Vibranium Gears and a Garlic-Scented Alarm

November at Hogwarts was like being thrown into a barrel of ice-cold Butterbeer. Great flakes of snow fell on the castle's spires, freezing the water dripping from the eaves into crystal ice cream. Hailey curled up on a pumpkin-velvet sofa in the Hufflepuff Common Room, her nose pressed against a stained-glass window as she watched the Whomping Willow dance in the courtyard, encased in ice. Last week, she and Eileen had used their wands to hang gingerbread men on its branches. Now the biscuits swayed with the branches, looking just like a group of little wizards in icing coats doing a tap dance.

"Hailey! Come see my newly improved spice cauldron!" Eileen rushed into the common room like a piece of toffee wrapped in a fluffy scarf, snowflakes still clinging to the turmeric-yellow hair clip in her hair. "I mixed Valerian Root I swiped from Potions Class with Sichuan peppercorns. Now, when I cook Rock Cakes, the crusts dance all by themselves!" She waved the engraved copper pot in her hand. Sure enough, flecks of crushed peppercorn clung to the bottom, giving off a strange spicy, numbing aroma mixed with caramel as they roasted over magical flames.

Hailey took the pot, her fingertips brushing the words "Eileen's own" engraved in cursive on the rim—they had welded the lettering on with Vibranium powder their father had sent them. Since starting school, the two young witches had shot to fame in Hufflepuff thanks to their "cross-dimensional recipes": turmeric roast chicken flipped with a Levitation Charm, cinnamon rolls made with molds shaped using a Transfiguration Spell, and even Muggle-style whipped cream secretly beaten in the kitchen with a wand mixer. On the long table in the common room sat the "magic macarons" they had experimented with the night before, their shells dyed starry-sky blue with butterfly pea flower tea and their fillings hiding ginger syrup that burst in the mouth.

"The Prefect's glaring at us again." Hailey glanced out of the corner of her eye at the older fifth-year girl by the fireplace. She was tapping a silver spoon against the table, the Hufflepuff crest on its handle gleaming honey-colored in the firelight. "Ever since you dropped curry powder into her washbasin, she's looked down her nose at us."

Eileen stuck out her tongue and tucked the peppercorn pot into a gap in the sofa. "That was clearly a 'cross-disciplinary experiment in magic and spices'! Oh, right, do you still have that 'anti-shaky-hand stirrer' your dad sent? For the Draught of Peace homework we have to hand in during Potions Class this afternoon? I used it to stir Moonstone Powder yesterday, and it didn't even clump!"

The two were talking as they headed into the corridor when Hailey's gear bracelet suddenly gave a soft click at her cuff. It was trembling slightly in response to some high-frequency magical fluctuation. She stopped short and caught a familiar sour, rotten smell drifting from around the corner ahead, like spoiled garlic mixed with old parchment.

"It's Professor Quirrell!" Eileen whispered in alarm, hurriedly pressing down the turmeric-yellow clip in her hair. The Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor was wrapped in a heavy purple cloak, his turban wound crookedly around his head. With every step, he stammered, "Oh, um, a lovely day, little witches..."

Hailey's heart skipped half a beat. Three days ago, when she had run into him in a corridor, the gear bracelet had resonated in much the same way. She had pretended to trip over her shoelaces and struck the leg of a nearby desk squarely with her knee, sending metal parts bouncing away like checkers. The sound of "Muggle toys scattering" had successfully covered up the bracelet's vibrations. Now, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed the magic meter hidden in her cuff—a multimeter modified into a little bear pendant. The fluorescent needle on its dial was sweeping wildly across the "dangerous fluctuation" scale, like a startled hummingbird.

"Morning, Professor!" Hailey spoke first, deliberately making herself sound mostly innocent, with a touch of confusion. "We're looking for the Potions Classroom. Eileen says she hid... um... the Draught of Peace she messed up inside a suit of armor!" As she spoke, she ducked behind Eileen and quickly traced an Interference Spell her father had taught her on the hem of her skirt, trying to disrupt the bracelet's resonant frequency.

Quirrell's gaze roamed over them, his eyes beneath his turban like two cloudy glass beads. "A, a failed potion? Hufflepuff students shouldn't... make that kind of mistake." There was a barely perceptible sharpness in his voice. Suddenly, a stronger smell of garlic wafted from beneath his cloak, making Eileen quietly cover her nose.

"Y-yes, I was too stupid!" Eileen chimed in at once, pulling a spice pouch from inside her clothes and shaking it. "I mistook cardamom for Valerian Root, and now the potion smells like... like sugary foot-washing water!" She deliberately loosened the mouth of the pouch, sending several star anise pods rolling onto the stone floor, where they formed an irregular constellation. "You see, I'm studying spice divination. Maybe I can divine the right recipe!"

