Birthday Cake

"I found that whenever I tickled the Sir Armors standing guard around the castle, the visors on their helmets clicked and bounced around. Does that mean they're laughing?"

"That's right. Let me tell you a secret—if you dance in front of them, they'll even have a dance-off with you." Professor Dumbledore winked.

"So, do they count as intelligent beings?"

"Magic is a wondrous thing. It cannot grant an object life, but it can grant it intelligence," Dumbledore said kindly. "So in the Wizarding World, intelligence and living beings have never been one and the same."

"What about portraits? How do portraits work?" Gemini asked curiously. "I've noticed that some are very lively, while others are rather dim-witted."

"Oh... that is indeed true." Dumbledore nodded. "If you were to visit my office, you would find that the portraits of the past headmasters hanging there are almost no different from living people."

Gemini pinched his chin and thought for a moment. "So the more powerful a person's magic is, the more their portrait resembles them?"

"To be honest, your cleverness makes me a little envious." Dumbledore nodded.

"You flatter me." Gemini smiled. "So does every painting of a powerful person possess intelligence close to their own?"

"That depends on their own wishes," Dumbledore said.

"I have a question, Professor." Gemini considered it. "If someone's soul were transferred into their portrait, would that count as a form of immortality?"

Dumbledore paused slightly. "Transferring a soul into an object is hardly benevolent magic. But even if it succeeded, what meaning would such immortality have?"

"That's true." Gemini nodded.

"Fox, are you interested in immortality?" Dumbledore's calm gaze fell on Gemini's face through his half-moon spectacles.

"Of course. Who would complain about living longer?" Gemini smiled gently. "But living purely for the sake of living—such immortality would be far too pathetic."

"The world is beautiful and vast, Professor. My journey lies among the stars and the sea."

Gemini's gaze was clear and distant, his azure eyes devoid of the slightest distraction. "Perhaps I really will become immortal. Perhaps I'll die along the way. But none of that truly matters. I have never regretted being alive, so even if I am shattered to pieces on this journey, I think I could still say with a smile that the trip was worthwhile."

"...A very profound answer..."

Dumbledore studied Gemini in surprise for a long while before sighing with admiration. "I have often been proud of the students I taught... but to be honest, this is the first time I have felt honored to be a student's teacher, Fox."

"You overpraise me." Gemini smiled modestly.

"Actually, I don't."

Dumbledore winked, then raised his head and looked toward a huge painting of a fruit bowl beside them. "We're here."

Gemini looked around. Judging by its location, they were directly beneath the castle's Great Hall.

Dumbledore stretched out his aged, wrinkled hand and tickled a pear in the fruit bowl painting. In an instant, the pear turned into a doorknob. Dumbledore opened the door, and the two of them entered the kitchen.

"Good evening, esteemed Professor Dumbledore! Handsome Young Master Fox!"

The moment they entered the kitchen, a shrill voice sounded beside them. A House-elf wearing a white pillowcase bowed deeply before them. "Is there anything Lolo can do for the two of you?"

Then, amid a bustling commotion, a large crowd of House-elves gathered around them, blinking their bulb-sized eyes as they looked at Gemini and Dumbledore with eager anticipation.

Gemini pointed at himself blankly. "You know me?"

"Oh ho ho..." Dumbledore immediately laughed. "Since the start of term, they have yet to find your luggage, Fox. They've been worried about it for quite some time. Even though I repeatedly assured them it wasn't their fault, they have remained uneasy."

Gemini gave an awkward laugh. Only then did he remember that the House-elves cleaned the dormitories of all four Houses, and that they also sorted out the students' luggage and belongings without fail every day.

And since the start of term, they had never seen Fox's luggage...

Dumbledore blinked. "May I ask where you are living now, Fox?"

"The Room of Requirement, Professor." Gemini smiled.

The Room of Requirement was not some great secret, nothing that needed to be hidden. The mountain-like heaps of assorted junk made it clear that plenty of students had been there; not everyone had simply figured out the rules of that room.

"Oh..." Dumbledore nodded in understanding. "That explains it..."

"It's a wonderful place. I can find anything I want there. If you're interested, I can host you there as a guest." Gemini said with a smile, treating the Room of Requirement entirely as his own territory.

"It seems that place feels like home to you. That is good."

"You aren't angry? About me not returning to my dorm..." Gemini was somewhat puzzled. Dumbledore's temper was even better than he had imagined.

"To be honest, if I had beaten someone up, I wouldn't dare go back to live there so easily either." Dumbledore nodded cheerfully. "But as long as you can find a sense of home at Hogwarts, it makes no difference whether you live in a dormitory or the Room of Requirement. In fact, if you hadn't told me, I would have assumed you'd spun a web somewhere warm and gone straight to sleep..."

"Thank you very much for your open-mindedness, Professor."

"It is only a small matter," Dumbledore said leisurely.

"As long as you don't get caught by the professors or Filch, and don't go to dangerous places, Hogwarts will not reject the curiosity of sincere students. Take the Weasley Twins, for instance. I used to run into them every week, but unfortunately, at some point they seemed to figure out how to avoid me. I felt rather disappointed... Would you like a slice of treacle tart?"

As he spoke, Dumbledore handed Gemini a slice of treacle tart.

Gemini took the tart and bit into it, his face scrunching up. "So sweet—"

"When one gets old, one develops a fondness for sweets." Dumbledore nodded and stuffed a piece of tart into his mouth. "All right... actually, I liked them when I was young too. I'm not making excuses for my sweet tooth. Most British people cannot resist sweets. Treacle tart is considered rather mild."

"Some time ago, when Filch had his birthday, I tried his birthday cake. It was covered in cream—probably ten centimeters thick..."

Gemini looked disgusted. "Uh... that sounds revolting..."

"Yes, he didn't finish it either." Dumbledore said, "Didn't you want a cake? I think Miss Lolo should be able to help you."

"Mr. Fox wants a cake?" Lolo tilted up her little head, her bulb-sized eyes fixed unblinkingly on Gemini.

"Yes, please, Miss Lolo." Gemini crouched down and smiled gently. "If possible, I'd like a mille-feuille cake: three crisp pastry layers and one cake layer, with different jams spread between every two layers, coated in a layer of crisp chocolate on the outside. It doesn't need to be too large, with some fruit on top. Ah, and please write, 'Happy Birthday, Miss Hermione Granger.'"

"So it's Miss Granger's birthday cake!" Lolo's large eyes sparkled. She bowed to Gemini again, her pointed nose nearly touching the floor. "Miss Granger is a very diligent girl. It is Lolo's honor to make a birthday cake for Miss Granger."

Then, a few minutes later.

Gemini stared in stunned disbelief at the gigantic chocolate cake before him, as tall as he was.

The chocolate cake had five layers, each made up of three crisp pastry sheets and one cake layer. Colorful fruit decorated every part of it, so exquisite that one could hardly bear to ruin it.

"What the hell is this?!"