In the wizarding world, books are far more than mere vessels of words.
The Monster Book of Monsters will chase and bite people like a rabid dog; The Invisible Book of Invisibility is, quite literally, invisible; and some ancient tomes of Dark Magic have been known to lure readers into taking their own lives.
Even Voldemort's diary, which contained a fragment of his soul, would be considered by most wizards to be a dangerous kind of "magic book."
At the moment, Professor Murray had tasked his aspiring alchemist students with creating a particularly rare variety — a book that could recognize its owner. To anyone other than its creator, its pages would appear as nothing but blank parchment.
A magical version of an encrypted journal — extremely practical, but very few people knew how to make one.
Naturally, the process was complex and difficult. The students' results were less than ideal, and Professor Murray's expression had grown as dark as a thundercloud.
"The moonstone powder must be added at the same time as the unicorn hair!" he barked, rapping his wand against a student's cauldron. "In your opinion, does a difference of two seconds count as 'simultaneous'?"
The girl he addressed froze, visibly panicking as she tried to correct her mistake — only to accidentally toss in another pinch of powder in her haste.
Professor Murray: "…"
He was so furious that his mustache nearly bristled straight up.
Then, from the other end of the classroom, came a muffled boom! A tall, thin boy was suddenly enveloped in a puff of violet smoke. His entire face glowed purple as he stared, bewildered, at his now-smoking cauldron.
Abandoning his first target, Professor Murray stormed across the room. With a flick of his wand, he swept the smoke clean out of the air.
He bent over to inspect the boy's work, took a deep breath, and asked in a low, controlled voice,
"You didn't memorize the Ancient Runes I told you to study last week, did you?"
"I—I did," the boy stammered, swallowing hard. "Just… not perfectly…"
"Oh, really? Then your memory is quite creative," Murray said icily. "Tell me—since when are 'Concealment' and 'Explosion' the same word?"
At that moment, Professor Murray's demeanor was almost indistinguishable from Professor Snape's. Watching from the window, Wade couldn't help but smile faintly.
His gaze swept across the classroom. Some students were sweating profusely; others frantically flipped through their notes; one even tried to discreetly wipe away a freshly written rune with their sleeve.
But with so few students in the class, not a single one of these gestures escaped Murray's sharp eyes.
He went down the line, pointing out each student's mistake, pausing now and then to use Wade as a benchmark:
"If Wade were here, he'd have finished so many enchanted books by now he could bury you all under them!"
"Wade memorized this entire section in one month! And you? I've taught you for half a year, and you still make such basic mistakes! Copy pages 37 to 58 of the Rune Dictionary when you get back—by hand!"
"When Wade got this wrong once, he never repeated the mistake again. How can you still be making the same ones?"
By the time the bell finally rang, the students all looked visibly relieved. They packed up in silence and hurried toward the door—only to freeze the moment they stepped outside.
Standing a short distance away was Wade himself.
Their footsteps faltered. One after another, complicated glances flickered across their faces.
With Professor Murray right behind them, no one dared say anything. Only one upper-year Ravenclaw pointed toward Wade with a look that was half amused, half exasperated, and muttered under his breath:
"You got us yelled at again… Next time we have a party, I swear I'm getting you drunk!"
A group of dejected students shuffled away. They hadn't even made it all the way down the corridor before Wade heard a girl, on the verge of tears, muttering under her breath:
"Why does he always compare us to him… That guy's Wade Grey! Even when Professor Murray was young, I bet he couldn't—"
Another student cut her off sharply. "Keep your voice down! If the professor hears you, he'll have you copying the entire dictionary!"
Wade pretended not to hear any of it. Only after the students had disappeared down the hall did he gently knock on the doorframe.
"Oh, Wade, you're here."
Professor Murray, who had been writing something on a piece of parchment, looked up. The moment he saw who it was, the dark scowl on his face instantly lightened.
Setting down his quill, Murray leaned back in his chair and smiled. "Come in. How's the quill from last week working for you?"
As he spoke, he flicked his wand, and the brass kettle in the corner of the room began to boil on its own.
