Hogwarts: Please, Just Graduate Already!

The ones heading downstairs were either Slytherins or Hufflepuffs. Their common rooms were too close to the dungeons; he was afraid they would make it back before he caught up. The towers, on the other hand, were much farther away.

Harry and the other two naturally knew Filch was after them. They kept their heads down and sprinted forward, ducking into the first classroom they found.

As if things were not bad enough, they happened to run into Peeves in the classroom. He was scribbling all over the blackboard, and the sight of three little wizards instantly excited him enough to toss aside his chalk.

"Look what I found! Three first-year brats wandering around when they should be asleep!"

"Please," Harry begged. "Filch is looking for us. Keep your voice down."

"This is for your own good, you know?" Peeves said mischievously. "What kind of punishment do you think you'll get if I fetch Filch?"

"Get lost!" Ron shoved him viciously, and that was a disaster. "Students out of bed!" Peeves screeched, trying to draw Filch over.

The three of them fled the classroom again, racing down the corridor until they crashed into a door. "We're done for!" Ron said despairingly. The door was locked!

"Do you know any spells? Open it, quick!" "The Unlock Charm? I don't know it!"

The footsteps drew closer, accompanied by Peeves's racket. Harry and the others grew more terrified and desperate by the second.

Neville was already imagining what he would do after being expelled. Growing flowers and tending grass at home did not sound so bad.

Ron desperately twisted the handle, trying to break the door. With a click, it actually opened. "Get in!"

Harry shouted, and the three of them rushed inside. Then an exasperated voice sounded beside their ears.

"I'm saying, if you're going to sneak out at night, then sneak out. Why make such a huge commotion? Are you trying to wake all the professors?"

"No, we were just—" Harry answered instinctively, only realizing the problem afterward.

Why was someone here? And why did that voice sound so familiar? "Wayne? Why are you here?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I came out to walk off dinner." Wayne stepped out of the darkness, and Harry and the others stared wide-eyed.

It was not because of Ron, but because—"Wayne! Watch out behind you!"

Behind Wayne, a massive Three-Headed Dog glared at them menacingly.

Neville was practically about to wet himself.

"Don't worry. Fluffy has had enough exercise for today." Wayne snapped his fingers, and the surroundings instantly lit up. He looked at the idiotic trio with an indescribable expression. They had not even learned the Unlock Charm.

Without Hermione, they really were two useless men.

The Obedient Three-Headed Dog and Miss Hermione's Massage Service

"Wh-what is going on?"

Looking at the Three-Headed Dog's enormous heads, the trio's legs went weak. Why was there such a vicious monster in the school?

Harry thought back over their escape route and seemed to realize something. He cried out, "This is the corridor on the right side of the fourth floor?!"

Wayne nodded. "That's right. What happened to you? Why are all of you battered and bruised?"

Ron swallowed and said softly, "Wayne, can we talk after we get out? That dog behind you—"

"Filch is still wandering around outside. Talk here." Wayne reached out and rubbed one of the dog's heads. The Three-Headed Dog cooperatively lay down, making it more convenient for Wayne.

"See? Fluffy is very obedient."

Hearing the praise, the Three-Headed Dog rumbled contentedly. The fear in Harry and the others' hearts finally eased considerably.

Thinking of Filch outside, Harry complained, "Don't mention it. Malfoy and I agreed to a midnight duel. We'd barely started when Filch came looking for us. What rotten luck."

Wayne was a little surprised. "Malfoy really showed up? No, I mean, you actually dueled Malfoy?"

That was quite a big change.

Hermione had not gone with them, and Malfoy had not played any tricks. He had actually fought Harry fair and square.

Judging by their appearances, it had probably been a fistfight.

He did not seem to have interfered much, so why were things heading in an increasingly strange direction?

Since the matter had already been exposed, Harry did not hide anything and explained the entire sequence of events.

When Neville heard that the conflict had started because of his Remembrall, he was deeply moved.

"Wayne, why are you here? And what about this dog?"

Wayne kept it brief. "I learned a few new spells, so I came to test them on Fluffy. The results seem pretty good."

Fluffy shuddered.

More than pretty good. If it had continued, all three of his heads would have been blown apart.

The truth was just as Wayne had said.

He had come this time to test the effects of his latest lottery rewards and his improved strength on the Three-Headed Dog.

Wayne had seemed to hold every advantage last time, but that had only been on the surface. At most, he had given Fluffy some superficial injuries.

This time, so the Three-Headed Dog would have room to move, he had even used the Undetectable Extension Charm to temporarily expand the corridor.

Seeing his enemy appear, Fluffy had angrily pounced at him. Then Wayne beat him until he fled with his heads tucked down.

His enhanced magic, higher spell levels, and the support of Dynamic Perception—though only two weeks had passed, Wayne was far stronger than before.

He had not even used Dark Arts. With only an Aegis Shield protecting himself, the Three-Headed Dog could do nothing to him.

The power of his various offensive spells had also increased greatly. Even something as ordinary as Avis could injure the Three-Headed Dog.

Having achieved his goal, Wayne was not stingy. He made it clear that he had no intention of entering through the trapdoor, then fed Fluffy some Murtlap jerky.

Combined with his activated Magical Creature Affinity talent, the Three-Headed Dog soon turned into a lapdog.

He made it sound easy, but Harry and the others were nearly scared out of their wits. To test spells, he had to find such a terrifying monster?

The three of them were poor students and had no idea just how powerful a Three-Headed Dog was. But one look at its savage appearance and enormous body told them it was not something to mess with. Ron laughed awkwardly. "You really have too much free time."

"What's that?" Harry spotted the trapdoor hidden beneath the Three-Headed Dog and asked curiously.

