Chapter 65 - 66

Evan didn't remember how he exited Dumbledore's office; he only knows his back was full of cold sweat.

Dumbledore sucks, he may have no malice towards me but it isn't a good feeling to have no secrets.

Evan made it his new goal to learn how to shield his mind.

The school was very lively at that time.

He didn't know who told them but all the portraits are buzzing about the Chamber and all the things that happened. When he passed a portrait, he was stopped and asked by the portraits how he and Harry beat the basilisk.

Evan ignored the portraits and went straight to the school hospital.

In the next second, he heard a bang, Dobby appeared in front of him.

"Sir, Harry Potter has freed me, he gave me a sock!" said the elf with a shrill sharp voice, his eyes were wide open with tears falling from them.

"Congratulations, Dobby!" Whispered Evan, he saw Dobby wearing Harry's slimy smelly socks.

"Mrs. Granger told me you had something to ask me," said Dobby

"I want to ask you, now that you have freedom, what are you going to do?" asked Evan.

"Dobby will look for work that pays." said the elf but the suddenly became a little frustrated, "But this is difficult, sir! People may not be willing to pay an elf."

"I actually have a job for you if you would like, I would pay you too. So, would you like to?"

Evan wanted to make the Hogwarts' Magic bigger and bigger but to do this he needs to use magic but it will be summer soon so he needs either a grown wizard or an intelligent magical creature to help him.

A house elf may not be able to write articles or edit but they can be helpfully in collecting news, newspaper printing, and other aspects of the work.

When Dobby heard Evan would pay him for his work he wept with joy. Dobby stretched his arms around Evan's waist and hugged him tightly. Evan went from being Harry Potter's great friend to as great as Harry Potter.

In this way, Dobby has become a full-time employee of the Hogwarts' Magic newspaper.

Considering the amount of work, Evan planned to give him ten galleons a month and weekends off but Dobby said that so much money and leisure time was a horrible thing. He bargained with Evan and the final salary was four galleons a month and one day off.

In addition to his work for the paper, he will also take on service work like a servant. If Malfoy knew about this matter, he might faint from the anger.

After finishing up with Dobby, Evan came to the school hospital and with the help of Madam Pomfrey's sleeping potion he had a good night's sleep.

It wasn't until the next morning that he woke up.

The bed where Lockhart was in was empty, Ron told him that after the school found out Lockhart was hit with a powerful memory charm, he was sent straight to St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Dumbledore had come to see them but they decided not to wake Evan. Looking at Harry's face, Evan knew Dumbledore must have spoken to him alone. The expression on his face could only be described as someone being brainwashed.

Ron was completely back to normal and his mood had also improved by leaps and bounds.

The three of them happily ate the lunch that Madam Pomfrey had prepared. Ron described what it had been like under Tom's control and Harry gave him a detailed talk of the two battles.

When Harry had finished his story, Hermione, Colin, and Ginny came into the hospital ward.

They brought good news and bad news; the good news was Dumbledore gave the three of them two hundred points at breakfast. This meant Gryffindor won the house cup.

The bad news was the exams and the Quidditch match where cancelled which made Harry and Hermione frustrated.

The few people chatted for a while and when Evan was about to tell them about the secret treasures, he saw Ron's rat. He couldn't let Peter Pettigrew know about these things.

"Come tell us, Evan! What did you do in the statue of Slytherin?" said Ron.

"It was something dealing with the basilisk, it wasn't a big deal," said Evan as he looked at the mouse, he decided to keep it a secret for now.

By dinner time, Fudge came to the school with the award and Hagrid's pardon. Evan asked if Colin could take a picture of them, he made sure to put the rat in a clear spot.

Filch took the trophy carefully to the trophy room and Evan combined the photos with the pictures of the basilisk Colin took in the common room before writing a story about the Chamber of Secrets.

Besides the article being on the front page, it would most likely be picked up by the daily prophet.

It would be perfect if Fudge brought the paper to Azkaban for Sirius Black to look at. It won't be long before the ministry of magic is busy with the escape of black.

The rest of the semester was peaceful.

Hogwarts has returned to normal, with only a few minor changes: the defence against the dark arts class was cancelled, Lucius Malfoy was fired from the board of governors, and Draco was no longer acting like he owned the school. Draco instead had a gloomy face all day and he seems to be filled with resentment.

After the mandrake matured and the students recovered, the Hogwarts magic newspaper returned to its sales number before the Chamber of secrets. Evan now had to find a new attraction to replace Lockhart's novels.

He decided to write an introduction of Hagrid since he was wronged because of the chamber of secrets so many years ago.

For the novel section, Evan decided to try to write one himself. He borrowed Lockhart's complete works from Hermione and imitated his writing and wrote a book called, 'Me and the Basilisk at Hogwarts' it was unexpectedly successful, many fans wrote to him every day.

In a blink of an eye, the semester was over, they are going home by the Hogwarts' Express train.

Evan, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Colin, Fred, George, and Ginny were alone in the compartment. They took advantage of the last few hours they could use magic. Fred and George set off their last few fireworks.

Ginny told them that Percy and Penelope were secretly dating. She saw them kissing in an empty classroom on Halloween night but it also explained why Evan always felt Ginny was hiding something from him.

As the Hogwarts express slowed down, Harry wrote the Dursleys phone number but Evan doubted that Harry's aunt and uncle would be willing to receive a call from a wizard.

When the train entered the platform, Evan got up to get his luggage, he touched his pocket to make sure the potion was there. This summer he had to learn how to defend his mind and how to protect himself. He had a wry smile; it seems this summer will be very substantial.

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As expected, Evan was busy all summer.

On his first day back, he woke at four o'clock in the morning. The house elf hurried to Evan's home, like in the past at Hogwarts or Malfoy's home he began to do the housework.

