"And that's that, job's done," Hagrid patted his belly and went to retrieve the hive.
After saying goodbye to Hagrid, Neville and I approached the sapling. Petals had already started falling from it, just like the neighboring trees.
"Hmm..." Neville crouched thoughtfully in front of the pot and touched the tree. "It needs something else. It... It's like it wants to be a good tool, but it needs... Threads? Fabric? I don't understand..."
"But I do! Forward, to Hagrid's!"
"Again?" Neville didn't share my enthusiasm. No, wait, just seemed like it. He simply didn't want to walk back and forth, as it was already getting dark. "We'll miss dinner."
"I'll show you the kitchen. Hurry."
Locking everything up again, Neville and I walked quickly out of the greenhouses and the inner courtyard. We sped through the Hogwarts corridors, exiting the main doors and descending toward Hagrid's hut.
"You again?" the giant was surprised. "It's nearly pitch black. Dementors out there, and all that. Stupid creatures, even if they're smart. Might not listen to Dumbledore, attack out of hunger..."
"Hagrid, we just need a minute."
The giant looked at me with obvious doubt.
"That's what yeh said last time."
"Do you have unicorn hair... and some kind of fabric? Fiber... Even spider silk."
"I do, how could I not?"
Hagrid disappeared into his hut again and peeked out a minute later, handing over two skeins—hair, and something resembling silk.
"Oh! Acromantula silk," Neville gasped.
"Nah," Hagrid waved it off as soon as he handed me the bundles. "Just the raw stuff for it. The web itself is too sticky, see. This way it stores easy... Only, keep this between us, lads."
"Naturally. Why are you helping us?"
"Why not?"
We didn't linger, and this time we almost ran back to the castle. Not for long, though—while the exertion was nothing for me, Neville couldn't keep up. Hardly surprising; few people in this castle could run any decent distance for their age. We returned just as the sunset vanished completely, stars shone in the sky, and the breeze turned definitively winter-cold.
But we didn't head to the Great Hall, even though dinner was about to start. We went back to the greenhouses. Interestingly, I hadn't known they had autonomous lighting that activated upon entry. Approaching the sapling, we pondered: how best to give it the hair and the Acromantula silk precursor? We decided to simply place it inside the crown and let the tree figure it out.
We placed it. The tree immediately began to wrap its branches around itself, gradually shrinking in size.
"Wow..." Neville watched, unable to look away. I was doing the same.
It took the tree two minutes to turn into a long, thin spindle sticking out of the pot, the yarn replaced by its own twisted branches. Something was clearly happening inside, something changing. Entranced, Neville had even forgotten about dinner.
I thought I'd have to forget about dinner too, but suddenly the "spindle" compressed in thickness, almost instantly transforming into a bow with a taut string. It was quite large, yet compact enough to carry—a classic recurve shape, the color of dark bark, covered in myriad tiny floral patterns. The string was white—snow-white, I'd say.
"You..." Neville was stunned and amazed by absolutely everything. "You grew... a bow?"
"Well, yes," I walked up to the pot, touched the grip of the bow, and it seemed to lose its anchor in the earth, ending up in my hands.
"I expected anything..." Neville continued to stare at the weapon in my hands. "A staff, a wand, some tool... Even a chessboard. But a bow?"
"Why not? It's brilliant," I imagined holding an arrow in my right hand with a faint smile.
A moment later, my hands awkwardly but diligently drew the string. I aimed at nothing and released. A light click with a hint of a ring, like a harp string—pleasant. And most importantly, it wouldn't harm the bow, for it was far from simple. Oh, far from simple!
We spent several minutes examining the resulting weapon from all angles. Neville even asked to try drawing the string, but he couldn't move it, even though I did it without effort. Judging by the sound and the sensation upon release, the tension was immense!
"That's probably because," Neville scratched his cheek in embarrassment, "you were the one who grew it. I've heard of similar reactions from tools toward their makers. I think even Ollivander once grew a tree for a wand himself..."
"And what happened?"
"He couldn't sell it—it would only obey him," Neville shrugged.
"Alright, let's go..."
I wanted to put the bow away, but it quickly shrank and, like a vine, coiled into a wood-colored bracelet on my left arm.
"I told you," Neville smiled with satisfaction. "If we'd messed around with cotton swabs, the bow wouldn't have listened to you or indulged you like this."
"You talk as if it's alive."
"Of course!" the boy nodded importantly. "Just like wands, just like any wooden magical instrument. If it had been made from ordinary wood with ordinary tools, then sure, not alive."
We decided to hurry to dinner, which should have already started. We arrived among the last, but judging by the students' plates and the appetite with which they were devouring food, we were just in time.
"Come on, let's return the key," Neville glanced at me. "Please."
