Year Three - Chapter Seven

I didn't fear death. As I stared into the eyes of the murderous lightning-bolt throwing guitar, I stood stalwart and murderous. "Finite Incantatem!" I bellowed for the umpteenth time, the lightning sparkling around me seeking an inch of exposed flesh, and finding none unprotected. I looked like the kind of Bio-Hazard containment scientist in a total rubber suit of sorts, some lightning rods planted on the ground around me to protect from the stray bolts and electricity.

The guitar shrieked on, lightning bolts slamming on the ground and in the air, some fizzling halfway through.

The last vestiges of the guitar's death throes came out like the wrangled cry of drowning kittens, and finally there was silence in the Room of Requirements.

My breathing steadied as I began to pull off the rubber protection, the sweltering heat of the room damning me to a near sauna-like experience. I exhaled, satisfied at not having suffered a gruesome fate once more, and then pulled out the Latin to English portable dictionary.

"Electrica Cithara is out," I muttered. "Though maybe it would work if I changed the shape of the wand movement?" I paused, flipping through the pages. "Guitar is Cithara. I got that down, now to convince it not to shoot lightning..." I rubbed my chin some more, "Maybe try with Acoustic? Acusticus Cithara."

There was a twinge. Some string began to vibrate in the air. Abruptly, a melody started playing at the movement of my wand. There was no lightning sailing in the air though, and that was a good thing, I reckoned.

As I hesitantly waved a hand, the guitar picked up a set of noisy tunes. The smile on my lips threatened to split my face in half. Maybe I hadn't reached the electrical stage yet, but the acoustic one had been found.

"We've got to practice the country songs now," I excitedly said, swishing my wand to the rhythm of an unknown ballad. I'd need to find the proper tunes and forms later, but as it was, I'd let the musical instrument do its own chord-tuning and whatnot. Then, I'd need to get the battery score to work. Drums wouldn't cut it. A piece at the time, I'd get the Heavy Metal Concert I knew I deserved as my soundtrack and boss theme.

It made me quite happy to think about it. "Maybe I should even have stages," I hummed as I began to scribble random doodles on an empty parchment. "First stage boss fight involves happy music, and some form of leitmotif. Maybe shoving objects at the party while humming along?" I chuckled, shaking my head in disbelief. "Second stage requires the usage of fire, with 'Through the Fire and Flames' as a soundtrack. Yes, and then the final and third stage uses lightning. Once defeated, I should drop into self-transfiguration and become some kind of behemoth for a final confrontation that requires the usage of cheap tricks to overcome it like in all proper Final Fantasy Games."

My leisure time took a plunge not just for the tests and the extra work, but all the same, I did manage some nifty progress through the month of September and nearly through all of October. That was when disaster struck, and in retrospect, I should have noticed it.

The Gryffindors' dormitories were at the top of the grand staircase, on the seventh floor. The Room of Requirements was on the Seventh Floor too, if on the left corridor. This meant that nine times out of ten, I saw Gryffindors walk down the stairs while I climbed them upwards myself. The Ravenclaw's common room was accessed through the far end of the seventh floor's right corridor, so it wasn't uncommon to find Ravens go about their business around the castle. Though we also had yet another flight of stairs to go through before reaching our common room.

All in all, Hogwarts itself ensured you'd have all of the nice cardio you could ever hope for, and I reckoned that my kicks could shatter stone, considering just how many times I had taken the stairs day after day.

Hence, since the castle was pretty much deserted due to the people heading for Hogsmeade, and after having to suffer through Wayne's embarrassing promise to bring me back some sweets from Honeydukes, I had been spending my time practicing not just the curriculum's spells, but also trying to get them to materialize without the need of swishing the wand.

As long as it involved moving objects with 'The Force' then magic actually complied quite easily once you got the right amount of practice into it. Lifting crates, moving spheres, pushing back small walls, and even snapping in half a wooden branch, the magic allowed it. Trying to get a spell as simple as the Incendio to work however yielded incredibly frustrating results.

My fingertips were red from the strain of snapping them. My voice rough from the repeated words. Apparently it was one thing to crackle with lightning while under incredible strain and fear, but it was another to willfully try to conjure said lightning or fire. Just holding the wand was enough to make the spell work, but it would leave from the tip of the wand, or at most from the palm of my hand if I whispered the incantation into it.

Neither were what I sought.

I wanted a three hundred and sixty degree spellcasting ability. If I wanted an Incendio at three o'clock from me, then I damn well wanted it to happen. Dumbledore could set things on fire by simply looking at them; and at the same time, cast a Fire-Freezing charm on the thing. I wanted the same, and if the same couldn't be reached within a matter of days, then it would be within my grasp in weeks, or maybe months.

I stepped out of the Room of Requirements after glancing at the clock. If I headed down the stairs now, I'd manage to say hello to the returning travelers.

I was descending the staircase when I heard a blood-curling shriek come from the upper floors, and as I stared up I dimly saw a black blur run hastily down a floor and then disappear in a side corridor. I ran back up the stairs, rushing in pursuit of the blur that tried to round a corner on its four dog-like paws.

"Petrificus-" the thing turned to the corner before I could finish the spell, much to my growing frustration. Four legs were indeed better than two, as by the time I rounded the corner, the dog had disappeared from sight.

There had to be a secret passage on the sixth floor that led out into the grounds of Hogwarts, but seeing how anything could be a passage, even an empty suit of armor, it didn't help me much. The portraits were in a frenzy, but were as helpful as a bag of potatoes on one's back while trying to swim from France to England. They were charmed to keep the existence of secret passages hidden from students, not out of bad will, but to ensure the students wouldn't use that knowledge to ditch pursuit after pranking other students.

"All right, I'm a secret passage that even a dog can access," I muttered as I looked at the hallway. "Where would I even hide?"

It took me half an hour to find a trick step, which then led to a small and cramped stairway which went all the way down to the ground floor. The fact I emerged from behind a rose bush, complete with wicked evil thorns that dug slightly into my skin and made me grimace at the carnage it wrought on my robes made my annoyance increase ten times as much.

In front of me was the courtyard, and as much as I didn't like the thought of it, it was clear that I had lost sights of Sirius Black.

At the same time, now that I knew he was within the Hogwarts' grounds, I'd be able to hunt him down far better than everyone else. I knew that which the others knew not, after all.

I knew where he most likely ate, wandered around and slept.

It was just a matter of hunting him down, like a real hunting dog would.

What I found distasteful, at the very least, was that I'd need not just to capture Sirius Black, but I'd also need to get a hold of Peter Pettigrew, and ensure they would both be in the same room together with the headmaster and a few eye witnesses, while at the same time keeping the Dementors out of the equation.

First things first, though, I'd need to make contact with Sirius Black.

That night, as we were all forced to sleep in the Main Hall, I did not fall asleep.

The Headmaster noticed.

He noticed, and he seemed to grimly accept the fact.

Apologies, old man, for the worries I'm going to cause you.

But I am the greatest boy detective at Hogwarts...

...and I will ensure a Case Closed, no matter the odds against it.