Harry looked around the Room of Requirement, which, for all intents and purposes, other than lacking the diadem Horcrux and some other objects that he had steered clear of when he'd looted the place, looked the same. There were still mountains of what was essentially trash, galleons, sickles knuts and enchanted items. It seemed weird to him that Dumbledore had not bothered cleaning the whole thing up even after he'd so obviously taken the Horcrux.
The man clearly wasn't lacking money, but only removing the Horcrux and other dark artefacts seemed a bit contrary. However, the man's motivations were sometimes as indecipherable as a particularly difficult physics equation, so Harry decided not to think about it too much, even if a sense of doubt kept niggling at the back of his head. Why exactly was Dumbledore behaving the way that he was behaving?
He'd obviously started the hunt for Horcruxes. The diadem was gone. Someone had broken into the Lestrange vault in Gringotts. Was the man so consumed by the task that he didn't find the energy to do anything else? It would make sense, after all, Voldemort was a dark lord who threatened to stay immortal and return to the peak of his power. That was a much bigger concern than any student's regaining access to their lost objects. The man had also been very much absent from his duties at the Wizengamot and the ICW. Harry had heard this from classmates who read the Daily Prophet and other more politically-minded newspapers.
In the end, Dumbledore's preoccupation with Voldemort, justified as it was, was to Harry's advantage. One little error that he had committed this summer was that he had taken the vanishing cabinet from Burgin & Burkes in a somewhat self-fellate attempt to protect the school from a Death Eater incursion, as it had happened in the books.
However, at the time, he had not yet checked the Room of Requirement thoroughly enough to see if the other vanishing cabinet was even still present, which could have meant that the vanishing cabinet here could have been one of the things that Dumbledore had removed or destroyed for very good reasons. Thus Harry was particularly confused, if happy, to find it still here.
Dumbledore was undoubtedly the most enigmatic and also the most important figure at Hogwarts. And since Harry Evans was not Harry Potter, or in other words, the boy who lived, he had very little interaction with the man. He had been tested once for similarities to Tom Riddle, but that had been the extent of their interaction.
Regardless, Harry Evans, as one of the non-prophesied enemies of Voldemort, did not need to have such a clear connection to Dumbledore, nor did he want to for fear of the man reading his mind. While he was adequate at Occlumency, he was not delusional enough to believe that he could keep out the headmaster. He didn't understand why the man had only collected some of the truly dangerous items from the room instead of giving the remaining lost objects back to the student population, which had lost them in the first place, but quite frankly, it wasn't any of his business.
Harry once again picked an empty non-cursed trunk and walked around collecting little tidbits and coins, putting them away in the trunk and then segueing them into a part of the castle which was safer.
After all, one of the reasons why he had given up the location of the room and Horcrux, even if it was a relatively smaller reason compared to all the other reasons, was the fact that he wanted to show this place to his friends. Tonks had been old enough to be trusted with the information already last year, but Cedric and Penny would still suffer if they stumbled upon a cursed artefact.
The only dilemma left was the vanishing cabinet. To Harry's now decently sharp magical senses, the thing was clearly broken; perhaps Dumbledore had felt that no one could repair it? But that was ridiculous, an idiot like Draco Malfoy had been able to do it. Considering the boy had always been more preoccupied with his parentage rather than his magical abilities, that wasn't really saying much.
"Whatever," Harry muttered. "Trying to understand Dumbledore is a waste of anyone's time."
After a thorough looting, the vanishing cabinet remained the only thing that he had to remove. The issue was that the brokenness of the thing made his spidey senses tingle. The vanishing cabinet from Borgin & Burkes had also been broken, but in a different way. He'd felt confident in shrinking it. This one, not so much.
This cabinet felt like it was one bad interaction from vanishing off the face of the earth. Considering the enchantment dealt with matters of space and time he didn't necessarily feel like screwing with that, if it didn't feel like it was the correct thing to do. Also, to be fair, if he just left it here, what was the worst thing that could happen? That someone would stumble on it and fail to repair it?
Well, the most dangerous possibility was that his friends would reveal the location of the room to one of his enemies. They would then take the vanishing cabinet, repair it and somehow gain access to Harry's clearing where he kept a lot of his dark artefacts, books and generally other things that he didn't want to be known to the general public.
However, was there any place in the castle which was actually safer than here? After he told his friends about it, only five people would know, presumably. Cedric, Penny, Tonks, Dumbledore. Wherever he moved it, it would be, if anything, less safe, and he couldn't really get it out of the castle without minimising it. Many thoughts suddenly flashed through his mind. It seemed obvious to him that the original vanishing cabinets had been designed to be shrunk. People who bought it would obviously want to reposition them sometimes. So, if anything, this part that allowed minimisation must have been broken here.
