A bet and a philosophy of spheres.

The rest of the school year passed peacefully. Neville, Padma and Hannah learned about Konrad's love situation and they became quiet envious. They also learned the way Konrad learned magic control but still didn't know that it was basically leading to wandless magic later. Other than that Konrad taught them occlumency to keep his secrets safe.

Konrad Luna and Hermione continued their research. They decided to join hands and find the reason why the lead to gold transformation is so inefficient. Their research led to the Philosophers Stone itself. It was just rigid and shapeless. A lot of material was lost when the particles passed through the Stone being interrupted and released as useless energy, leading to the high losses. The trio worked on a special extremely complicated formation until the end of the year. A lot of progress was made in this regard but they estimated that between everything they had to do this summer the formation would be completed in around a month.

The ending feast was boringly predictable. Dumbledork did everything so Gryffindor won the Housecup, and soon everyone were on their way to the train. Konrad observed Dumbledore for the entire year and came to a conclusion. 'This guy is old and stupid... in the end I should just take the most powerful wand from his hands before he hurts somebody.

Konrad sneaked under the invisibility cloak behind Dumbledore while everyone were walking towards the carriages, and when no one was nearby, shot Expeliarmus followed by Stupefy.

Just like he expected Dumbledore quickly spun around reflecting the first spell, showing years of experience, but the second one hit him dead center causing the "greatest wizard of Wizarding Britain to lose consciousness. Another two stupefy and Konrad looked through his robes finding the Black Wand. He was quiet curious about it but decided to not play with it for now and put it into a container without touching it. Who knows what would happen since he had all the three Hallows in his possession even if not on his person. The Resurrection stone lied in the Lab but Konrad already touched it and the Invisibility cloak was now on him he wasn't about to risk becoming a master of death without knowing more about that title.

He quickly left and joined the others in the carriages. Leaving the first year of Hogwarts behind him.

"You've got it?" Asked Hermione.

"Yep." Konrad replied.

"We're there any problems?" She asked.

"What? Your worried about me?" Konrad asked grinning.

"Hmph no. I'm just asking because you went about and attacked the strongest wizard in the Wizarding world!" She said.

"Hey your hurting me! Don't you know that I long ago surpassed him? At least in magic power..." Konrad argued.

"Hah maybe. But you don't have the experience like he has." She argued back.

The duo were arguing under privacy charms but it soon turned into teasing and kisses. Hannah and Parvati watched their silent exchange and huffed felling even more jealous. She looked at each other then at Neville in between them and then back at themselves and nodded. Suffice to say after this day Neville lost the last bit of shyness around people. It's hard to keep being shy after two beauties start kissing you at the same time.

Konrad and hermione stopped talking and watched shocked at their three friends kissing each other without care in the world. Suddenly Konrad jumped onto his feet and shouted happily.

"I win! We're still within Hogwarts!"

The duo had a bet for a few months already, about when their three friends start dating each other. Konrad bet on them hooking up before the school year ends and they mount the train back home while hermione bet on it happening later. The loser was to do everything the winner wanted from the other, of course within reason.

"Ehhh...alright so what is it you want of me?" Said Hermione who lost their bet.

Konrad had a grin that made her shiver.

"Alright so I want you to..."

————-

"Come out!" Konrad shouted.

He was seating on a sofa down in the lab together with Luna, waiting for Hermione to come out of the changing room.

"I don't want to!" Replied Hermione.

"Please! we won't laugh at you!" Said Luna.

"...alright, but you won't laugh?" Asked Hermione.

"Of course not! Why would we? I didn't give you this so we could laugh!" Konrad said.

"...so why?" Said Hermione walking out of the changing room.

Konrad saw her and grinned.

"For my pure satisfaction. Now say what I told you to say." Konrad said grinning wider.

A bushy girl with fluffy cat ears and a tail walked to Konrad and Luna, completely red faced wearing a long oversized tshirt and long socks. She went down to all fours and kneeled in front of them.

"I-Is there anything this naughty kitty can do for M-master and mistress?" She asked felling as if she was losing the rest of her dignity.

"Haha You were right Konrad this is great! She's so adorable!" Luna said. "Come here kitty! This mistress is going to give you a lot of head pats today." She exclaimed and started patting the kneeling Hermione. The girl could only accept her fate of being a cat for the entire next weak.

'I'll get you for that Konrad! ...well at least I do look cute, haha'

———-

In the end Mione spend over ten days as a cat, because she got used to it and actually really liked the additional attention she got from Konrad and Luna. In this way the day she was supposed to stop, slipped by and she didn't realized, and neither Konrad nor Luna mentioned anything, enjoying more time with their Kitty. Hermione in the end awoke a kind of fetish of pretending to be a loyal kitty and Konrad was very alright with it every time she wore her enchanted cat ears. He couldn't wait for them to be older so he could do more with his beloved kitty. Funnily Luna had similar thought as Konrad.

