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 28: Book of Demons
"Let's see…" Harry placed his fingers around the spine of the tome and pulled it off the shelf.
As soon as he did this, the book began emitting a sharp shrieking noise.
"Tsk!" He should have expected they would place something like this on dangerous books to serve as an alert if anyone tried to grab them.
Harry quickly pulled his wand and charmed the book to silence it.
'I will have to hurry now. Someone could have heard that and come here to check.'
Taking the book outside the library was likely to trigger another security measure, so he opened the book and started reading it right there.
After all, he had no need for the book itself and was just looking for one specific piece of information, and hopefully, it was in there.
The Malleus Daemonica he found contained a lot of generic information about demonology and its different ways of practice, but it didn't delve into any specifics.
Harry had already expected that. After all, demonology is one of the most forbidden types of magic, and information about its methods must be very restricted because of that.
'Here!' Harry's eyes opened widely. He had found exactly what he was looking for.
The last chapter contained information about actual demonology sources.
There were dozens of titles of tomes that were either lost or destroyed.
Many of those, Harry remembered having in his library back in Azkaban.
It was very painful to learn how the Ministry of Magic had been eradicating any magical knowledge they disagreed with.
Just when he was starting to lose hope and thinking he would have to travel to a different country, he found the name of a book that still existed.
'The Codex Daemonium?! They didn't destroy that one?' The page mentioned that it was being kept inside the Ministry of Magic, well secured inside the Museum of Dark Arts.
'This is great, I just have to find a way into that museum and retrieve the book.' If he could get his hands on that particular tome, he could put it to good use and increase his power immensely.
Just then, the door to the library opened up.
"Is someone there?"
Harry placed the book back in its place and covered himself with the invisibility cloak before poking his head out to see who it was.
A large, old woman with ragged brown robes was walking around the library while looking around. "Hello?"
'Professor Sprout.' Harry didn't feel any threat from that woman. With the help of the cloak and his concealment charms, he was able to escape without her noticing a thing.
'What a useless professor…' But just as he went outside, he heard the footsteps of more people moving around the corridors.
'Why is everyone coming this way now?. No way that cat would have come to the library. Harry cursed his bad luck.
It appeared that his stunt with Filch's cat had backfired, and now everyone was searching for the damn thing in the area he was in, making it difficult to move around.
He had no other choice but to seek refuge inside one of the nearby classrooms and wait for things to calm down.
A moment later, after closing the door, he heard two individuals walking by while having a conversation.
"Where is he then?"
Harry recognized the voice of Professor McGonagall, as well as the man who responded to her.
"I'm sorry, Minerva, but I cannot tell you that right now. Severus had to leave for some important business...he will return very soon."
"I don't like being kept in the dark, you know this." McGonagall didn't sound too pleased. "All this secrecy that you always…"
"It is very much necessary in this case," Dumbledore reassured her.
"What about classes tomorrow?" She asked next.
"If he is not back by then, I can take over his duties for the day. Although I'm sure there is nothing to worry about."
The door of the classroom was then opened by the professors who peeked inside.
"Mmm… not here either," McGonagall said. "Where could that cat have gone? It never leaves Filch's side for more than a few minutes."
"I do not know either, but…" Dumbledore's eyes were drawn to one corner of the classroom.
'Did he detect me?' Harry was very confident in the capabilities of the cloak, as he had tested them himself. There should be no way for this man to detect him without performing at least a few spells.
His wand was tightly grasped in his hand, just in case. Although he was well aware that fighting this old wizard at this point would be a bad idea.
"Something wrong, Albus?" McGonagall noticed that he was staring at an empty space.
Dumbledore shook his head. "No. I just thought I saw something for a moment… let us continue the search. We must find that cat, or Filch will throw another fit."
Harry did not relax his posture even as he saw the door closing. Every time that old man was close, he always got on full alert.
In his past life, he had met several wizards like that one. They look inoffensive, but beneath that… there is true danger.
His instincts warned him not to be around the Headmaster for long, or his true self would be revealed.
'Wait… they said that Snape is not in the castle?' He just realized that this could be a good opportunity.
He had been wanting to get into his potion cabinet, and this was a chance he could not let go to waste.
Harry sneaked out of the classroom after making sure that the Headmaster was no longer around.
And then, instead of returning to Gryffindor Common Room, he made his way to the dungeons.
A.N: - Remember to comment, vote, and/or leave a review if you have the time. Those things help me a lot and I would really appreciate it.
You can Support me on P@treon if you like and get 20 advanced chapters. You can also find characters images to view for free in Collections/Beneath the Skin Images
-patreon.com/Kriogenix
For donations and commissions, go to ko-fi.com/kriogenix