Harry sat cross-legged on the floor, notebook closed beside him, wand resting lazily across his thigh.
He reached into his satchel and drew it out: the worn, green-leather-bound journal of Salazar Slytherin.
No enchantments, no traps. Just thick, aged parchment and an unsettling feeling that the words within were never meant for modern eyes.
He opened to where he had last left off. The script—elegant, sharp, undeniably old—seemed to resonate with its own kind of power.
"Magic is not a tool. It is a language the world speaks to those who dare to listen deeply enough."
"Power is not taught. It is remembered. Awakened. The blood remembers what the mind forgets."
"To cast is to command. But to shape magic—to bend it until it obeys not your spell, but your intent—that is mastery."
Harry read in silence. Each line was like a stone dropping into still water, rippling outward through everything he thought he understood.
This wasn't about incantations or wand movements. This was… deeper.
He whispered aloud, mimicking the cadence of the old Parseltongue-laced English. Some words pulsed strangely on his tongue, not with heat, but meaning. As though the magic in the room leaned in closer when he spoke them.
He read on.
"Do not think of spells as answers. They are questions posed to the fabric of reality. And the world only answers to those with certainty."
"Precision is not finesse. Precision is belief, focused so sharply that even chaos obeys."
Harry closed his eyes.
Flitwick had said he lacked control. That he fought like Voldemort.
The journal didn't dismiss that idea—it explained it. This… this was the same magic Voldemort touched. But where Voldemort had twisted it through hatred and domination, Harry could feel something else humming at the edge of his awareness:
Intention without obsession. Power without cruelty.
Control, yes—but not to constrain.
To wield.
He stood.
The Room shifted with him, sensing his need. A floating orb appeared—dense with magical resistance, like casting against a dueling ward turned inward.
He raised his wand.
"Incendio."
The flame was standard. Focused. Textbook.
He cancelled it, breathing evenly.
He pictured not fire, but heat with purpose. Flame not as destruction, but as an extension of focus.
"Incendio."
The flame erupted again—but it shifted, twisting, tightening until it coiled into a narrow spiral of gold and red. More focused. Sharper.
Harry nodded.
Again.
This time, no incantation. Just intent.
The fire burst from his wand like a spear and struck the orb. The heat didn't scatter—it bit. The impact was smaller, but deeper, more precise. Efficient.
Harry breathed out slowly, wand lowering.
He understood now what Slytherin meant. This wasn't about raw magic. It was about ownership of it.
Not channeling emotion recklessly—but infusing intention into every spell. Until the magic wasn't something he cast, but something he was.
He sat back down and turned another page.
"The four pillars of magic are not invention—they are recognition."
"To master Transfiguration, one must see the world as mutable. To master Charms, one must impose desire upon form. To master Defense, one must embrace fear without submitting to it. To master Dark Magic… one must understand that sacrifice is not a cost. It is a choice."
Harry stared at that line for a long time.
It didn't glorify darkness. It didn't excuse it either. It explained.
He underlined it in his notebook and wrote beside it:
Sacrifice ≠ Evil. Sacrifice = Intent.
His hand stilled on the parchment.
Harry sat still for a moment longer, the weight of Slytherin's words still echoing in his head like whispers in a chamber long sealed.
He could feel it—something shifting inside him. Not just power, but the awareness of it. Its depth. Its danger. Its potential.
But potential was nothing without refinement.
And for that… he needed something else.
Harry reached into the hidden pocket of his satchel and carefully pulled out the old, leather-bound volume he had borrowed from the Headmaster's private collection—a collection Dumbledore had once jokingly referred to as "unofficial curriculum." Most of it was arcane, theoretical, nearly incomprehensible.
But not this one.
This one was different.
"Transfiguration as Art and Weapon: Private Notes, A. Dumbledore."
He opened to the marked section. The first few pages were dense with diagrams—circle matrices, object decomposition models, complex runes—but beneath the surface was something rarer: application.
Dumbledore hadn't written these notes to teach Transfiguration as a school subject. He had written them as a philosopher-warrior. A man who understood that in a true duel, control of the field meant more than any single spell.
Harry read.
"Transfiguration is not showmanship. It is disruption."
"In a duel, every object is a weapon, every element a lever. If your opponent assumes safety in the environment, alter the environment."
"The key to combat transfiguration is layered casting: create, direct, destabilize, reforge. Transfigure once, strike twice."
Harry's eyes narrowed in concentration.
He flipped to the next page, where Dumbledore had broken down a theoretical battle against a more powerful duelist. The strategy wasn't to overpower, but to control tempo and space.
A desk becomes a wall. The wall becomes a hammer. The hammer shatters into birds. The birds become blades.
It wasn't just reaction.
It was orchestration.
Harry conjured a training dummy. With a flick of his wand, it froze mid-lunge, suspended in a stasis field provided by the Room.
"Let's try it," he muttered.
He focused on a nearby chair.
"Mutatio!"
The chair snapped into a thick wooden shield and rocketed toward the dummy.
Mid-air, he slashed his wand sideways.
"Frangere—!"
The shield exploded into shards.
No—into nails.
Another flick.
The nails twisted, spiraled, and curved into metal thorns, each tipped with glowing red.
They pierced the dummy before it could move—one, two, five—before dissolving into smoke.
Harry exhaled slowly.
That wasn't just a spell. That was a sentence, spoken in the language of Transfiguration.
And he was learning to speak fluently.
He turned back to Dumbledore's notes.
"Transfiguration's true danger lies not in force, but in unpredictability. The moment your opponent recognizes a pattern, change it."
"Do not let your enemy feel comfortable—not even with the ground beneath them."
Harry stared at that line. Then, after a moment, he whispered, "Alter the environment…"
He raised his wand and muttered, "Terra liquefacta."
The stone floor under the dummy turned to quicksand, swallowing its feet. With another wave, the surrounding air twisted into mist—then sharpened, compressing into spikes of brittle glass.
He wasn't throwing spells.
He was playing chess with the battlefield itself.
It felt… right.
Like this was how magic wanted to be used. Not just wielded—but shaped. Transfiguration wasn't limited by what you created, but by what you imagined between one moment and the next.
Harry sank back down, heart steady.
With Slytherin's philosophy and Dumbledore's method, he was beginning to forge a third path—his own.
Power, yes.
But now, with precision.