You’re standing in a cold, damp corridor hidden behind a mechanical door that requires a specific sequence of snake-themed symbols to open. Sebastian Sallow is pacing. Ominis Gaunt is literally shaking with generational trauma. This is Hogwarts Legacy In The Shadow Of The Study, and honestly, it’s the exact moment the game stops being a whimsical school simulator and starts feeling like a psychological thriller. Most players go into this quest thinking they’re just going to find a cool new spell. They aren't ready for the emotional weight of what actually happens in that script.
It’s heavy stuff.
The quest isn't just a hurdle you jump over to get Crucio. It's a deep dive into the fractured history of the Gaunt family and the dark legacy Salazar Slytherin left behind. If you’ve been playing Hogwarts Legacy, you know Sebastian is desperate to save his sister, Anne. But in this specific quest, that desperation starts to look a lot like obsession. You’re trapped in a Scriptorium. The doors are locking behind you. The only way out is through pain.
Navigating the Scriptorium Puzzles Without Losing Your Mind
Getting into the Scriptorium is the first hurdle. You have to find three braziers in the hallway near the Slytherin common room and light them quickly. If you’re too slow, they go out. It’s a basic fire puzzle. But once you’re inside? That’s where the vibe shifts. The air gets heavy. You start finding letters from Noctua Gaunt, Ominis’s aunt, who died in these very walls because she couldn't bring herself to use Dark Magic.
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The puzzles here use Slytherin Locks. You’ll see a dial with symbols and a snake on top. You have to match the symbols on the gate to the symbols on the dial. Simple, right? Except the snake spins and bites you if you take too long. It’s high-pressure. It’s annoying. It’s perfect environmental storytelling. You’re literally being punished for being slow in a place designed by a man who valued "cunning" and "ambition" above all else.
The Crucio Decision: What Most People Get Wrong
Everything in Hogwarts Legacy In The Shadow Of The Study leads to the final door. You’re stuck. The door requires the Unforgivable Curse, Crucio, to be cast on someone to open. Sebastian offers to teach it to you. This is the big moment.
A lot of players think there’s a "right" moral answer here that changes the ending of the game. Honestly? The game doesn't punish you for learning it. But the dialogue changes how you view your character. You have three choices. You can refuse to learn it (and stay stuck until you change your mind), you can learn it but have Sebastian cast it on you, or you can learn it and cast it on Sebastian.
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Choosing to have Sebastian cast it on you is actually the "heroic" path, if there is one. You see your character writhe on the floor in agony. The screen blurs. The sound design goes muffled and high-pitched. It’s uncomfortable to watch. If you cast it on him, you’re leaning into the darkness early. Ominis, meanwhile, is standing in the corner having a total breakdown because his family used this curse on him for "fun" when he was a kid. The nuance here is incredible. Sebastian thinks he’s being a "good friend" by offering to torture you so you can both survive. That is some twisted logic.
Why Ominis Gaunt is the Real Heart of This Quest
People talk about Sebastian a lot because he’s charismatic and has that "I can fix him" energy. But Ominis is the one who makes this quest work. His voice actor delivers lines with a level of trembling fear that makes the Scriptorium feel genuinely dangerous.
Ominis is blind, but he "sees" through his wand. In this quest, he’s forced to revisit the exact kind of Dark Arts he spent his whole life running away from. When you find his aunt Noctua’s skeleton—and you do find it—the realization hits that the Gaunts have been killing each other in this room for centuries. It’s not just a game level; it’s a graveyard.
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Key Details You Might Have Missed
- The letters from Noctua Gaunt describe her descent from hope to realization that she was going to die alone.
- Salazar Slytherin’s personal notes are scattered around, proving he wasn't just "misunderstood"—he was genuinely obsessed with blood purity to a degree that scared even his colleagues.
- If you look at the floor near the Crucio door, the word "CRUCIO" is literally etched into the stone, worn down by years of people being forced to use it.
Is Learning Crucio Worth the Moral Hit?
From a gameplay perspective, yes. Crucio is arguably the most useful spell for combat control in the game. It stuns enemies, deals damage over time, and if you invest in the Dark Arts talent tree, it spreads a "curse" mark to other enemies. When you hit a cursed enemy, they take extra damage. It makes the harder difficulty settings much more manageable.
But the narrative cost is high. Once you finish Hogwarts Legacy In The Shadow Of The Study, your relationship with Ominis is strained. You’ve crossed a line. You aren't just a student anymore; you're a practitioner of the Dark Arts. The game doesn't have a "morality meter" like Mass Effect or Infamous, but the world feels different. The way Sebastian talks to you becomes more casual about using forbidden magic. It’s a slippery slope.
Actionable Steps for Your Playthrough
If you haven't started this quest yet, or if you're stuck, here is exactly what you need to do to get the most out of it:
- Level Up First: You need to be at least Level 16 to trigger this quest, but being Level 20 makes the combat segments (if you run into spiders on the way there) trivial.
- Check Your Mail: This quest starts via the Owl Post. You have to complete "In the Shadow of the Bloodline" first. If it hasn't popped up, go do a few main story missions and wait for Sebastian’s owl.
- Read Every Note: Don't just rush the puzzles. The lore in the Scriptorium is some of the best writing in the game. It explains why the Gaunt family is so messed up by the time we get to the Harry Potter books.
- Think About Your Build: If you plan on using Dark Arts, you must learn Crucio here. If you turn it down, you can learn it later from Sebastian in the Undercroft, but it feels less impactful to the story.
- Look for the Slytherin Face: In the final room, there's a massive stone face of Salazar Slytherin. It’s an iconic visual. Take a screenshot. It’s one of the few places in the game that looks exactly like the Chamber of Secrets from the films.
This quest is the turning point. It's where the "Legacy" part of the title really starts to matter. You're deciding what kind of wizard or witch you're going to be. Are you going to be like Noctua, who died for her principles? Or are you going to be like Sebastian, who believes the ends always justify the means? There is no "correct" way to play it, but there is definitely a way that makes the story feel more tragic.
Next time you’re in the Slytherin dungeons, look at that wall near the girl's bathroom. The secrets hidden behind it in Hogwarts Legacy In The Shadow Of The Study change everything you think you know about the school’s history. It's dark. It's painful. It's easily the best quest in the game.