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Chapter Twelve Hogwarts Life

The next morning found Harry back in the Chamber of Secrets. Now that he knew where Salazar Slytherins office entrance was in the dungeons, he was able to use the Marauders Map to chart a clear path there. Looking around the office for a little while, he determined that there wasn't anything of interest. Sliding down the pipe was a fun ride. At the bottom Harry called out to Sssloker, Sssslisssser and Ssssliter. "Where are you?" From different directions, the snakes found their way to Harry. "How are you all doing? Find anything elssse interesssting?"

Sssloker answered for all the snakes. "We are doing fine, and yesss we found sssome interesssting thingsss."

Glad that the snakes were fine, Harry asked. "Good. What did you find?"

"We found two more hidden roomsss." Hissed Ssssliter.

"Ssso that bringsss the total to five hidden roomsss? Ssshow me." Harry followed the snakes to the first room. Isss thisss it?" Harry asked when he stopped in front of a statue of a Cobra with its hood extended.

"Yesss. All the roomsss are behind sssimilar ssstatuesss." Said Ssssliter.

Saying, "Open." In parseltongue, Harry entered to find an ancient and run down potion lab. He thought, 'It's like the painting in front of Slytherins office in the dungeon.' There was broken, dust covered furniture, empty broken bookshelves, empty and broken vials, and rusty cauldrons all over the room. 'I guess it didn't survive the thousand or so years since Slytherin was here.'

Finding nothing of value, Harry left and followed the snakes to the next hidden room. This one turned out to be an office. It was in the same state of disrepair as the lab. Next was a bedroom/bathroom in a similar state. There was also a hidden ancient kitchen behind another statue. All there was in there was a fire pit with a stand with a cauldron hanging off it, broken dishes, and a sink with a tap. The fifth room was the same one that the Basilisk emerged from in Harrys second year. It was behind a statue of Salazar Slytherin that looked like a monkey. Deciding to not explore that particular room right now he turned to the snakes. "Anything elssse interesssting?"

"Yesss. We alssso found a room with a heated pool." Said Ssssliter.

"Really?" Replied Harry. "Ssshow me." Following the snakes out the main chamber, there was a tunnel that went the opposite way from the entrance from Myrtles bathroom. At the end of the tunnel Harry found a cave with what appeared to be a natural hot spring. There was what looked like a 50 by 20 foot pool of water and the air was humid. "Wow!" was all Harry could say. Dipping his hand in the water, Harry found that it was very warm. 'Like a hot bath.' He thought.

Looking at his watch, he saw that he still had 45 minutes until he had to activate the Portkey, so Harry decided to check out the cave-in to the forest. "Can you ssshow me the way to the foressst?" he asked Sssslisssser.

Harry followed down another tunnel until he came to the cave-in. 'Not too bad.' He thought. 'I better start preparing the Basilisk though. I'll come back later to fix this.'

The Portkey that the goblins provided him was a ball of red twine. He was told to wrap the twine around one end of the Basilisk, then run the twine along the body of the snake and tie it on the other end. When he was done, he said the activation phrase. "Worth its weight in gold." He had 30 minutes to establish an alibi so he left to go to the Great Hall. Before leaving he told the snakes to stay away from the Basilisk to be on the safe side, and that it will be gone in a little bit.

Sitting in the Great Hall, Harry kept anxiously looking toward the teachers table. When the time of the activation passed and there was no response, he was surprised but pleased. 'Did it work? Not even a flinch from Dumbledore. I'm going to have to check out the wards around the school soon.' He thought. Continuing to eat, he planned out what he had to do the rest of the day. Deciding that the best thing to do was to let the day pass normally then turn back time and explore the chamber more closely.

Deciding on turning back four hours, Harry started to examine the chamber and found a few interesting things. The wards around the chamber were indeed separate from the Hogwarts wards. He found anti apparition, but no anti Portkey wards all over the chamber. There was an animal boundary ward that could be deactivated over both pipe entrances to the chamber from the castle. 'This explains why the Basislisk couldn't get into Hogwarts on its own. This also explains why it was so hungry with the cave-in blocking its only way to get food.' He thought. He also found that when the door to the main chamber was closed, it had a similar effect like his trunk. No magic was able to be detected from outside when the door was shut.

