Halloween (3)

Professor Sprout gave Jon a Halloween surprise.

Jon followed the Hufflepuff students back to the common room, and it was only when he got stuck at the entrance that he suddenly realized how crowded it had become.

After struggling for quite a while to squeeze inside, Jon finally learned what had happened.

Professor Sprout, who had left the feast early, had prepared a magical board bearing a notice. Besides some words of congratulations, it mentioned one more thing.

"What method will Professor Sprout use to help us win the House Cup?"

As Jon followed Stephen and the other two through the crowd on their way back to the dormitory, his ears were filled with discussions centered on that very question.

Once they returned to the dormitory, the three of them, who had held it in all the way back, crowded around Jon and demanded to know what was going on.

"The House Cup thing was really just a selling point I gave Professor Sprout." Jon found it rather headache-inducing himself. "At the time, Professor Sprout wasn't very willing to agree, so I came up with that reason on the spot. If this Club was established and everyone's grades improved, naturally our house would earn more points. After all, our house has no advantages elsewhere, but we do have an advantage in numbers."

"Isn't that a good thing? What's there to worry about?"

Scaly did not understand. The Club could help everyone study and also help them win the House Cup. No matter how he looked at it, it was a good thing.

"The problem is that Hogwarts doesn't have any rules about Clubs earning points. All my ideas are based on our house's students studying hard and being talented enough, but neither of those things can be guaranteed. To put it bluntly, I gave our head of house an advance on a result that might happen in the future—but the chances of that result appearing aren't high at all."

"So you lied to our head of house?"

Fren looked a little nervous. Although Jon was the one who had done it, Fren always felt that he had played a part by supporting him.

Once Fren became nervous, Jon, sitting across from him, felt less nervous instead.

Jon took a breath and calmed down, then lightly patted Fren's shoulder.

"Don't worry. It doesn't really count as lying. I just made an outcome with a relatively small chance seem a little more likely through the way I phrased it..."

"Though the extent of that 'little more' might have been somewhat exaggerated, our intentions were good. Even if something goes wrong in the end, we can always blame it on something else."

"We're only first-years, after all. Who would blame us?"

The three tense boys failed to notice the uncertainty in Jon's tone.

"When you put it that way, it does make sense."

Stephen rested his chin on his hand and said seriously, "But we can't use that as an excuse to be irresponsible."

Responsible?

Jon pursed his lips, thinking, What responsibility do we even have?

Professor Sprout was the one establishing the Club, and whether they could win the House Cup was not his decision alone.

From the very beginning, he had wanted to create this Club to find himself a trump card. His original plan had been to gradually spread improved spells, stage by stage, through discussions among the students. Hufflepuff would surely have a few clever students capable of discovering how those spells had been improved. In the end, Jon could say that his spell modifications had come from exchanges among the students.

This would benefit all the Hufflepuff students. Powerful spells aside, they would at least be able to protect themselves in battle.

To Jon, strength in numbers was not a principle. It was a result.

And by then, these improved spells would be widespread. Jon's role in it all would only be that of the person who first spread the spells—and the one who ultimately benefited from them.

He had no intention of spreading them personally, and Stephen and the others would not voluntarily expose the matter either.

They were no longer children, especially compared with their peers—they had become wizards.

At their age, they already understood everything. Besides, the world of these Young Wizards was very realistic. They might happily show off over certain things, but when they suddenly became beneficiaries of a sufficiently serious matter, secrecy, concealment, and even "maturity" would become a kind of survival instinct.

As Jon's roommates, Stephen, Fren, and Scaly had long realized just how formidable their roommate was, and they had placed themselves on Jon's boat. Whenever they considered matters related to Jon, they instinctively sought his opinion rather than treating them as casually as their own affairs.

Jon was good at taking advantage of that instinct, and he was capable of taking advantage of other people's instincts as well.

Of course, that kind of "use" did not come at the expense of friendship.

Friendship between wizards was a serious matter. Just as Harry Potter's parents had entrusted their fate to Peter Pettigrew, it represented a great deal of absolute trust.

The only difference was that, on one hand, Jon kept enough cards hidden that he did not fear betrayal by his friends. On the other hand, he retained enough goodwill to trust them.

But how could his goodwill possibly be so cheap that he would take responsibility for all of Hufflepuff House?

"That's not the responsibility I meant. I mean we need to help Professor Sprout. We can't let Professor Sprout be embarrassed."

"Yeah. At the very least, we should be the first to respond to Professor Sprout. That'll leave a better impression of you."

Jon admitted that Stephen had a point. After all, Jon was the one who had suggested this to Professor Sprout. No matter what, he could not hold Professor Sprout back over this matter.

After all, he still had several years to spend in Hufflepuff.

It was not that he feared what Professor Sprout might do to him. This professor, like her ancestor Hufflepuff, had always been gentle. It was simply that he had first taken advantage of the professor's concern and goodwill toward her students, and he felt somewhat guilty about it.

"Then it's settled. We'll be a little more proactive when the time comes."

Jon approved Stephen's idea, sent the three of them back behind their respective bed curtains, and returned to his own bed.

He always felt that many unforeseen things had happened to him since coming to Hogwarts.

Even though Jon had constantly strengthened his mind, he still could not prevent these unexpected events from arriving.

Then let them come naturally.

Every problem had a solution. There was no use worrying about things that had not happened.

Tomorrow's problems could wait until tomorrow.

For tonight, he would get a good night's sleep.