"Roar!" The Three-Headed Dog gave a wary growl. Wayne soothed it. "All right, we're not going in. They're just curious."

Then he looked at Harry again. "I don't know what's inside either, but Fluffy's job is to guard it. Ask again, and he'll treat you as an intruder."

Harry shook his head like a rattle. "Forget I asked."

Though he said that, Harry's curiosity only grew stronger. Even Ron and Neville stole a few glances at the trapdoor.

Wayne secretly shook his head.

That was Gryffindor for you—frighteningly curious.

He pulled out a map and saw that Filch's marker had already gone to the sixth floor. "Filch isn't nearby. I'm leaving. What about you?"

Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "We're going back too. Hopefully The Fat Lady is back from her stroll."

"Thanks for today, Wayne." "It was nothing."

After thanking him again, Harry and the other two crept upstairs, silently cursing their own stupidity for forgetting to bring a map when they went night roaming.

Wayne also turned back and canceled the Undetectable Extension Charm. After bidding Fluffy farewell, he drifted away.

On Saturday, the Great Hall was especially quiet.

Some students had gone to Hogsmeade early in the morning, while others were sleeping in.

Wayne met up with Hermione and Cho after nine and came with them to the Hogwarts Library to do homework.

Of course, Cho and Hermione did homework while Wayne read.

Madam Pince merely glanced at the three of them before ignoring them.

After writing for a while, Cho grew bored. She was not a top student like Hermione, and her interest in studying was only so-so.

The girl tugged lightly on Wayne's sleeve and whispered, "How has Ho-Oh been lately? I haven't seen her for days."

Wayne put down the Advanced Potion-Making book in his hands, his expression somewhat strange. "She should be fine, right? Not just you—even I haven't seen her in ages." Cho rolled her pretty eyes. "She's a Phoenix. If anyone else had one, they'd treasure her like a jewel. Why are you so careless?"

"Uh, it's not that I don't care. It's just that I made Ho-Oh angry that day." "What happened?"

As the two talked, even Hermione could not resist leaning her little head over. Because of the Barrier Charm, Madam Pince could see their small movements but could not hear them, so she turned a blind eye.

Wayne said awkwardly, "Well... seeing how curious everyone was about the Phoenix, I planned to charge for photos with her. One Galleon per picture."

"But Ho-Oh refused and flew angrily into the Forbidden Forest. She hasn't come back these past few days."

Cho looked at him like he was a monster and took a long while to recover.

"Wayne, money has really gone to your head. You can come up with any idea." Hermione even pinched him angrily.

"She's a Phoenix, not a monkey in a zoo!"

"Ahem, it isn't easy supporting a household." Wayne spread his hands helplessly. "She eats a huge amount of Herbology ingredients every meal. I can barely afford to keep her."

"You still can't do that." Cho thought for a moment. "How about using my share of the money to buy Ho-Oh food?"

Hermione refused to be outdone. "Mine too!"

The maps had sold quite well lately, and the two girls each had more than a hundred Galleons on hand. They could be considered little rich girls.

But it was not that Wayne looked down on them. That amount would not feed Ho-Oh for even a few days. Since she had not reached her complete form yet, Ho-Oh needed enormous amounts of energy to grow. This week alone, she had eaten two hundred Galleons' worth of food.

After hearing how expensive it was to raise a Phoenix, both girls were dumbfounded.

After lunch in the Great Hall, Cho took her broom to the Quidditch Pitch for Ravenclaw's team practice, while Hermione and Wayne found an empty classroom.

Hermione handed her homework to Wayne with great reluctance. "Hurry up and copy it."

The little witch was extremely unhappy. She had never expected that one day she would be helping someone do evil. Wayne took it with a grin, pulling out a stack of parchment and a sky-blue quill.

To Hermione's shock, the quill began moving on its own, copying her homework.

"What kind of quill is that? Why can it do homework by itself?"

Wayne leaned back comfortably in his chair and stretched lazily before explaining, "My latest invention: the Plagiarism Quill."

"Use it to copy homework—even essays—and teachers won't spot any problems." "Really? I don't believe it." Hermione's little face was full of suspicion. She watched the quill rapidly write line after line, then compared it to her own homework.

She discovered that the quill was not copying mechanically. It had reworked many of the sentences. They clearly looked different, yet meant the same thing.

Professor McGonagall had assigned a one-foot Transfiguration essay, and the quill finished copying it all in five minutes.

Hermione read through the whole thing. If she had not watched it herself, she would never have believed it had been produced by copying her essay.

"Want one?" Wayne took out an identical quill and waved it in front of the little witch.

"I don't need it." Hermione proudly raised her pale chin. "I will never copy someone else's homework."

"What about these?"

As if performing a magic trick, Wayne pulled out a whole handful of quills.

"This is a Dictation Quill. It will accurately record whatever you say." "This is a Grammar Correction Quill. It can correct grammatical errors in writing." "This is a Book Copying Quill. You can use it to copy books without missing a single word." "This is a Filler Quill. It can expand one hundred words into one thousand, with plenty of padding."

Gulp!

Hermione swallowed.

Unlike the Homework Quill from before, these were all far too useful. She wanted every single one!

"Want them?" Wayne was like a big bad wolf tempting a little white rabbit. Hermione nodded eagerly.

The corners of Wayne's mouth curled up slightly as he said casually, "Ah, I practiced spells last night, and now my shoulders and arms are so sore. If only there were someone who could—"

For the quills, Hermione clenched her teeth and obediently stood up. She moved behind Wayne, placed her little hands on his shoulders, and gently began massaging them. Wayne wore a pleased expression.

Though Hermione was not a professional and did not have much strength in her hands.