Classes weren't harder than the first year for Mikhael. Planting a mandrake in another pot was just fine. He couldn't understand why such a class was important. He knew that for potion and ritual, knowing the ingredient and how to get and treat them was essential. It was just that, he didn't envisage to grow his ingredients in a garden, it was too much time-consuming. Only a few students here would pursuit such activity for a job.
When the orphan trained in the evening, he was greeted by the blond Ravenclaw first year. She spent her time around the castle and sometimes by the lake, meeting him. Luna wasn't ignoring him. They discussed a bit about her day and classes. He found it relaxing. Her strange creatures had so many features. She sometimes watched him training his different magic, commentating on how pretty some sparkles became. Strange way to describe obstacles he incinerated in seconds. As the orphan spent most of his time alone, he surprised himself to seek her presence in the evening.
Months passed and his routine was disturbed around Halloween morning. The girl wanted to spend the day with him as a friend. Mikhael wasn't sure if he should accept. They knew each other, but calling her a friend, he wasn't sure. Halloween and other celebrations were normal days for him. Training in the morning and night while studying between classes. How much would he miss if he went to the feast, his training would slow for a day. Unless he used this day for resting, Mikhael couldn't find a good reason.
Luna didn't hesitate and brought him while he was wondering about the pro and cons. They enjoyed the day wandering around the forbidden forest limit. They petted some thestrals that were resting hidden by the trees' shadows. Those creatures weren't invisible to the girl. She gave them names according to their physical. Bob for the biggest and Betty for the pregnant one, the creature neighed, approving. The Ravenclaw was full of energy, she looked happy. Mikhael refused to use his Legilimency on her or people he respected, she called him her friend.
For the Halloween dinner, Mikhael was greeted by a worm costume. Luna had crafted it with multiple tissues which gave it an original color and form pattern. They sat at her house table to enjoy pudding, the boy took some sausage instead. Some of her classmates gave her a strange look. They were fearful of him. Mikhael heard one of the Ravenclaw calling Luna a loony. She hid her hurt feeling by a forced smile saying it didn't bother her.
Not understanding his action, Mikhael confronted the student. He used Dumbledore trick and forced the Ravenclaw to kneel. The ritual adept went farther, making it harder for the student to breath. What Mikhael did wasn't rational. It wasn't his normal behavior. Some older students tried to interfere, they too fell on their knees. Some Ravenclaw girls ran away. He let them go. He waited. The student who had breathing difficulty begged for forgiveness.
Mikhael released them when they gave their apologies. No teachers saw the scene, the orphan had prepared his action the moment he acted. His shroud of darkness had enveloped the whole Great Hall the full time, leaving him and his victim in a clear center free of darkness. Luna wasn't fearing his behavior. She just hugged him, silently. Her hands were warm, it was different from Abigael yet the effect it brought was the same.
Not feeling like staying anymore, Mikhael and Luna exited the Halloween celebration. They went to explore the castle. The duo was blocked on the second-floor corridor that led to the girl bathroom. There, was the golden trio with Potter touching a suspended animal on the wall with a blood painted message. 'The Chamber of Secrets has been opened', the hanging animal was familiar. That was Filch's cat. Mrs. Norris. The cat hanged stiffly by her tail from a torch bracket, eyes open and blank.
The stairwell was alive with voices. Other groups stopped like Mikhael's. Seconds later, dozens of students who were streaming forth stopped, dead silent. Seeing the wall and Harry, Ron and Hermione standing before it, Draco pushed forward, eyed the wall, and grinned nastily.
" Enemies of the heir, beware ! You'll be next, Mudbloods ! ", Draco's eyes found Hermione, just as Filch appeared.
" What's going on here ? Go on now ! Make way... Mrs. Norris ! You ! You've murdered my cat ! I'll kill you ! I'll... ", the caretaker stopped dead at his pet sight.
The caretaker rounded on Harry, almost chocking the student. Only the headmaster's voice forced the man to calm his action. Dumbledore marched forward, trailed by a phalanx of teachers. Seeing the wall, Dumbledore's face darkened. He ordered students to return to their dormitory while he would question Potter and co.
Inside professor McGonagall's classroom, rested on the desk in front of each student, different animals. Mikhael observed the rodent weak constitution. The teacher exercise was turning those animals into water goblet. Her demonstration transfigured one into a crystal drink. Mikhael focused his intent first. The rat was no more. It lost its existence. Instead, the thing was made of gold and silver. His magic followed its will, changing the animal into an inanimate, metallic goblet.
