The Hogsmeade weekend was occurring on the next weekend. Darius had already prepared everything else and he just needed to obtain the last part of his preparations.

He called out loud, “Dobby!”

The house-elf popped into being, looking delighted to be called. “Dobby has come, master Darius. What can Dobby be doing for you?”

“Dobby, can you elf-apparate the sorting hat to me if I need it? I need you to do it silently without Dumbledore noticing. I can conjure a replacement or transfigure something else into a near perfect copy of it for you to replace it.”

“Dobby can do that. But if the headmaster is there, I will be caught.”

“Don’t worry about that. I’m not going to ask you to risk yourself. Over the duration of the next week, whenever you find that the Headmaster has left for a length of time, please go and switch the hat with the replica.”

Darius transfigured a woolly cap he had into a good replica of the sorting hat and Dobby even added a strong glamour over that with his own brand of house-elf magic. Dobby then took away the hat, to be used to replace the real sorting hat when needed.

The next three days passed by without incident. He spent most of his classes going over his spell-chains mentally and trying to further perfect them. The teachers didn’t bother him too much as they knew the level he was at. He always turned in impeccable assignments, got the top marks in the class and his success with the duelling and DADA club spoke for itself as far as practicals went. The pace of studies had been increasing steadily this year, what with the OWLs coming up next year but it was still not a huge concern for him.

It was at night on the fourth day, that Dobby popped, “Dobby has completed the task, master. I have gotten the hat. Headmaster has left for some business for the next few days and I went in sneaky and got the hat.”

“Well done Dobby! I will require the hat about 3 days from now, so keep with yourself for now. I will call for you when I need it.”

“Ok master, Dobby will do as you said. Dobby be leaving now?”

“Wait a second Dobby. I want to ask something. House-elves are only released if they are given clothes, right?”

Dobby got a horrified face at that. “Master is not wanting Dobby? He wants to free Dobby?”

The poor elf looked ready to cry and I quickly reassured him, “Not at all, Dobby. You are the greatest elf I could ask for, why would I want to send you away. In fact, the question was for the sake of not releasing you accidentally.”

He seemed to calm down at that. “Yes master. House elves get released if they are given clothes by the master it serves.”

“So, if I give you some plain cloth and ask you to make some for yourself, that wouldn’t be a problem, right? Seem the thing is, I hate having to see you wear that filthy pillow case. You have served me loyally and carried out my orders perfectly. So, as a reward, I wanted you to have some clothes without having to free you.”

Dobby’s eyes kept widening as I said my piece and by the end he had jumped to grab me by the knees and was openly sobbing. “Dobby is also very grateful to serve master Darius. And master is right, you can give house-elf cloth without freeing them. Dobby can make own clothes with magic. Does master have any instructions about the clothes?”

“Just make it in the form of a white shirt with black trousers and a black sleeveless vest on top. The vest can have my Icarus house-crest, a pair of crossed wand and hammers in gold on the left chest. You can make your own footwear if you want to.”

Dobby just clicked and his raggedy pillowcase turned into the uniform I described. A gleaming white shirt, pitch black trousers and black socks on his feet. He was wearing a black vest with the crest monogrammed in golden thread on the left chest.

“Excellent work, Dobby. Now you look like the respectable elf of Darius Icarus. Also, I read up on elves a little and I know about your proclivity to overwork yourselves. Make sure you eat and sleep enough to keep in good health. I don’t want my house-elf keeling over from exhaustion. This is an order.”

“Thank you master Darius. Dobby will always serve you faithfully. And the other house-elves are going to be so jealous of the uniform.”

And the cheeky little elf popped away. Now the only thing to do was to wait for the weekend.

The next three days seemed to pass in a brutally slow manner as Darius waited for the weekend. But it did finally arrive and Darius headed out immediately after breakfast. The road to Hogsmeade was empty enough except for the scant few who had headed out earlier than him. He quickly cast a glamour that made him appear completely different and transfigured his robes as well.

Heading out beyond the village, he came upon one of the farms that stood on its outskirts. The farm was more or less empty and he headed to the farmhouse that stood a little way along. He got there and gave a firm knock on the door. After a few seconds, the door swung open to reveal a midle-aged man with swarthy skin, dressed in comfortable woollens.

“Aye, and who may you be, laddie? I ain’t seen you around these parts before.”

“Greetings sir. You may call me Arcana Mutare. I asked around and know that you own a lot of the farmland around here and was wondering if you would be amenable to selling me a few roosters from your chicken coops. I will buy as many as you are willing to sell, up to a limit of 20 roosters.”

“Are ye sure you want that many, lad? I got more than enough and am willing to sell to you but most people just wanna buy hens.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Please sell them to me.”

“Alright, whatever you say. Follow me, I’ll lead you to the coops. You can take your pick. And it’ll be 40 galleons for the lot.”

He led Darius to the coops and let him just go ahead and choose the ones he wanted. He picked the twenty loudest ones he could find. He transfigured those into wooden figurines and placed them in his spatial bag, paid the money to the farm owner and started walking back to Hogwarts.

Darius could have just conjured some roosters or recorded the crowing of one but he didn’t want to take chances when he was shortly going to face a basilisk, the legendary king of snakes, which had existed for more than 1000 years. It was a small effort to buy the roosters but the situation warranted the safety measures.

After getting back to the school, he immediately headed to the second floor. Making his way over to the Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom, he disillusioned himself, so that no one noticed him sneaking around.

Entering the bathroom, he was glad that Myrtle was not there. He wasn’t completely sure that disillusionment worked against ghosts. Heading to the sink, he pulled out the runic recorder and played the first part. It all hinged on this. The characteristic hiss of parseltongue rang out.

