Right up until the bell rang, Kyle still hadn't managed to cobble together a genuine Exploding Tag.
This was within Kyle's expectations.
His biggest harvest from this class was verifying that his theory was correct: ancient characters, such as the Qin seal script, could completely replace Runes and serve the exact same function in Alchemy.
On the way to the Great Hall for dinner after class, Ron, walking alongside Harry, was loudly complaining about Hermione to his roommate.
"It's no wonder no one can stand her," Ron said to Harry. "Honestly, she's a nightmare."
Hermione, who was walking not far behind them with Hannah, suddenly quickened her pace. She brushed past them, knocking heavily into Ron as she went.
"I think she heard you." Harry's expression was awkward.
He had just noticed that Hermione was in tears.
Hannah hurriedly chased after her, but stopped abruptly as she passed Ron. "What you just said was a bit too much!"
With that, she rushed off to catch up with Hermione.
"So what?" Ron said stubbornly, though a hint of unease crept into his tone.
He stole a furtive glance at Kyle, knowing that Kyle was very close friends with both Hannah and Hermione.
Fortunately, Kyle didn't seem to have any intention of standing up for Hermione, which allowed Ron to breathe a slight sigh of relief.
Kyle indeed had no intention of getting involved. To him, this looked like nothing more than a petty conflict between elementary schoolers; he certainly wasn't going to string Ron up and beat him for it.
In fact, from the moment he met Hermione, he knew that sooner or later she would face this kind of isolation from other students.
Compared to Gryffindors, who often mistook recklessness for bravery, the genius academic "Little Beaver" was actually a Ravenclaw through and through.
An outlier is hard to accept anywhere—excluding, of course, a certain typical Gryffindor who threatened the Sorting Hat with a Fire-Making Charm to demand placement in Hufflepuff.
Kyle, being thick-skinned and shameless, could be thrown into Slytherin and still mingle perfectly with the little snakes.
But Hermione didn't have Kyle's extraordinary social prowess. She was, in reality, just an ordinary little girl who was a bit prickly and proud.
Because of the Little Beaver's tsundere nature, combined with knowledge far exceeding that of other young wizards her age, Miss Beaver always appeared before others like an arrogant little swan.
When she had pointed out Ron's incantation error earlier, she could have used a much friendlier attitude, rather than lecturing him like a pint-sized Professor McGonagall.
To Ron, who already harbored feelings of inferiority, the Little Beaver came across as completely conceited and condescending.
That was why Ron felt he couldn't stand her, and why he said those things.
Kyle felt a bit helpless. This was something Hermione had to figure out for herself. Only then would she learn the correct way to get along with her classmates.
During the next class, Hermione didn't show up at all. Kyle was surprised; had Hermione, the model student, actually learned to skip class?
It wasn't just Hermione—even Hannah was nowhere to be found. Worried, Kyle sought out Hermione's roommate, Parvati Patil, to ask about the situation.
When he heard that Hermione was crying in the girls' bathroom and Hannah was there comforting her, Kyle stopped worrying.
After the afternoon classes ended, students surged into the Great Hall for the Halloween feast.
The hall was filled with colorful Halloween decorations. A thousand bats fluttered across the walls and ceiling.
Another thousand bats swooped over the dining tables like low black clouds, making the candles inside the pumpkins flicker and shudder.
Delicious food suddenly appeared on the golden plates, just as it had at the start-of-term banquet.
Kyle glanced at the empty seats beside him, debating whether to pack some food for Hannah and Hermione later or to take them to the kitchens for a separate meal.
Just then, Professor Quirrell suddenly sprinted into the dining hall, his large turban askew and terror written all over his face.
Everyone stared at him as he reached Professor Dumbledore's chair, slumped against the table, and gasped, "Troll... in the dungeons... thought you ought to know."
Then, he sank to the floor in a dead faint.
The dining hall instantly dissolved into chaos. Dumbledore had to use his wand to create several ear-splitting purple firecrackers to restore order among the students.
"Prefects," he rumbled, "lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!"
For Percy, a Gryffindor prefect, this was his element.
"Follow me! Stick together, first years!"
As the prefects evacuated the students, Dumbledore glanced toward the Gryffindor table, only to discover that the person he was looking for had already vanished.
Dumbledore rubbed his forehead helplessly and cast a hopeful look at a certain "old bat" dining at the High Table.
He hoped Snape could protect Harry and Ron, the two who were particularly prone to courting death.
To Dumbledore's surprise, when Snape caught his gaze, he simply pouted toward the Hufflepuff table.
What does that mean?
Dumbledore followed Snape's line of sight and realized that his own son had also disappeared at some point.
Fine, no need for Snape to go. He knew Kyle's strength.
Hope the troll is okay.
Meanwhile, after hearing that a troll had broken into the dungeons, Harry immediately remembered that Hermione knew absolutely nothing about it.
seizing the moment when Percy wasn't looking, Harry dragged Ron away, disappearing from the group. They intended to find Hermione and tell her to get back to the Gryffindor Common Room immediately.
The two crept along another corridor, trying to be as quiet as possible.
At the corner of the corridor, Harry caught a foul stench.
It was a mixture of old socks and a public toilet that had never been cleaned.
Then they heard a low grunting sound and the heavy drag of massive feet on the ground.
Peeking around the corner, Harry and Ron watched in horror as a monstrous shadow slowly walked toward them.
Terrified, they retreated into the shadows, watching as it lumbered into a patch of moonlight.
Ron noticed the troll stopping by a door.
It wiggled its long ears, peered inside, and soon its dim little brain made a decision: the troll lowered its head and slowly squeezed into the room.
As a typical Gryffindor, Harry erupted with unprecedented courage in that moment.
He lunged toward the door, grabbed the key in the lock, slammed the door shut, and locked it tight.
"Yes!" Harry was flushed with excitement at having successfully locked the troll behind the door.
If Professor McGonagall saw this, she'd surely award points for our bravery, Harry couldn't help but think.
But a second later, he heard two sounds that nearly stopped his heart—the shrill, terrified screams of Hermione and Hannah.
"Oh, no," Ron said, his face as pale as the Bloody Baron.
"That's the girls' bathroom!" Harry could barely breathe.
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