This kind of class was fascinating for the orphan. Alone, he wouldn't have thought of this possibility, again he thought that magic held an infinite choice of application. Mikhael focused on his magic to undo the transfiguration. Doing the same exercise again, he chose this time to make it of pure stone. The top structure was too heavy for the goblet to stay in place. It crumbled. The young wizard focused his magic to put back all pieces in their place before changing the stone into a crystal.
The General Counter-Spell, 'Finite Incantatem' magic's flow behaved in such manner that foreign magic inside the target was forced to leave. If the curse or any spell, needed a specific counter curse, that meant the magic trace left by the curse or spell was recognize as part of from the target original magic. The crystal object returned to its animal form after using the General Counter-Spell.
Strange, thought Mikhael. The animal had no wound or injuries from its stone state. If he could repair the 'animal' in its inorganic form, wasn't it a new healing process. The orphan magic cut a deep slash on the rodent torso. Before it bled, he turned it into a wood cup. The wood construction had no mark of its previous injury. Reverting back to the living form, the rat was dying.
Healing the wound, Mikhael tested another of his hypothesis. The animal in another un-living form was split in two. Would it reverted back to a single entity or would the rat died when the magic effect ended. The blood on his desk responded to his hypothesis. A living being couldn't be healed by a transfiguration, he could turn the injury into something else but it didn't disappear. It would just be hidden in the original aspect. The second discovery, which was also important was that a transfiguration which received damage, transferred this wound to the natural form.
Not wishing to be reprimanded for his dead animal, Mikhael switched his rodent with another one from Griffindor. Dean Thomas screamed when 'his' animal blood stained his desk. It was worse than Ron's experience with his broken wand. The professor reprimanded the black boy and took ten points for dangerous transfiguration without supervision. She was sure that the Griffindor was lying when he explained that he did nothing to the animal as he barely could transfigure it in a crooked goblet.
McGonagall saw Hermione's raised hand. Her untouched animal. The professor gave her favorite student the parole, " I was wondering if you could tell us about the Chamber of Secrets ? ", a hush fell over the class. McGonagall retorted that her class wasn't Hogwarts' history. " Yes, Professor. But there seems to be very little written about the Chamber of Secrets. For those of us with a personal interest in the subject, that is...disturbing ", Hermione noticed the chilly amusement of Malfoy.
Considering the question for a long moment, the professor sat on her desk before examining each student. They all focused on her. She couldn't continue the class in this condition. " You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age : Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Three of the founders co-existed quite harmoniously. One did not. Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. In other words, purebloods. Unable to sway the others, he decided to leave the school. According to legend, Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in this castle, known as the Chamber of Secrets. Shortly before departing, he sealed it until that time when his own true heir returned to the school. The heir alone would be able to open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash the horror within, and by so doing, purge the school of all those who, in Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic, Muggle-borns. ", McGonagall explained.
The school had searched many time for such a chamber. It had never been found.
The day before Quidditch match a strange deal was made. Draco had found Mikhael around the black lake while the latter had his fire spheres rotating, some of them were into a transfiguration state as ravens. Those birds had mechanical moves, but they still flew by themselves and obey his orders. The Malfoy heir wasn't the most secure when a dozen of un-natural birds watched his every movement.
The orphan was interested and agree with the blond wizard who ran away as soon as possible. His bodyguards sprinted faster, a raven had exploded to return to its natural state of fire sphere. Mikhael played a bit with the hundred Galleons on his hand. Easy money, was good money. He had a plan which would work if the blond Slytherin had no big bad luck during his first experience as a Quidditch's seeker.
Malfoy played the Quidditch match as the new seeker. Mikhael was bored. What kind of sport mostly rely on one player position for the victory. The other jobs, chasers, beaters and keeper only existed for the spectator waiting while the seeker searched the Golden Snitch. Scoring high enough to counter the Golden Snitch points value was hard for any team. If there was a time limit instead of waiting for the seeker to do their job, Mikhael could enjoy the view. The game concept was just, discouraging for him.
Potter and Malfoy circled high above the pitch. They were still searching for the Golden Snitch. The blond seeker streaked by overhead, behind him a bludger dropped into a frame. The frenzy ball streaked toward Potter. As soon as the wizard world savior avoided the bludger, it came back in charge. A rogue behavior, Mikhael wondered who did that. It wasn't him but it could have been Malfoy or another Slytherin.
