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However, a thousand-year-old enchanted artifact and a thousand-year-old witch likely weren't all that different, were they?
"I've noticed you chatting away with other students. Just last night, you spoke with twenty-three people in the common room and smiled at eleven witches."
"You said precisely four thousand seven hundred and eighty-six words to them. If you had saved a few, you could have spent half an hour talking to me instead."
The enchanted bronze eagle's arithmetic skills were, evidently, quite impressive.
Perhaps Ian was to blame for that.
But in the end, he had only outwitted himself. There was no avoiding it, if he wanted to sneak back into the dormitory after a late-night excursion, he had to sit cross-legged before the door and endure the interrogation.
"I'd rather make sure no one's coming to catch me," Ian muttered, casting a wary glance around the common room. In winter, most students preferred to lounge by the fireplace, reluctant to leave its comforting warmth before classes.
The Weasley twins' Ever-Warm Flasks might have been useful, but they were no match for a roaring fire.
"So, what do you want to talk about today?"
Ian asked the bronze eagle while keeping an eye on the entrance. It wasn't that he particularly enjoyed these conversations, but lately, even older students had started getting locked out.
There was now a bounty in Ravenclaw for anyone who could successfully befuddle the eagle knocker. Ian had considered turning himself in just to pocket the reward, but in the end, he decided his good reputation in Ravenclaw wasn't worth the price.
"I can talk about anything," The eagle trilled proudly. "In fact, ever since we started chatting, I feel as though I've been getting smarter. Clearly, you're bestowing wisdom upon me."
The bronze eagle's voice carried an unmistakable note of self-satisfaction.
"Alright then, let's talk about theoretical enchantments," Ian suggested.
It wasn't a subject he knew much about, but, fortunately, neither did the bronze eagle. So whenever he stumbled over a question, he could simply wave it away, claiming that it wasn't necessary to discuss yet. He could, of course, conjure up some convincing nonsense, but it felt wrong to tamper with knowledge too much.
Time passed slowly.
Since Ian wasn't particularly eager to sit through another tedious afternoon of History of Magic, he had taken the opportunity to collect the potion ingredients he needed from Hagrid before slipping back into the Room of Requirement to work on his latest batch of brews.
Feeling restless, Ian decided to study his assistant.
The Dementor, whom Ian had, through questionable methods, coerced into helping him with various tasks, still seemed deeply confused about its situation. Now that it hadn't received any new orders, it reverted to its instincts, extending its withered hands toward the young wizard in front of it, driven by hunger.
"You need a manicure?" Ian raised an eyebrow. "I'm afraid the only thing I can offer you is a hand replacement, how do you feel about dragon claws?"
He frowned, mentally calculating the difficulty of applying biological alchemy to something like a Dementor, while still watching its skeletal fingers with mild disgust.
The Dementor, of course, gave no response. It merely leaned in closer, its tattered hood shifting back on its own, revealing the ghastly thing beneath. Its face was hardly better than that of a Faceless Ghoul, smooth and eyeless, covered by a thin, veined membrane, like a cicada's wing stretched over hollow sockets.
"Ha ha ha~"
Its skeletal hands grasped Ian's shoulders, but it found itself trembling, its grip weak, its efforts futile.
It couldn't lift him. It couldn't pull him closer.
"You know, you've got just the right sort of space for a pair of eyes... I wonder if a kindly old wizard might have a spare set lying around. Or maybe I could fit two golden Snitches in there?"
Ian let the Dementor rest its skeletal hands on his shoulders, feeling rather confident that this particular one was unusually docile.
Even the way it draped its arm around him seemed careful, almost polite. Of course, the occasional twitch of its lipless mouth still caused the surrounding air to plummet several degrees. Without hesitation, Ian gave it a sharp slap.
"Ugh!"
The Dementor froze, stunned. Its mouth stopped twitching.
"Stand still. Don't interfere with my research," Ian ordered.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the Dementor went as stiff as a statue, allowing Ian to pry open the empty hollows where its eyes should have been and reach inside.
At twelve feet tall, the creature towered over the young wizard like a looming mountain, it was taller even than Hagrid. The sockets where its eyes should have been were so deep that Ian could shove his entire hand inside without meeting any resistance.
"I still can't find its brain," He muttered.
His fingers probed through the void, left and right, but he encountered nothing but an eerie mist, cold and dense, shifting like sentient fog.
The sensation was unnatural as it was more magical than magic itself.
"Hold on." Ian jogged to the worktable where he processed potion ingredients, grabbed a sharp silver knife, and returned.
The sightless Dementor shivered.
Unfortunately for it, movement was no longer an option.
"Let's try this, then." Ian carefully slid the blade into the empty socket, feeling for something solid. But when he reached in again, he found nothing, just the same ghostly mist.
Not one to give up easily, he tossed in a few other objects: a brass knob, a dried beetle wing, even a shrunken gobstone. Each one vanished into the abyss as if swallowed whole.
"A shame. I could've turned you into a portable storage vault," Ian mused, regretting that he hadn't discovered a way to repurpose the creature's unusual anatomy.
"Still, if I could fix a proper set of eyes in there..." He eyed the empty sockets thoughtfully. Surely, a few well-placed screws wouldn't raise any complaints from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?
"If the left one could fire Avada Kedavra beams," he added wistfully, "we'd finally have our own version of the Uchiha Clan..."
But, regrettably, he lacked the necessary materials to attempt any serious modifications.
After a few more moments of prodding, during which the Dementor trembled pitifully, Ian finally turned his attention back to his real task.
Several failed attempts later, he successfully brewed the potion he had been working on. The mysterious blue liquid shimmered in the cauldron, radiating an almost hypnotic glow.
Satisfied, he cleaned up his workstation, checked the time, and realized there were still hours before dinner.
His gaze swept across the vast, ever-shifting Room of Requirement, and he recalled something an old alchemy professor had once said.
"I need a space to study the very essence you contain."
He murmured the words, half-expecting nothing to happen.
But when he reached for the doorknob and twisted,
The Room of Requirement answered.
The door creaked open to reveal a chamber unlike any he had seen before. Ancient and grand, it bore the weight of a millennium's worth of secrets.
Countless inscriptions covered the walls, glowing softly with untold wisdom.
And there, gleaming amidst the arcane script, was a name, one that had been long forgotten.
Hufflepuff's Golden House.
(End of Chapter.)