63I'm sorry - but I uploaded the wrong file. It should have been this.
My apologies, and thanks for telling me.
The Treasure Hunter.
After blowing up at McGonagall, Harry had decided it was a better idea if he waited for a few days so then he could continue his exploration of Hogwarts. He had noticed Dumbledore's scrutiny during lunch and dinner, but he supposed he should have expected it, really; he had lashed out at McGonagall, revealed what the Dursleys had done so soon after they'd casually dropped him off like a bottle of milk, but the old wizard hadn't called him out, invited him to speak in his office although Harry truly wasn't interested in what Dumbledore had to say.
In the meantime, it wasn't like he'd been able to, really.
Hogwarts had changed over the last week, with him in the centre of it.
The students were quickly seeing the lies and the rumours about him which had been told about him over and over again by their peers, their parents, or by those stupid adventure books he had never found the time to put straight were nothing but a pack of lies, although those rumours where he had said the Dursleys were…not very nice, to put it mildly, was true.
More than once, Harry had seen the regretful looks on many of the students' faces; idly he'd recognised them as the same students who had believed he was the one controlling the basilisk.
When the basilisk had been let loose when Ginny had been possessed by the Horcrux, Harry had been overwhelmed by the incredible amounts of hate and disdain thrown into his face by the rest of the castle. The fear of parseltongue had grown into a poison over the centuries, and Voldemort's twisting of that language hadn't helped matters, so when the so-called saviour of the magical world had been heard speaking it, they instantly believed he was a Dark Lord in training. It had never occurred to them that he hadn't even known about what parseltongue meant to the magical world in the 20th century, but it hadn't mattered. What he hadn't expected was how the students turned against him so quickly and easily despite how he had made it clear just because he could speak parseltongue did not mean he was responsible. Unfortunately, nobody had ever claimed the students of Hogwarts had brains in their skulls.
To make things worse, they had gotten the idea into their minds he despised muggles simply because of his upbringing in the muggle world. He had told several of the Gryffindors he had not had it easy, so he didn't know how they had twisted his words to make them sound like he was a blood bigot. Harry hadn't bothered to do much, although he had quietly made Ernie MacMillan and his family regret it when he had told the elder MacMillans their son had insulted the patron saint of Ireland, he had kept it between themselves so then there wasn't an international incident.
Ernie's face shortly after his family had gotten in touch with their son…. Oh, that was a memory he would cherish for a long time, and it was one of the many memories he used to fuel the Patronus. But now the students who'd accused him of being a Junior Death Eater were looking at him in shame, but he couldn't be bothered by that, since it was too little too late. In any case, Harry was trying to wonder how he should deal with this new dynamic. The Daily Prophet had come out with the story of what had happened to him, and while Harry wished he had controlled that little aspect of the new school dynamic, he had decided to let the reporters have their fun while he read what they wrote, and if they crossed a line, then he could sue them for every penny they had.
Much of what they'd reported was secondhand and it was likely they had gotten their facts from the Hogwarts students who'd been in the hall, and it was impossible for Dumbledore to control the flow of information going out of the castle, and they'd even spun their own - well, spin- on the events in question to spice things up, but many of their facts were sound enough which meant he didn't really need to intervene and besides the worst possible light shining down on Dumbledore, his lackeys, and the Dursleys, the better he felt. In any case, with the amount of controversy now, it would mean Dumbledore's hands were tied up, and the students and the teachers had just received a punch to the face - win, win, win.
If the students had been punched with reality, it was nothing compared to the teachers.
Harry had never really bothered to spend much time with the teachers; as far as he was concerned, they were just people to learn from while he sought out his own answers, but now he had to cope with their looks of pity and sorrow. Harry ignored them, although he delighted in seeing their shame, especially with the way he had been treated over the years, and how they'd just bowed their heads, and let Dumbledore trample over his rights. At the same time, Harry took a lot of joy in seeing Snape looking uncomfortable. Harry had good memories of keeping the arrogant Potions Master in his place; in First Year, Harry had whispered a string of chosen words at the man, forcing the arrogant Death Eater to back off for a time, but it had been enough to make Snape realise the Boy Who Lived whom he had spent ten years waiting for so he could get a rematch against a James Potter lookalike since the real thing was long since dead was not going to take shit from anyone.
Thanks to his mother and his inheritance from her, Harry had a ton of dirt on Snape, and he had every intention of using the most dirtiest of the information he had available to make the bastard back off. Dumbledore, he knew, would have preferred him to submit, but Harry hadn't planned on backing off. Harry had no intention of being seen as a weakling, frightened of his own shadow.
