The morning broke cool and blue over the castle towers, and I was already awake, sitting at my desk with the early light casting long shadows across the room. My third year had officially begun the day before, but it was today—our first day of lessons—that really marked the turning point. I had sharpened my quills the night before, laid out my robes with meticulous care, and packed my satchel with the kind of precision born of anxious determination. I was ready. More than ready.
Breakfast passed in a blur of chatter and rustling parchment. Eleanor sat to my left, finishing her toast with one hand while reviewing a diagram of runes with the other. Edgar, across from us, was tracing a star chart in midair with his wand, ignoring the spilled milk seeping into his bread. I exchanged quick smiles with Henry and Elizabeth at the Gryffindor table, but our paths would diverge until evening.
My first class was **Charms**, and it set the tone for the day. Professor Herbert Beery, despite his jolliness in casual settings, ruled his classroom with an iron sense of formality. He was the kind of professor who believed magic must be respected—precise wand movements, exact incantations, measured theory before practical. One misstep, and you'd get the eyebrow.
"Third-years," he began sharply as we filed in, "you are no longer beginners. Your spellwork must reflect maturity, subtlety, and finesse. If you expect wand waving to substitute for discipline, you will be sorely disappointed."
We were to learn the **Homorphus Charm**—a spell used to reverse minor transfigurations and polymorphic effects. Complex in theory, and precise in pronunciation. Many of my classmates struggled to even get a spark. I cast it on my first attempt, drawing a low hum of magic from the tip of my wand as the misshapen practice dummy twisted back into its base form. Professor Beery gave me a long, unreadable look before curtly nodding. "Acceptable, Mr. Starborn. See to it you don't lose your edge."
The compliment—if it was one—settled warm in my chest.
From Charms, we went to **Herbology**, where Professor Violet Wrenwick met us in Greenhouse Four, already wearing thick gloves and an expression of battle-hardened expectation. "We'll be handling *Mortentines* today," she announced, gesturing to a bench of pulsating purple plants, "and you will *not* make a mess of it. One slip, and the spores can cause hallucinations for hours."
Most of the class hesitated, eyeing the twitching vines. I stepped forward and cast a subtle containment charm around my specimen before trimming the root bulb with a sterilized silver blade. I worked methodically, aware of her gaze flicking over to me again and again. When I sealed the trimmed root in the enchanted case, she said nothing—but the corner of her mouth twitched in what might have been approval. Maybe.
**Ancient Runes** was next, and I'd been waiting for it all summer. Professor Gwendolyn Braithwaite was not unkind, but her presence carried the sharp finality of a carved obelisk. She swept into the room without greeting, chalk already in hand. "If you are not prepared," she said without preamble, "you are wasting my time and yours. This is a language of gods and lost empires—not toys for children."
We began by translating a complex sequence involving *Fehu*, *Eiwaz*, and *Thurisaz*. I had studied these runes for months, and my hand moved almost reflexively as I filled in the translations and accompanying magical contexts. When she passed my parchment, she paused. "Mr. Starborn. Where did you learn the secondary interpretation of *Eiwaz*?"
"An appendix in *Runic Foundations*, second edition, by Octavia Skrigg," I replied.
A pause. Then: "Ten points to Ravenclaw." Nothing more. But I felt the ripple it caused in the class around me.
After a short break and a brisk lunch, I headed to the dungeons for **Potions** with Professor Slughorn, who, in contrast to the morning's regimen, greeted us with a jovial "Welcome back, my fine young alchemists!"
We were tasked with brewing a mid-grade Invigoration Draught. The instructions were lengthy, and the ingredients list included several timing-sensitive measures. I fell into the rhythm of it easily, hands steady, wand measured. When my cauldron gave off the expected shimmering steam and the liquid turned a bright, healthy blue, Slughorn clapped me on the shoulder. "Excellent as always, Marcus. Your precision rivals even my seventh-years."
I smiled at that. Of all the professors, Slughorn was the easiest to relax around. But I never let myself grow too comfortable. Being praised by him usually came with a seat at his supper club, and I wasn't ready to decide if I wanted in on that world just yet.
Next came **History of Magic**, which was, as always, the soft monotone of Professor Binns drifting over heads and under desks. I took notes, out of habit if not genuine curiosity, but it was hard not to let my thoughts wander. I thought of Basilisks, of Fiendfyre, of things buried deep under Hogwarts stone.
Our final class of the day was **Arithmancy**, and it was nothing like I'd imagined. Professor Soul Croaker was a tall, lean man with hollow cheeks and pale grey eyes that seemed always focused a few seconds into the future. He began the class by drawing a spiral of numbers on the board, then pointing to it.
"Magic flows in ratios," he said. "This is the Spiral of Thrice Nine. If you cannot follow it, you'll never understand why some spells work better during waning moons. Or why seven is power."
The logic was brutal, mathematical, and completely fascinating. Where other students scribbled uncertainly, I worked in confident sweeps, my earlier study of magical matrices clicking into place. At the end of the lesson, Croaker collected our parchments and said nothing. But his glance in my direction lingered longer than any other's.
When classes finally ended, I walked alone down toward the lake, my satchel heavy with notes and the sharp ache of concentration in my temples. But I felt accomplished. Each class had tested me in its own way. And I had met each challenge.
Back in the common room, I found Eleanor and Edgar already seated. Eleanor looked up from her Runes text. "You were top in almost every class, weren't you?"
I shrugged, trying to hide my smile. "Maybe."
