Astronomy was only held on Wednesday nights, and the very first class of the school year didn't assign any homework. As a result, once the afternoon lessons were over, the first-year students found themselves with nothing in particular to do.
Avada, however, had no intention of letting this precious stretch of free time slip by. The location of Hogwarts' most mysterious and versatile room—the Room of Requirement—was already clearly marked in his mind. And the moment he succeeded in entering it, it would mean a major step forward in his plans: Ravenclaw's Diadem, the broken Vanishing Cabinet[1], and a private research space of his own…
Not to mention the magical principles behind the Room of Requirement itself, the magical structures of Ravenclaw's Diadem and the Vanishing Cabinet, and even Voldemort's soul fragments—countless miraculous objects like these. If he could fully analyze them using Magical Perception and develop corresponding spells from that knowledge…
Avada was absolutely certain that no treasure in the wizarding world could ever rival the value of a single Room of Requirement.
Thus, after leaving the Transfiguration classroom, he hurried along with the rest of the Hufflepuffs toward the Great Hall. The plan was simple: finish dinner, then head straight for the eighth floor.
As a Hufflepuff, skipping a meal was out of the question.
"Hey, Ken!"
Avada turned toward the voice and saw Baron emerging alone from the opposite corridor, waving at him.
"Fancy meeting you again."
Avada waved to his Hufflepuff classmates, then peeled off from the group to walk alongside Baron. "How was your first day of classes?"
"Pretty good," Baron replied with a slight smile. "Most of it was stuff my parents already taught me, but actually casting spells with a wand is still a completely new experience. How about you?"
"Same here. I went over most of the spells during the summer, so getting started wasn't too hard. Though Professor Binns' voice in History of Magic is a bit… hypnotic. Still, the subject itself is quite fascinating."
"You think History of Magic is interesting too?"
Baron looked delighted, as if he'd finally found a kindred spirit. "I just came from that class—you wouldn't believe it. I was the only person awake in the entire classroom! Even the students who had been doing well earlier were nodding off!"
"No need to imagine it," Avada said with a laugh, shaking his head. "Same on my side. I'm starting to suspect Professor Binns has some kind of innate talent for hypnosis. He'd barely spoken a few sentences before snoring filled the room. Which is a pity, since what he teaches is actually quite engaging."
"Exactly," Baron sighed softly."My parents always told me that the glory of bloodlines is preserved in history—that everything we enjoy today comes from the gifts of the past. As pure-blood wizards, remembering history and safeguarding the truth is our responsibility. And not only remembering glory, but also those disgraceful acts that tarnished it, so we may reflect and avoid repeating them. Only then can glory endure through generations."
"Truly admirable…" Avada began, intending to praise him and continue the discussion, when he suddenly frowned and threw out an arm to stop Baron in his tracks.
"What is it?"
"There's a small trap ahead."
In the span of a few seconds, Avada had already deciphered the spell's structure. His frown eased—and he even looked faintly amused.
"Finite Incantatem."
He drew his wand and gave it a light flick. A wave of white light swept down the corridor. One section of the floor suddenly turned into a patch of mud, only to squirm briefly and revert to ordinary stone tiles under the spell's effect.
Avada casually holstered his wand and looked toward a side corner with a teasing grin."Come on out, you two. No need to hide."
At his words, two nearly identical redheads trudged out, heads lowered in defeat.
Baron's pupils shrank as he recalled the Gryffindor "legends" that Slytherin upper-years had solemnly warned him about the night before.
"Merlin's beard, this is a disaster!"
One of the twins groaned, face full of misery. "We spent half a term inventing that Portable Swamp, and a first-year who just learned the Levitation Charm dismantled it!"
"How did you even do it?" the other demanded.
Avada chuckled at the twins scratching their heads in confusion and replied smoothly,"Unlucky for you, I study a rather broad range of things on my own. Defensive identification and trap removal happen to be part of Defense Against the Dark Arts."
He smiled politely. "You must be Gryffindor's resident troublemakers and prank masters—Fred Weasley and George Weasley, right? Hufflepuff, Ken. A pleasure to meet you."
"Oh! So you're that guy—the one whose name must not be spoken!"
The twins shouted in excitement, then turned to Baron. "Then you must be his 'dining Death Eater'!"
"Slytherin. Baron Shafiq," Baron said flatly, rolling his eyes. "An honor to meet the two… Prankmagi."
"Prankmagi?"
The twins froze simultaneously, exchanged a glance, and then their eyes lit up with pure ecstasy.
"How did we not think of that before?!"
"Haha! The ultimate achievement of pranking—on par with an Animagus and a Metamorphmagus—a true Prankmagus!"
"No wonder a Slytherin who can befriend a Hufflepuff has such refined naming skills!"
With that, they dashed off at full speed—whether to flee the scene of the crime or to loudly advertise their new title was anyone's guess.
Baron's temple twitched violently. "That was supposed to be an insult! An insult! I should've called them 'point-deduction Magi'!"
"They'd probably enjoy that even more," Avada said with a grin."Let the title spread first. Then Professor McGonagall—the genuine Animagus—can deal with them. As for us, it's time to go be 'dining Death Eaters.'"
"I finally understand why the upper-years wore those expressions yesterday when they mentioned those two," Baron muttered."Using stealth traps on first-years, openly calling themselves Prankmagi, and even daring to set themselves alongside Professor McGonagall…"
"Is this Gryffindor bravery?"
Even as dinner drew to a close, Baron was still visibly annoyed—biting into his chicken leg with noticeably greater force.
…
After parting ways with Baron, Avada seized a moment when the corridors were mostly empty and quietly slipped up to the eighth floor, stopping in front of the tapestry depicting Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls. He casually swept the wall that concealed the Room of Requirement's entrance with his Magical Perception.
…Nope. Completely incomprehensible.
Fine. First priority: retrieve the Horcrux.
"The Room of Requirement only opens for those who truly need it…"
Avada scoffed inwardly. No one needs the Room of Requirement more than I do. Only I know how valuable what's inside really is.
Repeating silently, I need a place to hide things. I need a place to hide things…, he walked past the wall three times.
At once, the wall's inner magical structure resonated with the mental energy spilling from him, undergoing a fantastically complex and peculiar transformation. With that, a door appeared out of thin air—leading to an immense, hidden space beyond.
Avada pushed it open and stepped into a vast, brightly lit room. And despite its sheer size, the space was still almost completely filled with piles of random objects: flames burning underwater, books that turned their own pages, and what looked like a half-finished, hand-crafted golden Snitch…
Countless complex and unfamiliar magical structures flooded his Magical Perception, giving him a headache—and reminding him of another immense value of the Room of Requirement he had almost forgotten.
Over Hogwarts' thousand-year history, countless students had hidden their proudest creations—or contraband of dubious origin—within this room. The result was a mountain of magical artifacts.
And most of their principles weren't particularly complicated—certainly far simpler than Horcruxes, or the Room of Requirement itself. Which meant that Avada now possessed limitless materials for research and experimentation. Combined with Magical Perception, his rate of progress would reach heights no ordinary wizard could even imagine.
"Jackpot… absolute jackpot…"
He wiped at the corner of his mouth without realizing it, luxuriating in the sensation of perceiving the magical structures he could barely comprehend, sparks of inspiration detonating endlessly in his mind.
At this moment, his only regret was his perfectly average memory—utterly incapable of preserving all those intricate structures and fleeting insights at once.
(End of Chapter)
[1] the cabinet was in another part of the castle, when montague was trapped in it, it was moved to the room