The feast was already underway - all the students seated on their house’s tables - a compulsory seating rule for official Hogwarts events like the opening feast. The sorting was already over and Harry was happily chatting with Neville about his holiday trip - by his side sat Ron who was eating as if he starved for weeks, then Hermione just beside him. 

 

The girl was unfortunately not taking a single bite - after learning that house elves were essentially slaving in Hogwarts kitchen to prepare all their meals she refused to eat. Harry mused that she would accept the fact that they were actually happy serving the castle as he continued to focus on Nevilles story.

 

At the end of the feast Dumbledore gave his speech as usual, announcing to the dismay of many that there would be no quidditch this year, as well as the bringing back of the Triwizard tournament and its new safety rules. Similarly as before Alastor Moody, the new defence against the dark art professor came fashionably late just before the end of headmasters speech.

 

Harry looked at the newcomer and wondered how he actually ended up at the end of the year, Quirell was dead, Lockheart ran away, Lupin was forced to resign due to his werewolf identity - browsing the library Harry noticed even the previous professors of decade or so only lasted a year at most. The boy came back in time just recently after Voldemort's revival - the year was still not over at the time and he was quite curious if a former auror would suffer under the ‘curse’ on DADA position or would he continue teaching for one more year?

 

After the end of the feast all the first years rushed back to their dorms - upper years were the same, after all they all had some luggage to unpack, and Harry too was dragged along in the wave of people. 

 

Soon he was back in the all familiar room and went out to the common room to catch up with all the other Gryffindors. Ron came along, bringing his chess board with him - Harry was quite a better player than last year, so the red-headed Weasley enjoyed playing against him even more now.

 

As midnight approached the common room got empty - everyone was back in their dorms, sleeping. Or at least they should be sleeping according to Hogwarts rules and regulations - suddenly a door opened, then closed with nothing to be seen - it was Harry using his invisibility cloak to sneak out, leaving his sleeping room-mates behind.

 

As the boy found out during summer, four hours or so were sufficient in regards to sleep for him - he figured he might as well find some use for this extra time at school - and what better use than going to the library’s forbidden section for some night reading?

 

The boy glanced at the Marauders map once in a while - keeping track of moving dots in the hallways - while most school slept, Filch was still patrolling, same for various prefects who had some sort of patrolling schedule established to cover the whole night.

 

The walk was uneventful as the boy avoided all the patrollers with ease and reached the library. Shortly after he entered the forbidden section, where he put his wand with lumos spell ongoing in a crack on the desk and went to browse the ‘forbidden’ knowledge.

Glancing at the titles the boy smiled - he could actually read the majority of them now - learning runes over the summer nights was definitely worth it! The ones he could not read yet were seemingly in different languages and a few were using different runes, not the ones he learned about. After a short inspection of books the boy grabbed a random one that caught his eye - ‘Introduction to ritual magic’, then sat nearby to read - he was quite curious how rituals worked, having never encountered this branch of magic yet - well other than participating in dark lords revival…

---

The new day arrived as Harry walked through the great hall entrance. It was still early morning, so there were not that many people eating yet. Glancing around the near empty tables, Harry started walking towards the ravens table, only for Ron to call him back.

 

“Hey Harry, where are you going? Our table is that way”

 

Harry rolled his eyes - “Don’t mind me Ron, I am just going to chat with a friend, see you at Charms later!”

 

Ignoring the confused Ron and some curious glances coming his way the boy was already at Ravenclaw table as he sat down near Sue Li. To his side lay an empty seat, yet on the next one sat a girl who had a somewhat dreamy look on her face, her wand somewhy put under her left ear - not an usual behaviour for witches, Harry did not stare for much longer - having seen Dobby’s choice of clothing, weird appearances could hardly surprise him anymore, instead he turned to his friend.

 

“Hi Sue”

 

“Hello Harry”

 

“So how was the rest of your summer?”

 

As Harry and Sue were catching up while eating, the hall slowly filled with more and more students coming to eat. Harry did receive a few curious glances - perhaps a brief surprise on seeing Potter on their table, but it was not that much attention as in fact students did sit at other houses' tables occasionally. It was not like childhood friendships broke apart just because people went to different houses. 

 

The boy could even see some Hufflepuffs sitting with ravens while chatting, and some Gryffindors too! Perhaps Slytherins were the only ones not so fond of switching tables, or perhaps they had some sort of internal rule about it? Harry made a mental note to ask Daphne about it later, then his attention got caught by a familiar red headed girl heading his way, yet her eyes were on the girl sitting one empty seat away from him.

