The foray into the Chamber of Secrets was a huge success. Not only did he manage to slay the basilisk, he also succeeded in a goblin warrior ritual and got legitimate possession of the Gryffindor’s blade. The consequences of that one ritual would be quite far-reaching. By doing so, he could claim the title of warrior among goblin-kind and be treated with the respect accorded to such. He would also be able to ask audience of Warlord Ragnok, manager of Gringotts and leader of all Goblins within Magical Britain. That was essential if he wanted to ask of the goblin’s help in regards to the horcrux in the Lestrange vault and to remove the one in Harry’s scar.

That aside, the significant amounts he would earn off the basilisk’s materials would be a veritable fortune. The goblins considered such exotic meat a delicacy and would take it off his hands for a suitably hefty price. He could request several goblin-crafted enchanted basilisk hide armours in return for the rest of the hide and the shed skin. He could give it to his mother for added protection and keep the rest for some other friends or maybe his better half in the future.

He willed the sword away and it disappeared off his back along with the scabbard and baldric, Like House signet rings, the sword could be willed away at leisure and called upon in times of need. Harry, having never completed the goblin ritual, could not do so with the blade in his timeline, as he was not the rightful owner by goblin laws.

He made his way out of the chamber and started heading back. The problem was regarding how he would be able to get the goblins into the castle to render the basilisk. He couldn’t just bring them up to the castle without Dumbledore finding out, and then the old manipulator would start asking difficult questions and pay Darius far more attention than he would like.

One idea that held merit was a to create a portkey directly into the chambers. The Chamber was obviously outside the jurisdiction of the school wards, otherwise it would have been found out long ago by any of the headmasters over the years. They retained control, at least a preliminary level, over the wards and would have been able to find the chamber if it was within that area of influence.

Though he would first have to learn the spell to create them. He had never bothered before this and all he knew about it was that the incantation to create one was portus. Maybe the goblins would help him with that if he told them that there was a carcass worth more than a million galleons on the other side.

He finally reached the tunnel which led up to Myrtle’s bathroom.

~Stairs~

Making his way up the stairs he reached a platform and played the recording.

~Open~

The sink above him slid aside and he came up the last few steps to climb out of the tunnel.

~Close~

He brushed aside the dust on his shoulders and grinned in delight at how the morning had gone before he looked up and froze.

Standing right there in casuals, looking at him with a determined yet quite stunned expression was Mione. She seemed somewhat frozen in shock herself. He understood how the situation must look to her and immediately fired off a somnulus charm even before she could react. He caught her in his hands before she fell and sighed in consternation. Now what was he to do?

She was important to him and he just did not feel right obliviating her. Besides, not being a certified obliviator himself, there was no telling what damage he might cause. Finally, he decided to come clean to her, at least partially. Who else would he be able to trust, if he could not even trust Mione.

He disillusioned her and levitating her body upright, took her to the 7th floor to the room of requirement. He made sure to avoid the regular passages and take as many shortcuts as possible. No point in taking chances with bumping into someone. He had already messed up when he relaxed his vigilance and was noticed by Mione and he had no desire to screw up again.

After reaching the RoR, he set it to his standard duelling room configuration and set her down on a couch. He started practising against the automated dummy to pass the time. He had not completed his practice for the day and now would be a good time. He was at least halfway through the level seven in the power/distance levels on the other side of the room but only barely on level six for the automated ones. That meant he had considerable power and range, close to Auror levels, in fact. But his duelling skills were not there yet.

It was close to half-hour before he stopped, sweating all over from the workout and close to magical exhaustion, when he finally noticed that Mione was already up and sitting on the couch watching him. God knows how long she was up already? And it was very poor battlefield awareness on his part to not notice a person behind him while he was busy. She did blush and look away when he caught her staring at him.

Anyway, time to spill some secrets.

“Mione, I know you must have tons of questions and doubts for me and I will answer truthfully to the best of my ability, at least as far as I feel you should know. Now, cast.”

“Huh!”

“Sorry, wizarding equivalent for shoot.”

“Ah yes. Well, keep in mind I do trust you. More than almost anyone in the castle, in fact. But since I seem to be at your mercy anyway, I need to ask, were you the one who set the monster in the Chamber of Secrets loose on the students, Darius?”

“Well. I can’t say I’m too surprised with that one. But no, Mione, I’m not the one who did that. In fact, I was just returning from slaying that very monster. It is a basilisk, by the way.”

