TIME AND SHADOWS
CHAPTER 24: TIME AND SHADOWS
Time passed quickly, and I found myself growing more confident with each passing day. But I had been holding back on starting my bigger goals this year. I needed time to familiarize myself with Hogwarts—its hidden passages, the social dynamics, and, most importantly, how to perfect my concealment abilities. Combining a disillusionment charm, Muffliato, and a scent-erasing charm, I developed a method to go unnoticed in any situation. It was a necessary skill for what I had planned.
And now, I was ready for the next step: retrieving the Marauder’s Map from Filch’s office. The map was a legendary artifact, created by four of Hogwarts’ most infamous pranksters, and it was essential to my plans. Knowing how to navigate the castle with precision would give me a significant advantage. Filch kept it locked away, oblivious to its full potential, but I knew exactly where it was hidden.
With the Marauder’s Map now safely in my possession, I felt a sense of accomplishment wash over me. This was just the beginning, but the map would give me an advantage beyond simple concealment. It was a way to track every moving entity within the walls of Hogwarts—students, staff, and even ghosts. There was no better tool for fulfilling my goals, whatever they might evolve into as the year progressed.
I knew Dumbledore was always watching, always observing. He was the kind of wizard who’d probably have some convoluted method of discovering what students were up to. But with the map, I had one leg up—he wouldn’t know where I was at all times, and more importantly, he wouldn’t know what I was up to. As far as I was concerned, that rendered him a non-factor, for now at least.
The next step was crucial. The Marauder’s Map was one piece of the puzzle, but I needed more tools, more resources. I needed the Room of Requirement.
Saturday rolled around, and with it came the perfect opportunity. No classes meant no chance of running into unwanted attention, so after concealing myself, I made my way toward the seventh floor. I knew where to look—the left corridor, the funny tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy trying to teach trolls ballet. Honestly, the tapestry itself raised a lot of questions about wizardkind's common sense. Teaching ballet to trolls? Really? A dance as precise as ballet and creatures as dumb and aggressive as trolls—what a brilliant combination.
Shaking my head at the absurdity of it all, I continued to the tapestry and waited. After ensuring no one was near or passing by, I began the ritual. Walking past the blank wall, I focused intently on my desire: I want to find something. Simple and vague, but that was the point. The Room of Hidden Things, filled with lost and discarded objects, was exactly what I needed. The room where Tom Riddle once hid Ravenclaw's Diadem, where Draco Malfoy plotted his plans, and where Harry held Dumbledore's Army. It was the ultimate treasure trove.
On my third pass, the door appeared. I couldn't help but feel a rush of excitement as I stepped inside.
And there it was. The Room of Hidden Things—a chaotic, cluttered masterpiece. The mother of all disordered messes. Furniture piled so high it nearly touched the ceiling, books in various states of decay scattered across the floor, and random broken objects littered the room. Skeleton models, dusty portraits, and forgotten artifacts filled every nook and cranny. It was overwhelming, but exactly what I had expected.
This was where people came to hide their secrets.
The Room of Hidden Things was proving to be every bit as elusive and mysterious as I had imagined. After days of sifting through the piles of forgotten artifacts, broken trinkets, and enchanted odds and ends, my search for a time-turner had turned into something far more tedious than I anticipated. But I was determined—there was too much potential in possessing one, too many opportunities for knowledge, practice, and maybe even a bit of controlled experimentation.
By Thursday, after nearly a week of searching, my persistence finally paid off. I uncovered a fully intact time-turner, beautifully designed like a pocket watch, with a gleaming silver finish and an intricate hourglass in the middle. The runes engraved on its interior shimmered faintly, humming with contained power, warding and binding the temporal magic within. It was simple, elegant, and much more advanced than I had expected. This was it.
I studied it carefully, feeling the enchantments flow through my fingers. Every inch of it felt like it was crafted with precision and care. As much as I wanted to test it right away, I knew that tampering with time was no casual affair. I would need to plan carefully before using it—there were too many risks, and despite my confidence in handling dangerous objects, I wasn’t about to mess with the fabric of reality without a solid strategy. Still, having it in my possession opened doors. I smiled, feeling satisfied with my find.
With a few days left before my self-imposed deadline, I shifted my focus. The room was filled with more than just forgotten magical objects; there were also books—tons of them. Many were in states of decay, but some appeared well-preserved. They might hold forgotten knowledge, and considering how restrictive the Ministry had become about certain topics, I hoped to find a few volumes that had been banned or discontinued.
After a few hours of rummaging, I had pulled aside about two dozen books that piqued my interest. Some were forbidden texts, books on topics like blood magic, advanced alchemy, and even ancient forms of magical theory long discarded by the modern wizarding world. I wasn’t interested in walking the path of the dark arts—no, I had seen enough of that destruction in my old life and knew better. But understanding them? Studying their methods, breaking down their foundations? That was a different matter entirely.
Knowledge, even dark knowledge, was power. And if I was going to thrive in this world, I needed to arm myself with as much of it as possible. Not to use it for evil, but to understand how to dismantle it, how to defend against it. The best way to defeat the darkness was to know its every move.