Next he reinforced the walls of the passage to the forest and vanished the cave-in. The exit opened with a simple "Open." In parseltongue behind a copse of trees in a part of the forest that he didn't recognize. 'I guess Voldemort didn't want the Basilisk to be able to feed itself so he didn't clear the path. What a bastard.' Harry put his own set of rune stones with a Notice-Me-Not inscribed around the outside of the entrance for added security. He also placed a deactivated tracking rune stone that would send a signal to a matching stone that he could use to find his way back when he explored the forest later on. It was time to leave for the day, his younger self would arrive in the chamber in ten minutes.

The next day Harry received an owl from Barkaxe during breakfast. The note said, 'Impressive specimen Mr Potter. Estimated value is 4 million galleons and estimated render time is one month. It has been determined to sell primarily overseas to avoid saturating the market. Funds will be available to you when rendering is complete. Cloaks and purse will be ready in two months. Please provide a list of parts you require for your own use. Barkaxe.'

'Wow!' Harry thought. '4 million galleons! I'm rich, again. I'm going to have to go thru the potion books and see what parts I might need.'

Harry's train of thought was interrupted when Hermione asked. "What's that Harry?"

"A letter." He responded simply.

Ron smirked, a little food escaping from the corner of his mouth. Hermione huffed, and said. "I know it's a letter! Who's it from?"

Not wanting to explain about the Basilisk, Harry lied. "It's just an account statement from Gringotts."

"Really? You haven't gotten one before." Said Hermione.

'She can't let anything go, can she?' Harry thought. Aloud he said. "I don't know. I just started to receive them over the summer. This is only the second one I have received."

"Oh, OK." replied Hermione. "What does it say?"

"None of your business." Said Harry coldly. Hermione seemed to understand the inappropriateness of her question and looked sorry. Looking over Harry again saw that strange look on Rons face that he couldn't quite identify, but didn't like.

Over the weekend Harry explored the wards around Hogwarts and what he found shocked him. They were surprisingly weak. He could understand that with Hogwarts being a semi public place that they couldn't be too strong, but these were pathetic. There were two types of wards, boundary wards that kept anything from passing it and an area effect ward that affected anything inside the boundary area. The area effect wards were only an anti Apparition and anti Portkey ward. There was also a deactivated fire suppression ward. The boundary wards were only a Werewolf , Vampire, Troll, and an Acromantula ward. 'I wonder if the troll ward was there in first year.' He thought. There was also a ward that identifies and sends a signal when crossed by anyone. 'I'll have to check the secret passages next to see if Dumbledore can tell whenever anyone comes and goes. This means he knew when Sirius came to Hogwarts last year! And when Quirrell was going into the forest to hunt the Unicorns! He KNEW!' Harry was getting angrier by the minute. 'That bastard does nothing but play games with my life!' It took over an hour before Harry calmed down enough to return to the castle.

Over the next several weeks Harry had established a new routine. He would get up at 5:30, go down to the chamber and turn back time to practice spells or fix up the chambers secret rooms. He would go to classes then go back to chamber after dinner and turn back time again to take a nap and continue to train.

Harry waited two weeks before he started to sell his silencing rune stones, to increase demand. He approached the twins one day after deciding to have them sell the stones since they had contacts all over the school and could sell to the other houses. Plus he didn't want to bother doing it himself. He showed the twins the stones he created and told them how to push magic into them until they glowed and how they would last for six hours. He said that he wanted 90% of whatever they charged and would leave the price up to the them. The twins countered with 50% since they were the ones who had to go and sell them. They ended up agreeing on Harry getting 70%

Harry had sold one to each of his dorm mates for 10 sickles each except for Ron who he never told about the stones because he knew that it would only offend him.

Harry explained that the stones created a 4 foot bubble, 2 feet in each direction from the stone, of silence that no sound could enter but could still escape, so it wasn't a true privacy ward. Also anything that was in the bubble could be heard so people could still talk to each other or set an alarm and as long as it was inside the area of silence it would work.

An interesting use of the stones that Harry found out about later was that people used them while studying to avoid distractions, mostly the Ravenclaws. This did lead to some exciting reactions when people tried to talk to them and got no response or when they got tapped on the shoulder and jumped about 2 feet in the air because they didn't realize someone was near them. They were very popular with the fifth and seventh year students.

