem must never be known, the magic that tainted it, is very dangerous! Even the knowledge itself could be dangerous in the wrong hands, can I count on your discretion Thomas?".

I could only nod and follow the headmaster out. I knew what it was, and could only agree that the knowledge of it should be never known. The ritual and the professor's powers of magic were mind numbing, and I just couldn't wait to learn more! Unseen by Thomas, Knott stood in the shadows wand out pointed towards Thomas, what he cast he will never know.