I spent the rest of my time sorting through the books, checking for intact pages, making mental notes of spells and theories that could prove useful later on. Some of these books would take years to decipher, and many would require study outside the constraints of my schoolwork. But I had time—literally. With the time-turner, I could create that time.
The time-turner, as tempting as it was to abuse, had to be handled with care. That’s why I set firm rules for myself: five hours a day, no more. Never interact with myself. And, most importantly, don't change anything. It was solely for extra time in the Room of Requirement, helping me balance schoolwork and my private pursuits without risking any temporal catastrophe. After all, playing with time was a delicate business.
Once I'd figured out how to use it properly, the room became my sanctuary. I spent every free moment testing its limits and pushing myself to get the most out of it. It didn’t provide food or pre-made potions, but it could conjure ingredients, which was almost as good. That, and the sheer amount of knowledge it could offer in the form of books, was mind-blowing. If I could name a book, it appeared, no matter where it was in Hogwarts—though it had to be something I knew existed. To get around that, I found an enchanted quill to copy down the rarer books for later study, effectively building my own hidden library.
The room could also morph into the perfect training ground for spellwork. There were dummies and targets that repaired themselves, obstacle courses, and endless configurations that let me practice a variety of scenarios. I took full advantage of it, pushing my magic and improving my spells every day. I wasn’t just content with casting spells the way I’d learned them in class—I refined them, bending them to my will, improving their power and casting speed. Some, like Stupefy, Diffindo, Expulso, and Confringo, became more than basic charms. I turned them into weapons, capable of greater precision and damage. I even found a way to use Arithmancy to add a minor tracking charm to confuse my opponents—though I wasn’t sure how effective that would be in a duel yet.
But two spells caught my attention more than the others: Aqua Eructo and the Scorching Charm. Both had incredible potential for combat.
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Aqua Eructo was essentially an advanced water spell, summoning high-pressure jets of water. At first, it seemed like a defensive tool, but with training, I realized its offensive potential—high-pressure water could cut through barriers or flood a path to throw off an opponent. However, controlling the water was still a challenge. I needed more time to refine its direction and pressure, but I knew it could be a versatile weapon.
The Scorching Charm, on the other hand, was pure firepower—literally. I learned that it was the same spell McGonagall had used to drive Snape out of the castle during the Battle of Hogwarts. The flames produced by the spell were intense, and their heat could penetrate even through shields. I was still working on controlling the heat and increasing the number of flames I could summon, but its uses in battle were clear. It was a powerful attack that could buy time, distract, and keep opponents on edge. The only drawback was the amount of energy it required. After a few casts, I found myself drained, and casting it multiple times in quick succession was still beyond me. But I would get there.
As for Legilimency, I had a peculiar issue with it—I was so attuned to others' thoughts that without my glasses, I risked accidentally delving into someone's mind just by making eye contact. That was dangerous for both of us. So I devised a method to train my control, starting with small animals. Their simpler minds were less fragile, and it allowed me to practice restraint. Gradually, I’d work my way up to humans, hoping that by the time I did, I’d have full mastery over when and how I accessed someone’s thoughts.
My training was advancing more quickly than I had expected. Each day brought new breakthroughs, new refinements in my magic, and my control over both spells and strategy deepened. But despite my progress, I understood that I was still at the beginning of a much larger journey. In this world, power and knowledge weren’t optional—they were survival. And I was determined to survive, no matter what.
My final major project in the Room of Requirement was my knife. While already a deadly tool, I wanted to turn it into something far more dangerous—something that could give me an edge in almost any encounter. My goal was simple: make it capable of controlled flight. It wasn't about imbuing it with sentience—that was a whole different challenge I wasn’t interested in yet. No, my plan was to enchant the knife so it would respond solely to my commands, moving through the air as if it were an extension of my own will.
The best place to start? Broomsticks.
Broomsticks were the wizarding world’s most famous flying devices, with centuries of enchantment knowledge behind them. To understand how I might replicate that in a weapon, I raided the Room of Hidden Things, pulling together a collection of older but functioning brooms. Once I had enough of them, I began to systematically dismantle them. The more I took apart, the more I understood the intricacies of flight charms, particularly the balance between speed, agility, and magical control. I started to envision ways to apply these enchantments to my knife, while also working to ensure no one else could tamper with it.
However, I hit a roadblock: control. Making the knife fly would be one thing, but directing it with the same precision I could manage with a wand or broom was more complicated. I wanted to study newer, more advanced broom designs for insight into how to improve my enchantment. But for now, I'd gathered enough information to make significant progress. It was only a matter of time before I perfected it.
The next few months at Hogwarts were some of the most productive I’d ever had. Between the time-turner, my enchanted quills (which copied down entire tomes of knowledge), and the limitless opportunities the Room of Requirement provided, I was turning my extra hours into pure productivity. I had always been able to memorize and categorize what I read quickly, but with all these tools at my disposal, I was reaching levels of study and mastery beyond anything I could have imagined.
The Room had truly become my sanctuary, a place where I could push myself to my limits and beyond.