Quirrell frowned at the star anise on the floor as though it were some evil magic circle. Hailey seized the chance to crouch down and pick up the spices, her fingertips touching the gear bracelet. The resonance had turned into a regular tapping, remarkably like the Morse Code in her father's laboratory. She suddenly remembered the words in his letter: "Abnormal magical fluctuations are often accompanied by high-frequency resonance. If the gears form a rhythm of three short beats and one long, get away at once."

"W-we'd better hurry to the classroom!" Hailey sprang to her feet, grabbed Eileen, and ran toward the other end of the corridor. Behind them came Quirrell's halting mutter: "S-stupid Muggle doodles... spice divination..."

Only when they had run into the shadows of the Potions Classroom did Hailey release Eileen's hand, her back already soaked in cold sweat. She took off the gear bracelet and laid it in her palm. The Leicester family crest on the metal surface was glowing faintly blue—her father's "danger warning."

"Why are you acting so strangely today?" Eileen panted, bits of the fallen star anise still clinging to her butterfly scarf. "Professor Quirrell's just a weird old man with a stutter who smells like pickled garlic. What's there to be afraid of?"

Hailey opened her mouth to explain, then swallowed her words. She couldn't tell Eileen that one of her father's business rivals had mentioned a "turbaned researcher of Dark Magic" in a letter, much less that the warning on a torn page from a book of prophecies inexplicably grew hot whenever she ran into Quirrell. As a transmigrator, she knew better than anyone the secret beneath the professor's turban, but before Harry Potter entered Hogwarts, before the gears of the Prophecy had fully meshed, she could only choose silence.

"I just think... the magical fluctuations around him are strange." In the end, Hailey offered only a half-truth, pulling parchment and a quill from her schoolbag. "We'd better hurry up and do our homework. Look at this-my dad says using Muggle 'molecular structure' diagrams to remember potion recipes can double your efficiency!"

Eileen leaned over to look. Strange lines and circles had been drawn on the parchment, with a note beside them reading, "Moonstone molecule = six triangles plus one diamond." She suddenly clapped her hands and laughed. "Wow! Doesn't this look like the 'flame temperature coordinates' you drew in the kitchen with your wand last time? We should've sold these diagrams to Professor Flitwick. He'd definitely like using stars to make geometry problems!"

Hailey laughed, and some of her tension faded. As she watched Eileen fill the space beside the "molecular diagram" with gingerbread men drawn in quill, she suddenly felt that even with the shadow of the Prophecy hanging over them, even with Quirrell's garlic-scented alarm sounding so shrilly, Hogwarts winters would always have the warmth of ginger tea as long as she had this friend who used spices as potion ingredients and hair clips as molds by her side.

"Oh, right," Eileen said, suddenly remembering something. She pulled a small tin from her schoolbag. "My mum just sent me some Madagascar vanilla pods. Want to go to the kitchen tonight and try making magic pudding? I also swiped the Prefect's notes on the Self-Stirring Spell. Maybe we can make the pudding waltz by itself!"

Hailey took the tin. The vanilla pods' sweet fragrance, mingled with the chill of the metal container, reminded her of the precision instruments in her father's laboratory. She nodded and lightly pressed the family crest on her gear bracelet. The blue light went out at once—the "safe for now" signal sent to her father.

"Come on." Hailey took Eileen's hand. "Let's go to the library and look a few things up first. I want to figure out how to use Vibranium powder to put an 'anti-burn barrier' on the pudding mold. But fair warning: if you sprinkle cinnamon into my magic meter again, I'll swap your butterfly hair clip for an onion pendant!"

"I won't!" Eileen huffed. But as they passed a corridor window, she suddenly pointed at the heavy snow outside and laughed. "Look! Those gingerbread men are still dancing! Maybe by the time we finish the pudding, they'll jump into the pot as ingredients!"

Hailey looked out the window. The gingerbread men in the snow spun and leaped under the power of magic, their icing smiles gleaming in the moonlight. She tightened her grip on Eileen's hand, feeling the warmth of her palm through their thick woolen gloves, just like the warmth of the milk tea her mother made.

Perhaps the gears of the Prophecy would turn eventually, but for now, at least, she could join her friend on a snowy Hogwarts night and use spices and Vibranium to cook a pot of dancing magic pudding. As for the turbaned professor and the garlic-scented alarm around him? They could stay around the corner of the corridor for now. After all, there was nothing one dessert couldn't solve, and if there was, then two would do.