 

It was Ginny Weasley who came to eat with her childhood friend - Luna Lovegood. She sat on the empty seat near her friend - which just happened to be the seat next to Harry, as she finally glanced his way and her eyes widened in recognition, Harry just smiled and greeted her.

“Hello Ginny”

 

“Hello Harry, I must say I eat with Luna at the ravens table quite often, yet I have never seen you here… Ah by the way this is my dear friend - Luna Lovegood, a third year ravenclaw”

 

Harry and Luna exchanged their greetings, yet before more conversation could continue the hall erupted in clamour as it was that time of the day - hundreds of owls just flew inside the great hall and were bringing various letters, newspapers, delivery parchments and other various things to the witches and wizards. A lot of students were forgetful and forgot a cauldron, a book or some other necessity for school, so the first day receiving mail was always quite chaotic.

 

Harry was surprised to see a small box drop near his plate - he did not expect any deliveries today… unless… The boy checked the sender - a short note with V. Krum confirmed his thoughts, then he smiled, taking a peek inside - it seemed like his riot companion really did remember their promise of exchanging some books - inside he saw a few books on duelling and dark magic - in fact Harry sent Krum a few book tomes himself, just yesterday - taking care of magical creatures and divination. 

 

Surprisingly Durmstang was so well hidden, even magical beasts reached it very rarely, not like Hogwarts which had a forbidden forest just full of them - which is why there was no taking care of magical beasts subject at their school - they did cover all the dangerous kinds in some other class - the theory at least. Divination was also missing from Durmstrang’s curriculum, Victor was curious about it, even after hearing Harry's explanation of how crappy a subject that was, he insisted on wanting to give it a read and decide himself what to think about it.

 

Harry stored his new books in his pocket trunk - he would read them later, as one of them had dark magic written on the cover… perhaps he would read it during the night?

 

Looking round he could see curious glances his way from Ginny and Sue - they had seen V. Krum on the package and could guess who it was from - after all it was a very famous last name recently.

 

Harry went on to chat and explain - he watched in amusement as even nearby ravens were listening in - he only assumed it was due to that article by Rita Skeeter in yesterday's Daily Prophet - Hermione gave him her newspaper to read in the train during the train ride - Harry had to say it was an amusing read - sure it covered only one house they saved, but still, he noticed he was receiving a bit more glances than usual since then - after all saving a couple of humans, even together with a rising Quidditch star could hardly compare to being the boy who lived.

 

Soon discussions wrapped up and the students rushed back to their dorms, Harry caught up with Ron just as he was leaving for charms. They exchanged a nod of their heads as a greeting, then picked their pace as no one wanted to be late for first class.

 

During their walk Ron asked Harry - “Say, how did you know the first lesson will be charms today? McGonald only distributed timetables after we arrived?”

 

Harry held back his amusement behind as he playfully arched his brow as if confused by his friend's question - “But Ron, we have already been learning divination for over a year! Surely you could also just ‘divine’ something as simple as a school schedule yourself?”

 

Ron’s face morphed in such a weird mix of confusion and disbelief that Harry could no longer hold back his laughter, soon the red-headed boy joined his friend, forgetting the initial question in the first place.

---

Charms passed uneventfully, same for the other lessons. In fact Harry found them quite… boring and dull - as he perfectly remembered what he initially learned. Craving for a different experience he just changed his desk mates compared to his initial fourth year - now he sat with Daphne and Sue on Gryffindor-Slytherin and Gryffindor-Ravenclaw lessons, and with his old friends during Gryffindor-Hufflepuff ones.

 

The boy finished assignments with blazing speed then spent some time finishing homework assignments - even before teachers assigned them, then he either chatted or helped his desk mate or nearby students, or just took a book out of his pocket trunk for some reading - teachers could hardly complain as he did finish the assignments on time. 

 

Of course this did not work for all lessons - brewing potions could not be sped up even when knowing the recipe and having experience of brewing it - Harry was at least happy for his rising grades from Acceptable to Exceed Expectations in potions. 

 

Sure his brewings were not as great as Daphne’s, who was his desk mate this time around. The girl always got Outstanding as her grades, yet he could argue his potions were at least on Malfoys level - he knew Snape hated him for some reason, even more than non-Slytherin students, perhaps getting a better grade from him was not quite possible for the boy… Well unless he reached Daphne’s level - as Hermione did manage to get Outstanding grades somehow, only occasionally receiving Exceeds expectations.

 

Defence against the dark arts was a walk in the park as well - to the surprise of Moody and the whole class, Harry managed to resist Imperius on the first try - some people even joked he was immune to all unforgivables.

