Outside the Ravenclaw common room.
"Which came first, fire or the phoenix?"
The bronze knocker asked its question.
"It's a cycle," Sean answered.
The door swung open, and the first thing he saw inside was Luna, still lingering in the common room.
She was holding an upside-down magazine. Even turned the wrong way, the title The Quibbler still read normally, as if some special magic had been cast on it.
There was a smudge of dirt across her nose, and her hair was tied in a knot on top of her head. As soon as she saw Sean, her slightly bulging eyes looked almost excited. "Oh, I saw your bookshop in the paper. I guessed you didn't start writing for Galleons—"
She asked dreamily.
"Mhm."
At the start, Sean's notes were just for himself. Only later, when Justin compiled and published them, did they turn into content people had to pay for.
Sean often thought Justin should get a bigger share of the royalties, but in the end they still split it fifty-fifty.
"I don't think Dad would ever pay anyone to write, either," Luna murmured hazily. "They write because they feel honored. And, of course, so they can see their names in print."
Wrapped in a blanket, she trailed off mid-sentence and simply fell asleep.
Sean watched her. Her shoes were gone again, and her hair was still tied in that knot—
He let out a quiet sigh.
Moonlight spilled across the Ravenclaw tower's window ledge. There was always a bit of mist here, half real, half imagined.
Following those strange wisps of fog, you could just make out a "Children's Home" sign in the distance.
…
A black cat always started from here, the clever stone charm on its chest faintly glowing.
At the edge of one swirling, iridescent fog bank, the cat tried again and again—and found that it still couldn't drag Harry and Voldemort in together.
The bad news was that it could feel a faint resistance, and that was clearly why it was failing.
The good news was: the resistance wasn't very strong. Sean had a feeling that once his Soul Transfiguration reached the next stage, he would be able to pull a weakened Voldemort into his own borderland.
Which meant the black cat—Sean—needed to put more time into soul magic.
And it meant he had to avoid the enthusiastic members of the Castle Black Cat Club, too.
The panel opened even here in the borderland:
[You practice Soul Transfiguration once at a journeyman standard within the master tier. Mastery +10]
[Physical Transfiguration: Journeyman (10/3000)]
[Soul Transfiguration: Novice (210/300)]
He wasn't far off now.
On Sunday morning, Sean opened his eyes to winter sunlight flooding the dormitory.
In the Ravenclaw common room, there was a notice board that sometimes showed interesting announcements, but more often just schedules and club notices.
Now, a whole crowd of Ravenclaws was gathered in front of it.
"It's a new notice—"
"A Dueling Club? What's that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what it says, idiot."
Amid the chatter, Sean stepped closer. People silently moved aside for him.
One glance was enough for him to understand.
Lockhart had apparently sensed that Hogwarts students were starting to resent him—especially Hermione, who had hit him with a string of tricky questions. In a rush to polish his image, he'd decided to launch a Dueling Club.
Sean briefly wondered if this was the Defense Against the Dark Arts curse kicking in.
Thinking that, he hugged his book and headed into the Great Hall.
Lockhart wasn't worth worrying about. What Sean really cared about was the dungeon tonight. He had potions to brew—and he still had to face Snape about the Chamber.
A small knot of people had formed around the notice board in the Great Hall too, reading the freshly tacked-up parchment. Harry, Hermione, Justin, and Ron looked excited and waved Sean over.
"They're starting a Dueling Club!"
Ron said, practically buzzing. "First meeting tomorrow night. I've been learning Transfiguration all this time, and it's finally going to be useful—"
"I wonder if the Slytherin monster can duel?"
A nearby Gryffindor muttered anxiously, but he still looked very interested in the notice.
"It'll be useful one way or another," Harry said. "Sean, are you going?"
After all, Sean had defeated a basilisk on his own. Just last night they'd been going over the whole thing with Professor McGonagall—
Even if McGonagall had looked oddly unhappy about it.
By now Harry was half convinced even Aurors might have trouble beating Sean.
The members of the little group instinctively clustered around Sean in the middle. He studied the fresh parchment on the notice board and thought for a moment.
He did want to see how the curse was going to manifest.
The basilisk was dealt with. Even if Lockhart was a complete fraud, how was the curse going to force him out halfway through the year?
That afternoon, the Dueling Club's shape began to emerge.
In the Great Hall, the staff stood together, testing out the layout. The long house tables had vanished, and a gilded stage ran along one wall, lit by hundreds of floating candles overhead.
The ceiling looked like velvet-black sky again. Almost the entire school had come to watch, packed together shoulder to shoulder, faces shining with excitement.
"Looks pretty good. Wonder who's actually teaching us?"
Justin murmured. They were standing side-on near the edge of the chatting crowd.
"I heard Professor Flitwick was a dueling champion when he was younger. Maybe he's the one who'll be teaching us," Hermione said.
"We'll find out tomorrow… I hope we get a chance to duel onstage," Ron said, practically vibrating with anticipation. He'd spent the whole day holed up in the study room practicing and hadn't gone out at all.
After a year of effort, his Transfiguration had just barely scraped into the journeyman tier.
Now he was itching for a proper duel with some rotten Slytherin.
Sean glanced around at the others and suddenly realized just how much they'd all changed.
Hermione and Justin went without saying. Harry had several spells up to journeyman level; Neville's two wands made him surprisingly hard to guard against; and even Ron had made real progress.
Environment really could shape a wizard.
Sean thought to himself, and then remembered: there was still one last potions class that afternoon. Gryffindor shared it with Slytherin.
Ever since first year, three nights a week after lessons, Sean had been coming back down to the dungeons to practice brewing.
In the dungeon, under a very tense atmosphere, Potions finally let out.
Students shot out of the dark classroom like birds out of a cage.
Harry, of course, had been kept behind; Snape had told him to stay and scrape doxy eggs off the desks.
Sean was already waiting in the doorway. When Harry finally came out, he looked up, and for a moment their expressions matched—neither of them looked particularly cheerful.
~~~
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