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After the holiday feast was over and Dumbledore’s short congratulatory speech ended, all the Houses headed out to go about their business. There was still a little time before curfew, so everyone would have something to do, but not destiny.

We were one of the first to walk and one of the first to stumble upon a section of the corridor flooded with water, where Harry and Ron stood in shock. Opposite them, on the wall above the torch, flaunted a magnificent bloody inscription: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir… beware!” The torch support was adorned with Filch’s petrified cat, suspended by its tail.

“Ha! Tremble, enemies of the heir!” proudly declared Draco Malfoy, squeezing into the front ranks. “You’re next, Mudbloods!”

He looked incredibly proud and excited at the same time. No wonder Harry ended up thinking on Malfoy when he investigated this, no doubt convoluted case.

Hearing about the Mudblood, Hermione grimaced in the best traditions of Malfoy, but the girl’s dislike was directed at him.

“What’s going on here? Eh?” a hoarse voice announced the appearance of Filch, our caretaker. He squeezed into the resulting void between the students and Harry with Ron. Then he noticed his cat.

“What’s with my cat? What?!” He yelled, eyes bulging. Filch immediately looked at Harry.

“It’s you! You killed my cat!” Filch stretched out his arms towards Harry like a zombie. “I’ll kill you!”

“Calm down, Argus.”

Dumbledore joined our company, accompanied by several professors. Without losing his importance and dignity, he went to the cat hanging on the torch mount and carefully took it off.

“Come with me, Argus. You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley.”

With an always beaming smile, Lockhart, in his light suit, approached the professors.

“My office is the closest one, Headmaster, right up the stairs. Come to me …”

“Thank you, Lockhart,” the Headmaster nodded. The crowd of students parted, like the sea in front of Moses, and the headmaster, together with the professors and the Golden Duet, left the scene. No further spectacles were foreseen, and everyone began to disperse about their business.

“And who needed to bewitch the poor cat? Hermione asked reproachfully on the way to our training class.”

“I don’t know. Many do not like Mrs. Norris because she is too zealous in her duties.”

“Exactly. Performs duties. Helps her master. Do you think she’ll be okay?”

“Do you like cats?”

Hermione nodded.

“I also. Most likely, everything will be all right.”

“We need to investigate this incident. It goes beyond jokes and gags.”

“Mione, you think the professors can’t do it?”

“Pf-f-f…” the girl smiled, entering our class and ignoring my appeal. “If you take the words of Harry and Ron for the truth, the professors missed Voldemort under their noses. And, importantly, they didn’t see him point-blank for a whole year. Or, even worse, they knew and did nothing.”

“Hmm. Where is your faith in teachers?”

“Historical chronicles of different countries force us to think that people are not ideal, and their actions often carry ulterior motives.”

“Social adaptation through books is not her best option…”

“Oh well.”

Hermione grabbed her wand sharply.

“Stupefy!” an almost blue elongated clot of spell flew at me, but it’s hard to take me by surprise. At least, if what’s happening is in my field of vision.

“Protego,” the transparent film of the shield turned out not good enough, having disintegrated from the spell. Once again, I regretted that wizards did not use such a primitive in my dreams.

We grinned at each other.

“It’s time to warm up.”

We started our standard warm-up, throwing simple spells and putting shields in turns. After ten minutes of this kind of badminton, we already began to move around the classroom. At first, we just walked, but after five minutes we started running. We threw off our robes – they interfere. The speed of casting spells increased, as well as their number, and now all the order went aside, and we turned into a kind of machine guns. One spell has not yet hit the shield or whistled at the temple, as the second, the third was in progress. I launched a powerful Expelearmus, and a blue beam whizzed by a centimeter from Hermione’s head.

She flushed all over, breathlessly, and with a strange expression, put her hand to her chest.

“Do you feel the adrenaline rushing through your veins?” I asked with a smile.

“This is a very strange feeling …”

It was evident that her legs and arms were shaking slightly from the excess of adrenaline.

