Yeah, he started giving her and Luna lessons to protect themselves. It wasn't anything fancy, but a few curses here and there and a couple of charms that would hide them or shield them would come a long way. Harry was focused primarily on ice spells since extremely low temperatures limited the mobility and reactions of snakes, even magical ones.
It was shown in the casualty rates of the only Basilisk hunt that happened in a cold environment. Apparently, some Ice elemental centuries back went insane and tried to start a new ice age. She ended up freezing up half of Europe in what seemed like the worst winter ever recorded. Well, it turned out that the large shift in temperate had woken a Basilisk in Greece, enough for it to try to find a new nest warmer. It was hunted down and killed in less than a week and the hunting party only came out with a single death and a few petrifications.
Apparently, the cold had weakened the beast immensely, enough that its glare was very underpowered and that its movement was stiff. The only casualty happened because one of them was bitten, not because of the glare.
So, yeah, it was an advantage that few knew of, and Harry was very interested in using it.
Harry's thoughts were interrupted by Daphne's voice, "What in Merlin's name is this monstrosity?"
Harry looked up and saw the Great Hall, well, what should have been the Great Hall. For a fraction of a second, Harry thought that he was wrong room was designed by a toddler who was obsessed with the colour pink.
The room was completely unrecognizable. Gone were the rich and regal tones that usually adorned the castle walls. In their place was a blinding, almost fluorescent, pinkish hue that practically assaulted his senses. The walls themselves seemed to blush, covered in an indecent quantity of pink flowers that clashed horribly with the stone architecture.
As Harry took in the scene, he felt like he had stumbled into the imagination of a seven-year-old girl who had an inexplicable obsession with the colour pink. He blinked, half-expecting the entire spectacle to disappear in a puff of logic, but it remained stubbornly, garishly real.
It was then that Harry remembered the date and murmured, "I think it's Valentine's Day."
The Great Hall was transformed into a bizarre and gaudy carnival of affection. The candles that usually cast a warm glow on the students and their meals had been replaced by thousands of hearts. They floated in the air, flickering with a silvery-pink light that was both mesmerizing and headache-inducing. There were hearts of all kinds—pink hearts, silver and pink hearts, red and pink hearts, and even some inexplicably gold-pink hearts. They bobbed and weaved in the air as if performing a choreographed dance.
The tables were adorned with tablecloths that were, you guessed it, pink. Heart-shaped dishes held a rather excessive assortment of pink treats, from candies to pastries. Harry half-expected his dinner to start oozing pink syrup at any moment.
As Harry tried to make sense of the spectacle, he caught sight of the paintings that adorned the walls. Normally serene and aloof, the portraits had been swept up in the pink craze. Their frames were circled with hearts as if someone had gone on a heart-sticking spree with reckless abandon. Miniature angels, sporting hues of pink and gold, fluttered around the paintings, their cherubic faces attempting to serenade the inhabitants of the hall with some truly horrifying love songs.
He couldn't help but wonder who had orchestrated this explosion of pink. It was as if Cupid had gone on a caffeine-fueled rampage with a rainbow palette. Of course, the architect of this abomination was smiling brilliantly with flashy ink robes that genuinely hurt Harry's eyes.
With that realized, he looked at his blonde companion and spoke up, "Yeah, we're out of here."
He looked up and noticed that Luna was sitting at the Ravenclaw table. He motioned her to come over and she nodded.
The three of them slowly walked up to the seventh floor in silence, trying to bleach the past few memories from their brain, something that was unfortunately very hard to do. Hopefully, training would distract them.
A couple of hours later, it obviously didn't. Even while Harry was animating a giant Snake construct made of ice, his mind still looked back at the abomination he saw at the Great Hall.
Daphne held up her hand in shielding charm, dodging the snake's charge, alas the charm exploded into a shockwave when it was shattered. It was a spell of Harry's own creation that he named "Protego Pulsum."
It took a little time to teach Daphne the Protego charm, which Harry thought was completely worth it since it was a very useful spell. Still, it was a very notable achievement and a testament to Daphne's talent that she managed to learn it in less than a month. Now, they were covering the variants of the charm, like adding layers or in this case, a concussive force when it breaks.
The giant snake's head snapped backwards, only to be met with a Flipendo from Luna. Just as Harry was manipulating the ice to heal the damage to the construct, he froze and the world around him disappeared.
Instead, there were flashes of a giant snake with yellow eyes, a familiar corridor near the Astronomy tower, and a screaming girl with a blue tie.
The Room of Requirements came back into view and the ice snake fell crashing into a thousand pieces, but Harry didn't seem to care, instead being horrified by what he had just seen.
"Are you alright, Harry? What happened?" Daphne asked.
"I just had a vision. He's back. Riddle started to attack again. I think it was a Ravenclaw, I'm not sure, to be honest. It was pretty fast."
Harry practically ran towards the exit, the two girls following behind him, that is until he found himself near the corridor he saw in his vision. He noticed that there was a small crowd forming and he pushed his way forward, only to see the familiar form of Penelope Clearwater frozen with a fearful expression on her face. Yeah, this was the girl he had just seen.
However, something was different. Near the wall next to her something weird. It was a smiling face, drawn in blood, and Harry paled. This was a message aimed at him.
"What do you think it means," Daphne asked.
"Oh, that's simple. It means that it is time for us to resume our game."
Talk about a bloody Valentine.
.....
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