Chapter 30

1. The ragged cloak and the Resonance Charm beneath the obsidian tower

As Hogwarts' obsidian tower rose against the dusk, Harry Potter sat on the rocking gunwale of a magical boat, seawater breaking beneath it into phosphorescent stardust. He gripped the edge of his secondhand cloak, the coarse fabric chafing his palm, yet it comforted him more than the Dursley family's down comforter. Beside him, Ron Weasley whistled at the castle spires, his front teeth gleaming faintly in the twilight. "Look at that! Brilliant!"

Hailey Leicester stood in the line of Hufflepuff first-years, the copper bracelet on her wrist trembling gently. She counted the ripples the boats left behind-thirty-seven in all, exactly the number of Hogwarts letters Harry had received. Eileen Ronier tugged at her sleeve, sending turmeric powder drifting from her butterfly hair clip. "Look at those Slytherins! Draco Malfoy's picking up Ron's old wand with the tip of his own!"

Sure enough, at the carved prow, a platinum-haired boy was lifting Ron's elm wand with a silver wand, the sneer on his lips like uncongealed potion. "A Weasley family heirloom? Even my family's owl wouldn't bother sharpening its claws on a stick of firewood like this." His voice was shrill as an icicle scraping glass, and the Slytherin first-years around him burst into laughter.

Harry's knuckles turned white, and his fist beneath his cloak nearly struck Draco's chin. Just then, Hailey suddenly stepped half a pace out of line. Her cedar wand sprang from her necklace with a snap, its tip glowing faintly green. She spoke no incantation, merely turning her wrist and tracing a counterclockwise spiral with her wand—a silent spell Mr. Leicester had improved using the Muggle "principle of tuning fork resonance."

Draco's mahogany wand suddenly vibrated violently in his pocket, as though it had been thrust into a beehive. He jolted, intending to sweep his sleeve aside and snap at her, but a strange sound wave shot up the wand's core and into his brain. The castle towers before his eyes suddenly swayed into a double image. "Uh..." He staggered half a step, and a lock of his carefully styled platinum hair fell with a flop, concealing the throbbing vein on his forehead.

"Sorry, Mr. Malfoy." Hailey put her wand away quick as lightning, a dimple flickering at the corner of her mouth. "My wand always likes to resonate with pretty things." She deliberately shook her wrist, making her copper gear bracelet glint in the dusk. "Like your hair. Anyone can see you've used quite a few Hair-Thickening Charms on it, right?"

Draco's face flushed beetroot red. He had meant to retort with "Mudblood lover," but found himself inexplicably transfixed by Hailey's dimple. Its curve looked just like a frosted gingerbread man from Honeydukes, sweet enough to remind him of the Muggle sweets his mother had forbidden. Stifled giggles rose from the Hufflepuff line, and Eileen took the opportunity to make a face at him, the gem on her butterfly hair clip flashing red.

Harry stared blankly as Hailey, having helped her, stepped back into line. Where the hem of her robe brushed the ground, it left a trail of fleeting, gear-shaped marks of light. Ron nudged him in the ribs and lowered his voice. "She's the girl from Privet Drive who taught you multiplication? She's handier with a wand than Fred is with his pranks!"

2. Arithmetic symbols and turmeric foam beneath the Sorting Hat

When the oak doors swung open to the sound of a wand knocking, Hailey smelled cinnamon wafting through the Great Hall. She stared absentmindedly at the jack-o'-lanterns on the long table. Eileen tugged her sleeve, pulling her toward the Hufflepuff table, their heels scuffing softly against the flagstones. "Look! There's a sweet wrapper in Dumbledore's beard!"

Before long, the ceremony reached the sorting of the first-years. When Harry's turn came, he sat on the stool before the platform, and no sooner had the Sorting Hat been placed on his head than it let out an ear-splitting shriek: "Gryffindor!" But instead of stumbling away as he had in the original story, he looked up toward the Hufflepuff seats. Hailey was tapping her wand lightly against her cup of milk tea, and the foam at its rim gathered into a glowing "√," just like the symbol on the note in his tin pencil case. Hailey nodded to him across several tables.