After the ten days of Mione's kitty adventures that were a pretty fun but still a distraction they started focusing back on their special formation. The previous research of Konrad gave him a pretty good understanding of the chemical and magical composition of the philosophers stone but he lacked an unknown element of how it was actually created. But because they already had a working example, they could use it in the creation of another Stone using only the chemical components and a specific magic formation. That's the formation they were working on now.

Konrad bought a lot of chemical elements of different kind and a lot of rare not always legal magical ingredients as well. After a few days the formation was ready. Hermione drawn the base of the formation, while Luna focused on the runic inscriptions, Konrad then put each material in the corresponding pentagram. The formation was so big that they had to increase the size of the Lab to accommodate it. When everything was set in place, Konrad put the Philosophers stone in one of the two bigger pentagrams in the center of the formation.

"Alright, everything seems to be ready! Can you see anything wrong with the formation or the ingredients?" Konrad asked.

"No. From my side the formation looks good, and the ingredients are in the right places." Said Hermione.

"Yeah, my runes look flawless, and the amount of ingredients is exactly 1kg each like you told us. We will be able to asses the proportions next time we do this." Said Luna.

"Great! Then let's start immediately!" Replied Konrad.

"I'm inputting magical energy into the formation." Konrad started dictate for hermione who hold her notes like a good secretary.

The Formation glowed and soon the ingredients started disintegrating into particles similarly to the time when they changed lead into gold. The multicolored wisps of energized matter soon connected with the philosophers stone and started to enter it.

"I'm inputing the desired materials to process with the alchemical reaction." Konrad continued the dictation.

Soon the Philosophers Stone started glowing with strong Crimson Light and from the side appeared a new bloody crimson wisp of energized matter slowly moving in the direction of the second of the two biggest pentagrams.

"The alchemical reaction is...ahhh reacting? Haha write it somehow nicely Mione." Konrad said.

The crimson wisp reached the area above the second pentagram and started moving in a circle slowly accumulating. Luna moved cautiously to the second pentagram ready to do her part.

When Konrad deemed the accumulated crimson matter enough, he said.

"Alright I'm cutting the power from the formation leaving the directional runes working. Luna it's your turn."

Most of the formation dimmed, leaving only the fragments that kept suspending the energized matter in the air in the correct form. Luna put her hands on the special runes placed around the second pentagram that weren't activated today at all.

"I'm activating the "shaping" runes." Said Luna.

The shaping runes were a special Cluster designed by Luna and Hermione. They work based on the intent of the magic supplier, causing something along the lines of transfiguration specially attuned to the energized matter of a Philosopher Stone. Without it the matter would partially escape into the air and the rest would form a shapeless lump similar to the one after transforming lead into gold or to the stone itself. This is a very important part because the Philosophers Stone cannot be affected by any magic. Trying to change its shape would simply not work because normal spells just bounce of its surface or are sucked in causing unpredictable reactions. You could probably destroy it by physical force or special options like a basilisks venom but the trio only managed to deduce that it's at least as hard as diamond. If they want to change its shape they can only do it while it's being formed. And that's what Luna was doing.

"Processing with forming a sphere." She said.

The crimson wisp started moving toward the center of the pentagram slowly compressing and becoming less see through. It's form was exactly that, a sphere. A perfect shape. Luna tried to visualize the most perfect smoothest sphere without a speck of any flaw. Soon the wisp entirely disappeared and in its place was the object of her imagination. A perfect Sphere of Clear Crimson matter. The last energy left the magic formations leaving only the magic lamps around as the light source. The trio looked at the sphere and then at the original Stone all lumpy and full of flaws.

"Do you think it worked?" Asked Hermione.

"There's as easy way to check that." Konrad replied.

Luna cautiously picked up the crimson sphere and Konrad transfigured a lump of gold lying around into a pretty golden stand for a Cristal ball. Then everyone moved to an older formation deeper in the Lab. The formation that changed lead into gold. Old because the trio was working on other similar formation but this one was the original. They put the golden stand in place and Luna put the sphere on the stand. Then measured a 1kg of lead and put it in place as well.

The formation started with Hermione putting her magic into it. The trio was grinning wider and wider seeing the process of transformation processing smoothly and without problems and soon a lump of gold much bigger than in their past tries lied on the other side of the formation. Luna put it on the scale and grinned.

"Perfectly 1kg!"