She couldn’t help but give a gasp at that. He couldn’t help but grin at the nonchalant way he had just let that slip out. She looked both horrified and impressed.

“A ba-basilisk? And you slew it? Are you out of your freakin’ mind. You, a thirteen-year-old, went alone into the depths of the castle and fought a XXXXX rated creature alone? Do you have a death wish?”

She would have ranted on for quite a bit more, no doubt but I held up my hand to silnce her and spoke again.

“No, Mione. I am not out of my mind. It is a creature capable of killing with a look and I wasn’t having it prowling around the castle if I could help it. The other victims survived due to sheer dumb luck. Each of them only gaze into it’s eyes on a reflective surface or through something else and only got petrified instead.”

“But why did it have to be you? I don’t want to lose you. You could have spoken to any of the teachers about this.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me Mione. I was well prepared to face it. And talking to the teachers would have revealed quite a few secrets that I didn’t want out in the open. Not the least of which is Harry’s ability as a Parselmouth.”

“But how did you know it was a basilisk? And how did you find the Chamber of Secrets and kill the basilisk?”

“There were several indications as to the identity of the monster. Harry being a parseltongue and the only one able to hear it was one. Slytherin’s monster being a snake was a very likely assumption. Hagrid’s roosters were all killed before Halloween. Spiders all over the castle have been fleeing from it. The condition of the victims was another indication. All this, along with a few more clues led to the conclusion that it was a basilisk. And to kill it, well, I used this.”

Darius was just waiting for it. When he had just gotten the sword, he was overjoyed but soon realised that he wouldn’t be able to show it to anyone else without awkward questions. Now that he had the chance to do so, he was eager to do so with a flourish. At the moment he ended his sentence, he willed the sword to appear and it did, scabbard, baldric and all. He drew it and showed it to her.

“You killed it with a sword? You killed a goddamn basilisk with a sword?”

“Not just any sword. Have a look at the inscription.”

“Godr-, oh my god!! This is the legendary sword of Gryffindor, said to be lost ages ago. Where did you get it?”

“The sword of Gryffindor was secreted away inside the sorting hat, waiting to be drawn by a true Gryffindor. Because I am a Gryffindor and was about to fight a 1000-year-old basilisk, thus showing my courage, I qualified to do so. The sword is now bound to me i.e., I can call the sword to me at any time.”

“So, you basically own the sword of Gryffindor now. Wow, this is just unbelievable. But wait, there is one thing I don’t understand yet. Who was the heir of Slytherin then? There has to be a human factor involved somewhere and we need to catch the culprit.”

“This is one of the questions I refuse to fully answer. I know you have occlumency shields up now and decent ones at that but this is not something you want to know right now. All I’ll tell you is that the actual Heir of Slytherin created an object that would compel the one who held it to open the chamber and unleash the basilisk on the school. I know this particular enthralled student and she is not at fault at all. I have taken the enchanted object and destroyed it already.

Now that we are clear about my actions and their reasons, what on earth were you doing in that particular bathroom?”

She started blushing and looking away a bit but finally spoke up.

“I know that 3rd years and above, including you, had a Hogsmeade weekend today and I was rather bored studying in the library alone. I was going to head back to the common room when I noticed you coming into the castle looking rather happy and taking off at a brisk pace. I was rather curious, so I f-followed you and was stunned when you entered the girls' bathroom. I waited outside for a while, I wasn’t sure what you were doing inside and didn’t particularly want to know either. But I finally went in and saw it was empty. I was surprised and decided to wait there for a while. I was about to leave soon enough when I heard the sound of the sink and finally saw you coming out of the tunnel.”

“Wow Mione, I didn’t know you had these stalker tendencies.” She blushed mightily at that. “Don’t worry, I was just teasing. I feel flattered you were so concerned.”

She quickly tried to head off the conversation. “Anyways, what is this room? It is amazing. I checked out some of the title on the books and they are all rare and expensive books on duelling and spells. The range targets and the automated dummy also seem specialised for duelling. Is this some secret room in Hogwarts for duellists to train?”

“No Mione, it’s not. This is the Room of Requirement. It is located on the seventh floor of the castle, opposite to the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy. To ‘open it’ you must walk past the area of the door three times, thinking of what you need. For example: Say you need a place to study. The door will pop-up on your 3rd pass and you will find an ideal room to study waiting for you. It is an amazing room and I would appreciate it if you kept it a secret. You, Harry, the twins and Lee were the only ones I was planning to tell about the RoR anyway, this just moved up the schedule a bit. The term is nearing its end, so we’ll tell them next year. And I don’t mind at all if you joined me here to practice duelling or some extra studies.”