Harry suddenly remembered an afternoon in the Privet Drive park, when Hailey had crouched beneath a bench, using a twig to work out sums in columns. Sunlight had filtered through the plane-tree leaves, breaking into flecks of gold in her hair. She had always said then, "With arithmetic, both sides are always balanced." Now, as the Sorting Hat's shriek echoed through the Great Hall, he thought the hat was like the old mantel clock the Dursley family had spent half a year repairing: its gears were old, but it kept perfect time.

Draco sat at the Slytherin table, the silver knife and fork leaving marks in his palms. He should have been laughing at Gryffindor for taking in a pauper in a ragged cloak, but instead he was staring at the copper gears on Hailey's wrist at the Hufflepuff table. As she stirred her Pumpkin Juice with her wand, its fluorescent trail scattered into starbursts in the air, and the faint magic lingering on her fingertips reminded him of the rare potions on his mother's dressing table. "Hufflepuff..." he murmured, feeling for the first time that the snake on his family crest was less vivid than the turmeric powder on Hailey's hair clip.

Cedric Diggory came by carrying a plate of Rock Cakes and noticed Hailey using her wand to squeeze frosting into tiny gears to decorate the cakes. "Not many people use a Transfiguration Spell on dessert." He smiled and set down the plate, his badger-shaped badge gleaming copper in the candlelight. "Need help adjusting the temperature? My grandfather says the ideal magical cooking temperature for Rock Cakes is 172.5 degrees Fahrenheit."

Hailey looked up, candlelight pooling in her dimples. "You use a Muggle thermometer too, Prefect?" She deliberately waved her frosting-covered wand. "My dad says that thing's three times more accurate than a magical thermometer, but you have to convert the temperature by hand."

Cedric raised an eyebrow and sat opposite Hailey and Eileen, suddenly finding Hailey quite interesting. But he didn't notice that the wand at his fingertips was growing warm. He felt it and mistakenly assumed he had held it too long, unaware that the green magic left by Hailey's wand was resonating with it.

3. Shiitake and tender chicken congee and a cross-dimensional code

When the singing at the Sorting Feast began, Harry was staring blankly at a plate of roast beef. Suddenly, three silver-rimmed porcelain bowls floated before him. The shiitake and tender chicken congee inside was still steaming, plump rehydrated shiitake mushrooms nestled among the grains of rice, and amber droplets of oil floated in the soy-colored broth.

"To celebrate starting at Hogwarts!" A note from Hailey floated over from the Hufflepuff table. She raised her wand and waved it at him as the strip of parchment drifted down from the rim of a bowl. "Made with British dried shiitake and Muggle soy sauce. I guarantee there are no magical additives!"

Ron had already eagerly scooped up a spoonful and was blowing on it because it was so hot. "Merlin's beard! It smells even better than what my mum makes!" Hermione pushed up her glasses and examined the silver pattern on the rim. "Is this a House-elf's handiwork? Or did she cook it herself? Look, the pattern on the rim is like eighteenth-century magical tableware."

Harry bit into a piece of shiitake. The warm congee and familiar taste of soy sauce suddenly reminded him of an afternoon in the Privet Drive park. Hailey had seen Harry crouching beside a rubbish bin and stayed with him, laying out arithmetic problems with breadcrumbs while Aunt Petunia's shouting drifted over the fence behind them. She had always said then, "When you get somewhere nice, you'll be able to eat a hot meal." Now, as the flavor of the congee spread across his tongue, he suddenly understood that Hailey wasn't showing off her magic, but saying in a way he could understand, "See? The taste of warmth won't lose its way."

Watching from a distance, Hailey quietly breathed a sigh of relief at the traces of congee on the corner of Harry's mouth. She remembered the magical steamer her father had been adjusting in the attic, with its Muggle timer controlling the heat and the turmeric powder she had brought wrapped around its steam valve. "Good thing it didn't turn into magical paste." She winked at Eileen and scooped up a spoonful of pumpkin soup, only to find Cedric staring at her bowl.

