The appearance of the Wit-Sharpening Potion directly opened a brand-new door for Avada in his exploration of mental power.
On the first weekend after term began, he spent the entire morning in the library, clearing all his weekend homework in one go. After attending Hufflepuff's first picnic at Saturday noon, he shut himself away in the Room of Requirement.
Once he drank the Wit-Sharpening Potion, its effects combined with Avada's own abilities to produce something akin to a chain reaction. The potion allowed him to observe the optimization process of his mental structure in real time, while his strengthened mind enabled him to effortlessly remember every detail of that process. At the same time, his thinking speed and the frequency of inspiration increased dramatically, causing his understanding of mental power to advance at a rocket-like pace.
Not only that, his research into the Diadem also accelerated enormously under the potion's influence, yielding entirely new progress. With the combined support of the Wit-Sharpening Potion, the Diadem, and his own mental power as three reference samples, Avada developed a preliminary talent-optimization plan in just two weeks. He then set aside an entire day specifically to remodel his own mind.
However, an unexpected problem arose during implementation.
When he began a comprehensive analysis of his mental power, he was shocked to discover that there was a mysterious magical structure hidden within it—something whose purpose he couldn't initially determine.
It was abnormally solid and tightly fused with his mental power, as if it had grown there naturally. Moreover, its presence constantly oppressed Avada's thought processes, effectively reducing his intelligence. In other words, his natural talent should originally have been better than it was—yet it had been forcibly suppressed by this inexplicable mass of magic.
What angered Avada even more was that after long and painstaking research, he finally confirmed the identity of that magic.
It was the failed Taboo.
At the moment he confirmed this, he nearly sent a Howler straight to the Department of Mysteries.
This thing had dragged down his intelligence for eleven years!
Voldemort's laughable performance in strategic thinking during his later years might very well have been partly due to this curse.
Fortunately, with the help of his prior research, Avada ultimately succeeded in "cutting out" the curse. The instant it completely dissipated, he felt a thunderous boom inside his head. His mental power surged as if it were boiling, causing his thinking speed and memory to jump upward in an instant.
Just like that, his talent rose from that of an "ordinary person" to that of a "fairly clever ordinary person."
And after successfully implementing his talent-optimization plan, he formally advanced from a "fairly clever ordinary person" into a bona fide "smart person."
As for the inspiration needed to evolve from "smart" into "genius," he had already obtained that through the Diadem.
By then, however, it was already after Halloween—November. In other words, he had maintained an almost nonstop, high-tension research state for a full two months, with barely any rest. Attending classes had practically counted as relaxation for him. So after completing his talent improvements, the thoroughly exhausted Avada decided to give himself a proper break. Aside from studying some higher-year material on his own and occasionally visiting the Room of Requirement to tinker with small trinkets left behind by his predecessors, he no longer scheduled any additional tasks for himself.
After Avada returned to normal school life with his improved talent, the most obvious change was his explosive progress in Potions. At the start of term, Snape had mocked him, saying it was impossible for him to master the material from first through fourth year in his first year. Yet just two months later, Avada had already completely digested the second-year textbook and was more than halfway through third-year content.
On top of that, having resolutely committed himself to studying Potions, Avada frequently endured Snape's sarcasm to ask questions directly. Naturally, these improvements didn't escape Snape's notice. Although his outward attitude didn't change—he still snorted coldly before launching into barbed remarks—Avada could tell that Snape's explanations had become far more detailed, and that he was offering more insights drawn from his own experience.
As for their Head of House's Herbology class, there was even less to say. Potions and Herbology had always been closely linked, and once they began practical lessons in the greenhouses, Avada's Magical Perception finally came into play. Professor Sprout praised his progress effusively.
What pleased Avada even more was that the professors no longer seemed to focus on his real name. Whether during roll call or when calling on him in class, they could calmly address him as "Mr. Ken" or simply "Ken," instead of frowning deeply and stumbling awkwardly over his name as they had at first.
His classmates, too, had grown accustomed to it. Even when a few overly curious students tried various methods to pry into the truth, once they heard that it was Headmaster Dumbledore himself who required Avada to conceal his true name, they wisely stopped digging any further.
Gradually, even Avada himself was starting to forget that his original name was "Avada Kedavra."
Beyond his achievements in magical research, his relationships with his classmates also grew increasingly familiar and harmonious. Baron went without saying—even during those two months of obsessive research, whenever Avada buried himself in the library, the two of them were almost always together. Sometimes Avada dragged Baron along; other times Baron dragged him.
There were also Cedric and the Weasley twins. All three of them successfully made their respective House Quidditch teams that year. Naturally, Cedric invited Avada (and Cho) to watch his final tryouts. What Avada hadn't expected was that Fred and George still remembered him as well and invited him to watch Gryffindor's Quidditch tryouts.
Their explanation was that they were extremely fond of the title "Prankmagus" and thus had never forgotten Avada's "kindness." Both of them, however, tacitly avoided mentioning that it was actually Baron from Slytherin who had coined the term.
So after accepting the invitation, Avada decisively dragged Baron along to attend Gryffindor's preliminaries. Baron also felt this was a chance to challenge stereotypes about Slytherin and ease the pointless enmity between the two Houses, so he readily agreed.
At first, the twins and some of the other Gryffindors were somewhat dissatisfied, but it didn't feel right to openly attack a first-year who had just enrolled and clearly didn't know much yet. When Baron displayed a genuinely sincere and friendly attitude, their resentment faded considerably.
And later, when Charlie Weasley led Gryffindor's team to victory in a school Quidditch match, that small bit of friction completely vanished.
Avada later heard that Baron was given a bit of trouble by older Slytherins over the incident, but Baron himself didn't really mind.
In addition to all this, the mental magic Avada had derived inspiration for from the Diadem's link module was finally completed. Its function was to remotely connect the mental power of two people, allowing both parties to directly hear the other's silently spoken thoughts. Naturally, this connection only operated on the surface layer of mental power—it didn't probe thoughts the way Legilimency did—and it required the other party's consent to establish, functioning essentially like an internal team voice channel.
However, testing showed that the link currently only worked between humans, not animals, and its effective range was limited to several dozen meters. As for house-elves, centaurs, and other non-human sapient beings, Avada had not yet tested it.
At last, time rolled around to the Christmas holidays.
(End of Chapter)