Harry looked at the clock and couldn't help but laugh helplessly. Rhys's potion—should he say it worked? He'd still had another strange dream. But to say it didn't work would be wrong too, because he really had slept for a solid eight hours.
He reached up to touch his forehead. As expected, his scar was burning hot, as if someone had pressed a red-hot iron wire against it.
Without hesitation, Harry took out the "pain relief potion" Rhys had given him, measured a single drop, and swallowed it. The pain in his scar immediately lessened—but his head also felt wrapped in a thin fog, dulling all his senses.
Harry's expression grew calm and distant. He climbed out of bed, dressed quietly, and prepared to head to the Great Hall for breakfast.
At that moment, Ron woke up as well. Pulling open his bed curtains, he called out, "Harry, wait for me! Let's go to the Great Hall together."
Harry: "Hm."
After getting dressed, Ron yawned and walked with Harry down toward the Great Hall.
On the way, he grumbled, "Hey, did you do the Divination homework?"
Harry didn't react at first. After two seconds, he replied with a single word, "No."
Ron didn't notice anything strange at first and simply invited his friend, "Then let's make something up after breakfast? I think if we just write that we're going to have bad luck, we'll get top marks."
"Okay," Harry replied.
Ron felt that something was a little off, but he didn't think much of it—wasn't it normal to be too sleepy to talk right after getting up? It wasn't until the two of them returned to the common room to start their homework that Ron truly noticed something strange about Harry.
"I'm going to predict that I'll slip and fall in the bathroom," Ron said. "What are you going to write?"
"Don't know. Thinking."
Ron: ???
As their conversation went on, he realized Harry really wasn't acting like himself.
He was like an emotionless machine, responding to every question with a single word or a short phrase. Even his writing was unusually slow—and this was Divination homework, the kind where you could just make things up.
"Harry, are you okay?" Ron asked, staring seriously at his friend's face.
"I'm fine." His answer was still brief.
"What's wrong with you?" Ron frowned deeply.
"My scar hurts. I went to Rhys for some medicine."
Under the potion's influence, Harry no longer bothered to hide anything and calmly said everything he'd kept to himself before.
Ron: ?!
Ron immediately snapped to attention and pressed Harry for details about the potion. After a string of questions, he finally got the full story—the three kinds of potions Rhys had given Harry, along with everything Harry had recently experienced.
"Why didn't you tell me about this?"
"Because you are useless in this matter."
Ron: "…"
Harry's blunt honesty left him speechless. After thinking it over seriously for a while, he decided to wait until the potion's effects wore off before saying anything more.
Fortunately, Harry had taken only a small dose, and within less than an hour, the effects faded. As his mind cleared, he remembered what had happened earlier.
Instant embarrassment washed over him.
"Ah, Ron, I didn't mean it that way—I meant—"
"You really should talk to Professor Dumbledore," Ron interrupted. "Tell him your scar hurts. Tell him about those strange dreams. Harry, I might not know as much as others or be good at brewing potions like Rhys, but I do know that what's happening to you isn't normal. Rhys was right from the start—going to Dumbledore is the best thing you can do."
This time, it was Harry's turn to fall silent. Ron and Rhys had both given him the exact same advice, and deep down, he knew it was the most reasonable and reliable one. But he still didn't want to follow it.
"Alright, I'll go," he said at last. "But I have to admit, Rhys's sleeping potion works really well—though I won't be using that pain-relief potion again."
He quickly changed the subject. In truth, he planned to finish the two bottles of sleeping potion Rhys had given him before making any decisions.
Who knew—maybe by then, he'd heal on his own? Then he wouldn't have to bother Professor Dumbledore at all.
"That's more like it," Ron said, letting Harry's words convince him. He turned his attention back to their Divination homework. "Harry, you'd better hurry up! We've got class soon!"
"Mm!" Harry nodded, quickly returning to his work. Once the potion's effect had worn off, his quill flew across the parchment. In less than ten minutes, he finished what he hadn't managed to complete in an entire hour before.
After writing the last line, the two hastily stuffed their things into their bags and sprinted toward the West Tower.
In the days that followed, Harry didn't go to Dumbledore as he'd promised. Instead, he placed all his hope in Rhys's potions.
With the help of the two sleeping draughts, he no longer had those strange dreams. Only the occasional burning of his scar reminded him that things were far from over.
Still, for now, Harry found a fragile sense of peace—and so did Hogwarts.
...
Helga, too, had finished most of her ongoing work, leaving only one remaining task: the automated dolls she had promised to deliver to the Ministry of Magic.
These days, aside from teaching her students and giving Cedric lessons, Helga spent nearly all her remaining time designing the new set of automatons.
She wanted them to be stable, reliable, and durable—capable of carrying as many functions as possible while still being easy to mass-produce. After all, it wasn't realistic for her to devote all her time and energy solely to building and selling automatons.
With so many requirements to meet, even someone as skilled in automaton crafting as Helga found herself exhausted. Under the weight of all this work, even the woman who had once battled gods began to feel fatigue creeping in.
So, she summoned Rhys to her office.
"Help me, Salazar!" Helga said, pulling out a thick stack of parchment from beneath her desk. "Please help me grade these student essays. I'm using that spell you invented—you're the most familiar with it, after all."
Rhys: ???
Helga, what on earth did you eat to make you think I'd willingly help you grade papers? I don't even grade my own! Daphne does them for me!
"Goodbye!" Rhys turned to leave—only to discover that the office door was firmly locked.
"You can try, if you like. If you manage to leave, I'll admit defeat," Helga said with a triumphant smile. She had already expanded her domain, making it impossible for Salazar to escape without causing a commotion.
Rhys: "…"
He realized he'd walked right into her trap—but it wasn't a big problem. He had a plan.
"Helga, didn't you tell me before that you'd found a student you were quite fond of? Then why not have him grade the essays for you?" Rhys suggested in a calm, coaxing tone. "These kinds of minor tasks are perfect to hand over to your students."
"Would that… really be okay?" Helga's eyes lit up at the idea, though she still felt a little uneasy. After all, wasn't this basically the same thing Salazar had done to that poor girl he overworked?
"What's wrong with it?" Rhys's lips curved into a sly smile. "It's for your student's own good!"
He leaned in slightly, whispering in her ear like the serpent in Eden. "While grading essays, won't he gain a deeper understanding of the knowledge he's learned? Won't he? Won't he? He will, right?"
Helga fell into deep thought.
_______
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