The orphan cursed. The Golden Snitch was just a few centimeters from Malfoy's head. Both Seeker flew after it while the bludger continued its violent chase. Madam Hooch didn't intervene to remove the clearly defect ball. She was either unable to do it or too coward. Stopping the match to remove the bludger was a simple action, she just had to blow her whistle.
Mikhael magic covered the whole pitch in a net form. He had not enough magic for fully covering hundreds of meters square, not yet. Thanks to that, he could sense how the two seekers chased after the Golden Snitch. Malfoy gave up when the obstacles of the pitch structure were too much for him. At this state, Potter would catch the victory.
The Golden Snitch was enchanted to resist magic summoning and flight correction. Mikhael couldn't use the simple way. Instead, he focused his intent on transfiguration. The golden object became invisible before transforming into a black raven. Potter, losing the objective in sight was lost and continued his pitch circle while avoiding the bladger. Mikhael raven flew to Draco's position before dropping on his shoulder.
The unknown presence on his body made him scream in panic. The Slytherin seeker would have destroyed Mikhael's efforts, if the latter didn't command the raven to float before the blond wizard. The invisibility was slowly disappearing. The raven changed its form into a familiar fire sphere. Unsure, Malfoy grabbed the fire, awaiting the burnt which never came. To his surprise, the fire sphere melted into the Golden Snitch.
The Slytherin seeker shouted his joy for winning the match. Potter saw it, the Gryffindors had wet eyes. These small windows of un-attention cost him dearly. The rogue bludger hit his broom, making him fall and broke his arm bones. Thankfully, the ball exploded. However, for the Gryffindor seeker, the bad luck continued with the Defense Against the Dark Arts which vanished all the bones of his arms.
Luna tilted her head, staring at Mikhael. " You can't do that when the claws are playing. If you do, I... I would give you mistletoe infested with nargle. ", she extends her arms, little finger arose. Mikhael licked his hand. He should have paid attention when she was sitting with him at the Slytherin tower. As a friend, she spent more time in his company, not that mind it, she was funny.
" You got to pay me for that. ", he shook hands with her, joking.
The Slytherin common room didn't change much. It was still a long, low underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling, from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains. However, this time, the fire was crackling greenish and silver flames under an elaborately carved mantelpiece. As partway under the lake, the room's lights were green tinge. All furniture, chairs, sofas and tables were tidied aside, letting place for students of all years dancing at the music rhythm.
Butterbeer tasted a little bit like less-sickly butterscotch described the black second year to the orphan. Strange way to put it, Mikhael sipped a second serving. For him, the taste similar was to cream soda or frozen as a slush with a butterscotch-like foam on top. New and not unpleasing for the mouth he thought. Alcohol complemented with the victory revenge from the defeat last year, helped to strengthen house bounds.
Feeling a bit more daring, the orphan bid farewell to his black classmate in order to find a blond girl. While exiting the dancing crowd, he stumbled on the icy princess. It wasn't his blond friend. He smiled a bit and made an exaggerated salute to ask for forgiveness. His low bow was rewarded with Greengrass's open palm. Still a bit disoriented, but not afraid the orphan accepted the offer.
The music sound pulsed at high speed. As a novice, Mikhael's body copied upper student moves. Both his hands linked to the blond snake while they circled in sync, not hitting each other feet. It was mesmerizing to see her turned around under his palm. Her green eye sparkled as he followed her through the move. They continued closing and distancing each other while following the music pattern.
Tired, the girl excused herself after two rounds of dancing. Mikhael bade her farewell, kissing her hand knuckles. The music stopped. Strange, since their head of house gave them the night for celebration. The student crowd opened a path in silence. The headmaster followed by a portly little man, with rumpled gray hair and two Aurors, came in the dungeon. The Slytherins which were feasting for their Quidditch victory recognized the man as Cornelius Fudge, the current minister of magic. The common room went silent.
" Evening students. I'm truly sorry, but I have to stop your little party. Please, all return to your dormitory. Mister Jones, please wait for a moment. ", the old wizard wore a sad face.
" Please, forgive me my boy. ", hearing Dumbledore words, Mikhael knew something wasn't right.
" I have to, take you in custody for the murder of mister Colin Creevey. At his time of death, you weren't found anywhere. No witness saw you during the day, and your particular habit of wandering the castle alone pushed me into action. The minister of magic Cornelius Fudge assured me, your stay in Azkaban will be temporary if you are innocent. School will be suspended for a week to search clues on the crime. ", the voice downed at the end.
Mikhael marked this scene in his mind. The Aurors took the boy away.