Chapter 225: Second Room, Winter Break

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The day before the Christmas break, close to eleven in the cover of night, Quinn stepped into the Architect's vault and into the first room of the vault. It was as he had seen it for the first time he had entered the vault.

"Solving this every time I come in here is annoying," Quinn voiced to himself as he descended the few steps to the pedestal in the middle of the room.

Quinn had found out that every time he stepped out of the vault, the pedestal would rise up again and lock the archway staircase back into the wall.

He stood by the pedestal as he flooded everything stone in the vault with his magic, and soon after, the entire room began shaking as Quinn began solving the mechanism inside the walls. The nine portions that made up the mechanism could be divided into three parts — [1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9].

The first three were individual locks with no dependence on other portions from their group. The second three were connected in successions where every solved portion was added to the next portion. The last three were interconnected and were mutually exclusive to each other and needed to be solved simultaneously.

And as Quinn stood by the pedestal, he solved all three sets simultaneously to be quicker, and now that he knew the correct combinations, he was able to use parallel thought processing at a manageable level without a migraine in his future. The pedestal started to fall one by one in quick successions, and as he walked towards the revealing archway, the last three portions clicked together, the pedestal went into the ground.

He stared down the dark staircase with the end nowhere in sight. Two orbs of light manifested around him as he stepped down the first step, and they flew steps ahead of him and stopped to hover at the sides of the staircase. Another two orbs of light shimmered into existence and flew farther than the previous two orbs and placed them beside the walls. Just like that, two new orbs of light would appear, fly deeper into the staircase, and line the walls to light up the entire staircase.

Soon he arrived at the end of the staircase and stepped out of the tunnel into an expansive room. Quinn stared around the strange room as he stepped forward deeper into the room; it was an empty chamber; just like the first room with the pedestal, this room didn't have any decoration and seemed purely functional in nature.

He stopped one-fifth of the way into the room and stopped just at the edge of where the floor ended and stared down the deep and dark chasm right in the middle of the room. The first time he had entered the room, the chasm had reminded Quinn of an abyss. He looked up from the ravine and stared at the other side to see the continuation of the floor and the opposite of the room. Three-fifths of the room was the chasm, with one-fifth of the floor of the room's length on each side.

Quinn's initial thought had been that the Architect wanted him to cross over the chasm and get to the other side, which he easily did with a broom, but the result was disappointing — there was nothing there — the room only had the one door.. . but that was just code for the existence of a hidden exit.

"Where's it hidden this time," said Quinn, once again looking for clues, which he had already done the last time he was here.

The room was definitely created by the Architect. There was no surface in the room that wasn't smooth and straight — the ravine in the middle of the room was perfectly rectangular with no irregularities. The walls, the floors, the ceiling were marked with gridlines.

There was only one place remaining in the room that he hadn't looked in. He once again looked down into the dark ravine, and dozens upon dozens of orbs of light appeared above the ravine before dropping down into the chasm, lighting it up in the bright white light.

"Let's go," said Quinn and stepped forward and down into the chasm. His robes fluttered up as he fell down around thirty feet and landed with a smooth, bright blue Arresto Momentum.

He landed on a flat surface and looked around the lit-up bottom of the chasm with observing eyes, and just like above, the surfaces were covered in grids, but there was one thing that seemed out-of-place — a large white cube laid in the middle of the floor. It stood out from its grey surroundings.

Quinn approached the cube cautiously and walked around it a couple rounds to observe it thoroughly. From just taking a look, there wasn't anything of exception other than that the cube was sitting perfectly on a square in the grid on the floor.

"Alright, let's see what's the deal with this," he said and stepped near the cube, but when the tips of his fingers touched the cube, it suddenly trembled.

"Whoa," Quinn immediately stepped back from the cube, "I just touched it."

The tremble lasted only for a few seconds before the cube stilled. It was only after that the changes started to appear.

First, a line appeared that separated the cube into two halves — upper and lower.

Then another line further divided the upper-half into two other halves — left and right.

Next, two large circles appeared on both the right and left halves, and then two perfect cylinders with smaller radiuses rose from the circles; they rose for a foot before stopping.

The second the cylinders settled at their peak height, another circle appeared in the middle of the upper half of the cube such that the line which divided the cube into left and right passed right through the center of the circle.