“Thanks for trusting me Darius. I won’t tell anyone without speaking to you first. And yes, I’d love to practice with you here. Anyway, now that the air is all cleaned up, lets head back now. People may start searching for the two of us if we stay here too long.”

We headed back for the evening feast after that. Some people were a bit surprised to see us together but no one commented on it. Hermione seemed a bit oblivious to the attention they were gathering and Darius was glad for that. He had started to fall for the clever brunette and didn’t need the extra attention and gawking to turn her away.

In a weird sort of way, they were a good couple to be together. Both of them were much cleverer than their peers, him because of his mental maturity and her due to her natural gifts. They bonded well over studying and learning magic. Even their ages were the same. He was only 13 years old despite being a 4th year as he had skipped a year and she was born in the latter half of September, making her a year older than most of her classmates and thus putting her at the same age as him.

Time passed normally after that for the next month. He and Mione got along very well now, even better than before. He taught her the fortis memoriae spell and she looked ready to kiss him after that. She was speed reading through at least one book a day now. They also practised regularly in the RoR and she was at level 4 in the range department and level 3 for duelling. She was trying hard to improve though and it was already showing.

The exams rolled by and he aced them as usual. The results won’t be out for another week but he was already sure of his results. His own personal studies had also progressed greatly. He had finished NEWT level studies in every subject besides History of magic and that left him very happy. Of course, by the standards in practice up to about 50 years old, he had completed just the OWLs level of the syllabus. He was still ahead even then though and proud of it.

Hogwarts had done away with so many electives over the year – Dark arts, warding, rituals, healing, alchemy, mind arts, magical theory and so many others. Students could only learn them by taking up the appropriate apprenticeships with suitable teachers. Well, he could get a room full of books on the subject and Mione and him would make good use of that.

They had tried some experiments on the abilities of the RoR. All the books which had passed the threshold of Hogwarts could be found inside the room, including quite a lot of restricted books. That is why they could read up on all those electives. But only books of which a physical opy reside in the RoR could be taken out of the room. For example, many students had left books in the room of hidden things over centuries and house-elves used the room to store so many discarded objects, so they were bound to find quite a few books that could be taken out. He even found a detailed book on the creation of horcruxes, didn’t let Mione see that one though.

Term ended a week later and he got 10 O’s, as expected. Defence against the Dark Arts, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Herbology, Arithmancy, Study of Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, Astronomy and History of Magic; he had aced them all. He had been rather disgusted when he had to read those stupid fictions which Lockhart had set as textbooks but he had managed to bring himself to do it. Thankfully, the fortis memoriae meant he only had to go through them once.

He couldn’t wait to see how Lockhart got booted out at the end of the year. The curse on the DADA office was still there and there was no way he would stay past the year. Personally, he hoped Lockhart would get booted out in the most embarrassing way.

But Darius took matters into his own hands when it came to the second last day at school. He knew Lockhart would get the boot sometime soon but he was not forgiving enough to let the fraud get off scot-free. So, he decided to use Lockhart’s own skill against him. Darius went to his often and shot off a confundus charm as soon as he saw him. Then he made Lockhart think it was a great idea to write a tell-all about his own exploits. How he had tracked down other impressive witches and wizards, how his most impressive spell was the memory charm, obliviate, how he had taken the stories as his own and made profits off those books. It was a relatively short book but it still took Lockhart the entire night to pen it down. Darius threw in the occasional confundo when the previous one was wearing off and the book was finally complete the next morning. It was a reveal that would crumble Lockhart’s entire reputation and reveal all his secrets for everyone to see. Darius then sent it off to the goblins with a contract signed by Lockhart which would give them all the profits from said book. He was sure the goblins would squeeze as much profit as they could out of this.

He then fired off a moderately powerful memory charm which should remove about two days' worth of memories from Lockhart’s mind. This was going to be great.

The term finished and we headed down to the Hogsmeade to board the Hogwarts express. Harry, Mione, the twins and Lee sat with me in a compartment. Daphne and Tracy popped in sometime later and Neville just after them. It seemed someone sent of a message to the rest of them because soon almost the entire club had turned up. They were going to take up adjacent cabins but Darius decided to show off a little and cast a strong extension charm in their cabin. He connected four adjacent cabins and extended it making more than enough space for all the members to sit together. Everyone was looking forward to enjoying the ride together and we had a nice ride back to London.

But summer had just started and there was a lot to do this summer !!