Mrs. Mason gets up early for work and to get breakfast ready. When she got up the trash was taken out, the floors, windows, furniture were all cleaned, even the lawn was trimmed neatly.

It was amazing, she hurriedly to Evan's room and asked him what was going on.

After figuring out what happened, Evan had to tell his mother it was magic.

It took a while to convince here but at the end, she still didn't fully believe him. She knew her son too well, she knew he wouldn't just do the housework without anyone telling him to especially early in the morning.

Seeing his mother's suspicious gaze made Evan smile bitterly.

By the time she left his room, he called Dobby and told him not to do it again but it seems Dobby took it the wrong way.

Dobby's two gigantic eyes looked pathetic. In the end, Evan had to comfort Dobby.

Evan is trying to persuade a house elf to cut down on his workload, he is just asking for failure.

Fortunately, the work for the newspaper is a lot, otherwise, he wouldn't know how to deal with a workaholic house elf.

Surprisingly, the newspaper didn't sell less in summer than at school.

Even without pictures and Lockhart's novels, the 'Me and the Basilisk' that Evan wrote aroused great interest.

In addition to young wizards, many adult wizards subscribe to the newspaper. At first, they wanted to know about the chamber of secrets and the basilisk but then they were attracted to the rest of the paper which most people thought was interesting.

This is mainly due to nearly headless Nick and all of the ghosts help across the UK, they are the main source of news for the paper. Since they don't sleep at night, they can give Evan a lot of interesting stories and mysteries.

In the next few days, the success of the newspaper caused a large number of owls to fly to his home, which frightened Mrs. Mason. So, he wouldn't scare his mother to death, Evan changed his address to Hogwarts and made it where he only gets his mail after it has been piling up for an entire day.

Due to the enthusiasm of readers and ghost, manuscript editing and auditing work became increasingly heavy.

The Weasley's where going to help but they had won the annual Daily Prophet Grand Prize Galleon Draw and went on a trip to Egypt in the first two weeks of the summer vacation. They were visiting their older son Bill and waiting for the summer to come to an end.

Hermione followed her parents to France, though none of her articles were short the rest of the work was up to Evan.

Harry and Colin had come and helped him a few times but it wasn't very helpful.

They tended to talk about Quidditch, summer jobs, or the escape of Sirius Black. They only visited Evan during the first few days of summer.

Shortly thereafter, Colin went to his home in the countryside with his father and brother for the summer.

Harry was in a lot of trouble since Ron had called the Dursleys on the fifth day of summer vacation, Harry had been confined and kept in his room.

Evan visited the house himself but they wouldn't let him in.

Just as Evan was about to rescue Harry, Harry got Hedwig to send him a letter. Harry told him he had to be nice to them so they would sign a permission slip to visit Hogsmeade.

From then on, Evan sent Harry some food so that the Dursleys wouldn't starve him to death.

Although there are a lot of manuscripts to edit Evan could handle the load by himself for now.

In his spare time, he went to Diagon Alley to buy magic books about potions, Occlumency, and how to defend against curses. These books ate almost all of his savings.

It takes a wand to cast a spell to defend against curses, for now, he can't practice it so after learning the spell theory Evan's focus turned to Occlumency and potions.

Occlumency closes one's mind from legitimacy, it stops people from accessing one's thoughts or influencing them.

The trick to casting this spell is to empty your mind so no one can get the memory out of your mind through magic. Experienced users such as Snape can even fabricate a false memory to deceive others.

Evan couldn't do that, in fact, he had a problem with getting started, he was having trouble emptying his mind.

There were always strange ideas in his head or he unconsciously starts to study a magical problem. After trying for a while, he had to make practicing Occlumency a long-term goal, he hopes he can master it before the school year starts.

In addition to Occlumency and protection against curses, Evan's potion wasn't what he originally thought. This potion doesn't help a wizard permanently increase their magic power but only significantly increases it for a period of time.

Evan thought it was a waste of a lost potion to help him improve his battle endurance.

After finishing all the magic books he bought, he finally decided to use it to help him become an Animagus.

Animagus is a complex, transfiguration spell that can make a wizard into an animal and for most wizards even adult wizards this spell is extremely complex and dangerous not to mention a wizard who is just twelve like Evan.

When becoming an Animagus, it is for the practitioner to get distracted for various reasons, resulting in the transformation to fail or possibly death.

As a result, the ministry of magic requires all Animagi to register with the Ministry of magic. But for the entire 20th century only seven people have registered.

Of course, this is not the total of Animagi.

Evan knew a lot of Animagi, such as Peter Pettigrew, who had been hanging around him, and Sirius Black, who was about to debut. They were all Animagi in their school days and with that in mind Evan who had the potion to help him, decided to complete his Animagi form this summer.

He carefully studied transfiguration theory so he could have a strong foundation but he also needed a lot of magical support.

The theoretical knowledge wasn't a problem, when Evan had the diary, he consulted Tom on Animagus transformations, from that he received a lot of help. Voldemort may not be a good character but his magical knowledge may be comparable to Dumbledore.

The trouble in the first transformation process needs to consume a lot of magical power to turn people into animals. When an adult wizard tries, they will only succeed one out of five tries, this is why most witches and wizards fail to complete the transformation process.

You usually buy a lot of magic potions to practice.

The price of these potions are expensive although those potions effects are far from the one he has.

Therefore, with the help of this potions, he will not have a problem with transforming and becoming an Animagus.

He practiced many times and gradually mastered the ropes and after a month of preparations and the beginning of the fifth week of summer vacation Evan shut himself up in his room to prepare for his first attempt at becoming an Animagus. He didn't allow anyone in his room without consent during this process.