The First Semester Ends

The discovery of the Wit-Sharpening Potion opened the door for Avada to explore mental power.

On the first weekend after term began, he spent the morning in the library, finishing all his weekend homework in one go. After attending his first Hufflepuff picnic at noon on Saturday, he shut himself away in the Room of Requirement.

After taking the Wit-Sharpening Potion, its effects combined with Avada's own abilities in a chain reaction of sorts. The potion let him observe how his mental power was being optimized, while his strengthened mental power made it easy to remember every detail. His thoughts sped up, and inspiration came more often, sending his understanding of mental power rocketing forward!

What was more, the potion greatly accelerated his research into the Diadem, leading to a whole new breakthrough. With the help of three samples—the potion, the Diadem, and Avada's own mental power—he developed a preliminary talent-enhancement plan in just two weeks. He set aside an entire day to transform his mental power.

But something unexpected happened during the process. As he began to analyze his mental power in full, he was astonished to discover a mysterious magical structure hidden within it.

It was unusually sturdy, tightly connected to his mental power as though it had grown there naturally. At the same time, it constantly suppressed his thought processes, effectively lowering his intelligence. In other words, Avada should have been more talented than he was, but this inexplicable magic had forcibly dumbed him down!

What angered Avada even more was that, after a long period of research, he finally identified the magic: it was the supposedly defunct "Name Curse"!

The moment he confirmed it, he nearly sent a Howler straight to the Department of Mysteries.

That thing had been making him stupid for eleven years!

Voldemort's poor strategic thinking in his later years might well have been partly due to this curse!

Fortunately, with the help of his earlier research, Avada eventually managed to "cut out" the curse. The moment it vanished completely, his head rang, and his mental power surged as if it were boiling. His thinking speed and memory both improved by leaps and bounds.

Just like that, his talent went from "ordinary person" to "fairly clever ordinary person."

After implementing his talent-enhancement plan and succeeding, Avada officially went from "fairly clever ordinary person" to a bona fide "clever person."

As for the inspiration that would take him from "clever person" to "genius," he had already found it through the Diadem.

By then, however, Halloween had passed, and it was already November. In other words, he had spent nearly two months conducting research with his mind constantly on edge, barely taking any breaks. Even classes counted as a chance to relax. So, once his talents had been improved, an exhausted Avada decided to take a proper rest. Aside from studying advanced material on his own and occasionally visiting the Room of Requirement to examine little things left behind by previous students, he stopped setting himself any other tasks.

When Avada returned to normal school life with his improved talents, the most obvious change was his rapid progress in Potions. At the start of term, Snape had mocked him, saying it was impossible for a first-year to master all the material from first to fourth year. Yet two months later, Avada had completely absorbed the second-year textbook and was nearly halfway through the third-year material.

Avada was determined to learn Potions well, and he often braved Snape's sarcasm to ask him questions. So Snape naturally noticed his progress. He showed no change in his outward attitude, still snorting through his nose before launching into a snide remark, but Avada noticed that his explanations had become more thorough, and that he shared more of his own insights.

There was no need to mention how well he was doing in Herbology, taught by his Head of House. Potions and Herbology had always gone hand in hand, and once they started working in the greenhouses, his Magic Sense proved useful too. Professor Sprout was full of praise for Avada's progress.

What pleased Avada most was that the professors no longer seemed to care about his real name. When taking attendance or calling on him in class, they could now say "Mr. K" or "K" without batting an eye. At the beginning of term, they had furrowed their brows and stumbled over his name whenever it came up.

His classmates had gotten used to it too. Even the more curious ones who tried all sorts of ways to find out the truth stopped asking once they learned that it was Headmaster Dumbledore who had told Avada to hide his real name.

Gradually, even Avada nearly forgot that his real name was "Avada Kedavra."

Aside from his achievements in magical research, his relationships with his classmates had also grown warmer and closer. Baron went without saying. Even during the two months when Avada was buried in research, the two of them almost always went to the library together, with one or the other pulling his friend along.

Then there were Cedric and the Weasley Twins. All three of them had made their House's Quidditch team that year. When Cedric took part in the final tryouts, he naturally invited Avada (and Cho) to watch. To Avada's surprise, Fred and George remembered him too, and invited him to watch Gryffindor's Quidditch tryouts.

They explained that they really liked the nickname "Prank Magus," so they had never forgotten Avada's "kindness." But they both tactfully avoided mentioning that Baron, the Slytherin, had come up with the nickname.

So, after accepting their invitation, Avada promptly dragged Baron along to the Gryffindor tryouts. Baron agreed, thinking it was a chance to change people's stereotyped views of Slytherin and ease the pointless age-old feud between the two Houses.

At first, the Twins and the other Gryffindors were a little displeased, but they couldn't very well take it out on a first-year who had only just started school and knew nothing yet. When Baron showed how sincerely friendly he was, their resentment eased considerably.

And after Charlie Weasley led the Gryffindor Quidditch Team to victory in the school's Quidditch Match, their little feud vanished completely.

Avada later heard that Baron had been given a hard time by some older Slytherins over the incident, but he himself didn't seem to care.

In addition, the mental spell inspired by the Diadem's linking module was finally complete. It connected two people's mental power remotely, allowing each to hear the other's unspoken words directly in their mind. Of course, the link only reached the surface of their mental power; it couldn't pry into another person's thoughts the way Legilimency could. The other person also had to agree to the connection, making it something like voice chat for a team.

However, experiments showed that the link currently worked only between people, not animals, and had an effective range of only a few dozen meters. Avada had yet to test it on House-elves, Centaurs, or other intelligent non-human beings.

At last, the Christmas holidays arrived.