But unfortunately, the blowup and the last week where he had been worried the Headmaster would summon him to his office for a talk had made sure Harry couldn't explore the castle as he had previously, much like he had last year when Sirius had escaped, and Dumbledore and the rest of the staff had him under such tight scrutiny while they'd treated him like a child, further insulting him and his intelligence. But this was different; this time he had gotten too big, he had been pushed into a corner and he had lashed out. At first, he had been angry with himself, and then he had seen the benefits of sitting back and making plans in the background.
But now he was venturing out into the castle again. Armed with his wand - and his knowledge of notice-me-not and disillusionment charms -, to say nothing of the ring allowing him to form portals from one part of the school to the other, and the Marauder's Map which was tied into the wards, and with the potion pumping through his system which was keeping him wide awake and would prevent him from feeling shattered the next day, since it was a Friday, which he'd deliberately planned so then nobody would suspect any foul play, Harry was exploring the areas of the castle he was sure only Filch and Dumbledore knew.
Hogwarts was a very large school, and Harry was beginning to suspect the Founders had deliberately bought/built a castle which was the same cubic size of a small town, all the better to teach students many varieties of magical topics. But over the centuries, many of those subjects had been removed from the school curriculum for one reason or another - Harry knew Dumbledore was removing subjects for a variety of reasons; because he wanted to keep the school standards down to a certain level, because he didn't want the Purebloods to feel lesser compared to muggleborns, and he didn't want muggleborns to become more powerful.
Lily had been furious when she had discovered the extent of Dumbledore's manipulations when she began her own training as an enchantress, and she had formed dozens of theories why enchanting, already a dying craft, was further pushed to the brink.
Harry, in the meantime, was more interested in what the deserted parts of the castle could offer him. He cursed as he had to step around a rather narrow gap between a stack of incredibly ancient desks and a mountain of what looked like old-fashioned exercise books which were so dogeared it amazed the young wizard they were even remotely intact. Gingerly she stepped around the gap, careful not to make too much noise; sometimes he wondered if the hidden passageways had some rudimentary access to the portals, which allowed Filch to travel through the castle unseen, and he knew if Filch or his mangy cat were anywhere near him, Dumbledore could be informed.
Students very rarely came to these more distant parts of the castle, but as he gave it more thought Harry was close to dismissing it as paranoia since Dumbledore didn't really dissuade the Weasley twins of their own activities.
After taking what seemed like a lifetime to move past the piles of junk - Harry quickly checked most of it, wondering what he could take as part of his own private collection, and what he could sell off for a tidy sum, marking what he liked and what he thought others might like, especially old books and what looked like ancient scrolls - Harry found himself in a classroom, which seemed like the wrong description for the room, really, and he was left gaping at the sheer majesty of the room he was standing inside.
Room was the wrong description as well, it seemed.
Using his wand, Harry saw the room or chamber was composed of paving stone sized tiles in a purple colour which seemed to be in excellent condition despite them being coated in thick cobwebs. As he looked around the room, Harry quickly realised he was in a dome rather than a room, a dome lined with what looked like desks on higher levels.
"Wow," Harry whispered, wondering what this classroom was used for in the past, and so with that in mind he ventured deeper into the room, casting his wand around to find more clues but he couldn't find anything else, so he went to the teachers' desk for clues. He opened the drawers, but they were cleared out, aside from what looked like a few old quills which looked brittle they'd probably turn to dust if he picked them up. However, all of that changed when he found a book dumped in the bottom drawer. Levitating it out gingerly, he placed it on the desk carefully before one wave of the wand, and the book was opened.
Harry studied the writing, and he realised that the text was so old it was medieval. Using a translation charm, he read as quickly as he could, and he found the book was of a magical subject he'd heard of, but he had never considered studying. Alchemy. Harry wasn't a gifted potions brewer even with his mother's knowledge and gift in the subject; he knew enough to get by, but that was all, and he had managed to get one over on Snape and the idiot Death Eater's many childish attempts to shove his work to the ground, where the phials would smash; he'd learnt his lesson the first time, and he had gone in preparation for the second lesson, and he had whispered what he knew to Snape to make him see getting on his nerves was a truly big mistake.
No.
While he would have seen many benefits and possibilities of alchemy, especially the gold-out-of-lead part, Harry knew he didn't have the raw talent to make it work for the long term if he chose to use it at all. But this book was so impossibly old, it was amazing.
"I think you're gonna fetch a very high and fine price, my friend," Harry whispered to the book while he placed a mark on it so when he came to this part of the castle later to clear it all out he wouldn't be able to miss it, mentally going over his list of antiquarian magical book collectors he knew who'd probably give out a nice small fortune for this book.