"You seem very good at helping magic and Muggle things coexist peacefully." Cedric handed her a piece of honey cake, a Hufflepuff badger drawn on it in frosting. "My grandfather also tried to improve a flying broomstick with a Muggle clockwork mechanism, but the council of elders always laughed at him."

Hailey bit into the cake, her dimples deepening. "My dad says gears don't care whether they're magical or Muggle. They all make the same sound when they turn." She didn't mention the magic detector hidden beneath Mr. Leicester's workbench, made by modifying Vibranium and a multimeter, and instead steered the conversation toward the House-elves in the kitchen. "Did you know? The ginger tea they make works even better than my mum's with a Calming Charm on it."

4. Copper gears and silver serpent shadows

When the midnight bell rang, Hailey crouched before the fireplace in the Hufflepuff Common Room, using her wand to sprinkle turmeric powder into the flames. The fire suddenly flared, illuminating the Leicester family crest engraved on her copper bracelet.

"What magical treat are you making?" Cedric passed by carrying a stack of Quidditch yearbooks, his badger-shaped badge glinting faintly in the dark. "When I went to the kitchen for milk just now, I heard the House-elves say you'd asked for twice as much dried shiitake."

Hailey hurriedly hid the turmeric powder behind her back, but accidentally spilled it all over the floor. "Don't you sleep at night either, Prefect?" She looked at the Muggle watch peeking from Cedric's cuff, its second hand ticking in time with the sparks in the fireplace. "I'm trying a new Sleeping Charm. Turmeric powder can smooth out fluctuations in magic."

Cedric raised an eyebrow, picked up some turmeric powder from the floor, and rubbed it between his fingers. "Like giving the brain warm milk? My grandfather mentioned a similar theory, using potion-grade lavender and Muggle chamomile..." He suddenly stopped, realizing he had let something slip, and the tips of his ears reddened slightly.

Hailey pretended not to notice and used her wand to gather the turmeric powder into the shape of a gear. "Did you know, Prefect? The pigeons near my house always eat arithmetic problems, thinking they're breadcrumbs." She remembered the pencil in Harry's tin, its point always sharpened to a fine tip, and paid little attention to the nonsense she had said while changing the subject.

Far away in the Slytherin Common Room, Draco was wiping his wand in front of a silver mirror stand, the mahogany reflecting his impatient expression. He had been polishing the runes on its tip, but for no apparent reason he thought of the Hufflepuff table-Hailey using her wand to squeeze frosting into gear patterns, turmeric powder falling like flecks of gold in the candlelight.

"Typical Hufflepuff," he scoffed, wiping the joint where the wand core met the wood with a silk handkerchief. "Using magic on desserts is no different from the Weasley family's tricks." But his fingers paused as he recalled the arc of green magic Hailey had traced through the air with her wand. It bore some resemblance to the "Pure-blood magic trajectories" recorded in the Malfoy family's ancient books, though it had a little more lively warmth.

When Crabbe pushed the door open, Draco was staring at the family crest on his cuff. The coiled silver serpent shone beneath the wall lamp, but it was far less vivid than the turmeric powder on Hailey's hair clip. "Young master, the Slytherin first-years are competing to see whose wand has the most elaborate carving." Crabbe held up his own walnut wand as though displaying a treasure, its shaft engraved with serpentine patterns.

Draco ignored him and slammed his wand onto the table, the mahogany striking the silver surface with a crisp sound. "Tell them true wand craftsmanship doesn't need carving to make up the difference." He remembered Hailey's seemingly ordinary cedar wand, which could trigger resonance without a sound, and an inexplicable irritation rose in his heart, like being forced into a pair of ill-fitting Pure-blood dress shoes.

He turned and went out. On the long table in the Slytherin Common Room, silverware gleamed coldly amid an array of exquisite smoked salmon and magical muffins, but for the first time, he found the plates carved with Pure-blood family crests less pleasing to the eye than the rough pottery bowl stained with congee in Hailey's hand.

"How could the heir of the Malfoy family be staring at a Hufflepuff's shabby little treats?" he muttered, cursing under his breath as he tugged hard at his bow tie. Yet in his reflection, he saw the curve his lips had unconsciously formed—a curve that faintly mimicked the shape of Hailey's dimples.