Hagrid's Message

The last heavy rain before winter in the Scottish Highlands fell on Hogwarts in early October.

It was the night of the Slytherin training match.

Wood sat alone on the empty Quidditch pitch, soaked to the bone, as if he intended to drown himself in the downpour.

Everyone knew that Wood considered Slytherin his greatest rival—his biggest obstacle to fulfilling his dream of "winning the Quidditch Cup before graduation." He had thought Gryffindor's future was secure with Harry on the team, but after witnessing Vaughn's performance, Wood fell into despair once again.

Harry would've preferred he didn't.

From that day on, the Quidditch training schedule set by Wood became even more intense.

If not for a shred of remaining sanity, he might have insisted the team skip classes altogether to train for Quidditch every day.

The result of this madness was that Harry was utterly miserable.

Not only did he have to cope with mounting schoolwork, but he was also expected to attend Quidditch practice four nights a week.

One day in mid-October, the now haggard and noticeably thinner Harry finally ran into Vaughn again. Lately, Vaughn seemed to have returned to his usual busy routine and was rarely seen after classes.

Vaughn was startled by the dark circles under Harry's eyes. "What on earth have you been doing?"

Harry gave him a resentful look and replied weakly, "Homework, training… Don't Slytherins have practice too?"

"Every Wednesday night. Any more than that affects performance."

"Lucky you. Flint may look fierce, dumb, and brutish—but at least he understands that much."

Vaughn didn't respond. He had been the one to set the training schedule. Flint had objected at first until Vaughn taught him a lesson with a Disarming Charm. Only then did Vaughn discover: having a fool as captain had its advantages.

Since Flint couldn't beat him, he listened to everything Vaughn said and never insisted on his own plan. He also made a useful scapegoat, especially when other houses criticized Slytherin's underhanded tactics.

"Harry, did you want to talk about something? If not, I'll be off—I've been very busy lately."

Vaughn wasn't making an excuse. He had indeed been spending most of his time in Snape's office, using magical extraction techniques to familiarize himself with various ingredients.

It was far from easy work.

Even after processing, the materials harvested from magical plants and creatures still retained residual magic. His own magic couldn't fully break them down, so progress was slow.

Harry quickly grabbed his arm. "Nicolas Flamel!"

"…" Vaughn fell silent, staring at Harry's prematurely aged-looking face. "You look like death, and you're still thinking about that?"

Harry chuckled.

Vaughn pulled out a Chocolate Frog. "Remember that card you and Ron were talking about when we first met? It's written right there!"

Harry leapt up, mumbled a quick goodbye, and dashed off toward the Gryffindor common room.

Vaughn shook his head, ate a small snack, and rushed back to Snape's office.

Professor Snape had been in an increasingly good mood lately. Maybe it was from watching Harry suffer… or maybe because he finally had someone to talk potions with.

Either way, at least he no longer marked homework with murderous rage, tearing parchment to shreds, or summoning students just to berate them until they cried.

After greeting Snape, who was lazily twirling his quill, Vaughn took his seat and pulled out a piece of aconitum.

With one hand, he tapped it with his wand, carefully infusing it with magic. With the other, he held a quill and wrote notes as he worked.

He was recording the internal structure of the aconite as it appeared in his mind and noting his hypotheses about its properties.

First came classification, to make future experiments easier.

Time slipped by unnoticed as he worked in such focused concentration. By the time Vaughn set his quill down, it was already six in the evening.

It was getting late. He turned to Snape and said, "Goodbye, Professor."

Snape called out to stop him. "Weasley—"

"Call me Vaughn, Professor."

"Vaughn…" Snape shook his greasy hair in mild discomfort. "The Quidditch season begins next month. The first match is against Gryffindor. How's your training?"

"It's fine," Vaughn replied after a brief pause. "Flint plans to send two players to target Harry. They're aggressive and ruthless."

The word ruthless only seemed to improve Snape's mood. Instead of commenting on that, he asked: "I've noticed you've focused all your energy on aconite lately. Are you planning to use it as the main component of your potion?"

"Yes, Professor."

"Hmph… It's extremely toxic!" Snape scowled, clearly annoyed, as though he had overestimated Vaughn's ability. "Finish your analysis, then write me a paper on it!"

Clearly, he wanted to double-check Vaughn's research to make sure he didn't do anything reckless.

Vaughn agreed with a smile. He was genuinely curious how Snape would react once he finally uncovered Vaughn's true objective.

Vaughn left the Potions office and headed to the Great Hall. Tonight, he once again made his way to the Ravenclaw table.

The girls there were gentle, thoughtful, and perfect for unwinding after a long day.

Unfortunately, he had just exchanged a few pleasant words with Cho Chang when Harry, Ron, and Hermione showed up.

"Vaughn, you—" Harry began, but stopped mid-sentence when he saw Cho beside him. For some reason, he started to stammer.

"Hello, I'm Harry—"

"Harry Potter. Everyone knows your name," Cho replied sweetly with a smile. Then she turned to Vaughn. "We'll talk later. Come find me when you're free."

Harry stared blankly at her retreating figure until Ron nudged him. "Oi—what's with the dazed look?"

Harry finally came to his senses, only to see Vaughn's amused smirk and Hermione's suspicious frown.

For the first time, he found Ron… kind of adorable.

Blushing, Harry coughed and changed the subject. "Vaughn, thanks for pointing us in the right direction. We figured out what Dumbledore's hiding in the castle."

He leaned in and whispered dramatically, "It's the Philosopher's Stone..."

But Vaughn's expression didn't change at all. Ron stared in disbelief. "You're not surprised? The Philosopher's Stone! We used to talk about it in fairy tales!"

"I know what it is," Vaughn said, waving his hand. "The moment you mentioned Nicolas Flamel, I knew it had to be the Philosopher's Stone. That was his greatest achievement."

"That's it? It can turn stone into gold!" To Ron, this was the most magical part of it all.

Vaughn glanced at him and grinned. "Ronald Weasley, my dear brother—what do you think is the difference between me selling potions and turning stone into gold?"

"…" Ron's face turned pale, as though he'd lost all color and the will to speak.

Harry quickly dragged him aside before he spiraled into another identity crisis. "Vaughn, Hagrid wants to see you."

Hermione added, "Sorry! Hagrid asked if anyone else knew about Nicolas Flamel, and we had to tell him."

Vaughn blinked. "Alright. When are we going?"

Only then did he realize—he'd been at Hogwarts this long, and he still hadn't visited the Forbidden Forest. What a terrible oversight!