Chapter 43: The Forbidden Room Part 1
Disclaimer:
Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 43: The Forbidden Room Part 1
Harry stood before the large oak door, his heart pounding so loudly he was certain it would echo through the empty corridor.
The third-floor corridor was silent as a tomb.
Harry took a deep breath, his hand hovering over the handle. This was the moment he had been waiting for. Three months of patience. Three months of watching, listening, and waiting. Three months of pretending to be the obedient student Dumbledore wanted him to be.
'This is it,' he thought. 'I have to know what's behind this door.'
He reached out and tried the handle.
It was locked.
Harry's heart sank for a moment, but he did not panic. He had anticipated this.
He had been preparing for months, reading every book he could find and learning every spell he could get his hands on, practicing the movements in the Room of Requirement until his wrist ached and his fingers blistered.
This is why Draco thought he was always studying. It wasn't exactly wrong...Harry had been studying a lot, just not for the school tests.
He pulled his wand and pointed it at the door...his hand was steady despite the adrenaline flowing through his veins.
The holly wood was felt warm in his palm. He focused his intent, visualised the lock mechanism turning, and whispered: "Alohomora."
A soft click echoed through the corridor.
Harry let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. His fingers trembled slightly as he reached for the handle again.
Then he stepped on something.
It was small and hard, pressing into the sole of his shoe through the thin leather.
Harry froze and looked down.
A small silver key lay on the stone floor, gleaming faintly in the dim light. Attached to it was a small piece of parchment, folded twice.
Harry's breath caught in his throat. He bent down slowly, his eyes scanning the corridor for any sign of movement.
There was no one.
He picked up the key and the note. The key was cool and smooth in his palm, intricately carved with symbols he did not recognise...ancient, flowing lines that seemed to shift when he looked at them directly. The metal was old, but it had been polished recently, as if someone had been caring for it.
He unfolded the parchment with shaking hands.
The handwriting was very familiar. It was the same looping letters, the same careful strokes he had seen in the history book, and in the note that had come with the cloak. The same peculiar style that had caught his attention months ago.
"Remember who you are." It was all that was written in the note.
Harry stared at the words in confusion. What was supposed to mean?.
And what was this key for?. The oak door in front of him had no holes for keys. It was obvious that it had been locked using magic. In fact, Harry had found that wizards rarely use keys, as they consider mechanical locks to be unsafe.
But leaving that aside, there was something that worried him.
The fact that they left this here could only mean that the secret benefactor who had been helping him was still inside the castle, just as he suspected.
There was no chance they had left the key and the note too long ago. Otherwise, a patrol would have found it before he arrived.
The thought was unsettling. Someone had been observing him closely, leaving clues and tools for him to find. It was comforting and terrifying in equal measure. A guardian angel or a puppet master? He didn't know which.
He did not like that, particularly not after having to endure the same thing from the Headmaster.
Harry looked down at the key one more time before putting it in his pocket.
He had many questions for this person, but this was not the time for that. Tonight, he had a clear mission, and he had come too far to turn back now.
The oak door had been successfully unlocked, so he stepped inside without wasting more time.
The antechamber was small and simple, lit by a single torch mounted on the wall.
The flame flickered weakly, casting dancing shadows on the rough stone walls.
The room was bare, with a low ceiling and a plain wooden floor. A narrow corridor stretched ahead, disappearing into darkness.
Harry glanced back at the door, then at the corridor ahead. He knew he had to be careful. He couldn't leave himself without an escape route.
He looked around the antechamber and found something small that he could wedge against the door, ensuring it would not swing shut and lock behind him.
'Just in case I need to run,' he thought. 'If Dumbledore returns, if McGonagall comes back early, if someone finds me… I need a quick way out.'
He wrapped the Invisibility Cloak tighter around his shoulders, feeling the familiar sensation of invisibility settle over him. He raised his wand and whispered, "Lumos."
A soft, warm light bloomed at the tip of his wand, and he stepped into the corridor.
The corridor was narrow, its walls rough and uneven. The air carried a particular unpleasant smell that took Harry a long minute to identify...it was the smell of blood. The same one he found in the underwater cave where Pansy's brother had been left to rot.
Harry's stomach turned at the smell.
He moved cautiously, trying to make as little noise as he could while moving across the stone floor.
The cloak hid him from view, but it did nothing against the sound.
He listened intently, straining for any signs of someone else's presence...footsteps, breathing, the rustling of robes...
Eventually, the corridor led him into a much larger room.
Harry stopped at the threshold and stared with confusion. What lay before him looked like a normal bedroom.
The room was surprisingly simple. A large, four‑poster bed stood against one wall, its hangings plain and undecorated, the fabric faded with age. A wooden wardrobe occupied the opposite wall, its doors closed, its surface covered in a thin layer of dust.
A small nightstand sat beside the bed, empty except for a single candle that had long since burned down to a stub.
The sheets on the bed looked old and unused.
