Outside the corridor window, the first snow of the season drifted down upon Hogwarts. The delicate flakes brushed against the castle's ancient stone walls, twirling gently in the crisp night air. They spiraled and danced before finally settling, covering the castle towers, leafless branches, and frosted windowsills in a pristine white embrace.
"I think Hogwarts should issue a rumor law; little wizards who spread gossip should at least go without dessert for a few days, and the professors who allow it to run wild should experience a hundred stinging hexes to the feet."
Ian grumbled to the Ravenclaw portrait in the corridor for quite a while, but the lady in the Twilight Zone frame seemed to have no intention of offering her support.
He certainly hadn't come out to confront Grindelwald; Ian was well aware of his own capabilities. He was simply on his way to the Room of Requirement to adjust the potions he had been working on.
The reason he was still wandering in the corridor, shivering as frost gathered on the windows and the cold seeped through the castle, was that he hadn't resolved his ongoing feud with the bronze eagle.
The ever-vengeful bronze eagle knocker refused to let him in. It had even grown tired of its usual game of posing riddles, now blatantly ignoring him, no matter how long he stood at the entrance.
This effectively shattered any hopes Ian had of returning to the common room after his studies.
To be fair, the door knocker might indeed be developing a sense of sentience. how else could it gleefully exploit loopholes in the rules? Only something with a mind of its own could harbor that kind of mischief.
With no choice but to seek shelter elsewhere, Ian was prepared to spend the night in the Room of Requirement. On his way, he passed the Ravenclaw portrait once more. Remembering the infamous shortcuts and tricks left behind by Rowena Ravenclaw herself, he vented his frustration to the portrait for a good five minutes.
"You tell me, what's Grindelwald playing at by encouraging students to spread these absurd rumors?" Ian's irritation only seemed to build.
"This is a tactic he learned from Muggles."
Suddenly.
A cool voice rang from behind Ian. He spun around to see Aurora, the German girl, using the Levitation Charm to float a bundle of long iron bars through the air.
"What are you doing? Planning to sell scrap metal for Galleons?" Ian stared at her in disbelief. He could tell that the bars had been gathered from the Owlery and various other forgotten corners of the castle.
"My grandfather wants to restart the underground classroom. Naturally, I've been conscripted as free labor," Aurora replied with a resigned expression, clearly not thrilled by the task.
"I'm not sure scrapping other classrooms was part of the assignment," Ian observed dryly, his eyes lingering on what unmistakably appeared to be the iron teacher's desk from the Charms classroom.
"He only said to find iron bars. He didn't give me any Galleons to buy them," Aurora answered, her tone as direct as ever.
"Of course, I can't use my own money. I'm not about to raid Professor Snape's office, and I need to save up for my own potion ingredients."
Apparently, she was quite the thrifty one.
"Didn't last time's materials give you enough for plenty of Veritaserum? Surely that's sufficient?" Ian's expression grew more perplexed, especially when Aurora's silence hinted at something far from reassuring.
After a moment's pause.
"I left IOUs in Professor Lockhart's name for everything I took from the classrooms." Aurora stated this with an alarming degree of calm, as if this made her actions entirely justified.
"..."
Ian was stunned into silence. There was something deeply unsettling about her logic, but no immediate counterargument came to mind.
"Do you want to lend a hand?" Aurora's voice broke the silence once more.
Ian immediately shook his head like a rattle.
"I just want to give our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor a gift." Saying this, Ian took out a bag of itching powder from Zonko's and liberally sprinkled it over the floating iron objects.
Aurora quietly watched him cause mischief without any intention of stopping him. Even after Ian had satisfyingly tucked away the powder bag, the girl tilted her head thoughtfully and offered a suggestion.
"I think you should mature a bit and carve some explosive runes on it, so they detonate immediately when touched. Something with the power of a small blasting hex would be ideal."
Merlin's beard! He had truly encountered a little menace!
"??????"
Ian was utterly shocked by Aurora's suggestion; he only wanted to give the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor a harmless inconvenience, while the German girl clearly had more destructive ambitions!
"I think you're missing the point; if you actually do that, it won't be your grandfather who gets blown up… it'll definitely be us… no! It'll definitely be 'me'!"
Ian rejected Aurora's suggestion without hesitation.
"I'll say it was me who set it up." Aurora earnestly declared her loyalty.
Ian still firmly shook his head.
He was the sort of wizard who knew where to draw the line, so instead, he retrieved a few Dungbombs and devised a small magical mechanism to install beneath the Charms classroom's teacher's desk.
"I'm just responding to his attempts to tarnish my reputation… By the way, you said this is a method he learned from Muggles? What exactly is your grandfather trying to do?"
After setting up the prank, Ian began washing his hands. A quick wave of his wand produced a steady stream of water using the Aguamenti spell. Without pausing, he levitated his wand in mid-air using a non-verbal charm, keeping the water flowing as he scrubbed his hands.
Aurora frowned slightly, watching the unusual display of wandless control.
"The best way to suppress a scandal is to cover it up with an even bigger one; it's a method Muggles use to manipulate the press and divert public attention," Aurora answered, though her attention remained fixed on Ian's levitating wand.
She looked at her own hand, still raised to maintain the Levitation Charm on the iron bars, then back at Ian's wand. Try as she might, she couldn't figure out how he was maintaining the spell without direct contact.
"Dumbledore is supposedly a male Veela, seducing others with his charm and wiles?"
Seeing Aurora nod, Ian's jaw nearly dropped.
He finally understood Grindelwald's cunning ploy. The old dark wizard was orchestrating a scandal to overshadow Ian's situation!
"Ugh! So now that he's facing backlash, he's trying to drag me into the mess too?" Ian grumbled, utterly exasperated. "Shouldn't he be punishing the actual rumor-spreaders instead?"
To this, Aurora simply blinked.
(To Be Continued…)
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