The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 48

Harry hated to admit it, but Snape might just have a point. "Yeah," he whispered in reply while his body sagged in exhaustion now that the adrenaline was leaving his system. "I might have made a tiny miscalculation this morning."

Snape actually snorted at hearing Harry's phrasing. "A tiny miscalculation indeed. Stay away from him, Potter, at all cost. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Harry said, because there was nothing else to say to that.

"And I still expect you in my classroom after lunch." With that, Snape swept around on his heels and disappeared into the Great Hall. Harry followed soon after.

"Did you just have a pissing match with Dumbledore?" Blaise asked the moment Harry sat down between him and Theo. "We could see bits and pieces from here."

Fucking hell. Harry sighed, long and deep. Apparently more students than he realized had witnessed that bit of drama. But that might actually work in Harry's favour once he reported the incident to the Board of Governors. It meant there would be plenty of witnesses spreading versions of the incident amongst the student population.

"I'll give you the details later," Harry said quickly as he rummaged around in his bookbag. "I have a letter to write and after lunch I have to go to potions to make up for the class I missed."

"Tough luck," Theo said, though he did give Harry a very calculating look, probably wondering if Harry had managed to keep the fact that he'd stolen the actual Philosopher's Stone from the Flamels or not.

Harry wrote a simple letter in between eating a pork pie and some pickles. He was rather hungry, since breakfast had been interrupted. After he finished his food he folded the letter and hurried towards the owlery. He'd described the incident that had occurred earlier and then worded it as though he was filing a complaint because the Headmaster had truly scared him. He found Hedwig sleeping in the owlery and after giving her a few head scritches he offered her the letter and asked her to take it to Augusta Longbottom. She was on the Board and she was an honest woman who would make sure Harry's letter wouldn't be shoved under the carpet.

The next couple hours Harry spent in Snape's classroom, catching up with brewing, but he honestly didn't mind. It was a simple hair-lengthening potion and brewing it took very little brainpower at all for Harry, so it was a great opportunity to for him to process the many events of that day.

Harry had met the actual Flamels, who let him keep their stone. Harry had seriously pissed off Dumbledore and learned a valuable lesson not to do it again. And Harry now had a future career in mind for himself, one which would keep him plenty challenged.

And that is what Harry settled on thinking about most while he brewed. What magical experiments did Harry want to conduct first?

There were so many options but Harry's mind fixated on one thing almost at once, and that was the Room of Requirement. How did that even work? How did an object know what your desires were and acted accordingly? When you really thought about it, it seemed almost impossible. Changing the colour of something, or even producing water out of thin all seemed like things that could be explained by current day magical theory.

But an object that could in essence read your mind? Nah, Harry hadn't a clue where to even start.

And how would one experiment with that anyway? What would such an experiment even look like. The more Harry thought about that, the more of a practical idea he got. A small wooden box, because wood was easy to work with when it came to runes and charms and Harry believed he'd need at least both. When you opened the box, the inside would turn whatever colour you were thinking about. When you closed the box it would automatically reset.