Standing just inside the door of the Room of Hidden Things, Harry couldn’t help but marvel at it. Despite having been in the room a few times, he had never stopped to actually check the place out.

“Man, I have both mine and Voldemort’s memories of the place but it sure is an amazing room” thought Harry out loud.

There were stacks of objects lying around, in no particular order but they seemed to be organised in some way. At a single glance he could already see many weird contraptions, many of which looked rather interesting. Interesting enough that Harry wanted to pick them up and see what they were about.

“Ah!” he exclaimed as he stopped himself from walking towards a bird cage shaped like a dragon’s maw with a suspicious light flickering inside it. “I can’t get sidetracked so easily”

Harry shook his head and then turned towards where he remembers the bust with the diadem being. Only to frown and stop himself.

‘Voldemort and I remember the bust differently’ thought Harry, ‘I remember it being near a cabinet while Voldemort’s was at the edge of a stack of books’

Harry pondered for a moment before it hit him, ‘Didn’t Malfoy use the vanishing cabinet to have death eaters infiltrate the school? He must have done it from this room, he did say that he had worked hard to fix the cabinet’ thought Harry, ‘Since Voldemort doesn’t remember the cabinet being there, then it was either moved in later or Malfoy did it’

Harry moved towards where he remembers the bust being. When he reached the same spot, he discovered that the cabinet was indeed not in the place he remembers it being.

‘Guess that settles it’ thought Harry, ‘Malfoy moved it here and then repaired it. So I should probably go and destroy the cabinet later. Assuming I can find it’

Harry fell deep in thought, ‘Is it a food idea to destroy the cabinet though?’

‘Malfoy definitely used it for having death eaters infiltrate the school but if I could find it and secure it before him, he wouldn’t be able to do that’ thought Harry, ‘Destroying it would be the simplest and fastest solution but it could prove useful’

Harry had spent the last week thinking about how he would go about doing everything he needed to do outside the school. ‘I could apparate but I can’t do that from inside the school grounds. I’ll have to crawl through that secret passage into Hogsmeade before I can apparate’ thought Harry, ‘It would be a major hassle having to do that every single time’

However, if he could find the vanishing cabinet and if he secured the other one from Borgin, he could easily use them to move out of Hogwarts.

‘I should do that soon, I have many things I need to do in the outside world and not much time to do them in’ thought Harry, ‘Anyway, I should get back to the horcrux issue’

Harry turned towards the bust with the diadem resting on top of it. It was in the same position as what Voldemort had left it in.

‘Thankfully Voldemort had no time to cast any protective curses over the diadem’s location. Though he did curse the diadem itself but it would only activate if someone wears it, so it would be fine for me to touch it’ thought Harry as he reached out and grabbed the diadem.

The moment he picked it up, he could hear a low eerie moaning. He could also feel the dark aura oozing out of the diadem. ‘Man, just how many historical artefacts does Voldemort need to defile before he’s satisfied?’ thought Harry with distaste. ‘Not that I care much for the historical significance but still’

With such mundane thoughts, Harry wrapped his hands in the phoenix fire and extended it out to the diadem itself. The diadem shook as if it were trying to get away. The eerie moaning getting louder and louder until it reached a point where it had turned into more of a screech.

Harry ignored the diadem’s protests as he bathed it in phoenix fire. Though it seemed to take a little longer than usual but cleansing of the diadem finished without much of a problem.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

‘Well, that was anti-climactic’ thought Harry. ‘Wouldn’t have minded a little bit more of a struggle’

Harry raised the diadem up as he looked it over carefully. Even after spending over fifteen minutes looking at it and feeling it out, he couldn’t find any residues of the horcrux or the curse.

‘Well, that’s done with’ thought Harry as he placed the diadem back on the bust.

‘I don’t really need it’ he thought, ‘I’ll just leave it here. I can always come back for it if I ever feel like I need it’

Harry stretched out and looked around the room once more, “Now that I have the time, let’s go explore!”

Harry set off with an excited expression, much like a child with a new toy.

