Ace of Spades

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

After one uneventful detention with Snape and the lesson he was forced to teach me, quickly concluding that I did in fact understand everything from the first year to third curriculum, I found the urge to explore Hogwarts.

I was used to sneaking around in the dark. Living with the Dursleys made sure that I was really good at it and I never once got caught out that I wasn't home when I should have been. Silver helped with that, keeping an extra pair of eyes out for anyone patrolling the halls.

Harry told me all of his stories, all the little details so it wasn't hard for me to go through the school and see exactly where everything happened. The one I was most impressed with was the situation with the Chamber.

The Dursleys had brought me to the zoo with them for Dudley's birthday, and I was there when Harry spoke to the snake. I knew exactly what they had been saying but I didn't say anything to Harry about it. I let him believe he was the only one to understand the snake, and I was glad I didn't tell him. He liked being the special one, the one who could do all of these extraordinary things that I supposed couldn't. His little superiority complex about his Magic was one of the things that had distanced us when we were barely into our teens.

The second year he was at Hogwarts, he had great stories to tell about the new adventures in the Chamber of Secrets.

It wasn't that hard to find either.

The sink opened out to show the tunnel just as Harry had said it would, but a set of stairs appeared instead. I shot a grin at Silver before we ventured down to the sublevel of Hogwarts.

The huge vault door sat there, slowly opening as I approached it. It shouldn't have opened by itself but it did. I walked in and stared at the glory of the Chamber.

The ceiling was glass and I gazed into the depths of the Black Lake. Lanterns sat around the walls, sets of rectangular and circular pools of water hid the pipes quite nicely. Even the pipes on the walls were covered with centuries-old tapestries.

To one wall, the statue of Salazar Slytherin sat on a throne, a fireplace between his feet.

The middle of the Chamber held a huge couch, long enough to fit ten people. I walked over to it, feeling the green leather on my fingertips.

It wasn't like Harry had explained. There was nothing gloomy or creepy about the place. I found it beautiful and almost enchanting in the way the light flickered with each wave of the lake.

I sat down on the couch, letting myself consume the whole experience as the night drew on.

There wasn't much to do tonight. I was caught up on school work, still got tested enough to see if I could do my OWLs at the end of the year, had Quidditch training on Sundays, and I still felt like I wasn't doing enough. There wasn't enough for me to keep occupied and I felt restless because of it. The need to do stuff, move, make, and create bubbled inside of me.

I was used to not doing much in school. I barely passed classes in secondary school and I didn't care. The Durselys never bothered to encourage me, wanting Dudley to get better grades than me but we averaged out together. He went to his private school, funded by his parents, and I went to the local secondary school.

I was just glad to be at Hogwarts, away from the Dursleys for the year. They were almost happy that I wouldn't be at home, or as happy as Petunia and Vernon Dursley could be when it came to me.

But Hogwarts was lonely.

And the sad thing was that I was used to it.

But it couldn't be helped. I needed to get out of this victim mentality I was putting myself into. I needed to stop feeling bad for myself. It wouldn't do me any good but it was all I could think of at the minute.