Harry had also created two more of the communication mirrors from the plans that Sirius sent him. He planned to give them to Ron and Hermione for Christmas. Speaking of Ron and Hermione, Harry was starting to become annoyed with them. Hermione wasn't too bad, she was always pestering Harry about his homework, which wasn't too unusual. But she was starting to ask too many questions about why Harry seemed to disappear so much. Ron on the other hand was just plain irritating. He always complained about Harry not spending time with him because he was studying, saying "Your turning into Hermione mate. You don't need to waste your time. Let's play a game of chess."

He also kept complaining that Harry had dropped Divination, even weeks after he had transferred. His attitude toward Hermione wasn't much better. He was constantly putting her down whenever she tried to get him to do anything like homework or even straightening his tie or chewing with his mouth shut. Hermione could be annoying but Rons responses were way out of proportion. Harry was trying to avoid Ron as much as possible, which made the problem worse. Ron just couldn't understand that Harry wanted to improve himself, while he just wanted to coast along.

During this time, Harry had discovered that Dobby could be very useful. He had made it a point to visit him and Myrtle several times. He visited Myrtle because he wanted to keep the option of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets from her bathroom open. Dobby on the other hand was able to help him refill the pantry in his trunk. He was also able to have Dobby buy him some butterbeer from Hogsmeade Village. Harry had discovered that the boundary and alert wards did indeed exist in the hidden passage ways out of the castle. Dobby was more than happy to run errands for 'The Great Harry Potter!' in the outside world.

Sssloker, Sssslisssser and Ssssliter were spending most of their time lazing around the heated pool or exploring the forest. They had learned to avoid the Centaurs and the Acromantulas, both had tried to kill them on sight. Ssssliter was badly hurt by an Acromantula and now had a scar along her back. She refused to go too far from the entrance after that. Harry spent a little time exploring the area directly around the entrance, not venturing too far. The entrance was beyond the Hogwarts wards and provided Harry a way to leave the castle without tripping any alarms. 'I'll have to see how far from Hogsmeade I am during the next Hogsmeade weekend.' He thought.

Harry had let the snakes explore the castle late at night several times. He would let them out of the chamber at night to explore and let them back in in the morning. Harry was a little concerned about Moody's magical eye spotting the snakes but according to the Marauders Map he spent all his spare time in his office. He was also visited by Barty Crouch so often that Harry thought they might be in a relationship. The snakes had discovered ten more hidden rooms in the castle that were not on the Marauders Map. Most were deserted classrooms that were behind secret entrances. Nothing of value was found in them except some old textbooks. The surprise was two rooms, one a hidden dueling room behind a picture of wizards in medieval armor fighting Goblins on the fifth floor. It took Harry ten minutes to figure out how to open it. It turned out that you have to poke the wizard that was on a hill overlooking the battle. Inside the room the walls were covered with a variety of medieval weaponry. There were swords, maces, spears, pikes, longbows crossbows, and other weapons Harry didn't recognize everywhere. Surprisingly, no suits of armor. There were broken dummies made of straw and crumbling targets scattered around and the room floor, which had to be at least 100ft long and 40ft wide, was covered in sand. Harry thought. 'This room is so cool!' Must have an expansion charm. Too bad nobody teaches this stuff anymore.' Harry did take a sword similar to the Sword of Gryffindor that was still in excellent condition. 'Never know when it might come in handy.'

The second room was on the seventh floor by a tapestry of a wizard teaching trolls the ballet. No matter what he tried he couldn't figure out how to open this room. Night after night for a week he would sneak out and try to open it. One night after failing again, a frustrated Harry made his way to the kitchens for a late night snack and to visit Dobby.

Seeing the forlorn look on Harry face, Dobby asked. "What be bothering youse, Harry Potter?"

"Nothing Dobby." Replied Harry. "It's just that there is a hidden room on the seventh floor that I can't seem to find a way to get into."

"Do youse mean the Come and Go room?" asked a curious Dobby,

"The what?" said a surprised Harry.

"The Come and Go room, also known as the Room of Requirement. It's be a room on the seventh floor that be hidden, only appearing when someone has real needs of it." Answered Dobby, excited to be able to help his hero.

Harry was shocked. "Do you know how to get into the room?"

"Oh yes Harry Potter sir, Dobby knows. Do youse want Dobby to show youse?"

Getting up, an excited Harry asked. "Can you show me now Dobby?"

