45 Tracking down a Snake

Arriving back at his room, Oz sat down on his bed and heaved a sigh. A lot had happened tonight, so much so that he was feeling exasperated.

'The fight against the troll and dementors, Harry's change, Dumbledore pulling me into being his pupil and then receiving the Marauders map... I wish all nights were this productive...'.

Although Oz was tired he was too keen to get a look at the Marauders Map, so much so that the adrenaline of looking into it kept him awake.

'If I can create my own version of this map... It'll be incredibly useful for the years to come'.

Opening the map slowly Oz uttered:

"~I solemnly swear that I am up to no good~"

As Oz uttered the keywords, the map sprung to life. Oz looked at the map in wonder as he saw his own name along with the names of every student in the school be plotted onto it. Looking around the Slytherin dungeons Oz spotted Harry and Daphne's names. They both seemed to be back in their respective rooms after this nights debacle with Ron.

Looking at Dumbledore's office he could see the old man pacing around, probably coming up with another one of his schemes.

'This really is an incredible piece of work... I have to hand it to James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew... out of everyone who has been to Hogwarts as students I dare say they are the ones who explored most of what the castle had to offer, especially with this in their hands'.

As Oz was looking at the myriad of names on the map and idea started to form in his mind for his own version.

'There must be some way they track people inside the ward... If I mimic that method...'.

Oz's eyes widened at his idea.

'Maybe I could link it to that snakes portrait and track down where he's going?'.

This idea seemed far-fetched to Oz at first but the more he thought on it the more feasible it seemed. Down in the fireplace study Salazar's portrait was always emanating with dark magic. That magic is definitely connected to him in some way due to how many years he must have been down there... If there was a way to make the map recognise this dark magic maybe it could point out where the snakes slithering off to.

Oz was dead-set on trying this idea out after first initially thinking of it, after all there's no harm in giving it a go. After deciding on what to do with Salazar, Oz looked for another name on the map. That name being Quirrell's.

'Seems that bastard is back in his study... He must have already looked into the philosophers stones defences... Well too bad for you, you blubbering idiot, I have my eyes on that stone as well...'.

Oz spent the rest of the night studying the map to try and gauge how hard it would be to recreate it. Looking over all parts of the map, he came up with ideas that could improve it as well as make the scope of it wider.

Eventually sunlight entered Oz's room, he had spent the whole night with his eyes glued to the map. As the sunlight hit his eyes he squinted. A grin was plastered to his face the whole time studying this map and after looking into all details of it he was sure he could recreate it within a month or so.

'Looking at this... I should be able to recreate this by Christmas at least. That'll give me all of next years term to track down that old snake and find out what he's doing'.

Content with his findings, Oz put the map back into his pouch as he went over to his bed to lay down. A relaxed grin on his face as he let himself fall asleep after an eventful day and night.

.

After the events of Halloween, the weeks passed by with Oz keeping to a new schedule. Besides his daily routines he now would, on the weekends, go up to Dumbledore's office to be tutored by him.

The old man did keep to his promise, thankfully for Oz, and taught him wholeheartedly starting with wandless magic and Occlumency strengthening. When Oz inquired about becoming an Animagus, Dumbledore responded by handing him a mandrake leaf. Oz would have to keep this leaf in his mouth for an entire month before he would be prepped to take the Animagus potion. It was a bit uncomfortable for Oz at first but after he got the leaf tucked under his tongue and had it there for a while he got used to it. After he had kept it in his mouth for a month, The duo of Dumbledore and Oz would then have to wait for a thunderstorm until Oz could ingest the Animagus potion allowing him to attain his Animagus form. When a thunderstorm was due, Dumbledore explained that he'd notify Oz and they would both go out to the school grounds privately in order to complete his transformation.

Along with lessons with Dumbledore, Oz would also spend his time going to the RoR to get some alone time, researching into the Marauders map and slowly creating his own one. He surmised while creating it that when it was about to be complete, he should take the map down to the fireplace study and connect it to Salazar's magical signature then. If all went well, he would be able to track the snake.

With the creation of the new marauders map, he was on track to have it finished by around Christmas, just as planned. He didn't fully focus on the map however, still taking time to train himself a bit and read in the RoR so he wouldn't get rusty.

Meanwhile Oz still kept in contact with Craig and Cho, meeting up with them on occasion to chat. He also started to mingle more with the trio of Harry, Daphne and Hermione, the former two who were slowly becoming a match made in heaven with how mischievous they were becoming. The more Oz hung out with this Harry the more he began to like him in comparison to the original version. This Harry had a sort of 'pluckiness' to him that couldn't be described. It was as if the boy was just wholly more confident and cooler compared to the original Harry.

With lots to do the days rolled by and eventually Christmas was upon Hogwarts. Previous Christmases for Oz were always quite lonely and dull due to how recluse he was, however this Christmas coming up was sure to be a surprise for him...