There were no personal effects. No photographs, no books, no decorations. No signs that anyone actually lived here. It was more like a guest room that had never been used, a place that existed but was never truly inhabited.
Or something that looked like a bedroom but was never used for that purpose.
Harry frowned. This could not be all there was.
Dumbledore would not have gone to such lengths to hide a simple bedroom.
He would not have killed Alistair Parkinson for discovering this. He would not have placed blood runes on the walls and forbidden the corridor to all students.
'There has to be more,' Harry thought. 'There has to be something I'm missing.'
He moved further into the room, his eyes scanning every surface. The walls were bare stone, rough and unadorned. The floor was plain wood, worn smooth by centuries of footsteps.
Then he saw it.
Poking out from behind the wardrobe, barely visible in the dim light, was a symbol...a rune. Or at least part of one.
Harry's blood ran cold.
He recognised that particular rune...he had seen it in the cave during his last visit.
The same jagged lines, the same dark symbols, and it gave him the same unnerving feeling when looking at it.
This was a blood ward, exactly like the one in the cave.
He approached the wardrobe cautiously, his heart pounding. He looked at the floor in front of it and saw faint marks...scratches in the stone, as if the wardrobe had been moved many times. The dust had been disturbed, and the marks fresh.
This had been moved very recently.
Harry took a deep breath and pushed.
The wardrobe was heavy, but it moved. It scraped across the floor with a low, grinding sound that seemed impossibly loud in the silence.
Harry pushed harder, his muscles straining, sweat beading on his forehead, until the wardrobe had moved far enough to reveal what was hidden behind it.
A cluster of blood runes covered the wall. They formed a semicircle, their dark symbols pulsing with a faint red light.
Harry recognised the pattern. It was very similar to the one he saw in the underwater cave. The same blood wards that had sealed the passage behind Alistair's body.
His heart sank. A blood ward is now stopping his progress.
He had no way to break through it. He was not a powerful wizard, not an expert in dark magic. He was just a first-year with a borrowed cloak and a determination to find the truth.
'Wait,' he thought. 'Draco said blood wards can only be opened by someone with the right magical signature. Someone who shares the blood of the one who sealed them. Someone who is keyed into the wards.'
Harry looked down at his hands. His fingers were pale, his nails bitten short. He thought of his father, the loyal soldier, the one people called Grim Reaper. The man who had served Dumbledore faithfully until his death.
'What if James Potter were given access to this place?' Harry wondered. 'What if he was keyed into these wards?'
The note from the mysterious helper echoed in his mind: "Remember who you are."
"I am Harry Potter...the son of James Potter."
Harry pulled a small knife from his pocket. It was the knife from his potion kit, meant for cutting ingredients. It was sharp, with a short blade and a rounded tip. He had brought it on impulse, just in case he needed to cut something, to pry something open, or as a last resort to defend himself.
He made a small cut on his fingertip, wincing at the sting. A bead of blood welled up.
He pressed his finger to the centre of the rune formation.
For a moment, nothing happened. Harry held his breath, his heart pounding, his entire body tense.
Then the runes flared bright red. The wall inside the semicircle shimmered, rippled, and vanished, revealing a narrow passage.
The blood wards had accepted him. He had been keyed into them.
Harry stared, stunned.
This confirmed it...his father, James Potter, had been given access to Dumbledore's best-guarded secrets.
This brought him no comfort. If James Potter had been trusted, that could only mean that he would have been complicit in whatever was hidden here.
Harry recovered from his shock and stepped into the passage.
The passage was narrow and low, so low that Harry had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling.
The walls were rough stone, damp and cold. The floor was uneven, and Harry had to watch his step to avoid tripping.
After a few steps, the passage was divided into three paths. The left and right paths seemed to slope downward; their entrances were dark and intimidating.
A familiar smell drifted up from the left path...the scent of lake water, mixed with the metallic scent of blood.
'One of those must lead to the cave,' Harry thought. But had no idea where the other one could lead.
The middle path continued forward, its entrance slightly wider than the others. Harry chose that one to continue.
The middle path led to a heavy metal door.
It was just big enough for an adult man to pass through, but it was reinforced with iron bands and studded with bolts.
The surface was covered in runes and symbols, their meaning lost to Harry's inexperienced eyes, but its design reminded him of the vault gates at Gringotts, impenetrable and ancient, designed to keep out anyone who did not belong.
No spell will open this, Harry thought. No simple unlocking charm. This is something else.
He looked at the door and noticed a keyhole at its centre...small and easy to miss, almost hidden among the runes. It was shaped to fit a specific key, a key with a particular pattern.
Harry pulled out the silver key he had found at the entrance. The one that had been left for him. The one that had come with the note.
"Remember who you are."
"This has to be it..." He inserted the key into the lock.
It fit perfectly, as if it had been made for this door.
Harry took a deep breath, his heart pounding, his hands trembling.
He turned the key.
A soft click echoed through the corridor.
Harry held his breath.
The door swung open.
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