Ouroboros || harry potter

Chapter Twenty-Three

(Harry)

The emerald and silver brocade curtains hung heavy about his bed. A thin strip of very faint light filtered in from the dorm window. Blankets and sheets rested heavily across him.

His eyelids hung heavy too.

But he could not sleep.

He felt like he was hearing something, feeling something. Whatever it was, it was coming from his scar.—He had to be imagining it. There was no way he was feeling anything from the parasitical sludge stuck in his runic scar beyond the occasional headache. Just...Nope. Not possible. (It should have been obvious before the whole horrifying realization if it was really happening and he hadn't noticed anything before. So he wasn't denying facts. It just wasn't possible.)

A throb of pain across his brow seemed to answer his thoughts. Salazar sat up with a scowl and flung the blankets to the end of the bed as he rolled to a crouch. The boy reached through curtains for his glasses and wand.

He needed to do something productive instead of letting his exhaustion fuel unneeded fears.

The parselmouth turned to his headboard where he had recently had Mipsy hang a large mirror and reached into the silvery, reflective glass. An enchantment weaved with a few stabilizing runes fluttered barely visible around his arms where they stuck out of the mirror. He grabbed the back of the mirror's frame to steady himself as he stood upon his bed and stepped up and through the mirror. He stepped out of the mirror's twin and into the still empty bedroom of his hidden suite.

Precarious situations brought innovation—Finding himself in the owlery with an unconscious Godric when he had needed to move him somewhere more private without anyone noticing had led to the creation of many of these twinned mirror doorways. He sort of wished they had used such magic instead of the dimensional pathways Rowena had set up but mirrors had not been in abundant supply in his last life.

Salazar stumbled slightly before he lit his wand with a Lumos. Then he crossed through his newly restructured suite, through the various empty rooms until he reached another floor-to-ceiling mirror. Without pause, Salazar stepped through.

This twinned mirror brought him to the first floor of the library. Eventually, the empty room on the other side would be his study room for everyone in his year. (He should probably build ones for the other years also but there were perks to being his direct peer and to the fact that he was entirely done with all the reserving of study spaces that weren't large enough for everyone.)

The warm wooden shelves stuffed with so much magical knowledge gleamed under the light of his Lumos and the softer beams of predawn shining through the windows. A stillness of silence hung in the area alongside the weight of all the magic Hogwarts had gained over the years. It would be hours before Madam Pince or any of her student assistants entered, let alone any regular students.

He walked quietly through the shelves to the front where the reception desk stood before the restricted section. There were many things he should deal with but the only one that mattered now was learning what his scar held. Soul magic was the likely answer. The only easily assessable answers were within the restricted section if there were any at all.

Salazar stopped before the "door" of the fence separating the dangerous books from the rest of the library. It was little more than a velvet rope strung from wooden beam to wooden beam to cordon off the area. The area considered the "door" was the same rope but had a clip on one end. A brush of a hand over a beam and rope door brought a spark against his fingers and a feel of being looked at before the magic faded from his senses. It wasn't there long enough for him to tell if he had triggered any alerts to an adult or not but it left a sense of acceptance behind.