Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
I own nothing but the original characters I create.
Chapter 19: Secret Laboratory
Being in this castle for a second lifetime gave James some advantages.
Like having knowledge about the layout of the building that few could compete with.
Walking past the east hall of the sixth floor, James continued and entered a short hallway that had two rooms, one on each side, called 6A and 6B.
At this moment, neither of these classrooms was in use, but most senior students knew about them, so it wasn't rare for couples to sneak in here at night.
'Those won't do, but…' James knew a better one.
He went past these two classrooms and toward an old painting at the back.
The work of art depicted a grassy meadow, but unlike most paintings in the castle, this one was devoid of any picturesque characters.
Seeing the poor state of the frame and the canvas, he wasn't sure if this was ever a living painting like the rest, that was no longer functioning or... if it was one of the few normal ones in the castle.
None of this mattered to James though. What he was after was the secret switch on the right side of the wooden frame.
He placed his fingers on the smooth stone and heard a clicking noise from his right.
A wall had moved out, revealing an entrance to the elusive 6C classroom.
He wouldn't be surprised if, other than the Headmaster and the elves, no one knew about it.
James went inside and closed the door behind him before looking around.
"Not much to see, though," he commented to himself.
The room was rectangular in shape and decently spacious, albeit much smaller than the other two classrooms on the same floor and completely devoid of any piece of furniture or decoration.
He wasn't even sure if this was ever a classroom, given its size and empty state.
"At least this serves as evidence that the janitor doesn't know this is here. Otherwise, it would have been used as storage."
His eyes moved up the wall in front of him.
The furniture wasn't important; he could always bring a few desks and chairs from the nearby classroom. What mattered was that this room was secretive and had an opening at the top.
It was big enough to offer some ventilation and to allow some owls to go in and out of the room.
James nodded. "That will do… this is going to be my secondary laboratory."
His briefcase was great for important experiments, but to mass-produce potions for sale, he needed a bigger location, and this was just big enough for what he had in mind.
"Phew… it's done…" James cleaned the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve.
He ended up bringing three large tables that he proceeded to enlarge even further, as well as a few chairs and some shelves.
After setting up all the potion-making utensils he had recently bought, the place now looked like a proper laboratory.
"Oh… wait." James made a troubled expression.
His wand appeared in his hand. "Tempus."
He only had half an hour before the start of classes, but he had been too distracted setting everything up, and more than an hour had already passed.
"McGonagall is going to be mad…" James muttered. "Although, today was a double Transfiguration class, so…" Since he was already late for class, he might as well skip it completely.
"That means I have another hour to spare." James decided that this was a better use of his time anyway.
It wasn't like he had much to learn in class...he was only attending them to keep up the appearance of a normal student.
"Since I have some time now… perhaps I can begin that project." He pulled several boxes from his pockets and enlarged them.
In a moment, there were dozens of different materials stored in small containers displayed in front of him.
"This will be my first alchemy experiment in this lifetime… it's kind of exciting." He may have done this hundreds of times before, but there was something special about starting again from the beginning.
Not that this was going to be an experiment for beginners by any means. And it was going to take a long time to complete. This is why he wanted to get it started as soon as possible.
He took his best cauldron and got to work.
"Let's see what I can do." A smile was plastered on James's face as a blue flame appeared below the cauldron.
He had to hurry to even make it to the next class on time.
James was unable to leave his laboratory until the first stage was completed, and it had taken him a bit longer than estimated.
His current tools were much less efficient than what he was used to working with, so everything he did seemed to take longer.
'I also miss my assistants…' James recalled his apprentices. There were always at least a dozen of them ready to assist him at all times.
"Now I have to do everything by myself…" he lamented.
Due to a mixture of being distracted reminiscing about the past and being in a hurry to enter the classroom to which he was late for… James didn't notice that someone had been standing in his way.
For some reason, the first thing he saw was the pale faces of his friends, who were standing a few feet away from the entrance.
When he looked down, he saw the fallen figure of Bellatrix Black.
"How curious…" James didn't mean to say that part out loud, but he couldn't help but feel that it was odd that… of all the students in this school, he kept bumping into this particular one.
"Curious?!" Bellatrix's face snapped back to him. Her angry purple eyes were locked onto his own. "What is your problem, Potter?!"
"I suppose at this point, it will be hard to believe that it was just an accident…" He offered his hand to help her up, but she slapped it away.
"Damn right it's hard to believe!" she shouted.
Bellatrix stood up by herself and was getting ready to do something when someone stood in front of James.
"Wait, Miss Black… please."
James had to admit that out of everyone in this classroom, he did not expect Lily Evans to come to his rescue.
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