"Very well," Wade replied.
He stepped inside, set down his bag, and placed a teacup on the table.
"A quill made from unicorn tail hair feels the most comfortable in hand. I think it even has a calming effect. If you touch the skin near a wound with the quill tip, it seems to help prevent infection and speed healing—though only slightly."
Such a quill might be useful to Muggles, but to a wizard, its effects were negligible at best.
Since completing his third year, Wade had spent the past half-year practicing the creation of all kinds of enchanted quills—some genuinely useful, some entirely superfluous, and others… peculiarly magical.
For example, he had once crafted a quill that burst into song every time it was used to write—complete with a dwarf's gravelly voice, hoarse and off-key. It was, in every sense, noise pollution.
Of course, the goal of this exercise wasn't to make as many kinds of quills as possible, but to understand, through small and precise work, the properties and combinations of alchemical materials and to gain familiarity with different crafting methods.
Wade handed over the unicorn-hair quill. Professor Murray examined it closely for a few moments, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes softened with satisfaction.
"Excellent. The runes are just as stable as last week's. This quill won't lose its magic for at least five years."
He set the quill down, then took out a finely carved wooden box. His eyes gleamed with a playful spark as he said, "This time, we're going to study an entirely new material. I guarantee—not even that boy Marchionne could get his hands on this one."
Wade's eyes lit up, genuinely intrigued.
Marchionne was notoriously resourceful. He could even procure restricted items like Boomslang (African tree-snake) skin (one of the ingredients for Polyjuice Potion), and he'd once delivered Wade an entire box of it to experiment with freely.
So what could possibly exist that even Marchionne couldn't acquire?
Professor Murray opened the wooden box. Its bottom was lined with thumb-sized pebbles, and for a moment Wade thought those were what the professor wanted to show him.
He glanced up at Murray's mysterious smile, then looked more closely—and finally noticed a single fine strand resting atop the stones.
Wade picked up a pair of tweezers, carefully lifted it, and examined it against the light. "What is this?"
Murray didn't bother to tease or delay. "This," he said, "is said to be the hair of a Lady of the Forest."
"…Lady of the Forest?"
Wade only knew of the Lady of the Lake.
In fairy tales, even someone as powerful and godlike as Merlin was said to have been imprisoned by a Lady of the Lake named Viviane.
Of course, much like the story claiming that "Merlin was a cambion (half-demon) — the child of a mortal woman and a nightmare demon (incubus)," such tales were regarded as embellishments to the Merlin legend. Only children believed them entirely; most people treated them with skepticism.
Now, gazing at the strand of hair — as thin as a spider's silk — Wade looked toward Professor Murray with questioning eyes.
The old man chuckled. "It's not as though I plucked this from a Lady of the Forest's head myself. So whether they truly exist or not… I can't say."
"But a quill made from this hair possesses a fascinating ability — it can translate the speech of animals in the forest into written words the user can understand."
"Any animal?" Wade couldn't help but ask.
"That depends on you," Murray replied with a smile. "The most gifted person I've ever seen crafted a quill that could translate twelve different animal languages. For you, I'd expect no less."
A sound came from the corner of the room: gurgle, gurgle, gurgle…
The water had come to a boil.
Wade rose, lifted the kettle, and poured hot water into a teacup. The slender tea leaves swirled and danced within the cup.
He sat back down and asked, "Can this hair be reused?"
"Of course not," Murray said with a chuckle. "But each attempt only requires a very small piece."
He demonstrated with his fingers, showing a length about the size of a knuckle, then added leisurely,
"If you fail, I can allow you at most three attempts."
Wade smiled. "Then I'll make sure to succeed on the first try—so we don't waste such a precious material."
Indeed, "Lady of the Forest's hair" was extraordinarily rare. If it had been anyone else, Professor Murray wouldn't even have let them touch it.
But with Wade, he only smiled kindly and said, "Don't speak so certainly. This material is extremely sensitive and prone to failure. A few setbacks are perfectly normal—practice a few more times if needed."