“I’m sure this place has a lot of crazy things, I wonder what I’ll find”

Harry walked back to the door and decided to comb through the room from top to bottom so he doesn’t miss anything.

He made his way through the various stacks of items as he checked out anything and everything that caught his eye. The first thing he checked out was the birdcage shaped like a dragon’s maw.

The moment he reached the birdcage, he felt an odd heat coming from it. Though it had the shape of a dragon’s maw, it was still made with metal bars, so Harry could still look through it, though the metal bars were rather close together.

Inside the cage, Harry saw, what looked like, a wisp. A floating ball of blue flame that seemed to be dancing around in the wind, despite there not being any wind in the surroundings.

Harry watched the wisp for several minutes before he was finally able to tear his head away, ‘I wonder what that is’ thought Harry. Shaking his head, he turned away from the birdcage and moved through the stacks of items.

Stopping every now and then to check out a metal contraption or some weird book. He managed to find all kinds of things that he felt would definitely be better off in the restricted section of - well it’s own category.

He even managed to find some dirty muggle magazines, something he had never expected to find in a School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. ‘This really does interest men no matter where they come from’ thought Harry with a sigh.

He placed the magazines back where he found them, though he did peek through them for several minutes. A fact he would never admit no matter who asked or how much they tortured him.

Finally after an hour of exploring, Harry was starting to grow bored, despite there being no dearth of interesting or baffling objects. ‘I’ll go back once I finish combing through this area’ thought Harry as he made his way through the items, his entusiasm much lower than when he started.

Just as he was planning on heading back so he could go to bed, he felt an odd suppression on his mind. It felt like a blanket had been wrapped around his mind, muffling his thoughts.

Harry stopped in his tracks and shook his head in annoyance but the feeling persisted. He tried to use Legilimency against that suppression but to no avail. He used Occlumency and finally he felt a slight reprieve, though the feeling was still there.

“What in the world is happening here?” wondered Harry frowning in irritation.

Harry walked forward and the blanketing feeling grew stronger. ‘Whatever is causing this feeling is nearby’ thought Harry.

He walked forward cautiously, checking the items out one by one. With every step the blanketing feeling grew stronger and stronger until finally he felt like his mind was completely wrapped around tightly in something. Harry found it rather hard to think, let alone move around.

Looking around with difficulty, Harry’s eyes landed on a desk. It was a beautifully carved extremely large desk, one that would have been used by an important person or even displayed in a muggle museum.

However, his attention lingered on the desk itself for but a moment. He couldn’t help but focus on what was on that desk.

Placed perfectly in the center of that large desk, being the only object placed placed on that desk was a book.

The book itself looked ornate. It had a dark green cover made from an oddly supple-looking material. Its gilded spine along with the large imposing title embossed in gold on the front cover of the book made it look truly imposing and extremely valuable. It was definitely not an object Harry would have expected to find in what could only amount to the lost-and-found of Hogwarts.

Walking up to the book, Harry looked deeply at it. He had had several encounters with strange books ever since he had become a wizard. For that matter, he even encountered a book that would start screaming the moment someone opened it, or been told about a book that no one would be able to stop reading if they ever read a single word in it.

Remembering all those situations caused Harry to be much more cautious but despite all his caution there was a part of him that told him that he should open the book. That this action would probably be extremely beneficial for him.

Trusting that instinct, Harry reached out with a trembling hand, and slowly placed a finger on the book.

The moment he touched it, he felt a searing pain in his head and couldn’t help but yelp out. He tried to pull his hand away but to his dismay, his hand was glued to the book.

The pain continued for a few minutes before it finally dissipated causing Harry to sigh out in relief. ‘That was way too painful’ thought Harry.

“Oh” exclaimed Harry suddenly, “That blanketing feeling is gone!”

Harry felt happy, since he felt that getting close to that book was an ordeal that he probably wouldn’t want to repeat.

Sighing in relief, Harry finally turned to the title of the book, reading it out loud, “Animus: The Mind Unveiled”