"Oh yes Harry Potter sir, Dobby wills show youse. I's meet youse there" Dobby said and then disappeared with a pop.

Harry threw on his invisibility cloak and made his way to the seventh floor to find an excited Dobby bouncing up and down waiting for him. "I'm here Dobby." Harry said removing his cloak.

"Harry Potter sir, youse made it. Dobby will show youse now ho to opens the room." Walking back and forth in front of the blank piece of wall that the hidden room was behind, a door suddenly appeared. "Youse need to walk in front of dis wall three times thinkin' what youse wants room to be."

Harry opened the door and let out an amazed gasp. He was looking into a room full of what appeared to be a thousand years of stored junk. There were piles and piles of objects in a room that seemed to go on forever.

Dobby said. "This bes the room of lost things. The house elves bes using it to store lost and broken things dey be finding all over the castle."

'It would take a life time to search this whole room!' Thought Harry. "Is the only thing the room does? Didn't you say it becomes whatever you need?" asked Harry.

"Oh no, Harry Potter sir. The room can becomes anything youse want it to be" said Dobby.

Harry closed the door and watched it disappear. Walking in front of the wall three times, Harry thought. 'I need a room to train in. I need a room to train in. I need a room to train in.' A door appeared on the third pass and when Harry opened it he found an exact copy of the Chamber of Secrets. 'I must have been thinking of the chamber because it is where I have been training.' Walking into the room followed by Dobby, he started to look around. The room was an exact copy of the chamber, even the secret rooms.

Dobby asked. "What be's this room?"

"This is an exact copy of the Chamber of Secrets. So this room becomes anything I want it to?"

"Yes Harry Potter sir. Dobby thinks so."

Harry left the room and tried to change it again. This time he created an exact copy of the inside of his trunks third compartment. Even the books he had bought were on the shelves, but there was no food in the kitchen. "Do you know why the room made everything but the food Dobby?"

'The rooms magic can make anything but's food Harry Potter sir. Buts anything made here can't be's taken out unless it be's already in the rooms." Answered Dobby.

'This room is great!' thought Harry. 'It's getting late but I want to try one more thing.' Stepping outside again, Harry took three more turns and the new door led to an exact copy of the cave with the heated pool that was in the chamber. Feeling the water he found it was the same temperature. "Thank you so much for showing me how to get in here Dobby. Let me know if I can do anything for you."

Dobby said with a gleeful smile on his face. "The Great Harry Potter thanks Dobby. Your welcome Harry Potter. Dobby will always help Harry Potter if Dobby cans. Harry Potter has already done so much for Dobby."

The hero worship was a bit much, but Harry couldn't help but like this excitable elf. "I'll see you later Dobby, and again, thank you." Harry left to an empty classroom near Gryffindor tower he had set up with the rune set that prevented magic from being detected, he wasn't sure if Dumbledore could detect the activation of the Time Turner and wanted to take no chances. He would turn back time to make it back to the dormitory before curfew.

Another thing the snakes reported to Harry that they found on their nightly wandering was a strange blond haired girl. They found her all over the hallways at night and she would wave to them when she passed even though they were invisible at the time. Harry checked the Marauders Map one night and found that her name was Luna Lovegood. 'I wonder what she's doing out at night? They said that she sometimes falls asleep in an empty classroom. I wonder what's that about?' He decided to avoid her if he could.

Time flew by, and before he knew it, it was October 30th. Harry and Ron's friendship was quite strained by this point. Ron started spending more time with Seamus and Dean because Harry was either studying or couldn't be found. Whenever he did hang out with Harry, he would make snide comments about Harry being a bookworm, or a bad friend under his breath. But Harry heard them. It was becoming annoying for Harry to hang out with him. Hermione was a little better. She spent a lot of time with Harry in the library studying. She could tell that his and Ron's friendship was having problems so she usually avoided them when they were together. Ron didn't seem to notice this. She was still a bit bossy, but Harry knew it was just the way she was.

The last class let out early so the students could gather outside to wait for the other schools to arrive. The weather was quite cold and Harry saw most of the other students shivering, including Ron. He was glad that he put a warming charm on himself and was wondering if he should offer to put one on Ron. 'Nah! He's old enough to take care of himself.' After waiting for thirty or so minutes there was an excited yell. Look! Something's flying over the Forbidden Forest!