"Don't get smug," Edgar said, smirking. "We'll catch up."
"I'm counting on it," I replied, and sat beside them.
That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, my wand still resting on the nightstand beside me. The quiet of the castle was almost total, the kind of silence that only came in its most ancient corners. And beneath it all was that same thrill I had felt since I was a first-year—the sense that I was part of something old, something magical, and that, slowly, I was mastering it.
The autumn wind whispered through the Hogwarts corridors as I made my way toward the library, the scent of dust and old parchment already dancing in my memory. It had become something of a second home to me — a sacred sanctuary of silent knowledge where the world outside could momentarily fall away. After a rigorous week of classes and near-unyielding professors, it felt good to walk the marble-floored quiet, knowing that in these shelves lay something deeper than spells and theory — something ancient, half-forgotten, and waiting.
Madam Thistle, the current librarian, was meticulously reordering a stack of tomes behind the desk when I walked in. She glanced up, raised a brow, and offered the faintest nod, already used to my frequent presence.
I made a beeline for the Restricted Section. I had special permission — one of the few perks I'd earned through consistent academic excellence and a word from Professors Beery and Slughorn. Today, I was hunting something specific: a reference I had found mentioned in a margin of *The Anatomy of Thaumaturgical Flow*. A footnote, half-erased, citing an arcane volume titled *Vessels of the Mind: Magical Structures in Antiquity.*
After nearly half an hour of searching, my fingertips grazed its cracked spine — the book was bound in serpent skin, old and dry, with faded ink that shifted under candlelight. I carried it to one of the tables near the back and sat down with reverence, brushing dust from the cover before opening to the chapter on magical cognition and enchantment reinforcement.
I lost track of time, consumed by theories of magical channeling that seemed to parallel what I'd glimpsed in my studies of Parselmagic. It spoke of symbology embedded into magical thought — of internal spellcasting matrices that allowed a caster to empower and modify incantations midstream. My mind stirred with questions. Had Salazar Slytherin used these methods? Was that how he imbued the Chamber with such lasting enchantments?
When the library's bells rang to signal curfew's approach, I blinked and glanced around — several candles had guttered out. Slipping the book back into its hiding place, I whispered a quiet *Nox* and left, my mind already racing toward the weekend.
Saturday came with a slate-grey sky and the sharp crispness of October air. As I approached the weathered ruin near the Forbidden Forest, I saw the familiar figure of Albus Dumbledore standing tall, robes flaring gently in the breeze, wand already in hand.
He smiled when he saw me. "Punctual as always, Marcus. Excellent."
His red hair was neatly trimmed, his beard shorter than I knew it would be in later years — but his eyes still carried that uncanny brightness, that insight beyond the present moment. "Ready for another dance of fire and form?"
We began simply, exchanging Disarming Charms and Shield Spells at increasing pace, each volley demanding tighter reflexes and sharper prediction. Then came the Pinching Hexes, designed more to distract than harm — but in Dumbledore's hands, even distractions became puzzles of motion and misdirection.
I lasted eleven minutes this time.
By the end, I was gasping, my robes singed at the edges, and my legs trembling with fatigue. Dumbledore offered his hand, and I took it, grinning through the sweat. "You're improving. At this rate, you'll be deflecting my spells blindfolded by next year."
We spent another hour discussing what I could improve — pivot timing, charm layering, wand angle variance. But my mind kept drifting to the hidden door, the coiled stairs, the vast stone maw beneath the castle.
That night, I went down.
The entrance to the true Chamber of Secrets was still warded with ancient, subtle protections. But I had long since deciphered the necessary Parseltongue phrases, and the snake-shaped archway yielded to me with a groaning sigh of stone, the wards being under my control helped too.
I lit my wand and descended slowly. The basilisk's corpse still lay where it had fallen, but carefully preserved, shrouded under a complex Preservation Charm I had constructed with weeks of experimentation. Past the corpse, through a tunnel behind the great serpent statue, I found what I had come to think of as the heart of Salazar's legacy.
The library.
It was not a typical library. No shelves lined these walls. Instead, rune-inscribed stone pedestals each held a single grimoire or artifact. Some glowed faintly. Others whispered faintly in languages half-forgotten. The air shimmered with unspent power — not evil, as many assumed of Slytherin, but raw and intricate, shaped by purpose and will.
Tonight, I studied a volume called *Ligatures of Will and Flesh*. It dealt with magical binding — not in the physical sense, but the arcane. How to entwine the structure of a spell with a living essence — to anchor enchantments to creatures, to memory, even to one's own body. It explained in stunning detail how bloodline magics could be encoded, and how Parselmagic could act as a cipher for highly specific bindings.
I turned pages carefully, my wandlight dimmed low, noting the connection between spoken intent and magical obedience. This was no mere instruction book. This was a key — a code to the oldest forms of structured spell-binding. A thought came to me — what if the enchantments on the Chamber itself weren't just cast, but grown, layer by layer, over centuries?
For hours, I transcribed, memorized, and tested minor applications with fragments of wandless control. I drew a sigil in the dust and focused power through it, causing the chamber air to warp and twist.
The magic here did not resist me — it welcomed me.
I stayed until dawn's approach, only retreating when the magical wards around the castle began to shift for morning routines. As I climbed out and resealed the entrance, I whispered softly in Parseltongue: *I will return, teacher of serpents.*
Back in my room in my dorm room, I collapsed onto my bed, mind still racing with symbols and echoes of power. The world above had no idea what lay beneath their feet. But I knew. And I intended to learn everything.