Year Three - Chapter Thirteen

November arrived. The dreadful month that would see friend turn against friend, friendship break and be reborn anew. I looked with dread at the clear weather, and then down at the Quidditch pitch where Amanda's eyes were balefully glaring at me.

"I can't control the weather," I mouthed in her direction, though it was a pretty blatant lie. I could, just not well enough to guarantee that the thunderstorm wouldn't hit and destroy everything on its path. I hadn't really practiced the spells themselves; I could make it rain in the Room of Requirements, or bring up a wall of fog, but doing that in a small room and doing that for a whole sky were incredibly different things.

Opposite of us Ravenclaws, sitting on the rows, the Hufflepuff students stood waving their flags.

I sat, and prepared myself for the most tedious hours of my life. "We should cheer for both teams," Luna said from my side, holding on to a Ravenclaw and a Hufflepuff flag. "For sportsmanship."

"You're a cute second year student and Amanda would never hit a girl," I said in reply, sporting my Ravenclaw flag, "but if I tried that I'd be killed, or beaten to an inch from death with a beater's bat and a dozen bludgers, so I won't."

Most valiantly, I cared about my life and the continued well-being of all of my limbs.

Thus, I even went as far as twitch my wand and send some fireworks in the air, chanting the words, "Ravenclaw! Make them sore!" together with the others as the team began to fly. What followed could be best described as Amanda's dream come true. She soared through the air, dodging bludgers by an air's breadth and making my poor heart nearly explode from worry more often than not.

When she held the quaffle she didn't shy away from contact, but instead dashed straight for it. This forced the others to move out of her way or risk a foul. A couple of close calls made me hold my breath, and by the end of the match, when the Ravenclaw seeker found the Snitch, I exhaled like the soldier who had survived in his foxhole from repeated artillery bombardment in his position.

My heart drummed pretty much at that speed.

And to think I'd have to stick around for all other matches, then my heart would clearly not make it.

Still, I congratulated Amanda on a job well done, and on having taken away ten years from my lifespan.

Then, I unfortunately met a sour realization as later in the day the Room of Requirements didn't open for me anymore. I stared at the door, the door that had always opened for me, and witnessed it stay close. Something ugly reared in my stomach. It was an ugly feeling, one I understood explicitly as envy, or perhaps annoyance. It was frustration perhaps, if increased ten times.

Someone was using the room, having come there first, and asked not to let anyone else in. Thus the room was keeping me out, just like it would keep everyone else out. I waited, just because I wanted to know who was the guilty member of the gang that had decided that the Room of Requirements was too good for the likes of its original discoverer, and when the guilty party came out, all pretenses of not being affected by the thing went down the drain.

This was, honestly, a minor thing. Perhaps it was just the paradoxical situation that made me feel quite more bitter than I should have. Percy Weasley, Gryffindor prefect, stepped out of the room, Penelope Clearwater, Ravenclaw prefect, in turn following him as they both held hands out of there. Young love had probably decided they needed a room to be friendly with one another. Both were adults, and whatever they did was their matter alone.

What wasn't alright was that Percy had probably been tipped by Ron, and the secret of my Room was getting exposed. Soon, I'd have to fight to get through a horde of students in order to practice my magic.

I...I needed another secret room to practice.

In the end, the Room of Requirements was a great place, but it merely made things easier rather than be an essential place for my prolonged well-being, and it had served its purpose. I no longer required it, all things said. Voldemort would be defeated completely in a matter of years, with or without my future intervention. I quietly stepped inside, took a deep breath, and then gathered all of the things and books I'd need -and there were quite a lot of those- shrinking them to the point where I could carry everything away in one big bag.

Then, I opened the door that would lead into the Chamber of Secrets and stuck a chair to ensure it wouldn't close until I was done.

"Spring cleaning," I grumbled, wand raised up high, "Here I come."

It took ten times the normal amount of spells to get the floor of the Chamber of Secrets workable. It took a couple of hours of sweat and floating furniture before I felt reasonably happy with the positioning of the entire thing. "I'd need walls," I muttered, rubbing my chin. "Dividing walls to keep the practicing part separated from the leisure one."

It wasn't that I hated company. I relished it, in fact. However I needed time to recharge my batteries, and that time needed to be done by myself, alone, without anyone to bother me while I just read books, or enjoyed some good fun charmwork, or ensured my Gargoyle would actually flap both wings at the same time.

I finally settled on the armchair at the center of the room that had once housed the corpse of the basilisk, now entombed somewhere a few dozen meters deep further below Hogwarts' castle, and devoid of the fangs it wouldn't need, but I could craft into weapons of Horcrux-destruction, and took deep breaths.

I'd need to transfigure a way into the Chamber of Secrets. A way that would be practical for me to reach, and would allow me to go, at the very least, in some specific areas the students rarely ventured into.

Then, I snapped my finger in dawning realization.

The kitchens' garbage chute led into the pipes and sewers of Hogwarts, and from there the grisly remains were dragged into the sea. However, by the same token, being I a great wizard capable of a bubblehead charm and knowledgeable enough to find a way to keep the dirt and the smells from hitting me...I could have my own personal entrance and exit away from the students' eyes.

The House Elves would keep it a secret if I asked them very politely. They wouldn't tell other students, though they might speak with the Headmaster, and the professors, about it. Still, it was fine.

I had my new Room of Requirements. It was four time as large, and while the statues were admittedly a bit creepy, those could be fixed with a few spells. If any more furniture was needed, I'd just get it at a later date.

Thus properly relocated, I glanced at the dragon-like gargoyle.

"I'll call you Fury," I said with a cheeky grin.

The Gargoyle didn't answer, didn't twitch, didn't as much as give a single sign that he had understood my words.

Wonderful, he was just like the perfect example of reading partner I liked...

...the silent one.