"Are you two sure you're not messing with me?"
Ron stared at Harry and Hermione, suspicion written all over his face.
"No, I'm completely sure." Compared to Harry's uncertainty, Hermione responded with a firm nod. "I was panicking at the time, but there's no way I saw wrong."
"I'm not sure," Harry admitted as he touched his forehead.
"You think it might've been Professor Dumbledore?" Ron muttered under his breath. "A Levitation Charm—how could a first-year possibly use one to move a person?"
"You guys have used that charm before."
After Ron said that, Harry was already starting to lean toward the idea that Dumbledore secretly stepped in.
Hermione, however, wasn't thinking about Dumbledore at all. Ron's comment—'How could a little first-year use Levitation to move a person?'—triggered another thought entirely.
Rock.
"Hey, what's up with you?" Ron waved a hand in front of Hermione's face as she zoned out.
"No… nothing." Hermione snapped back and shook her head. "Let's leave it for now. Once I check something, we'll know who it was."
Hearing that, Ron could only shrug. By now, he'd learned his lesson.
As long as it wasn't too extreme, don't argue with Hermione.
"But… did either of you notice in the bathroom… Professor Snape's leg looked injured?"
Harry suddenly remembered Snape's strange limp in the restroom.
"Harry, are you saying…" Hermione stared at him in shock. No way a professor would do something like that.
"I don't know. I just thought it was weird." Harry shook his head.
"If you ask me, it's totally possible. He is head of Slytherin," Ron said, repeating one of his favorite lines. "And Slytherins always end up being dark wizards."
The trio fell silent again. Tonight had produced way too many unanswered questions.
---
### Hogwarts First-Floor Bathroom
"Appare Vestigium!"
A cloud of golden, firefly-like particles shot forward, circling in the air before spreading outward in all directions.
Inside and outside the bathroom, the golden particles formed glowing silhouettes—like a movie replaying the scene.
Dumbledore calmly watched the golden images of Harry and Ron rushing at the troll, their movements almost childlike. Then, as Harry dangled from the troll's club near its head, a blurry figure appeared at the bathroom doorway.
Dumbledore blinked as he watched the translucent silhouette.
"Oh, beautiful Levitation Charm. That deserves an Outstanding."
"Smart—knowing the troll's weakness, using the environment, and… was that powder some kind of irritant?"
"Oh? Vadi Vassi? I haven't seen that spell used in years…"
He stepped behind a pillar, observing the fading figure that had moved beyond the spell's range. His expression softened into admiration.
"So it was you, little Rock."
With the truth confirmed, Dumbledore waved his hand, dissolving the golden spell. His footsteps were slow and relaxed as he left. His mood was noticeably lifted after watching the replay—though remembering to bring a lemon sherbet on the way out would've made it even better.
---
The next day, news about the "Savior" encountering the troll spread through the entire school.
While Rock walked to the eighth floor with Theo and Adam, every student they passed was talking about it—even the older grades couldn't resist joining the conversation.
Slytherin's take:
"What savior? He still needed the professors to save him."
Gryffindor's counter:
"As if Slytherins wouldn't pee themselves if they saw a troll."
The two Houses nearly broke into a hallway brawl over it.
"It's really lively today," Theo muttered with a shake of his head.
They weren't like the others—they knew the real story.
But Rock had told them not to talk about it. Otherwise it'd become the biggest scandal Hogwarts had ever seen.
Rock ignored all the gossip. He didn't want attention. Last night he acted purely because he knew Hermione—and the notebook she gave him before term helped him a lot.
"If you guys want to learn it, I suggest you start by reading this."
Inside the Room of Requirement, Rock pulled The Hidden Arts of Invisibility from his bag and handed it to Theo and Adam.
"You need a solid foundation in spell theory. Otherwise, when you actually cast, you'll be lost."
Neither Theo nor Adam objected. They'd seen Rock reading that same book in the dorm dozens of times.
With both boys quietly reading, Rock walked to a desk, removed his outer robe, and picked up his wand, heading toward the practice dummy.
"What's Rock doing, anyway?" Adam asked, hearing the spellcasting behind him.
"Probably refining his wand movements," Theo answered without looking up. "Every session I've watched, he adjusts something—tiny changes, but constant."
"Seriously?" Adam blinked. "Is that something a regular first-year can even do?"
"No idea. But do you think Rock is a normal first-year?" Theo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Definitely not." Adam didn't even hesitate. If Rock was normal, what would that make them?
"Exactly. Anyway, focus on studying." Theo lowered his head again. If they wanted to sneak around at night, they needed to finish the book.
Rock didn't join their conversation.
He opened his Inscription Log—watching the little "+1" marks appear over and over. Passive practice gave barely anything. Even a high-level Levitation Charm cast ten times didn't guarantee five experience points.
Rubbing between his eyebrows, he gave up on practicing for now and thought back to something he did the previous night.
He'd used Levitation to suspend the pepper powder first, then fired it with Vadi Vassi so it'd strike the troll quickly and accurately.
But using spells in a simple step-by-step sequence like that made the magic unstable.
Some of the pepper powder fell before he cast Vadi Vassi—meaning the Levitation Charm only barely kept the spell from collapsing.
And during Vadi Vassi, his intended target had been the troll's eyes, but the trajectory bent and hit its nose instead.
Pepper was light and powdery, so it survived the imperfect spell chain. If it had been a solid object? It probably would've disintegrated midair.
The transitions were clunky. The process too complicated.
If last night's opponent hadn't been a mindless troll but a creature with half a brain, they would've dodged easily.
So…
What if he combined both spells into one?
Rock sat down in a nearby chair, picked up a quill, and began sketching out his idea.