 

During his free time Harry occasionally visited Hagrid for a cup of tea - though always bringing his own snack to the side - he just didn’t have the teeth strong enough for the half-giants favourite ‘rock’ cakes and cookies, but he loved to chat with him and the tea tasted wonderfully as well.

 

During the day the boy frequented the library - casually reading through various books that caught his eye - it’s not like he had anything better to do while his friends were busy doing homework. 

 

Writing a five page long essay was an arduous task that required a lot of research in the library, but Harry did not want to do that again, especially with identical assignment topic - he took the easy way out and just copied his old homework from memories, making sure to fix some major mistakes noted by teachers last time around - perhaps he would get more Outstanding grades this time as initially he usually got only Acceptable or occasionally Exceed Expectations.

 

His friends were also getting tired of him prophesying the homework assignments as he refused to share how he knew it, so Harry eventually quit it - the same joke repeated too much was not so funny anymore, seeing all his friends incredulous looks while he patiently explained the wonders of divination subject was worth it in his opinion.

Speaking about divination, while Harry no longer played a prophet in most subjects, he did start a fun betting pool just before every divination class started - with people betting on who is going to die and how according to their professor, who never missed a lesson predicting someone's death. Harry intentionally missed a prediction occasionally, yet he was winning most of the time to the amazement of his group mates.

---

About a week has already passed and Harry was in a library, finishing his reading of ‘Hogwarts a history’ - the boy was amused, while most of the book was just dry and boring facts, there were quite a few side stories from former students added to brighten up the pace.

 

Most of them were entertaining and brought a smile to his face. A few marked as ‘mysteries’ of the school were intriguing as after some double checking of Marauder's map he realised most of them could be explained by a student accidentally using one of numerous shortcuts in the castle.

 

The boy’s eyes narrowed as he focused on the last ‘mystery’ side story - about a student finding another library at school on the seventh floor, yet not being able to find it again. 

 

The details told that the library was closed due to librarian leaving for some conference for the day, and said student really needed to research a specific topic for an essay due to looming deadline - it was in fact last day of christmas holidays so he was just wandering around the castle, hoping to catch any student from his year or above who might have taken those books from the library. Yet surprisingly for him he stumbled on a door he had never seen before - one on the seventh floor - inside a few bookshelves and all books inside were exactly about the topic he was researching!

 

Checking the Marauders map Harry did not see that many shortcuts on that floor, yet seemingly no rooms were inaccessible from the hallway. Curious, he decided to investigate.

---

Just a few hours later Harry double checked the map, he had been in all of the rooms on this floor, tried out all shortcuts, yet he found no libraries there - not even a bookshelf in sight.

 

Pondering he wondered how this had happened - either one of the many ‘Hogwarts a History’ side stories was wrong or …. There was a room that was not on the Marauders map, another one besides the Chamber of Secrets.

 

The boy walked into the owlery to inquire about this with Sirius - being one of the makers of the map he surely would know better how it actually showed the map - if all hidden shortcuts was just something Marauders found themselves, then it made sense for them to miss something…. 

 

Harry did not forget to include his school experience so far - he did promise his godfather to write about it occasionally.

 

He pushed his thoughts aside as Headwig flew off in the dusk, with a letter attached, then he picked up his pace to the great hall - it was just about the time dinner was starting to get served.

---

That dinner Harry sat at Slytherin table to the horror of other Slytherins - in fact it was the first time he sat there. Looking around, only a minority of students looked like they did not really care, only his friends - Daphne and Tracey looked happy at the occasion.

 

Harry could hardly care about what the others thought about him, and just ate and chatted, yet his chat was interrupted as he noticed the disgusted glances morphing into gleeful ones, focusing behind him.

 

Turning around he groaned as he saw Snape coming over from the teachers table with wide steps, the usual scowl on his face.

 

“Potter! Slytherins table is NOT a place for the likes of you! 20 points from Gryffindor and GO back to your own table!”

 

The commotion was receiving quite a few curious gazes, but Harry did not falter - by now he understood that house points were… how to say… useless. He locked eyes with his least liked professor and he felt him checking out his occlumency shields. With a smirk in his eyes he opened his mouth to speak.

 

“Pardon me professor, yet last I read Hogwarts rules and regulation, sitting with other houses students is in fact allowed, unless it's the opening or closing feasts”

 

The greasy professor just grumbled, sure he knew Potter's mind shields were good, but not that good - he suspected he could not breach them even with a wand - it seems Dumbledor’s friend did not lie… 

 

“While the rule does exist, it only applies if the students welcome the student from the other house” - he smirked glancing around the table - “it does not look to me you are welcomed here, Potter. 10 More points from Gryffindor for doubting the teacher”

 

Harry had to admit - that phrasing was in the rule - one could understand it that if at least one student welcomed you, you could join the table, alas the way Snape said it was another interpretation - he did not want to bicker needlessly with the professor and just excused himself and after bidding Daphne and Tracey farewell, excited the great hall - he had already eaten enough, and if he ever got hungry he could just visit the kitchen - he was already a frequent visitor here, now stopping there every night to a grab some snacks for his night readings - elves seemingly needed even less sleep than him and were not bothered by the sudden snack making order, but even happy of extra work thrown their way.

