After Gerald and his companions left, Flitwick waved his wand and restored the labyrinth to grass.
The walls of grass and stone slabs slowly sank into the ground, the churned-up soil settled back into place, and the entire clearing soon returned to its original state.
Then he turned and hurried toward Dumbledore's office.
"Flitwick, what's the matter? You rarely come to my office."
"Dumbledore, there's something I need to report to you. Gerald, he..."
Over the next few days, Gerald finally enjoyed some peace.
But the atmosphere in the Study Group had indeed undergone a subtle change. Everyone seemed more serious than before.
Lee Jordan began pestering Cedric about the hand movements for the Shield Charm. Even Fred and George became unusually serious, though they were still reading books on alchemy.
Professor Flitwick found their Study Group an Activity Room on the Seventh Floor, not far from the Charms professor's office. Upon opening the door, they could see that the window faced the Old Oak Tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
The room was small, but it had everything they needed.
There were several freely movable long tables, an erasable magical blackboard, and more than a dozen sets of Training Dummies in the cabinets along the wall.
When Gerald first entered the Activity Room, he saw that Vivian had already written "Dreamweaver" in large letters on the blackboard.
Clearly, she liked the word and intended to use it as the group's name.
Naturally, Gerald had no objections.
There was only one Potions Class on Wednesday afternoon in the second week of October. Gerald spent a while leafing through Braid's alchemy notes in the Activity Room, then packed up and headed for the dungeon classroom when it was nearly time.
Before he even reached the classroom door, the extraordinary