. . .
Though surprised by the request, I went with him to the High Table, where Madam Sprout sat among the others.
"Here, thank you," a flustered Neville nodded, handing the key back to our Head of House.
"Oh, come now, Mr. Longbottom," Sprout waved him off with a chuckle. "You see, I don't even ask if you broke anything, because I trust you with the greenhouses."
"Thank you," the boy nodded, blushing, and we headed to our respective tables.
As soon as I took my seat among my housemates, Justin immediately attacked me with questions.
"Something interesting? Here, have some potatoes," he pushed a communal platter toward me. "The cutlets are delicious, and the salad isn't bad. So?"
"Are you bribing me, mate?"
"Mmm, and the meat gravy... Well? What kind of bush did you grow that you needed the help of the Main Herbologist?"
"Main Herbologist?"
"Well, yeah," Justin shrugged, as if that explained everything and my question was silly.
"You see," Hannah decided to clarify, putting her fork aside. "Neville is our best in Herbology. So good that it completely compensates for his almost total inability to figure out anything else."
"Your words are cruel, Hannah," Ernie shook his head, earning a glare from the girl. "But fair. Fair, I say; don't look at me like that."
"It was nothing special," I piled a bit of everything onto my plate. "I just had trouble understanding the little bush's needs. So I turned to someone who feels that sort of thing clearly."
"Cunning. Smart. And you made a friend, you could say," Justin nodded. "The guy has few friends, and he doesn't dare approach anyone himself."
"You could have helped."
"Well, you know the House policy—they don't come for friendship themselves, and we won't force it on them. Even if the problem is obvious."
"I noticed. Let's eat; still have homework to do for tomorrow."
. . . . .
"Night is the time for adventure."
With that precise slogan in mind, I left the Hufflepuff common room at two in the morning.
Earlier that evening, after everyone had gone to bed, I spent about three hours fabricating a dozen arrowheads. I simultaneously "forged" a specific construct into them designed to banish the undead—the same one I'd wanted to use to greet the Dementor during our encounter at the castle gates. It wasn't easy. I had to use sheer willpower to hold the construct within the sledgehammer's head, releasing precise magical impulses through the hammer at the moment of impact. That was getting closer to dwarven forging skills. Well, it would pass for the work of a clumsy minor who had never properly held a blacksmith's hammer in his life.
Grabbed a backpack with everything I needed, including the arrowheads, I slipped out. Naturally, I didn't neglect stealth, wrapping myself in neutral energy with the intent of invisibility and silence. Sneaking quickly through the gloomy, dark corridors of the castle was intriguing; I felt like a saboteur infiltrating enemy lines. I remembered how, in the childhood of my past life, I loved to sneak around, hide, and invent unknown adventures in huge abandoned buildings. Oh, the adrenaline rush, despite the almost zero actual threat!
Here, the threat was also imaginary, amounting to nothing more than detention. But for the sake of the impressions you get right here and now, you can cast aside common sense and immerse yourself in the atmosphere.
Without a single problem or skirmish with the patrolling teachers or prefects, I managed to reach the very top of the Astronomy Tower.
Stepping out onto the spacious platform where our Astronomy classes were usually held, buffeted by winds and enjoying the view of the starry sky and the half-moon, I wrapped myself tighter in my winter cloak. I pulled out my wand and Transfigured a large wooden beam at my feet. The beam had pre-made grooves, into which I began inserting the arrowheads.
Standing to my full height, I looked around once more. Beauty. The lake, the hills, the distant mountains—everything dusted with snow. I was standing at the highest point of Hogwarts, and arguably one of the highest points in the surrounding area, not counting the mountains that began a couple of kilometers from the castle.
Extending my left hand, I willed the bow to appear. The bracelet instantly transformed, the grip settling into my palm. With a wave of the wand in my right hand, I Transfigured a multitude of arrows—headless, but with a simple mechanism to attach them. Holstering my wand in the sheath on my left arm, I drew the bowstring to its limit with two fingers.
"Not right..."
The sensation was wrong. It was logical and explainable: this body had never done this before, no matter what the memory of the elf shard held, no matter how deeply ingrained the skill was. I released the string and drew it again. And again. And again. The dull irritation caused by the disconnect between how it felt and how it should feel—and the inability to perform a simple action correctly—began to recede. It receded with every repetition.
If necessary, I would stand here until morning, but I would restore the correct feeling. I would restore the correct habit, the correct sequence of actions.
I drew and released the string time after time. By the time the stars and moon had traveled a decent distance across the sky, the irritation was almost gone, leaving only a faint echo. I could say with certainty that while standing still, I could execute quite a few archery techniques, though doing so in motion was unlikely.