---

Sirius quickly read the letter from his godson with a smile on his face, it seemed Harry was doing well, yet this enquiry about the map put him on the spot - he actually had no idea how the spell worked, he just boasted of being one of the creators for the map - yet his work was on tracking people and revealing their names… The map was all James' work and he did know most if not all shortcuts in the castle… Or did he tap into Hogwarts wards to learn them in the first place? The same trick he used to reveal the names and positions? He was always with James whether he went and he certainly did not use all the shortcuts he himself saw displayed on the parchment… Still a hidden library on the seventh floor… 

 

*pop* - Dobby appeared in the room - “The dinner is ready, Sir! Will we eat together again?”

 

“Of course, Dobby!” - Sirius chuckled - “And you should call me Sirius, how many times do I have to remind you? Hmm I guess Sir is short for Sirius anyway, so should I call you Dob?”

 

Harry’s godfather was about to walk to the dining room, then as if recalling something turned back to the elf - “Say, Dob, you used to work at Hogwarts?”

 

“Yes, Dobby worked there last year, Sir.. Sirius” - the creature replied while nodding its head, his displeasure of hearing his shortened name nowhere seen on his face.

 

“Do you happen to know any… hidden rooms on the seventh floor?” - He gave the letter to Dobby while explaining further - “You see Harry sent me this, he mentions reading about a peculiar library on the seventh floor”

 

Dobby’s eyes quickly ran over the letter, then slightly widened in recognition - “I see Sir Harry Potter is doing good at school! I am happy! But why does Harry Potter Sir call the room the “Come and Go” a hidden library? Does he not know about that room?”

 

Sirius furrowed his brow - he never heard of such a thing, but he understood he was about to learn something interesting - he started walking towards the dining room with Dobby following closely behind - “I never heard about it myself, perhaps it has a different name?”

 

“It is also known as the Room of Requirements. It only appears when you really need it, in fact us house elves use it to dispose of any broken unneeded things.”

 

Sirius' eyes gleamed as he listened to the explanation, inwardly regretting not being able to find this fascinating room in his school years, but he was not about to hold Harry back from his fun - “What do you mean really need it? How would you enter it?”

 

“You need to think precisely of what you want to find and walk three times across the wall, after third time a door would appear containing what you need”

 

Now THAT sounded too good to be true, too magical even for wizarding school, Sirius brows furrowed - “surely there must be limitations on what you can find?”

 

“Dobby does not know, Sir”

 

Interesting, Sirius mused - he sat on the table with Dobby sitting across from him as they started eating. He would send Harry the reply after he was done as he was starving by now - it should arrive in time when Hogwarts wards opened up to allow owl entry for daily mail at breakfast.

---

Another night arrived and Harry was not in the library this time - in fact today was one of the odd few nights Weasley twins teached him as they called it ‘Subtle and Great Art of Pranking’.

 

In the first lesson they just checked what he actually did know. Surprisingly, creating prank items required a decent understanding of potions and charms, usually using one or the other discipline to create the item with the desired effect.

 

While Fred and George deemed his charms skills… passable his potions still had something to work on… Harry suspected they just wanted more galleons by making more lessons… but he had to admit, he did never receive an Outstanding grade in potions - even with all Snape’s hate for Gryffindors he was not THAT unreasonable with grades - perhaps he rounded the grade up for his house and rounded it down for other ones, yet a lot of ravenclaws and Hermione DID manage to get Outstanding grades fairly often. Surely Harry’s lack of best grades in the subjects couldn’t be simply caused by the greasy bats hate for him?

 

He initially was having doubts on learning… potions from the twins - yet they turned out to be decent teachers - focusing on what exactly happened after each action - be it chopping an ingredient, adding something to the cauldron or simply stirring it. Not like the potions professor who just wrote instructions on the board and called it a day.

 

The boy was looking forward to actually trying creating some prank items in the future lessons - still according to the humorous duo, he would still have potions for a month or so, until his skills hit passable.

 

As the twins finally called it a day and ended their second lesson. Harry grabbed his cloak and went down to the library. Today he will be picking another exciting book to read.

