It was a happy Harry that made his way to dinner that evening. He'd left two of the kits in his newfound practice room and taken the third up to his dorm room. He'd immediately started looking into Rune-based locks in his Advanced Magical Crafting book. While he'd made sure to lock the room's door a standard Alohomora would allow anyone to enter. It hadn't taken him long to find the basics of a runic sequence meant to secure things and he'd used his new carving kit to make himself a Ward Lock. A Ward Lock was a fairly simple trinket that was made of either stone or metal. It required two pieces of either material and they had to be the same size to be paired together. The first object would be carved with the actual ward, the runic sequence that carried the effect of keeping people out. The second of the pair would be carved with the runic sequence for allowing someone to pass through the first object's ward. When the first object was placed on a door that door became un-openable to anyone that didn't have the 'key' to the ward. It didn't stop anyone from knocking the door down or blasting it to pieces though. The other major weakness of a Ward Lock was that anyone could pick it up and move it. If you placed the Ward Object on the outside of the door it wouldn't open, but any half-wit could figure out that taking the object off the door would remove the ward. Harry resolved himself to finishing his homework tonight so that he could attach his Ward Lock to the back of his practice room's door tomorrow morning.
"Good evening Harry." Penelope greeted her friend as she sat next to him for dinner. Tonks was over at the Hufflepuff table messing around with her House mates and causing much laughter. Harry knew the older teen had many friends and acquaintances but was still surprised to see just how much of her House Table she could pull into her ruckus.
"Evening Penelope." Harry replied only to get a frown from the older girl.
"Harry I told you we're friends now, you can call me Penny." Penelope reminded him.
"Right, sorry, good evening Penny." Harry corrected with a small smile. It was nice having some friends.
"Much better. Potatoes?" Penelope smiled as she offered him the large serving spoon.
"Yes, thank you." Harry smiled back as he took the spoon and put some potatoes on his plate. The two engaged in mild chatting for the rest of the meal, mostly about how his classes were going. Just like Tonks, Penelope had no recommendations for dealing with Snape. The man was just dour all the time and unpleasant at the best of times. Dinner finished with a wonderful dessert, treacle tart for Harry, before they were all ushered back to their Common Rooms for the evening. A couple of hours later a satisfied Harry climbed into bed with all of his homework completed.
The next morning Harry had gotten dressed for the day and headed down to breakfast. Tonks was apparently having a lie in as he didn't see her in the hall. Penelope was comforting another first year, Mandy if Harry remembered right, who was still hit with bouts of homesickness from time to time. A quick meal and Harry was walking out of the hall towards his practice room. He'd only gotten a few steps out of the Great Hall when a thought occurred to him. Even if he installed his Ward Lock on the practice room door any student who came across the un-openable door would most likely become curious about it. With a moment of thought Harry altered his course to his dorm room. Once in the privacy of his room he quickly opened his trunk and opened one of the expanded space drawers. Inside were dozens of stones he'd collected from Privet Drive and brought with him to use as testing material for new trinkets. Many simple trinkets and talismans could be made simply by carving the proper runic sequence into stone of the right size and shape. Metal also worked well for this purpose but until his Transfiguration skills increased, or he found a way to safely make a forge of his own somewhere in the school, he had no way to shape more metal. He was saving his last five metal bars from the summer day camp to make more Scouters later.
Quickly picking out a proper stone Harry took it over to his desk and opened his carving kit. Pulling out the etching tool he proceeded to carve the necessary runes into the stone to turn it into another Hiding Stone. Thirty minutes later and with some twine now tied around it, the new Hiding Stone was finished and ready to be used. Taking it with him Harry made his way to the practice room. Standing in front of the door Harry grinned at his own idea. Taking his new Hiding Stone from his robe pocket he hung it from the door handle and smiled when he noticed the slight glow the stone gave off. That meant it was fulfilling its purpose of hiding the door. The glow quickly faded and now the door would be less noticeable to all but Harry. Unless the person in question was actively looking for this particular door it wouldn't be any more interesting to them than a blank section of the wall. Unlocking the door with a quick Alohomora, wandlessly at that, Harry entered his practice room and tied the Ward Lock to the inside handle of the door with more twine. A few quick tests to make sure the Ward Lock was working properly and Harry was laughing at his new personal room in Hogwarts.
If you want to read ahead with advance chapters, you can visit my Patreon:
{P} {A} {T} {R} {E} {O} {N}
🎁 Patreon Benefits:
📚 Access to 20 advance chapters
👥 Join a private fan community
📖 Enjoy exclusive unreleased novels
🌟 Ad-free reading experience