~Open~

The sink, in fact that whole section of the column, moved aside smoothly and sunk down, revealing the large pipe underneath exposed. It was wide enough for the basilisk and definitely wide enough for a person to slide into.

He saw the filthy pipe and felt like patting himself on the back for his forethought. He played the next part.

~Stairs~

And the pipe segmented itself to form stairs, something like an escalator but not moving. He was right; no way was Salazar Slytherin going to slide down a concrete tunnel like a juvenile kid or allow his heir to, for that matter.

Heading down the stairs, he used the next part of the recorder.

~Close~

No way did he want nosy people coming down the pipe behind him and causing further chaos. He reached the bottom after a good few minutes and lit up his wand with a silent lumos.

The way ahead was a damp and slimy tunnel with small bones all over the floor. It looked extremely eerie and unwelcoming. He headed forward after firming his resolve and reached midway through the tunnel when he noticed the huge shed skin of the basilisk and felt goosebumps all over his body. Despite knowing of its existence, he couldn’t help but draw a sharp intake of breath at the sight of the sheer size of the shed skin, not to mention the actual snake’s size.

He headed past it and reaching the end, turned around the bend to find himself facing a solid wall with two entwined snakes carved on it. He knew what he had to do.

~Open~

The serpent slithered aside and the wall smoothly slid into the walls, leaving him free to walk inside.

He stood at one end of a long, dimly lit chamber. He walked past scores of towering pillars with serpentine carvings on them and finally reached the tall statue of Slytherin at the end of the chamber.

It was time to call out the king of snakes. But before that, he had to set up preparations. He had already planned it all out but now it was time to put his plan to the test.

First, he snapped his fingers; a second later Dobby stood in front of him with the sorting hat in his hands.

“Thanks for getting the hat Dobby. Now, I want you to leave this chamber and not return until I call for you. It may not be safe despite my preparations.”

Dobby popped away and I started untransfiguring the roosters with reparifarge. He immediately silenced each of them, so as to not let the basilisk know that it's mortal enemy were present there in good numbers.

The next step was not vital to his plans but would be of great advantage to Darius if he could wing it. He placed the sorting hat on his head and waited. Before long, the hat spoke up.

“Ah, I see! It is the first person in years who stepped into the halls of Hogwarts with equal aptitude for each house. Why do you wear me again?”

“I have a bold request for you, sorting hat. Through some means I’ve obtained information that the sword of Godric Gryffindor resides inside you. I wish to have it for my upcoming battle against a basilisk; a thousand year old basilisk!!”

“Though I don't know how you came by this information, I am willing to admit that it is true. I can also see that you have willingly come down to this chamber to slay a powerful basilisk. Godric would be quite proud of you, I think. And so, you shall have his legacy. Fare thee well, Gryffindor champion!”

Yes! The hat deemed his opponent a worthy creature to fight against!!!

He put his hand inside the hat and effortlessly drew the gleaming silver sword of Godric Gryffindor. It was beautiful piece of goblin craftsmanship, with its keen blade, filigreed handle and ruby inlaid pommel.

He hefted the sword in his right hand and turned to call out the basilisk.

~Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four~

The statue, or rather, the face of the statue started sliding apart and he heard the slithering sound of the giant serpent as it made it way out of its chamber. He could feel the very ground vibrate with its movement.

He quickly headed behind the nearest pillar so as not to be in its line of sight and get killed accidentally. He waited till he felt the thud of the snake landing inside the chamber before releasing all silencing spells at once.

The cacophony that arose was horrendous. The sqwaking and crowing of a dozen roosters was like torture to the ears. The effect on the basilisk was near instantaneous. The snake started whipping its head from side to side in agony, as it thrashed against the ground and the statue behind it.

It took a while, nearly 5 minutes before it started quieting down and stopped thrashing around. Darius gave it another 10 minutes before finally stepping out from behind the pillar, and headed towards the basilisk.

The snake twitched a bit and he immediately looked downwards and held out the sword and wand; sword gripped firmly in his right and wand held ready to cast in his left. Finally, he again summed up his courage and stepped forward again.

Finally reaching the snake, he realized it was still alive. It was in some sort of catatonic state and he took the chance to leap on its head and pierce the sword all the way to its brain through its eye. The basilisk body gave one final shudder before finally passing away.

He had done it! Maybe not in a way that Gryffindor would have particularly liked, what with all the hiding behind the pillar, but results argued for themselves. He had just pit himself in single combat against one of the most dangerous creatures on land and got away with nary a wound.

“I claim the Sword of Godric Gryffindor, by right of bequeathment and by right of conquest.”

There was an intense flash of light and when it faded, the sword was in an ornate scabbard with golden trim, clasped to an equally ornate baldric on his shoulder. He supposed he had succeeded in his endeavour.

The ceremony he had just completed was not a wizarding ceremony, in fact, it was not even a human ceremony. He had claimed rights by goblin law and by their law, he was the true owner of the sword for the rest of his life. He had began reading up more on goblins after the soul exorcism and found their culture to be quite different from wizards but absolutely fascinating nonetheless.

The very fact that they could remove horcruxes without even damaging the containers spoke volumes for their achievements in magic. It was quite surprising that Dumbledore never bothered to ask for their expertise. He must have been the same as the rest of the wizarding society, despite all his preaching of equality and what not, deep in his heart he still saw wizard kind as superior to the rest of the races.

The ceremony grants the worthy wielder of a weapon rights to it when he vanquishes a foe well beyond his normal means. Considering their warrior culture, it wasn’t a difficult ceremony to understand.

To put it in simple terms: He killed the big snake with the sword in single combat, so the sword and the spoils from the snake go to him for his achievement!