Most of the younger students were extremely disappointed with the duelling club. The senior students had given glowing recommendations about the club but Lockhart had completely and utterly ruined it for them.

As usual, Mione came up with the solution. She got the same idea as in the original timeline; a group for learning DADA as well as duelling. And her obvious choice of teacher happened to be Darius. He had skipped a year of classes and yet maintained the top position in classes. He was also the best in his group when it came to duelling.

“Darius, would you be willing to teach me as well as a few others DADA as well as some duelling. I know you are the top of the class and one of the best at duelling.”

“I have no problem teaching you and Harry. What I want to know is how many others will be joining in. And I will only teach those I choose to do so. There will also be no house discrimination. I want students from all houses to be able to join the group if they choose to do so.”

“Alright then, that seems simple enough. I will start asking around to see if anyone else is interested. Should I keep it restricted to my year only? I suppose you will have a easier time teaching those in lower years.”

“You got that right. I will only teach those in mine or younger years. I don’t think the seniors would take it very well to be taught by a junior.”

“Ok, I’ll keep that in mind. Can you also speak to some professor about being our club-in-charge? We can’t form a club without a supervisor.”

“Alright, I’ll speak to Flitwick. He should be agreeable to forming such a club.”

Later that day, after charms classes, Darius walked up to the diminutive professor. He gave Flitwick the club proposal and asked for permission to form it.

“I have absolutely no problem with the formation of such a club, Mr Icarus. In fact, I am eagerly looking forward to the results. But you will have to wait a few days for the required permissions. Such a club will require permission from at least a couple more professors as well as the Headmaster.”

“Thank you for the consideration, professor. Please let me know the result at your earliest convenience.”

It took another couple of days to get the permission but Darius put the time to good use. The talk about the club reminded him about the room of requirement. Of course, he would not be fool enough to reveal it to the entire school. And they had an official club, so there was no need to hide at all. The room of requirement was a priceless resource and he had been squandering it all this while. Well, he would put it to good use henceforth.

While he did use to go there regularly in his first year for all the stuff in the room of lost things, he did not need to do so very often now. He had the highly enchanted trunk now and only needed to go there once in a fortnight to stock up his spatial pouch. But he had been neglecting one of the most important uses of the room and by Merlin, he would do so no longer.

He headed to the room that very night. The first room he asked for, was a room to train his own duelling skills and enhance his knowledge about it. He entered after walking past the wall thrice and what a sight it was. The room had extended into a long range with dummy targets at one end. The other side of the room there will human targets with wands in their hands. The wall next to him had an expanse of bookshelves with a wide variety of books filled in.

The range was obviously for target practice. Each dummy next to the other was at a further distance. He started there and it was rather cathartic to let loose completely. He had to restrain himself whenever he duelled others; both, so that he didn’t injure them severely and that he didn’t draw any unwanted attention to his true skills.

Expulso! Depulso! Confringo! Bombarda! Incendio! Reducto!

He got up to the sixth target before being unable to go any further. To be a valid hit, each target had to be pushed back a certain distance or destroyed up to a certain percentage and he could only do so up to the fifth one. That means, he was a middle-level duellist as far as the room was concerned. But, he also had to keep in mind that this wasn’t set to be age specific and included the readings of adults or even experienced duellists. He could count passing the fifth level as an achievement for now. And he had been quite close to six. Another month or so should see him past level six.

On the other side, the dummies had wands which would shoot multi-coloured lights from the ends. He had to dodge, deflect and counter increasingly higher levels of power, speed and skill. This was even more useful for actually learning proper duelling skills. Dodging a spell was always better than defending it. It gave you that split-second to counter the enemy when they were off-balance and also saved the magic power you would otherwise use to defend. He could practice chain-casting and the newest trick he had picked up in a library book- parrying.

Parrying was the ability to swat aside opposing spells instead of defending them. It was particularly handy in situations where you were unable to dodge. It was an advanced ability requiring good control of magical power and decent hand-eye co-ordination. Darius’ meditation and channelling had boosted both of these skills to very high levels. In simple terms, parrying was focussing the magical power at the tip of the wand but not releasing it and then using the wand to redirect the spell. Higher skill and power will allow someone to even reflect the spell at the caster and deal with more powerful spells. Of course, unforgivables are still out of question but deflecting anything lesser is possible with sufficient practice.

And finally, he headed to the bookshelves to have a look through and it was glorious. It had so many rare books, some even out of print titles. He flipped through the first manual in the defensive section and pulled out a biggie. It was the Aegis, one of the most potent defensive manoeuvres ever created. It was a combination of transfiguration, charms, elemental casting, wandless magic and raw magical power that powers the spell. It uses battle transfiguration to transform the surroundings into various hard materials and charms to hold them aloft and encircle and protect the caster. The physical blocks are even effective against unforgivables. The entire structure can be wandlessly controlled to keep circling, assimilating debris and further expanding in size. It is a mighty feat of magic and even with his great reserves, if he were to attempt the spell, and somehow succeed in casting it, he wouldn’t be hold it for more than a minute before overdrawing his reserves. He so wanted to learn this!!

His duelling skills now had an assured direction to move ahead in. The next thing was a great idea he had had while in the room.