The portion of the line inside the circle disappeared, and another cylinder rose; this time, the entire circle rose instead of a smaller part. Quinn watched as the cylinder rose for half a foot before he saw the end of the cylinder as it rose up into the air and then flew to the straight right above one of the raised cylinder platforms.

The floating cylinder stilled for a movement before it started to vibrate and wiggle — the cylinder turned into a pile of grainy dust before reforming into a perfect solid cube, which then gently set down on the cylinder platform.

'That's.. .' thought Quinn, but before he could even finish it, a sound broke his line of thought.

Quinn looked to his side to see a cube in the wall grid slide out with the sound of stone grinding against stone and suddenly changing to white from its original grey.

"That's transmutation," said Quinn looking back and forth between the wall cube and the apparatus that rose from the center cube.

"So.. . what do I need to do here?" Quinn said to himself. There were generally no written instructions for him, and he needed to figure out the next from the circumstantial clues present in front of him.

He touched the small cube on the cylinder and flooded it with his magic; it was made from a dense stone with an incredibly smooth surface. Then he moved to the bigger wall cube and did the same things; this one was made from the same material.

"Okay, let's try this," said Quinn with a scrunched-up expression on his face. Quinn pushed out more magic into the stone, and this time, instead of scanning, he used transmutation and pulled his hand back for a block of white stone to come out detached from the bigger block.

Quinn heavily sighed in relief, "Oh, thank magic, this wasn't covered with defensive spells." He had tried transmutations in the first room, and it was safe to say that Quinn wasn't a fan of explosions going off in front of his face.

"Hmm, same material.. . transmutation from the vault's side.. . my own transmutation also worked perfectly," Quinn contemplated for a good few minutes before he went back to apparatus-cube.

He put down the block he had taken out from the wall cube aside and focused his attention on the cube sitting on the cylinder platform. He reached into his pockets, took out a tape measure, and began measuring the sides of the cube, and after a couple of measurements, he picked up the block from the wall cube and cast transmutation on it.

The block vibrated and turned into an unstable state before solidifying into a cube shape. As the block was heavier than the cube on the platform, the resulting cube was larger than it. So, Quinn began shaving it down with transmutation until he had a replica of the platform cube in his hand.

"Now, let's see if my guess is correct."

Quinn gently placed the replica on the second cylindrical platform, and it was instant that the apparatus cube began vibrating. The vibrations persisted for a couple of seconds before the replica cube rose and along with it the material that Quinn had shaved off. Everything went back into the wall cube and transmuted back to its initial stage.

The wall cube then slid back into the wall, and when it was again part of the grid, it turned back from white to grey. But it wasn't over yet because the cube next to it in the grid slid out and turned white.

Quinn looked back at the apparatus cube and saw that the cube on the platform had also changed into a cuboid.

"Ah, so that's how it's going to be, huh," said Quinn.

He understood what he needed to do. Every time a cube came out of the wall, he needed to take some out of it and use transmutation to make a replica of the object on the first cylinder platform and place said replica on the second cylinder platform — if it matched the material he took out would go back in, and the next wall cube would come out, the shape to replicate would change, and the process would repeat.

"Well, that's good and all.. . but," Quinn looked around the chasm and then at the roof above, he imagined the entire room, "isn't this too much?"

Of a rough calculation off his head, there were at least around a couple hundred cubes in the grids around the room.

"This is going to be another freaking long thing.. ." said Quinn, his voice showing his displeasure — he didn't like grunt work at all.

He didn't know that the Architect had something else in his mind when he created this room.

- (Scene Break) -

"I'm home!" said Quinn up as he entered the West manor through the front gate after apparating from the King's Crossing.

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It was the third week of December, and Hogwarts students were allowed to go back for a ten-day Winter/Christmas/New-Years break, and as he did every year, Quinn always went home to spend time with his family during the holiday season. Quinn had never gone home during the two-week Easter/Fall break in April because that was usually the time he was fully locked in with the vault progressions, but he never missed Winter break.

He walked the familiar halls with a smile on his face and arrived at the lounge, but there was no one there. Today he had come home alone because he had asked his family not to come to pick him up at King's Crossing.

"Polly!" he called loudly, and in the time he set down on his briefcase down, the West family house-elf popped in the room.

"Little Master is home," said Polly clapping as she jumped excitedly as soon as she arrived.