His learning how to fix that part specifically would probably take him a while, though…
Another idea.
Harry couldn't do anything with wizarding magic right now, however, Harry was now a rich boy with a house elf. House-elf magic was subject to different rules. Sure, Dobby was attending butler school at the moment, but he would still likely be able to come here for a few seconds and tell Harry if he could transport the damn thing. The safest place to put it would likely be back in his secret clearing, considering that if anyone got access to the vanishing cabinet there, it wouldn't matter if they were able to tread between them.
"Dobby, answer my summons if you have time right now," Harry said out loud and not even a second later, a small crack resounded through the room as Dobby appeared in front of him.
He was dressed in a miniature black and white suit and asked him in a very good attempt at received pronunciation, even if it was very high pitched. "What can I do to aid you master?"
"Can you tell me if you can safely transport this thing out of the castle?" Harry asked, pointing at the vanishing cabinet. The gesture caused Dolby to approach the large wooden structure and stretch his hands out towards it while waving them around in confusing patterns. He seemed to consider for a second before coming to a decision.
He turned to Harry with a bow. "Indeed, it seems that safe transportation is possible. Where would the master like the object placed?"
"To the clearing next to the other one," Harry determined. "I don't want anyone else to have access to it," he said and looked curiously at the house-elf. How was Dobby going to transport the thing?
Dobby placed his hands on the front door of the cabinet, lifted them, and snapped his fingers. House-elves and enchanted furniture disappeared like fog being dispersed in the wind. One second later, the sentient of the pair returned, looking visibly exhausted.
"Anything else, my Lord?"
One good way of learning how to enchant was not only creating enchanted objects but also fixing them. The vanishing cabinet would likely be good practice for his newfound project of getting his aunt a self-cleaning broom.
"Dobby, just as a question. Could you also transport me with you like you did the cabinet?"
Dobby seemed to consider it for a second, perhaps never having been asked the question before, eventually nodding.
Wasn't having a house-elf a bit too OP, Harry wondered. Couldn't he get literally anywhere with Dobby's help? If he learned criminal magic designed to erase traces, he could become the greatest thief in the world.
The only issue was that he had everything he wanted right now anyway. Harry shook his head.
Another issue was. What was the point of fixing the cabinet if he already had a house-elf capable of taking him anywhere? Independent of cabinet location?
Well, it would be good practice. The vanishing cabinet was enchanted with aspects of space and time, and learning more about those concepts could only be beneficial. It would perhaps help him learn apparition in the future and also have more of a background in time magic. Also, in case Dobby ever left his services, which he very well could, a vanishing cabinet would still be a great redundancy. After all, it could be minimised when fixed, which gave him a one-time escape tool in any place warded against apparitions and portkeys. The cabinet would get left behind, but maybe he could simply destroy its counterpart to prevent anyone following him. It would be a bit of a waste, but considering the fact that it would be good practice, good redundancy and a good one-time escape tool, he couldn't really say no. Also, doing something with the cabinets would mean he hadn't wasted his money.
"Dobby, would it exhaust you too much if you took me back to the clearing and then back again?" Harry asked, not seeing the point of not starting now if he'd made a decision.
The house-elf's small face turned into a thoughtful frown, and he slowly shook his head.
"There's no shame in not being able to do something. After all, I would be more angry if I came to the clearing and was then told that I would not be able to return to Hogwarts on time," Harry said calmly.
It was at those words that Dobby decided to speak up, his lingo returning slightly due to some amount of nervousness. "Dobby would be able to bring Master to the clearing, but would likely need some time to be able to bring him back to Hogwarts. The cabinet was hard to stabilise," he admitted.
"What does some time mean, exactly?" Harry asked. One thing that house-elves were not particularly good at was measuring time. It was a very human concept after all.
"Around an hour," Dobby admitted.
The servant was obviously hoping not to disappoint, but one hour was a perfectly valid amount of time. It wasn't like anyone would be looking for him. It was a Saturday afternoon. Cedric would be at Quidditch practice, Penny was brewing potions in their laboratory, and Tonks was nursing the headache that Harry had given her with Legilimency yesterday.
"All right, Dobby, take me there," Harry said and held out an arm. It had only taken him two days to fully enhance a spoon to float around in regular circles. It was time to challenge himself with something more complex. Repairing the cabinet would be a good starting point. Draco had been an average sixth year, and Harry was an above-average third year, basically the same thing.
Dobby hesitantly touched Harry's outstretched hand with his own. The creature's skin was oddly cold and wrinkly.
They disappeared.
-/-
AN: Kinda short chapter, I know, I know