Chapter 132: Dumbledore’s Assurance

"Your attention to detail is truly remarkable, Mr. Ollivander." At Hogwarts, in the Great Hall. Dumbledore looked at Harold with a gentle smile. "So far, the enchantments I placed on the lavatory door haven't shown any signs of tampering. It's still perfectly secure. "As for the shifted magic trace you mentioned, I believe Miss Warren is the likely cause." The Miss Warren he referred to was none other than Moaning Myrtle—Warren being her surname when she was alive. "Wait, ghosts can affect magical seals?" Harold asked, puzzled. "It's possible," said Dumbledore. "Ghosts are unique beings—residual magical imprints left behind after a wizard's death. They can certainly have some influence on magic. "However, that influence is usually negligible. At most, it can cause a slight displacement in magical traces." "I understand, Headmaster." Harold nodded. He didn't really care about the relationship between ghosts and magic. As long as Dumbledore's enchantment on the bathroom door remained intact, that meant Riddle couldn't get in—and the basilisk couldn't get out. Harold returned to the Gryffindor table and took his seat. Over the next few days, he kept observing Lockhart, but the man had gone back to his usual routine, showing no further interest in the second-floor girls' bathroom. Meanwhile, Malfoy returned to school. Even though Dumbledore knew what he'd done, he hadn't expelled him. Instead, he allowed Malfoy to quietly resume classes. Typical Dumbledore. No surprises there. Malfoy, however, had become far more withdrawn. He rarely spoke, and always traveled with others—never alone. Probably not because of me, Harold mused to himself. Thankfully, most students were unaware of what had happened. Their attention had shifted to the upcoming Quidditch match. This Saturday, Gryffindor would face Hufflepuff. If they won by more than 200 points, they'd basically have one hand on the championship cup. As game day approached, Oliver Wood ramped up the training schedule again, dragging everyone into intense nightly practices. The Gryffindor common room echoed each evening with his enthusiastic yelling. "Our opponents are Hufflepuff! That's practically a gift!" "Don't even let them touch the Quaffle!" "If we lose this, we might as well snap our wands and become garden gnomes!" ... The pressure on the team was building—especially on Harry. Hufflepuff's team wasn't much of a threat—except for their Seeker, Cedric Diggory, who had already given Harry a hard time last year. And worse—he'd grown taller since then. His longer reach gave him a distinct advantage in catching the Snitch. On Saturday morning, Harry sat in the Great Hall, barely picking at his toast. Harold, seated next to him, was eating even less. He'd been sipping on a glass of milk for the past ten minutes and hadn't touched the rest of his food. "Harold, I think you're more nervous than I am," Harry said, eyeing him suspiciously. "I thought you didn't really care about Quidditch." "I wouldn't say I don't like Quidditch. Let's just say I prefer making wands," Harold replied carefully. At Hogwarts, saying you didn't like Quidditch was basically blasphemy. You'd instantly be surrounded by half a dozen fanatics trying to convince you it was the greatest thing in the world. Especially people like Oliver, Fred, and George. So Harold had learned to play it safe. He now claimed he was "too busy" to attend matches. "But how did you know I was nervous?" Harold asked. "Well, you only had one glass of milk this morning," Harry said. "And last night you barely touched your porridge." "That's... hard to explain," Harold muttered. "Just think of it as me not having much of an appetite." He was suffering, truly. It was another full moon. With a fresh mandrake leaf tucked in his mouth, Harold didn't dare eat too much. Milk, pumpkin juice, and broth had become his main diet. In a strange way, the interruptions during the last two full moons had even brought him a bit of relief. But if he wanted to master the Animagus transformation, he had no choice but to stick with it. At eleven o'clock, the whole school gathered at the pitch. Lockhart showed up too and had tried to volunteer as referee—only to be promptly rejected by Madam Hooch. Half a year into the school term, most students might still fall for Lockhart's flamboyant nonsense—but not the staff. They'd long seen through his glittery facade. Especially after his infamous leg-deboning spell on Malfoy. Madam Hooch wasn't about to let him anywhere near the pitch again. She had no intention of seeing her players leave the field as boneless sacks of flesh. Snape also came to watch the match, which meant Harold felt safe staying in the dormitory—focused on refining his spherical wand prototype. This time, it wasn't one of Fred and George's toys. Those were far too easy for Harold now—he could craft them with his eyes closed. But they weren't challenging enough to hold his full attention. So he decided to take it seriously. He carved a perfectly round oak sphere, the size of a Golden Snitch, and began designing a proper spherical wand. It turned out to be even more troublesome than he'd imagined. A real wand needed to channel magic properly—not just look pretty. That meant Harold had to deal with magical interference, delayed spellcasting, and unpredictable spell direction. After all, it was a sphere. Unlike traditional wands, it had no defined tip. Spells could theoretically shoot out from any side—including the one pointed at the caster. Eventually, Harold created a magical runic circuit that directed the spell flow properly—but that new structure threw off the wand's internal balance and lowered its spellcasting success rate by 20%. That's what Harold was trying to fix now. The complexity of the task completely absorbed him. He forgot about the mandrake leaf in his mouth and lost track of time. He didn't even notice when the match ended—or when the students came back to the castle, only to leave again. Not until that evening, when hunger finally drove him to the Great Hall. At the long Gryffindor table, students were still buzzing about the match. "You really shouldn't have picked a fight with Slytherin," Hermione was telling Ron. "Professor McGonagall was the referee today. The only other professor in the stands was Snape—of course he'd side with Slytherin." "That wasn't our fault," Ron argued. "They started it. Marcus Flint was trying to distract Harry from catching the Snitch." "And Snape only took twenty points off us, like Slytherin didn't do anything wrong. McGonagall really shouldn't have refereed that game." "I'm used to it," Harry said with a shrug. "It's fine. As long as we win the Quidditch Cup, we'll earn all those points back." "Let's hope so," Ron said. "We will," Harry said confidently. "We're in first place, and both we and Slytherin only have one match left. "Their next opponents are Hufflepuff—Malfoy's no match for Diggory." He didn't say it out loud, but Harry was also glad that their next game was against Ravenclaw—the bottom-ranked team. That should be an easy win and a good chance to rack up points. Harold listened quietly, only now learning about the scuffle on the pitch. Not surprising, really. Gryffindor and Slytherin—those two houses never got along. If there was ever a year without some sort of blowup between them, that would be the real miracle. Harold sometimes wondered if Voldemort, while cursing the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, had thrown a little something extra at Gryffindor and Slytherin. Just like the teaching post got cursed every year, so too did these two houses always find a reason to clash—usually with Gryffindor getting the short end of the stick. After all, Professor McGonagall was a person of principle. The other heads of house? Not always. Harold sipped his pumpkin juice and porridge slowly as Harry and the others chatted beside him. The conversation had moved on to the match itself. When Harry complained about how quick and elusive the Snitch was, an idea suddenly popped into Harold's head. The Snitch was a ball. It couldn't fly on its own—someone had added wings to it... Of course! Why couldn't his spherical wand have wings? In a flash, Harold jumped to his feet and sprinted out of the Great Hall. He knew now: if he could move the spellcasting runes from the inside to the outside, he could maintain the wand's balance. He loved Quidditch! ... (End of Chapter)