But now, I needed to repeat it with an arrow...
This was much simpler. Fifty repetitions were enough to instill confidence. Summoning an arrow from the floor with a gesture, I clicked it into an arrowhead in the beam and peered into the space around me. The Dementors were hiding in the night sky, but that didn't mean they were invisible—the moonlight highlighted distant silhouettes hovering like a wall over the lake. Occasionally, Dementors appeared far above the forest, near the mountains.
My gaze latched onto one Dementor, lazily floating over the distant, distant treetops. Anyone watching me draw the string with an arrow and aim at a target a mile and a half away would have laughed—if they didn't know a couple of magic tricks.
Feeling a light gust of wind on my skin, I siphoned a few crumbs of energy from this natural phenomenon, pouring them into the arrow.
"Find... the target..."
My fingers released the string. A light ring resonated, followed by the characteristic whistle of the arrow. Without waiting for the effect, I began grabbing one arrow after another at a rapid tempo, charging them with wind energy and sending them into flight, aiming high into the sky. The intent was the same.
Far away, where the Dementor floated above the forest, a white streak flashed. The Dementor left behind only a faded pillar of light, within which tiny "fireflies" could be seen rushing toward the sky and vanishing.
Not waiting for the rest of the results, I dispelled the Transfigured beam, returned the bow to its bracelet form, and headed for the common room. The arrows were Transfigured without a permanent fix and would soon turn back into air, and the arrowheads would crumble due to the magic contained within them.
. . .
The door to the Astronomy Tower closed behind Hector.
Only a moment passed before "stars" began to rain from the sky, crossing out the darkness with fast, vertical white streaks. Each of the dozen arrows found its target—Dementors disintegrated into pillars of dim light, and the souls, doomed to eternal torment and serving as a power source for the creatures, rushed upward.
It took only two minutes for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement officers patrolling the perimeter to raise a full alarm due to the destruction of the Dementors.
Another minute, and the shift supervisor was standing in the Headmaster's office, explaining the essence of the problem to an instantly awake, bearded old man.
Another minute, and Hogwarts went into siege mode, sealing all entrances and exits, while three squads of Aurors began combing the castle and the grounds in search of Sirius Black. Heads of Houses and teachers were roused by the signal to guard the students' peace in the common rooms. The few students who had chosen to wander the castle at night, hiding in secluded spots and succumbing to the romance of the dark, were detained by Aurors just in case one of them was Black under Polyjuice Potion.
Life in the castle boiled over, but very quietly—the students were asleep.
Hector Granger was also settling into bed, having managed to slip into the common room a minute before the alarm was announced, having not the slightest idea what kind of mess he had stirred up.
However, an hour later—when the detained students turned out to be just students and received their strict reprimands; when Sirius Black was not found for the banal reason of his absence from the castle or even its vicinity; when all teachers and Heads of Houses were convinced of the students' safety—life at Hogwarts returned to the state it should be at night: peace and quiet. Only the sealed entrances and the squad of Aurors inside the castle spoke of the incident.
Headmaster Dumbledore sat in an armchair before the fireplace in his office, and the face of Minister Fudge looked out at him from the fire.
"Dumbledore. Something must be done about this."
"What do you propose I do, Cornelius? Run through the forests looking for Sirius Black?"
"No, of course not... What do you take me for," Fudge faltered. "But we cannot afford to lose Dementors. They are an irreplaceable resource."
"I cannot say I am saddened by their demise."
"But..."
"If someone suddenly decided to reduce their numbers, I can only praise this self-sacrificing wizard."
"Are you suggesting that it wasn't Sirius Black?"
"As we can see, Cornelius, Black has not attempted to penetrate Hogwarts again. Moreover, you are well aware that he has been sighted in several locations already. He is moving away from the castle. Perhaps we should concern ourselves with lifting this... blockade from the school?"
"Under no circumstances!" Fudge's fiery face in the fireplace blazed with indignation. "I cannot allow people to think the Ministry is powerless to catch a single fugitive criminal!"
"It seems to me that the Dementors should be sent back to Azkaban to do what they are meant to do," Dumbledore smoothed his long beard.
"So..." Fudge fell silent for a second. "Is it possible that you, Headmaster, are involved in the destruction of the Dementors?"
"Nonsense, Cornelius."
"I am not so sure... I will be forced to look into this matter. And if you are involved, mark my words, you will regret it."
Fudge's face vanished, and the flames in the fireplace returned to being just flames, without form.
Dumbledore sat silently for a time, staring into the fire.
"Tell me, Fawkes, should I be glad our Minister is such a hopeless fool, or should I be grieving?"
"Trill-chirp!" the large phoenix chattered something from his perch.
"Depends on the situation, then..."
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