He waved his wand, and the chalk beside the blackboard leapt up, writing lines of text and sketching several impeccably detailed diagrams.
"Forest magic requires affinity with the moon," said Murray. "In addition to the hair, you'll need to collect six other materials…"
As Wade read the notes appearing on the board, he silently committed every word to memory.
Like potion ingredients, most alchemical materials couldn't be used directly; they required complex processing—cutting, grinding, drying, smelting, roasting, soaking…
Sometimes, what appeared to be an ordinary "stone" might have undergone dozens of such intricate steps.
The Lady of the Forest's hair was one of those troublesome materials. Because of its extreme sensitivity, even the slightest mistake — a few degrees too hot, or a few seconds too short — could completely destroy it.
Thus, that afternoon, Professor Murray didn't let Wade begin crafting. The entire session was devoted to teaching him how to prepare the materials and the precise steps of the final alchemical process.
"Remember," Murray instructed, "you must begin only when it's completely quiet, and the moonlight is strong. When you feel a resonance with nature — when your heart knows — that's the moment. That's when you should start."
"Thank you, Professor. I've written everything down," Wade said earnestly, closing his notebook filled with several pages of notes.
Professor Murray thought of his other students — the ones who still made the same mistakes on their ninth attempt, even after he'd emphasized the key points eight times — and couldn't help but smile warmly at the contrast before him.
—If only every student were like Wade, Professor Murray couldn't help thinking.
He lifted his cup of black tea and took a slow sip, intending to tell Wade to head to dinner. But just as he was about to speak, he noticed the boy slipping his notebook into his bag, his eyes lowered with a faint gloom clouding his expression.
"What's wrong?" Murray's keen instincts immediately picked up on the shift. He frowned slightly. "Is something bothering you?"
"It's nothing," Wade said with a faint, bitter smile. His hand tightened slightly on his bag strap, the knuckles pale from the pressure.
"Can't tell me?" Murray's tone grew more serious. "That uncertain look doesn't suit you. What happened?"
Wade hesitated — a rare unease in his voice. "It's just… yesterday, when we were setting up the spectator stands, I realized this tournament is going to be huge. It looks like the Ministries of Magic from several countries will be sending people to watch. So I…"
"You're worried about losing?" Murray asked gently.
"Yeah." The boy's voice dropped lower. "If someone else loses, people will understand. But if I lose… if Hogwarts doesn't take the championship… I'm afraid the whole world will laugh at me."
Professor Murray let out a soft chuckle.
He placed a comforting hand on Wade's shoulder and said in a warm, steady tone, "You foolish boy. The weight you carry isn't Hogwarts' honor — it's your own courage."
"So what if you lose? Just stepping into that arena means you've already surpassed ninety-nine percent of people!"
"True failure isn't losing the title — it's letting fear steal your courage to chase victory. As long as you give it your all, no one will laugh at you. And this castle will always be proud of you."
"Of course…"
He straightened Wade's collar and smiled. "I believe my student is the best in the world. You should believe that too."
Feeling the warmth of the professor's hand on his shoulder, Wade took a deep breath. When he looked up again, his gray eyes were once more steady and confident.
"I understand… I won't let you down!"
…
Click.
When the door shut behind him, the flicker of doubt, fragility, and emotion that had crossed Wade's face vanished completely.
He stood at the doorway for a moment, and unconsciously glanced back at the thick wooden door — his expression returning to its usual calm composure.
The parchment in his pocket was warm to the touch. Antoine's message had arrived right on time:
[Antoine: Well? Did you find anything?]
After a short pause, Wade wrote back:
[Wade: No. I didn't notice anything suspicious.]
[Antoine: Then let me tell you what I found — your Professor Murray has been selling off most of his assets over the past two years, including his shares in the Nimbus Broom Company.]
[Antoine: Everyone knows that company is a golden goose. You could sell your family home, but you'd never sell that. I can't imagine what reason he'd have for doing it.]
Wade's heart sank. He closed his eyes briefly, then replied:
[Wade: What about the other person you were investigating?]
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