Chapter 39 - Remainder of Third Year

By Christmas I had completed my NEWTs in Healing and Duelling and started practising apparition. Room of Requirements provided me a special space to practice that allowed apparition in spite of the anti-apparition wards of Hogwarts. I could not apparate outside from here just inside the room due to the wards. So I could not practise long distance Apparition in Hogwarts and had to practise that during holidays.

Cleansing the Diadem was simple enough. The room provided me with a book about Horcruxes which contained a ritual that I could use to transfer the soul into another container. It did not require any ingredients other than the new container for the soul piece. The only requirement was that the container needed to be a magical artefact otherwise it would not be able to house the soul piece. It was easy to find one in the Room of Hidden Things using my mage sight. I used a magical gem that I found in the room as the new container for the soul piece and performed the ritual. It was successful and I gave the Horcrux to Sherry so that she could store it away safely in my house.

I performed another ritual on the Diadem to cleanse it of all the dark presence on it. After all that, I had a beautiful and perfectly working magical Diadem for my use. When I wore the Diadem on my head for the first time, I felt invincible. I could calculate complex problems in my mind very quickly as if I was a computer. Going through my memories also required very little time while wearing this on my head.

After I tried studying while wearing the Diadem I was surprised on finding the speed at which I finished reading and understanding a book. I felt I could finish my mastery in the three fields related to Ancient Runes by Christmas next year with this speed of reading. My estimation was that it would take at least 3 years for me to finish all three masteries but now I could do it in a third of the time.

So the days passed in Hogwarts with some pranking every now and then but otherwise studying. Soon it was the End of the term feast again.

My pranking had inspired a lot of people to take it up and it started a prank war between the Slytherin and Gryffindor. Slytherin bullies started pranking instead of bullying when they found out I did not retaliate when they pranked. This led to both of the houses losing a lot of points and in the end Ravenclaw won the House Cup.

My studies were going along very well with the help of the Ravenclaw's Diadem. The speed of progress was as I had expected and I was sure to complete the masteries by Christmas next year.

I was now close to a master in Legilimency. Next year I would try it on teachers who did not have lord rings or were not master occlumens. I was hoping by this time next year I would be a master Legilimens.

My apparition practice had brought fruits. I could now apparate easily in short distances instantaneously without any problems. Thankfully I did not splinch myself during my practices. I could have healed myself easily with the help of Sherry but it was troublesome. Now I needed to just practise large distance apparition during holidays.

Bullying had reduced a lot due to my efforts. The school became more fun for everyone. Even the bullies, who found pranking to be more fun. There still some people who made school difficult for the muggleborns but I knew nothing I did could do anything about that. They stopped hurting them and that was enough progress for me.

At the End of the year feast, the new marauders again made an appearance.

Leo "It was a fun year. I hope everyone liked it as much as I did."

Stripes "We are happy to see that bullying has reduced considerably and our efforts were not in vain. We hope that you will keep it like that for the next year too."

Raven "Good bye and enjoy your holidays."

Slyde "We will meet again next year."

Then they disappeared in the cover of some sparkling charms that dazzled the audience. There was loud applause from the students and some students loudly thanked the new marauders for making their school lives better.

After the feast there was the train ride and then I finally reached my house. First thing on my to-do list was to power the wards of the house. It was a long time pending and now that I was NEWT level in and near mastery in warding I could do it easily.

I went to the ward stone of the house and checked the wards on it. The ward stone was not powered by a ley line and contained just basic wards. I guess the warding was done by my parents and they did not know much about warding. I decided to start anew and removed all the wards from the ward stone before adding new ones. I added all the protective wards that I could think of including anti-animagus wards and intent wards which would tell me if any person who was inside my house had ill will towards me. It was now almost impossible for people to enter my house without my permission only some very powerful wizards or ward breakers could enter my premises without my permission.