For all that talk, Arthur had one more reason to stick his sword through Varré.
The white-masked clown was one of the prime suspects in the murder of Arthur's Finger Maiden. Whether he'd actually done it or not, a man already warped by Mohg's cursed blood wasn't coming back. Ending him was a release.
Arthur took Ranni back to the Church of Elleh. He looked at a shadowed corner and said, evenly, "It's been a while. Not going to come out and chat?"
By the campfire, Merchant Kalé blinked, then glanced left and right. He pointed at himself, unsure if the handsome kid meant him.
"Not you, Santa," Arthur waved him off.
(Why did Kalé dress like a festive gift-giver? Miyazaki's little joke, probably.)
Melina eased out of hiding and stepped to Arthur's front. Kalé lifted his hands like, yep, gods are talking; I am but a humble shopkeeper, and returned to tending his wares.
"Long time no see, Arthur," Melina said, voice level as always. "Your face has changed, and your strength has grown. Congratulations. Your odds of becoming Elden Lord have improved."
Credit to her: she could make a blessing sound like a weather report.
"That's all you've got after all this time?" Arthur asked.
"In fact, I do have a question. When will you take me to the Erdtree's roots?"
From her perspective, Arthur had done three laps past Leyndell without going in. When he first flew up to the Altus Plateau, he'd veered off to Volcano Manor. After clearing that, he'd finally pointed at the capital—then saw a sword monument, detoured here, and even disappeared for a while. Now he looked ready to march into some blood dynasty.
Even a wooden maiden felt tired.
Yes, she could warp via Sites of Grace, but only to graces Arthur had actually touched. If she could've gone straight to Leyndell, she already would've.
Her eyes carried a hint of grievance.
Arthur noticed and felt… a little guilty.
"Ahem. Let me hit the Mohgwyn Dynasty first. When I'm back, I'll take you to Leyndell. Promise."
"Very well. Then I wish you success on your journey," Melina said, and faded from sight.
Arthur honestly had no idea why she insisted on "hiding and peeking." He and Ranni had felt her the whole time.
Once she left, Ranni spoke. "My lord, I shall return."
He knew she meant the real world. She disliked being seen here in her childlike vessel—pride and dignity, both very Ranni things.
"Let's go together," Arthur said.
Between their spar and that ocean-parting Comet Azur, he'd burned a fair chunk of fuel. Yes, Sites of Grace restore you—but he was a Demigod-class being now. The energy it took to top off wasn't the same as before, and the Erdtree was notoriously stingy. Even those revived by Grace came back weakened.
Which reminded him—
No more deaths in the Lands Between if he could help it. And if he did die, he wasn't keen on letting Grace pull him back. With the Elden Beast slumbering in the Erdtree, he didn't want it sniffing out a strange new godling walking around. This was his true body now, not a disposable projection; if something went sideways, there'd be nowhere to cry.
(He conveniently forgot that before becoming a godling he'd already chased Rykard around with a club.)
Call it leftover gamer paranoia, or just Arthur being Arthur—cautious to a fault.
…
Back at Hogwarts, nothing major happened for a while.
Finals loomed; the castle turned into one giant cramming session.
Arthur and Harry were the exceptions. Harry had found the Chamber of Secrets, earning a blanket exam exemption. Arthur had the Special Services to the School trophy and got waved through as well.
Not that he loafed around—he was busy padding Hermione's paper.
Her "Animal Communication Charm" was complete, and the corresponding paper was nearly ready to submit. Arthur took one look at the draft and sighed in admiration—and despair.
Pure, uncut gold. Not a drop of filler. She'd even included methodological steps for developing the charm.
Which, in the adult world, is basically handing people the recipe.
If some shameless wizard followed her blueprint to make a variant and then accused her of plagiarism, what then?
So Arthur put on his editor hat.
Keep: the incantation and casting procedure.
Trim: the entire methodology.
Add: background, theory framing, literature citations, safe practice notes, ethical considerations, and a polite fog of opaque jargon.
Summarize the inspiration, not the secret sauce. Let the rest of the wizarding world do their own homework.
Truth is, the rarest currency in the wizarding world is knowledge. Why are the Flourish and Blotts textbooks so pricey? Knowledge. Why can a top broom cost thousands of Galleons? Because the makers own exclusive fabrication know-how—also knowledge.
So yes, teaching people the charm was already generous. Giving away the R&D path would be disrespectful to her own labor.
When Arthur handed Hermione the "final" draft, she stood there with her mouth in a perfect O. If not for her name and the "Animal Communication Charm" on the title page, she might've sworn it was someone else's paper.
On first pass, it read like cloud-layered academic thunder—serious, rigorous, very official. On second pass, she realized the only hard payload was the incantation and how to cast it. Everything else was guardrails, context, and high-level talk.
The little witch's eyes gleamed. So this is how papers could be written.
What she didn't know: in a previous life, Arthur had taken ghost-writing gigs. A late night could net ten thousand words of professional-sounding nothing. Compared to that, Hermione's paper was easy mode.
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