Skyl's roommates were all fifth-years as well, and among them was model student Percy.
Back in the dorm, after everyone had washed up, they each lay down on their four-poster beds. Skyl set his shoes neatly at the side, patted his robes, and let them shift back into the shape of pyjamas. He didn't even bother with a blanket, just folded his hands behind his head and lay there to rest.
Percy kept a close watch on the transfer student. Even while he had a hefty book open on his lap, he never stopped sneaking glances in Skyl's direction.
"What is it, Percy?"
"What? No, nothing," Percy said quickly, not expecting Skyl, who seemed to be dozing with his eyes shut, to suddenly speak up.
"You should get some sleep. Put the candle out. You'll disturb the others."
The candle by Percy's bed was actually very dim; move a little further away and you couldn't see it at all.
"I'll study a bit longer," he whispered back.
Skyl yawned. "All right then. I'm going to the bathroom."
Alarm bells went off in Percy's mind at once. He set the book aside immediately. "I'll come with you."
"Even for this? What are you, a primary school girl?"
They went into the bathroom one after the other. Percy blinked, a strange feeling pricking at him as he looked Skyl up and down. It was as if something about his roommate had changed, but he couldn't have said what.
"Long time no see," Skyl said out of nowhere.
Percy had no idea what he was talking about.
When they went back, Percy went on with his vigil, but as soon as midnight came his eyelids started fighting each other, and before he knew it he had drifted off.
Skyl got up and slipped out. His body gradually vanished into thin air—he had cast the Disillusionment Charm.
Hogwarts Castle at night was utterly still. No one noticed him, except the portrait that guarded the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. The Fat Lady was most displeased at having her sleep disturbed by Skyl ducking out.
He wandered the castle, reacquainting himself with every corner of it. Just a short while ago he had gone back to the world of The Elder Scrolls and spent nearly two months there. His gains had been enormous. Returning now to World I, he intended to give himself a proper rest.
His first stop on this nightly tour was the secret "dungeon" on the eighth floor, that must-visit fanfic location: the Room of Requirement. Skyl went to have a look and had to admit, while it couldn't compare to his own Tower of Tomes, it still had plenty of depth to it. Back when he'd been staying at the Leaky Cauldron, he'd already sketched out plans in his head: once he got to Hogwarts, how exactly he was going to make use of the Room of Requirement to power up.
Only, by the time he actually got here, he'd already found something better.
Skyl vaguely remembered that Voldemort had hidden one of his Horcruxes in the Room of Requirement, but he had no intention of taking it early. Voldemort, to him now, was beneath notice. Forget one Horcrux—even at his peak, Skyl could take him down without trouble.
Once he'd seen the Room, Skyl turned his thoughts to the library. Hogwarts' Restricted Section was legendary, practically a must-see tourist spot for any transmigrator. These days he was devoted to building up his collection of books, so there was no way he was going to leave the library untouched.
In the deep of night not even the portraits on the walls were awake; their inhabitants had all retired behind their frames. Only the ghosts still drifted along the corridors—and caretaker Filch, of course, locked in his eternal battle of wits against students sneaking out after hours.
On the way, Skyl ran into the Weasley twins. The two of them really were habitual night-wanderers: on the very first evening of the new term they had already slipped out to roam the halls. This time they'd been unlucky and got tangled up with Peeves.
"There are students out of bed in the corridors! Students out of bed in the corridors!" Peeves crowed. He cupped his hands around his mouth and blew, and a little golden trumpet popped into existence; he lifted it and began tooting it at full blast.
Hearing the call to battle, Filch came puffing along with his cat, dragging his feet and his lantern.
Skyl's Disillusionment Charm was polished to perfection, and he stood by enjoying the show all the way through as the twins were caught. They were in for it now: marched off to Filch's office and a lecture from Professor McGonagall on top of that.
Head drooping, the twins shuffled along in front of Filch. Just then George caught sight of a faint, transparent figure outlined in a shaft of moonlight spilling through a window: some kind of almost invisible silhouette. It made a gesture at him that he didn't quite understand.
"Psst, Fred."
"Yeah?"
George blinked.
Filch spun around sharply. "What are you two plotting? Don't even think about running!" He was clutching their wands in his hand, holding them like two skinny twigs, and showed not the slightest sign of treating them gently.
The twins suddenly stared past him, eyes wide and round.
"You're not fooling me," Filch snapped. "Is there supposed to be someone behind me? I know what this is—you're hoping I'll turn around so you can leg it. Well, no chance. I'm not that easily tricked."
"Meow!" A piercing yowl split the air.
Filch panicked. "What is it, Mrs Norris?"
His Mrs Norris—the scrawny cat he adored—was dangling from the bony hand of a towering skeleton clad in a black linen cloak.
The skeleton held a great scythe, resembling nothing so much as the Grim Reaper from a storybook. Its ancient skull had taken on a jade-like sheen, glowing like yellow topaz, and deep in its eye sockets two ghostly green flames flickered.
Filch's face must have been a picture; if the twins had been able to see it properly, they would have been in hysterics.
The skeleton's jawbone creaked open and shut, and a hollow sound came out, like air rushing between ribs. It was a strange, broken noise, barely forming anything that could be called words.
But in the twins' ears a clear voice spoke: "All right, listen to me…"
It was the transfer student's voice.
George silently formed the words, "This is brilliant," with his lips. Fred's eyes lit up, and he asked, his voice deliberately trembling, "George—did you hear what Mr Reaper just said?"
"Yeah. He definitely said something."
Filch was shaking all over. He wanted nothing more than to faint dead away, but his cat was in the thing's hand. He would rather die than let anything happen to her.
"You… you heard it? What did it say?"
George answered breezily, "Mr Reaper says your cat's time has come. Unless—"
"—unless you trade something else for her," Fred chimed in.
"Hurry up and hand over anything valuable you've got," George added.
"Or Mr Reaper will be on his way," Fred finished.
Filch was beside himself, torn between suspicion and panic. "This is a Reaper? This is robbery, that's what it is! Ah! Don't hurt Mrs Norris, I'll give you everything! My lantern, my clothes, all the money I've got."
The skeleton continued to rasp and rattle.
George shouted, "He doesn't want that stuff. It has to be something magical."
Fred nodded solemnly. "That's right, Mr Filch. Why don't you give him our wands?"
Filch's trousers were already halfway down when he stopped, his face twisting into a peculiar expression—part annoyed, part moved. "You're really willing to give up your wands to save my Mrs Norris? All right… take them."
The Reaper took the two wands and set the cat gently on the floor. With its skeletal claws it even gave her a couple of soft scritches, apparently a fellow cat lover itself.
When the skeleton drifted away without a sound, Filch clutched Mrs Norris to his chest and burst into tears. The twins stepped forward to comfort him.
"It's all right, it's all right," they said together.
"You two go back to bed," Filch said hoarsely. "As for tonight… I'll pretend none of this happened. I'll tell Professor Dumbledore about it, and your wands… should find their way back to you." His face held an unprecedented calm as he hugged his cat, took up his lantern, and shuffled away.
"Filch actually looks kind of pathetic like that."
Fred and George clicked their tongues in wonder, and then both felt their pockets suddenly grow heavy. Their wands were lying there, safe and sound.