{Slytherin Common room, Hogwarts}
{7th Sep 1991}
{3rd Person POV}
Rigel sat comfortably in one of the sofa chairs, he held the potions book in his hands even though his attention was focused on everyone around him. Before going back yesterday Narcissa had confirmed that the diary should be with someone from Slytherin.
'I haven't sensed anything abnormal about anyone till now... at least anything related to mana. I should focus on their behaviors a lot more and see if anyone shows any sign of deteriorating mental health.' Rigel thought. His current plan relied too much on luck and was thus unreliable.
Would he be able to catalog the physical signs shown by 40+ Slytherin students? He wasn't sure. Aside from that he was also focusing on a more concrete plan. Daphne was sitting beside him, working on her potions homework.
Speaking of the first potions class, while Snape had taunted and tried to humiliate Harry a lot harsher than canon, he had ignored Rigel's presence. Maybe it was to maintain his biased personality or he had realized that his father wasn't Sirius Black.
"Hey Daphne, can you help me out with something?" Rigel asked he made sure to keep his voice low.
Dahpone gave him a curious look, the way he deliberately kept his voice down caused her to scoot closer, "What?"
"I don't know much about magic so I have a question. Do you know any way I can apply some trigger wards to my door, in case someone opens it without my permission?" Rigel asked.
"Trigger Wards?" Daphne asked confused, "you don't need to do anything, all Hogwart rooms are already secure with quite a lot of wards, plus with your password being in parseltongue I'm sure no one ever will be able to go into your room without your permission."
"Just humor me," Rigel gave her a pleading look. Realizing that this just might be a chance for her to get a little bit closer to the womanizing heir, Daphne nodded. She scooted closer to Rigel, their shoulders touching lightly as she started explaining wards to him.
"Trigger wards is a part of different types of Alert Wards. Wards could most easily be described as blankets of mana that surround a place or an object to which they are anchored. When a foreign magical signature, one that it doesn't recognize interacts with it, it can either cause a silent alert, a warning, or trigger another ward that could be offensive and defensive..." She trailed off, not wanting to overwhelm Rigel with information.
"...So if you want to learn a Trigger ward, you need to know at least an offensive ward that it could trigger, though it should not be so complicated as a simple sound-expulsion ward would do." Daphne finished telling him some basic information about the wards. She looked at Rigel who was giving her his full attention so she continued.
"In addition before you start to learn more wards, you need to know where you can even place or anchor wards. The most common way to anchor a ward is through a wardstone. These are naturally occurring materials that could stabilize a ward for centuries by converting ambient mana to power up a ward. Though if you want to use a ward inside Hogwarts it might be a little difficult." Daphne admitted.
"Difficult why? Will the castle's wards interface with an individual ward?" Rigel asked.
"Well yes and no." Daphne responded she struggled a little bit before she sighed and explained, "...don't tell anyone I told you this, but each wall inside the castle is etched in multiple different runes. Even without the ward stone that you might need to set up a long-term ward, runes needed to be etched on surfaces to enclose and define the area where the wards would take effect..."
"...and it is difficult to etch more runes without interfering with the Hogwarts wards," Rigel whispered and Daphne nodded. Rigel wondered for a moment how the castle walls still stood if it was that easy to mess with Hogwarts wards, but he kept that question for later, right now he needed to know if Myrtle's bathroom had enough space to etch extra wards in there.
"And I need to pick up on runes even before beginning on different ward schemes?" Rigel questioned getting a nod from Daphne. He looked at the blond in appreciation as he smiled at her.
"...Thanks Daph, I need to go to the library quickly. I'll catch you in a bit alright!" Rigel exclaimed as he shut down his potions book and threw it into his inventory.
Daphne watched as Rigel Black walked away, even if she had heard rumors of his ongoing sexual relationship with Evelyn Rowle she couldn't help but appreciate his thirst for knowledge and his keen mind. She wanted to go with him but he was quite forceful in doing most things alone so she decided to not pursue and irritate him.
Her attempts to search through the Hogwarts Library for a cure were fruitless and slowly she realized that the Black Family and their accursed library might be the only answer to her quest.
'Why did he have to think with his dick,' Daphne thought frustrated but since there was still some time before the Core Expansion Ritual on Halloween, she still had some time...
...
Rigel walked through the hallways and quickly arrived at the second-floor girls' lavatory, he found a lack of paintings in the area quite relieving... And from the gloomy atmosphere, he could tell that not many people walked through these halls. A couple of magical signatures were working on maintaining the area as the house elves went about their duties though Rigel could sense their magical signature disappear as he got closer to them.
House elves were peculiar creatures, they liked to work and didn't like being seen, at least the Hogwarts ones. He had noticed this phenomena happening a lot in the past week so it didn't stick out in his mind. As he arrived at the girl's toilet he peered through the open door. His senses immediately found the abnormality in the room.
The entrance to the chamber of secrets was practically glowing as he stared at the mirror and sink in the middle of the room. The wards that surround the sink had a different, more menacing glow as they only protected the entrance. Given that Dumbledore had failed to go through the entrance, he was going to bet that he wouldn't be able to force through those wards either.
'Thankfully I don't need to, and since Slytherin was adamant about hiding his secret hideout it gives me enough leeway to work through with my plan...' Rigel thought as he grinned, his eyes traced the aged stone walls as the 'glowing' runes revealed a crack in the otherwise flawless integration of wards.
A splash alerted him that he wasn't alone and as he turned around to come face to face with a rather infamous ghost, he couldn't help but wonder how he was going to persuade her to be on his side.
...
AN - Some knowledge about wards and a meeting with a ghost!
P.S - 40 + Chapters on Patreon!