When he had seen that short, plump woman hurry out looking displeased, he had thought the negotiations had fallen through.
"It's done!" Gerald smiled.
"Fantastic!" A rare smile also blossomed on Kenneth's usually expressionless face.
That very evening, Gerald and his four roommates began working against the clock.
Gerald did the calculations. Although the Ministry of Magic's order was enormous in value, the delivery deadline was fairly generous.
There were still fifty-five days until January 30, so the five of them only needed to make an average of three notebooks each day.
He also planned to bring Cedric in. Cedric had good character and a fairly impressive talent for alchemy. Any way he looked at it, Cedric was a suitable candidate.
In the days that followed, Gerald spent every day either cultivating or working on the Flying Letter Notebooks.
Time soon advanced to late December, with only a few days left until Christmas.
The festive atmosphere in the Castle grew stronger by the day. Garlands woven from holly and mistletoe lined both sides of the corridors, enchanted snowflakes drifted beneath the Great Hall's ceiling, and Filch spent every day chasing students through the corridors, cursing those who secretly stuffed snowballs into suits of armor.
That day, Gerald was cultivating in the Room of Requirement. As his cultivation advanced, his soul seemed to have grown stronger again.
On a whim, Gerald decided to take out Ravenclaw's Diadem and study it.
The three known methods of destroying Horcruxes in the original story were the Basilisk Fang, the Sword of Gryffindor, and Fiendfyre.
Gerald neither possessed the sword nor knew the spell, and he did not know whether his Thunder Strike could counter Voldemort's Horcruxes.
But the Basilisk was lying inside the Beast-Taming Ring on his arm.
He could borrow Hermes's fangs at