---

As the morning arrived and Harry sat with Gryffindors - Daphne and Tracey surprisingly joined his table this time around, surely Snape would never complain about fellow Slytherins or god forbid subtract their points!

Amidst their chatter, a letter dropped to his side, he picked it up and smiled at a familiar name on the envelope - Padfoot. Reading the letter his eyes gleamed in excitement - could such a room truly exist? He decided to skip the library today after lessons and confirm the room's existence instead.

---

Luckily for the boy he only had two herbology classes and divination today - it just so happened that divination was already on the seventh floor. Harry just went to a nearby loo after telling Ron not to wait for him as he had an upset stomach.

 

And as expected, just five minutes later the seventh floor got empty as all students left to enjoy the rest of their day or perhaps to work on homework. Harry double checked that no one was on the floor and anywhere nearby, like the staircase, before going towards a particular tapestry of dancing trolls - having explored every nook and cranny of this floor yesterday he knew exactly where it was.

 

Then he walked while thinking - ‘I want a room with knowledge about time loops’

 

And surely, he did not feel a thing with his magical sense, but a door did outline itself in the nearby wall. Curious and excited he entered the room.

 

He saw a lone bookshelf full of books and a single armchair and a table inside. His excitement dropped as he saw that all those books… were the ones he already read in the library, there were even a few ones from the forbidden section… He noticed that it did not even have all the books on the subject he read himself - he clearly found some rarer ones about the topic in Black's library, which were simply not here.

 

The boy dropped at the armchair in disappointment - it looks like the room does have quite a few limitations… Perhaps it could only pick the books from school? Well at least it’s quiet here, perhaps he could use it to try out rituals or practise his spells? Like the dark magic curses book Krum sent over? Or other wizarding communities spells he collected during summer?

 

As if reading his thoughts through all his occlumency shields the room stirred and expanded. The bookshelf was gone, now one side of the room had a lot of empty space on the ground, Harry’s eyes wandered with amazement as he recognized most ritual ingredients nearly arranged in containers on that half of the room.

 

With more excitement he glanced at the other side - now there were quite a few human shaped… dummies? Yet they were moving,,, perhaps magical golems? He could also see the few familiar shaped dummies - the same ones Tonks used to test their skills.

Harry smiled as he got up, while the room could not help with his time loop issue, he could at least use this place to improve his skills. It seems he would need to add visits there to his daily schedule - he did not find any other place in the castle where he could practise in private, well other than Chamber of Secrets, yet that place was a pain to get to. 

 

Just to be sure Harry animated the armchair to dance, its wooden legs tapping on the floor were quite loud. Exiting the room with the door open he could still hear the tapping sounds, yet as soon as he closed the door - there was only silence. He smiled, looks like even silencing charms were not needed, such a good find!

---

Harry woke up a bit later than usual - his body was quite sore, he had been duelling the various dummies in the room of requirement for a couple of weeks by now, yet they still packed a punch. 

 

Those ‘dummies’ could actually walk and even cast spells! Seemingly after learning a new spell… the dummies could use the same spell as well! The boy felt he was improving at a rapid speed, sure the dummies were not thinking as wizards - just mindlessly casting spells, but they somewhat made up for this shortcoming with their numbers.

 

The boy picked up his new glasses from the drawer nearby - in fact they looked identical to his old ones, just the glasses were different, not concave or convex as usual glasses were, they were in fact… regular and flat glass pieces. Harry managed to fix his eyesight using a ritual, yet refrained from announcing that to the world - rituals were currently banned in Britain.

 

In fact it was the only ritual he managed to succeed by now - there were quite a lot of easier ones, yet the boy did not want to do a ritual that would lead to clearly visible side effects regardless of success or failure. The next one he was trying to accomplish would increase his reflex speed - the boy was just waiting for correct star alignment for maximum effects and focusing on his duelling skills and reading in the meantime.

 

In fact he already read quite a few bookshelves from the school library - even a quarter of the books from the forbidden section!

 

His guess about the room taking books from the school turned out to be true - when he asked for Hogwarts library he got an exact copy of it - just without the people. Hence Harry spends most of his nights in the room of requirements, occasionally visiting the kitchen as the room sadly could not provide him with food.

 

His room-mate Ron finally woke up - “Morning Harry”

 

A short greeting later they walked down the stairs, then moved to the great hall, amid their breakfast, the headmaster's spell-amplified voice halted all chatter in the hall. 

Dumbledore informed the students that their lessons would be shortened today as delegations of other schools would arrive in the evening. Most students cheered, Harry included - he was glad the lesson cut short today was potions - it’s not like he hated the lesson, or his desk mate’s company - he liked them both in fact, he just couldn’t stomach the potions professor…