Time slipped by without either of them noticing, and before long evening had fallen. Only then did Loren and Hermione leave the Room of Requirement and return to Gryffindor Tower.
Hermione felt it had been the happiest day yet. She and Shiraori had played a lot of games—some head-to-head, some co-op—and the time together only drew them closer. When they got tired, they drank the ice-cold cola Shiraori had chilled and sampled every kind of snack; they'd even skipped meals, her stomach filled to the brim with junk food.
Seeing Hermione still reluctant to stop, Loren ruffled her hair with a smile. "If you like the console, I'll prepare one for you so you can play whenever you want."
Hermione hesitated for a long moment. "Better not. If I want to relax later, I can just go find Shiraori to play, right?"
"Of course. Or I could entrust Shiraori to you so she can keep you company anytime."
Hermione shook her head. "No—if Shiraori stays with me, I'm afraid I won't be able to focus on studying."
Loren didn't press the point. He simply squeezed her hand. Her personality was taking shape; she had her own values now, and he didn't want to meddle the way he had before.
They soon reached the common room. Before stepping in, Loren cast a Disillusionment Charm, veiling both himself and Hermione. He'd already felt the crush of people inside; if they walked in openly, they'd be surrounded in seconds. To avoid that hassle, he hid them both.
They made it back to their dorms without a hitch. When Loren revealed himself in the dormitory, he asked, "Neville, why are you alone in here? Where did Harry and the others go?"
He had noticed the common room had fewer people than usual. "Harry, Ron, and Seamus were caught by Professor McGonagall and given detention," Neville said. "Also—Loren, where were you all day? No one could find you."
Loren answered honestly. "I took Hermione—"
"Right, this starts with the map you left behind." From Neville's account, Loren pieced the story together. After Loren dumped the map and drew the trouble eastward, he and Hermione vanished. The cubs couldn't get more details from him, so they took the Gryffindor approach: when in doubt, charge.
A bunch of them went to try passwords on the Headmaster's office door one by one; if someone guessed wrong, they rotated to the next. When one cub happened to guess correctly and the door swung open, the rest surged in. In their minds, they'd walk right in and carry off the Sword of Gryffindor.
But cubs are no match for an old lion. Dumbledore had already noticed their movements, so he patted his robes and left, calling Professor McGonagall to handle the situation. The cubs had never expected to find not the kindly Headmaster, but a certain "mature cat" in a foul mood—irritated, no doubt, at being dragged from other duties.
The outcome, as one might guess: Professor McGonagall docked Gryffindor fifty points—wiping out the points Loren had earned the day before—and sentenced the cubs to clean the trophy room.
Once he'd heard the whole story, Loren was delighted. Everything was unfolding exactly as he'd planned. Word of the punishment would split the students' attention; and knowing the snakes, they'd surely mock the lions—maybe even start a fight or two.
The next morning, at seven o'clock, the Great Hall buzzed about something other than Loren: George and Fred had finished producing the Gender-Swap Rings. After leaving the Room of Requirement yesterday, the twins had spread the sales news through their social circles across the Houses. The new rings came in two versions—male-to-female and female-to-male—and orders poured in.
Slytherin and Ravenclaw accounted for nearly seventy percent of the orders, often buying in sets. Hufflepuff took another twenty percent. Gryffindor placed less than ten—mostly because a crowd of them had been in detention and got back to the common room too late to pre-order.
The twins announced they would deliver at breakfast. They conjured a table and chairs in the open space before the staff table, sat down—one to take money, one to hand over stock—and the queue stretched long. Business boomed. Even Professor Flitwick joined the fun and bought a pair of rings.
Soon the Great Hall turned into a sea of laughter. Every student who bought a ring couldn't wait to try it. For a little while, the boys and girls across Hogwarts had their roles gleefully flipped. The Youth Edition wasn't a change from the inside out, but it was convincing enough to pass. Designed to draw on the wearer's own magic, it could run practically indefinitely—limited only by how much power the wearer could supply.
Very quickly, students discovered the "best-value" trick: boys wearing the female version and girls wearing the male version looked like they'd toggled a beauty filter—everyone's looks jumped a level. To explain: the unreleased Castrated Edition is a true transformation ring that can turn a man into a woman in the strict sense. The Youth Edition, strictly speaking, is a morph that changes appearance only. It lays a "mirror-skin" over you so you appear male or female. At first, Loren had planned to use straight Transfiguration to alter the body, but there was a flaw—everyone ended up looking samey, obviously fake at a glance. The Youth Edition solved that: the male ring adjusted features toward an idealized masculinity—sharper lines, added muscle; the female ring tuned things toward idealized femininity—refined features and adjusted figure.
And so George and Fred learned a lesson: they'd set out to sell prank gear and suddenly found they were selling essential beauty items. They'd prepared a bit over a hundred rings and, after fulfilling the pre-orders, had a little over ten left—then the girls from every House mobbed them. The beauty effect was too overpowered: put it on and you became a stunner in seconds. The twins had to promise to work through the night on a fresh batch—especially more of the female-version rings—and that there would be enough at breakfast tomorrow. Only then did the frenzy calm down.
By then Loren and Hermione had already left the Great Hall. With nearly everyone's attention drawn to the twins' "Gender-Swap Rings," Hermione could finally go to the library to read without being pestered.
As Loren walked toward the Room of Requirement, an alert pinged in his mind's permissions: someone was using related authority to track his location. He knew at once it was the twins using the Marauder's Map, so he slipped into an empty classroom to wait for them.
He hadn't been seated long when the door banged open. George and Fred burst in, panting. The moment George saw him he yelled, "Loren, you have to help me this time—"
"Yeah, yeah!" Fred chimed in. "You've got a cut of this business, you can't just watch us sink!"
"Fine," Loren said. "What do you need me for? You've got the machine. Feed it materials and it pumps out stock. If you can't keep up with the enchantments, hire people."
He truly didn't get why they were so anxious. With the machine on hand and enough raw materials, they could turn out tens of thousands of rings a day. Enchanting took some time, yes, but a few hundred a day was easy. Hogwarts enrollment these years was low thanks to Voldemort's rampage; even the entire school together wouldn't…
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