As it turned out, Harold's instincts were… well, pretty accurate. Okay, maybe not instincts—more like deduction.
Because while everyone was celebrating, Harold noticed tufts of gray cat fur on the stairs—and Tom sitting smugly at the top.
And if your eyesight was good enough, you could even see dried blood on Tom's fur… and a few more tufts of that same gray hair, totally out of place.
Tom had appeared in the common room not long after Harold walked in, clearly proud of himself, as if showing off.
A few minutes later, Harold couldn't help but curl his lip in a smile.
He suddenly realized: maybe Tom had seen what happened last night—when Mrs. Norris had blocked Harold's way.
It wasn't impossible.
Harold had warned Tom before they arrived—no attacking other students' pets. And Mrs. Norris was technically someone's pet: Filch's.
So Tom wouldn't have attacked her without reason.
And Mrs. Norris wasn't the type to provoke a cat twice her size either.
Besides, if Tom had just wanted to pick a fight, he would've cleaned the evidence off his fur immediately—like he did when he tried to stash Trevor.
Harold never doubted Tom's intelligence.
All the cats at Eeylops Owl Emporium had a bit of kneazle blood in them, and for Tom to rise above them all and become the "top cat" of the shop? That said plenty.
Now he was bold enough to walk around all day with blood and fur stuck to him—openly facing Harold. That meant he felt confident he wouldn't be punished.
With that realization, everything clicked into place.
"Good job," Harold said as he climbed the stairs and scratched Tom under the chin.
Tom purred loudly, rubbing against Harold's hand.
"But you still can't eat coworkers. Non-negotiable." Follow current novels on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵•𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮•𝓷𝓮𝓽
The softness under his palm vanished instantly. When Harold turned his head, all he saw was the tip of a black tail disappearing into the crowd.
A voice came from behind—Ron.
"You said you'd tell us the reason tonight."
"I did." Harold stood up.
"What were you just doing?" Harry asked curiously.
He thought he'd seen Harold petting something, but in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
"Nothing," Harold replied casually. "You guys wanted to know why I switched dorms, right? Come with me."
At that, Harry pushed his earlier question aside and followed.
The group went upstairs.
Harold's new dorm was just down the hall from the original one—barely ten feet between the doors.
Even the interior was identical.
Which made sense. Gryffindor hadn't built actual single rooms—this one was a five-bed dorm too. There just weren't enough first-years to fill it.
As the boys walked in, they instinctively looked around the room.
And then all eyes landed on the table.
They had a similar table in their dorm—a big one in the center, used for books, snacks, wizard chess, homework, whatever.
But this one only had Harold. So it was mostly bare.
Now, it held only a long transparent glass tube filled with a pale yellow gel… and what looked like a wand?
"That's not a wand. Just a work-in-progress," Harold said before anyone could ask.
"Wand-soaking solution. Made from fifty kinds of herbs and tree oils. Non-toxic—just smells bad."
As he spoke, Harold pulled the half-finished wand from the liquid.
Droplets fell onto the table, and an odd scent began to waft through the air—a weird mixture of bitterness, damp earth, and something acidic.
It smelled like someone had poured fermented tomato sauce onto freshly chopped tree roots.
Seamus and Ron instinctively clutched their noses. Harry, however, didn't react much.
He'd grown up in a cupboard under the Dursleys' stairs—he was used to bad smells.
He was more interested in the wand.
"You said that's only part of it?"
"Specifically, the wand body," Harold said. He twisted it gently, and the wooden cylinder split cleanly in two.
"So it's ready?" he asked himself, raising an eyebrow.
"What?" Harry blinked.
"Preliminary prep," Harold replied. He raised his hand and, out of nowhere, produced a glowing red… string?
"Wait, Harold…" Neville suddenly realized what was happening. "You're not going to make a wand right now, are you?"
"Yup," Harold nodded. "The wood's cured, and I've got the core ready. Why not?"
"But—but we're still here…" Neville stammered, then hesitantly asked, "Can we… can we watch?"
Neville came from a pure-blood family. His memory might be bad, but he still knew how rare it was to witness wandmaking.
There were thousands of wizards in Britain, but as far as he knew, only Ollivander made wands.
"You mean this?" Harold looked at them one by one—Neville, Harry, Seamus, Ron…
"It's fine. No problem at all. I trust you."
A beam of warm light seemed to split the night outside, and the boys suddenly felt a wave of emotion—and guilt.
They'd spent the whole day resenting Harold, saying harsh things, all over a dorm issue—and yet here he was, offering to share something this private, this valuable.
Damn it… they really were jerks.
To be honest, the second they'd smelled that awful mixture earlier, they'd already figured out why Harold wanted his own room.
If it were just once in a while, maybe you could tolerate it. But if you had to smell that every day? No thanks. They'd go mad.
"You have my word—I won't tell anyone," Seamus Finnigan said first, his face serious, eyes shining with a sense of purpose.
"Huh?" Harold glanced at him. "I wasn't—well, sure, if that's how you want to think of it."
Truthfully, Harold wasn't worried.
If someone could learn wandmaking just by watching, then the craft wasn't worth much.
Besides… these guys weren't exactly known for their brains.
Not that he'd say that out loud, of course. That would be a bit too cruel.
Ignoring the rest, Harold gently pressed the red "string" to the split wand body.
The string flowed like a stream into a channel, or maybe like a fish gliding through water, writhing and weaving under Harold's control, leaving behind a glowing red trail.
Harry blinked, and suddenly realized—Harold's right hand was glowing.
A golden light, shaped like a symbol of some kind.