At five in the morning the next day, Loren's body clock pulled him out of bed, and he started his morning training on the front lawn. By the time he'd finished making breakfast, Mr. and Mrs. Angus were only just dragging themselves up to wash.
Over breakfast, Loren finally couldn't hold back and asked what exactly had been going on at home. He'd learned a lot from the adults' chatter last night, but he still wanted the whole story.
He got it from Mr. Angus soon enough.
Thanks to the alchemical items Loren had given them, the family had been skirting the edge for a while—often enough that someone was bound to notice. A wizard named Arthur Weasley did. Because Loren and Hermione were both Hogwarts students, their parents were already in Ministry files, and Arthur—who worked in the Ministry's Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office—was practically the Ministry's top expert on Muggle stuff.
As Mrs. Angus's connections in the wizarding world grew, she was often invited to other people's homes and got to see all sorts of handy household magic. She wanted some of it herself. Most things were fine—you could just buy them—but connecting a fireplace to the Floo Network required Ministry authorization.
When she was about to go ahead with it, Arthur Weasley showed up and stopped her.
In the end, under Arthur's… deft handling, Loren's family's official status was "adjusted." The Angus couple and the Grangers were reclassified on paper as Squibs living in the Muggle world who had recently awakened a bit of magical ability and learned some basics, and were actively integrating into wizarding society.
Arthur liked Muggle contraptions, and after a few visits he and Mr. Angus hit it off. He started dropping by every few days, and before long the two families were unusually close.
Loren knew there's no such thing as a free lunch. He pressed for details and learned Arthur's first visit had been a few days after Halloween.
That told Loren enough. He'd already planned to open a shop with the Weasley twins, providing the technical backbone. Given what he'd shown them he could do, George and Fred would absolutely have reported to their father. Loren's business plan wasn't pie in the sky—he'd prepared all the ingredients and tools, and they were practically foolproof: put in raw materials and the "cake" comes out piping hot. A business like that couldn't be handled by two schoolboys alone; you needed a parent to front. The Weasleys might look humble, but they're still one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight; the relationships are there.
From everything Loren had displayed, his future went beyond what ordinary people could imagine. As the saying goes in those pulp novels: This boy is terrifying. If we don't befriend him now, we'll be crushed later. Arthur Weasley, at least, had the sense to see that Loren's family was a soft spot and moved early to help them.
Loren wasn't ungrateful. He understood why Arthur had done it and had no reason to refuse the goodwill. The wizarding world runs on relationships, after all. With his parents spending boldly, some Dark wizards were bound to notice. And the Malfoys probably already had a grudge—they just hadn't the time to stir trouble yet. As for certain pure-blood nobles, they're like toads sitting on your shoe: they don't bite, but they irritate.
Loren had no intention of copying Voldemort's terror tactics or flipping the table before he was properly grown. Those pure-blood families have plenty of valuables tucked away; if he moved without full preparation, he'd gain nothing. He needed a reliable method of control first—something like Thought-Steel—because soul curses are too crude and obvious. With prophecies everywhere, spooking them into hiding their foundations would be a mistake.
For now, he could redistribute benefits and win over a few pro-Muggle pure-blood houses. That would give him friends within the aristocratic circle and keep the short-sighted pure-bloods from making trouble. If nothing went awry, his set of magic notes would be published as early as next year, and the Longbottoms could be cut in on the profits. His research into souls had also made progress; he might soon be able to begin treatment for Neville's parents. When that succeeded, the Longbottoms would owe him even more than the Weasleys.
After breakfast, Loren went to the little shed where he and Hermione liked to meet, as they'd arranged yesterday. He'd lost a bit of time hearing his parents' updates; by the time he reached the door, Hermione had been waiting a while.
She wasn't reading while she waited as usual. She'd taken off her auto-training suit and was practicing raw physical control.
The scene inside stopped him cold.
Most of the wooden floorboards were cracked. On the few intact planks, deep footprints showed every whorl of the toes—whoever made them had been barefoot. The whitewashed walls were battered all to pieces; in several places the outlines of a hand were visible. As for the furniture—splinters everywhere, mixed with the ruins of the floor. Only a few cabinets pressed against the walls had survived.
Loren began mending with magic as he walked, following the trail of destruction to track her down. He finally found Hermione in the kitchen.
He didn't rush in. He stood in the doorway, repairing the mess as he watched to see what she'd do next.
Loren had long suspected a problem with the magic of the Harry Potter world: it seemed to make its users, without noticing, filter out knowledge of the Muggle world and drift away from it. Hermione was the perfect example. She'd done six years of primary school before Hogwarts; safety and electricity were the kind of basics drilled into her head. Yet now, not a trace of that awareness seemed to remain.
Right on cue—Hermione failed to control her strength, pitched forward onto the refrigerator, crushed it like the living room furniture, and got herself shocked. Her skin darkened a shade, but she still clutched the unfortunate fridge door.
Only after she'd had her due lesson did Loren step in to clean up. He helped her up out of the wreckage and took the ruined door from her hands. A few quick spells and the scorched Hermione was neat and tidy again. After months of body-tempering, her physique had improved greatly; the shock hadn't done more than singe her clothes and tan her skin a touch.
He reached into her trouser pocket for the auto-training suit she'd taken off, buckled it back on her, and turned to tidy the rest. Hermione, once re-suited, scampered to her room—her clothes were too scorched to keep.
Soon, in a refreshed sitting room, Hermione returned to find Loren grave-faced on the sofa. Knowing she'd made a mess, she sat down obediently at his side and started to act cutesy.
Loren, who had no resistance to a coaxing Hermione, could only rub her head and say earnestly, "Hermione, don't just read wizarding books. You also need to read Muggle science and tech magazines."
She pulled a rueful face—message received.
Watching her expression, Loren couldn't help but shake his head. Was wizarding repulsion of technology really this strong? Three months had completely re-wired someone raised on the scientific side.
Seeing him shake his head made Hermione anxious. She started thinking hard about where she'd gone wrong. After so many years together, she knew his habits—he only shook his head when she'd made a serious mistake. He hadn't done it in months. If he had today, something was seriously off.
Loren let her ponder. Then he asked, "Hermione, in your mind, what's the most effective way to kill?"
"Avada Kedavra," she answered without hesitation—then frowned, baffled why he'd ask.
Loren sighed, reached into his storage, and laid a series of items on the coffee table: a kitchen knife, a length of electrical cable, a bottle of bleach and another of ammonia, a compact pistol and a loaded magazine, a canister labeled "CO," a pressure gauge and hose, a small bag of white powder, a lighter, a plug timer, and a coil of thin wire.
He sat quietly and let her look.
After a few minutes, Hermione's eyes fixed, and cold sweat ran down her back, soaking her freshly changed clothes.
Now she finally understood what was wrong—and why Loren had shaken his head.
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