Putting it back where he found it, Harry went around the rest of the classroom to see if there was anything more, but he found nothing. Disappointed but not too concerned, Harry left that part of the castle. He went to the seventh floor of the castle, to the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy where the hapless wizard was trying, unsuccessfully, to teach trolls how to ballet dance. When he arrived, freezing the portraits around the corridor as he approached the painting in particular, Harry studied the portrait and watched in bemusement as the trolls repeatedly pummelled the hapless idiot, and as he watched the scene repeatedly play out, Harry wondered what had possessed the wizard to even attempt this mad scheme in the first place while at the same time he wondered how much of Barnabas the Barmy's essence was trapped in the painting. He wondered if the repetitive beatings from the clubs in the trolls' hands had knocked sense into the old wizard's head, but Harry didn't care and he had to remind himself about why he was here.
A year ago, he had learnt of the Room of Requirement but because of the massive manhunt for Sirius and the way he himself had been placed under scrutiny, Harry hadn't been able to find the Room. He had found out about it from the House-elves; truly, if there was ever anyone in the castle who was more than willing to tell you anything about the castle itself, and keep it to themselves, it was the House-elves. Harry had learnt over the years you could say anything to them while telling them to keep it a secret, although he knew if Dumbledore forced the issue if he should discover what was going on, the House-elves would be forced to tell Dumbledore everything and so Harry rarely asked the House-elves for anything.
The last thing Harry wanted was for Dumbledore or one of his loyal acolytes to discover what he was doing, but he was grateful towards the House-elves for giving him the location of the Room of Requirement and the rest of the information he had now at his disposal, like how you could hide things inside and how to gain entrance.
Harry mentally kept his desire locked in his mind as he paced up and down the corridor, and within minutes the door to the Room of Requirement was open and he stepped inside. When he was standing on the threshold into the Room, Harry's eyes widened in surprise and wonder.
The Room of Requirement was massive. It was easily the size of a large ballroom, although it was so jam-packed with stuff which was covered with layer upon layer with dust it was a miracle in itself that Harry was even able to tell that, he speculated the Room itself trying to compensate for its enormous collection of junk by making it clear there was still a lot of space there. Lighting the tip of his wand, Harry slowly walked into the Room to see what was there.
Actually, what wasn't there should have been accurate. The room was packed with piles of books covered with layers of dust while other books were placed on massive shelves, cauldrons made from various metals from ordinary pewter to copper, and even gold. There was furniture there, too; some of it was broken, like the castle itself had decided to make use of the Room to dump anything and everything that the occupants no longer needed from the classrooms. There were corked bottles, and as Harry lifted his wand to shine the light from the tip over them, he backed away when they shimmered evilly. He shook his head when he saw a massive collection of fanged frisbees, many of them looked like they had come from medieval times or something along those lines. Lining one wall of the Room of Requirement was a collection of swords of various designs, many of them were beginning to rust, and what looked like a number of old suits of armour.
As he walked around the Room, Harry came across a large cage, containing a skeleton occupied by a 5-legged skeleton. Harry eyed it for a moment, wondering what it had been before it had found itself in here, and he wondered for a second if the unfortunate occupant had died of thirst or starvation when it had been placed here, or if it had died already. But he pushed that aside and he focused on the rest of the Room. He was delighted and curious by the collection of jewels he found in an old trunk, but as he travelled through the Room of Requirement, something he had almost all but forgotten about throbbed on his finger.
Harry stiffened when he remembered what it was, and he looked down at the ring on his left hand. His Horcrux detector ring. It was throbbing and the small jewel set into it was gently glowing green. There was a Horcrux in this part of the Room, and it was only glowing and throbbing due to the close proximity to the soul piece. Harry ripped the ring off of his finger, and he gently moved around the part of the Room he was in. He spent the next half an hour carefully holding the ring over everything he could see nearby.
For twenty-five minutes, he found nothing, but he pushed his impatience and annoyance aside with the aid of his occlumency.
Occasionally, he would slip out some chocolate buttons from his pocket and pop them in his mouth where he'd suck them until he got liquid chocolate in his mouth. As the minutes passed, his supply of chocolate dwindled, but that wasn't a problem since his contacts would allow him to get some more packets and he'd be able to keep them away from the trash can he was forced to room with.
And then he found it.
Harry let out a breath when he held the ring over an elaborate and beautiful looking tiara, and as he pushed the ring closer to the ring. The jewel glowed brighter, and the ring started to throb harder. Harry took out his wand and he waved the tip over the tiara, chanting in Latin. A moment later the tiara glowed.
Harry lowered his wand, a grin spreading across his face, his eyes ablaze with delight and excitement at what he had just discovered. "At last! At last!" He cried, and he almost jumped a little jig before he gathered himself. He had one. He actually had one. And that meant he could conduct the ritual, and with luck Lord Voldemort and the rest of his bastard followers would be joining him in hell.
Soon, it would be over.