According to historic knowledge, the creation of horcruxes for the first time was attributed to a vile wizard named Herpo the Foul. He had lived before the time of the Founders and I was quite sure that they would have come up with at least some counter-measures to the evil magic.

He stepped out and started walking across the wall thrice.

I need a place to destroy a horcrux. I need a place to destroy a horcrux. I need a place to destroy a horcrux.

And there it was, a door had appeared. He stepped and saw what appeared to be a ritual tunic array, likely for soul magic. Both ritualistic magic and soul or blood magics were outlawed in Magical Britain. True, both of them had great destructive potential but that doesn’t justify completely outlawing them. As far as Darius knew, only goblins currently use them. They use blood magic for important contracts and for inheritance tests. Soul magic, or at least its knowledge is a compulsory requirement for curse-breakers of Gringotts.

The runic magic array had seven circles, a powerful magical number. There were runic scripts between every circle and a book on a marble pedestal just outside the circle.

It was a fairly short manual. The ritual required the horcrux to be paced in the circle and ritual incantations to be used while supplying power to the entire circle via the pedestal.

There were several addendums to the book and unfortunately, one of them was the inability to destroy a living horcrux without killing the host as well. So, Harry couldn’t be saved this way. The book did say that Goblins were much more proficient in the soul magics and they should be consulted if any problems arose. Though they abhorred the concept of horcruxes and were liable to attack you if they even suspected you to be using this vile magic. Like all creatures of magic, they hated anything that went against the will of magic and horcruxes were right there at the top of the list.

It seems he’ll have to visit Gringotts this summer to speak to the goblins. He had an idea regarding the Lestrange vaults as well.

Anyways, time to get rid of the diary. He had safely ensconced it in the spatial bag. No way was he going to leave it in the dorm where it might be stolen or misplaced. He placed the diary in the centre of the circle, a blank ream of parchment in the outer circle and took his place in front of the pedestal.

Powering up the ritual circle with magic, he felt a strong draw on his magic and quickly read out the first incantation.

“Invocant in animam warda” (invoke the soul ward)

“Libera animam ex objecto” (free the soul from the object)

“Quod anima imprimit” (imprint the soul on the object)

“Relegant animae” (banish the soul)

The circle flashed and a hazy shape in the form of Riddle was drawn out and then shattered into a million wisps of darkness. The ritual was a success. One horcrux down!!

He took up the diary and opened it up. The diary had lost the feel of magic and looked just like an ordinary diary. Though I’m sure someone well versed with the dark magics would be able to feel the trace of foul magic upon it.

Strictly speaking, the third line was not a requirement for destroying a horcrux but it did help in preserving arcane knowledge and served to keep a record of magic.

The ream of parchment had also magically transformed into something looking like a Grimoire. Considering the amount of magical knowledge it held, it was a fitting look. Too bad it only held knowledge up to the age Riddle created the horcrux, though even that would be considered a treasure by the entire wizarding population.

The book cover was matte black with a gold edges and a rune, I suspect symbolic of soul. He opened it up and it was blank except for a circle in the centre of the page. Conjuring a quill, he wrote, ‘curses’ and a list started appearing on the page on the right. A line extended from the first circle and another one appeared at the other end. He then wrote, ‘poison’ and the list shortened to about ten or so and a third circle appeared at the end of another the next line. Finally writing down ‘lethal’, he got two curses. The sanguis venenum and the serpens agonia were both strong curses and both candidates for the spell on the Gaunt ring that Riddle used as a Horcrux. He turned the page and saw the details about both written on the pages. Going by the symptoms of Dumbledore, the serpens agonia was a sure hit. At least he could study the counter-curse to it.

This would make a priceless gift for a partner, if he decided to have one; maybe it could even be Mione. He would have no regrets because he had an even better choice remaining. There was another horcrux waiting for him within this very room.

The last task for the night awaits. He stepped out once again and entered the room of lost things. House-elves had stored stuff here for centuries and the room showed it. Every time he entered this room, he was awed by the sheer number of objects secreted away in this room.

He headed straight towards the direction of the tiara. He had been here earlier several times, so he had obviously headed towards it due to sheer curiosity. But he didn’t even try to hold it, let alone put it on. It was not like the diary, which used an indirect method. The hat would be able to directly interface with the mind; that was not something he was comfortable with at all. But now it was time to end the second horcrux of the night.

Since this was not a diary, he would need to place another ream of parchment in the outer circle for the imprinting to make a grimoire. Voldemort returned to Hogwarts nearly a decade after his schooling after having widely travelled and learnt many new magics. This second grimoire would no doubt have even more secrets than the first. He would make good use of it.

He performed the ritual in an identical manner and was soon left holding, a now gleaming tiara as well as an even more ornate grimoire with the same soul rune on top. He had decided to call them Soul Grimoires for now. He kept both the SGs into his spatial bag along with Ravenclaw’s diadem. Someday, after Voldemort was dealt with, maybe he could donate it to the school’s collection. It would be nice to have some of the Founder Artefacts at the school.

He spent the next couple of hours practising his duelling and alternating it with Cantatio when he had to rest. The intense magical draw during duelling and the drawn-out method of Cantatio had a nice synergistic effect and further sped up his magical training. After a gruelling couple of hours, he drifted off into his meditative channelling until the next morning.