"I'm home, Polly," said Quinn smiling back, very happy to see Polly even though she was the one family member who he could see with a single call.

"Where's everyone?" he asked.

"Big Master and Mister Elli are away. Little Mistress is to arrive in the evening. Missy Rosey is in the back gardens," said Polly.

"How long have they been gone," asked Quinn as George and Elliot could be out in the day and back by evening, or they could be away for a couple days for a business trip.

"Big Master and Mister Ellie went away two days ago," said Polly as she summoned some refreshments, "they be returning on Boxing Day."

"So, it will only be me, Lia, and Ms. Rosey this Christmas, huh," said Quinn, "maybe I'll invite Luna home if she's free.. ."

After Polly and Quinn caught up, Quinn went to the back gardens to meet Ms. Rosey and tell her that he had returned(he had stopped Polly from doing so.)

When Quinn found her, Ms. Rosey looked as she always did — dressed in prim properly in one of the classic Victorian-era-styled robes that she liked so much with her hair tied into a bun covered in a black net. She wore reds and browns — all her clothes were of the warm color palette.

He just stared at her for a couple of moments as she took care of her own personal section of the garden.

"Ms. Rosey, I'm home," he finally called out.

She turned around at once and stared at Quinn for a moment before speaking. "You stopped Polly from telling me."

"That I did," he said, smiling as he hopped his way to her.

Ms. Rosey looked Quinn over for a while before she nodded with satisfaction. He looked alright.

"Welcome back home," she said, "how was your first term?"

"It was horrible," said Quinn pulling a pitful face, "Dolores Umbridge is a horrible woman sucking all the fun out of Hogwarts. She tried to shutdown AID, but I showed who's the bigger bully in Hogwarts."

"Bigger bully.. . why would you use that term to describe yourself?" said Ms. Rosey sighing.

"Bad guys, when done right, are way cooler than the good guy."

Ms. Rosey shook her head; sometimes, she couldn't understand Quinn. Maybe it was because of the generation gap, she thought to herself.

"What else did you do?" she asked, wondering if Quinn took on something new for this year like he did last year.

"Hmm.. . I've been tutoring some people."

"Your friends? What were their names again?" Ms. Rosey asked and then answered on her own, "Luna Lovegood, Eddie Carmichael, Marcus Bebly."

"Yeah, them," said Quinn, "and a couple more people." Around forty more.

"You should bring them home," said Ms. Rosey, "I would like to meet them, and I'm sure so would your grandfather — If I'm right, only Lia has met them."

"How about I invite them over for Christmas? Nothing big, just a small party. How about that?"

"Not for Christmas," Ms. Rosey refused outright, "Your grandfather and Elliot won't be home, I'm not even sure if Lia will be home for Christmas.. . and you have work to do on Christmas."

"What do you mean?"

"You will be attending the Ministry Yuletide Ball in your grandfather's place."

Quinn's reaction was immediate.

"Can I not do that?" he said, pleading, "make Lia do it, please. You know I don't like attending those events. They're bothersome, annoying, and boring."

"As I said, Lia might be busy, and your grandfather asked this because you have been skipping events like these for a couple of years. It is essential to show your face in public once in a while to build some connections."

"But I've connections," said Quinn in rebuttal, "I've more than enough — no, I have an absurd number of connections in Hogwarts and all in the right places. There's no need for me to go to the Ball to make more."

"Be that as it may, you will go to the Ball. You will be going as your grandfather's representative. Your sister has done it plenty of times; it's time you do your share."

"But—"

"Not liking it is not an excuse I will be accepting. End of discussion," said Ms. Rosey, "now what would you like to eat. I will have Polly prepare for you.. . I can ask her to make sausage rolls if you would like; I know they are your favorites."

"That change of subject isn't fair," said Quinn, all but pouting, "but yes, I'd like some sausage rolls, please, and I would like a Shirley Ginger to go with it. Furthermore, I demand steak for dinner with four scoops of ice creams in the dessert."

"We can do that," said Ms. Rosey, "but you'll only get three scoops, and that's only for today."

"This is oppression."

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Quinn West - MC - I don't like this. I demand more!

Ms. Rosey - Caretaker - No.

FictionOnlyReader - Author - I haven't eaten ice cream in such a long time.. .

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