The morning following his narrow escape from the second-floor lavatory broke with an aggressive, cheerful sunlight that felt entirely incongruous with the terror of the previous night.
Orion sat at the Slytherin table, methodically slicing a piece of toast into perfect squares. The Great Hall was a riot of noise—owls delivering the morning post, students trading gossip across the aisles, and the general clamor of a thousand teenagers breaking their fast. It was as if the ancient, murderous serpent slithering through the plumbing beneath their feet didn't exist.
"You look dreadful," Draco commented, reaching across Orion for the marmalade. "Did you stay up all night reading again?"
"I was merely contemplating the architectural flaws of Hogwarts," Orion replied smoothly, sipping his tea. He didn't mention that the 'flaws' involved gaping, Basilisk-sized holes in the plumbing.
His gaze drifted, as it often did, toward the Gryffindor table.
Hermione Granger had finally been released from the Hospital Wing. She sat squeezed between Harry and Ron, her bushy hair obscuring her face as she hunched over a bowl of porridge. She didn't look up. She just looked profoundly, deeply miserable.
"The detentions must be looming," Pansy Parkinson noted, following Orion's line of sight with a vindictive little smirk. "Snape told Flint he was planning to have them scrub the bubotuber pus vats without gloves."
Orion offered a noncommittal hum. Hermione's misery was a natural consequence of her actions, but his attention wasn't on the Gryffindors today. He was focused inward.
"Are you ready for the loot drop?" Sparkle's voice buzzed in his ear, her interface practically vibrating with suppressed excitement.
"I am always ready for compensation," Orion thought back, finishing his tea.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
Tier: 2 (Advanced)
Name: The Plumber's Nightmare
Description: You successfully intercepted the inciting incident of the entire school year by fishing a cursed diary out of a toilet U-bend moments before a giant, petrifying snake tried to eat you. You have effectively closed the Chamber of Secrets, stolen the villain's weapon, and saved the school from a reign of terror. All while maintaining perfect hair.
Reward: 1x Scrying Glasses (Enchanted).
Orion raised an eyebrow. "Glasses?"
"Check your inventory," Sparkle prompted eagerly. "These aren't just reading glasses, Orion. They are a diagnostic overlay for reality."
Orion mentally opened his grid. In a new slot, a pair of sleek, wire-rimmed spectacles materialized. He slipped a hand into his robe pocket and willed them into his palm.
They looked innocuous—like something a slightly trendy Ministry clerk might wear. He put them on, adjusting them on the bridge of his nose.
Instantly, the world changed.
The Great Hall didn't look different, but as Orion swept his gaze across the Slytherin table, small, semi-transparent text boxes began to pop up next to various objects, glowing with faint, silvery light.
He looked at a nearby goblet of pumpkin juice.
[Goblet (Brass): Scouring Charm (Faint)]
He looked at Draco's slicked-back hair.
[Hair Gel: Sticking Charm (Overpowered), Glossing Hex (Minor)]
He turned his head slightly, observing a seventh-year prefect lounging near the end of the table with a Glass of butterbeer.
[Butterbeer Glass: Warming Charm (Active)]
"Fascinating," Orion murmured, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face as he took off the glasses and slipped them back into his pocket. "It identifies the magical signature and the specific enchantments applied to an object."
"Everything," Sparkle confirmed, sounding incredibly smug. "It reads every spell, every rune, every hex. Even Dark curses. It is the ultimate curse-breaker's tool. You literally cannot be surprised by a cursed object while wearing them."
Orion's mind raced with the applications. He thought of the Vanishing Cabinet sitting in his trunk. He thought of the intricate, damaged runic arrays he had been struggling to decipher manually about a year ago. With these glasses, he could simply look at the broken sequences and read the exact nature of the failure.
More importantly, he thought of the seventh floor.
"The Room of Requirement," Orion whispered to himself as the students began to rise for their morning classes. "A mountain of lost, cursed, and hidden objects. These glasses are a metal detector for dark artifacts."
"Exactly," Sparkle agreed. "You can walk in there and spot the Diadem of Ravenclaw from across the room without touching a single random cursed necklace."
Orion nodded, thoroughly impressed. It was a massive strategic upgrade.
He spent the morning classes in a state of quiet anticipation, ignoring Lockhart's dramatic reenactment of his 'victory' over the Bandon Banshee, and instead sketching out random runic sequences in the margins of his notes.
By early afternoon, he had a free period. While Draco dragged Crabbe and Goyle out to the Quidditch pitch to practice in the freezing wind, Orion retreated to the comforting gloom of the Slytherin dungeons.
The dormitory was empty. Orion walked to his bed, drawing the heavy green curtains tight and casting a silencing charm.
He reached down and hauled his trunk from under the bed. He popped the latches and climbed down the wooden ladder into the expanded, multi-room study within.
The air inside was cool and smelled of old parchment and the faint, metallic tang of the massive Vanishing Cabinet hulking in the corner.
Orion sat down at his heavy oak desk, pulling out a fresh roll of parchment.
"Sparkle," Orion said, his voice echoing slightly in the magical space. "A question of logistics."
"Shoot," the interface materialized, hovering over his inkwell.
"Last night," Orion leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "I threw a highly volatile, sentient, soul-fragment-containing dark artifact directly into your storage grid."
He raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reaction.
"I fully expected you to throw a digital fit. I anticipated warnings, sirens, and complaints about corrupting your source code. Yet... you were completely silent. Why the lack of dramatics?"
Sparkle's interface flashed a brilliant, pulsing red for a second, then settled back into its usual calming blue.
"I am a highly sophisticated, multi-dimensional metaphysical architecture, Orion," Sparkle said, her tone dripping with mock offense. "I am constantly upgrading my threat-assessment protocols. I adapt. I improve."
She paused, the waveform twitching in what looked suspiciously like a digital shrug.
"Besides," she added dryly. "At one point last year, you literally shoved fifty pounds of raw, bleeding animal carcasses into my pristine inventory to feed a giant dog. Frankly, a cursed diary is a hygienic upgrade. At least it doesn't leak fluids."
Orion let out a sudden, bark-like laugh, shaking his head. "Fair point. I apologize for the meat."
"Apology accepted," Sparkle huffed. "But seriously, the Inventory is an absolute stasis field. The diary cannot interact with the outside world, and it cannot interact with me. It is functionally inert while stored. You could put a live Basilisk in there, and it would just pause. Please don't do that, I don't want a slythering worm inside my database."
"Good to know," Orion murmured, his smile fading into a look of focused determination.
He pulled his quill from the inkwell and flattened the parchment on the desk.
"The diary is secured," Orion announced, his eyes narrowing as he began to write. "The Basilisk is clearly not sane, but it requires the heir's orders to move within the castle. In the canon it did not take Potter's own commands, so chances are the same will be the case for me too. This means that we may have to put it down in the end. But since it is confined to the chamber for now, this also gives us time. Time to prepare and time to maybe also address a secondary objective."
"The Lovegood project?" Sparkle guessed, her interface floating closer to read over his shoulder.
"Yes," Orion said, his handwriting sharp and precise. "I told you I was not going to let that situation stand. Ignoring it is inefficient, and frankly, it offends my sensibilities."
He started writing on the parchment, taking some pauses to think over how to phrase his sentences.
"Luna Lovegood's housemates think they can torment her because she is strange and seemingly defenseless," Orion muttered, his voice dropping to a cold, calculating whisper. "They think their actions have no consequences because she refuses to fight back."
He set the quill down, looking at the message written on the parchment.
"I am going to introduce them to consequence," Orion stated. "And I am going to do it without ever revealing my involvement."