“Move even more. Adrenaline needs to be put somewhere. No shields. Ictus.”

A small jellyfish clot quickly rushed towards Hermione, but she nimbly stepped to the side to let the clot pass by. He crashed into the desk as if someone kicked it weakly.

“Oh, you!” With a smile, the girl was indignant, immediately directing her wand at me. The most important thing in this is that for a long time, it was not necessary to point a wand at the enemy with an outstretched hand. Both of us could have been hip-shooting, not yet in all positions, but already in much more free poses.

“Ictus,” a similar clot escaped from her wand, and Hermione immediately shifted the wand to the desk. “Damnum.”

A sharp movement of the wand and the desk flies at me. Sassy Girl. I think I smiled too. The attack was two-sided and did not give much room for maneuver. I had to bend like Neo, but to the side, letting Iktus under me and my desk above me.

I immediately responded with a pair of throwing and paralyzing ones, falling and leaving behind desks in the roll. So we had fun until we fell exhausted. Hermione was starting to really fucking love dodging spells, and the smoother she did, the happier she was. She was completely delighted with those cases when she managed to combine several attacks and dodges in one complex movement.

But no matter how delighted our simple fights were, she still liked to make miracles, enchant objects, transfigure a variety of things much more. I could not help but note that she is more talented than me in magic. Slightly, albeit not much, but better perceives all this magical.

“Let’s try to combine your love of creation with the attack?”

We sat on the floor, leaning against the classroom wall.

“How?”

It amused me how pleased she looked. Standing up and stepping aside, I waved my wand and quickly cast a series of spells.

“Aguamenti Levis, Forma, Glasiphors, Damnum.”

A large stream of water that emerged from the wand hung in the air and grew in size. The second spell gave it the shape of a sharp icicle, the third turned it into ice, and the fourth sent it flying at great speed. The icicle pierced the desk and shattered, leaving a decent-sized hole in its wake. It took me three seconds.

“Long, but interesting,” Hermione thoughtfully looked at the result of my actions. “I think that after a long working out of such a combination, it will be possible to reduce the time to one and a half seconds.”

Hermione nodded to herself.

“And working out the verbal formula. Yes, good diction is needed,” Hermione continued to argue.

“I agree. And further training will help you get to non-verbal witchcraft. Or, perhaps, there is simply a spell of such an icicle. Just one spell. By the way. Can you do something non-verbal?”

“Leviosa once in a while. It’s hard. Words are very helpful in concentrating. Without them, it is difficult to cast a spell. They are like … a reflex.

“So you think the same?”

“Yes.”

“Have you ever tried it without a wand?”

“Yes, but these are not spells. More like loosely controlled bursts of magic.”

“Can you show it?”

Hermione removed the wand she still held in her hands, held out her palm. She concentrated so hard that a small crease appeared between her eyebrows. For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, and then an amorphous blinking ball of Lumos lit up in her palm. Not for long.

“It’s hard. As I understand it, this is not an enchantment or a spell at all. Bare will produces a familiar effect.”

“You will need to practice it later. I have an idea. Learn to feel exactly how the spell is being cast, feel it to the smallest detail, and recreate these sensations without a wand.”

“Have you decided to become stronger than Dumbledore?” Hermione grinned but quickly returned to a pensive state.

I walked over to her and sat on the floor next to her, leaning against the wall.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Oh, about Filch’s cat.”

“What exactly?”

Hermione looked at me and sat back, turning slightly in my direction.

“Look. While I was dealing with laws, precedents, and historical summaries last year, I came across an interesting fact. About fifty years ago, a certain “Heir” opened the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts. Then the muggle-born girl died. In unofficial sources and the yellow press, “Heir” also appears under a different name. Heir to Slytherin.”

“Do you think this is one of the Slytherins?”

“It’s a difficult question. One would think on Malfoy, but did you notice how he reacted? He was pleased.”

“And surprised.”

“Yes.”

“He did not expect to see something like that, but he has nothing against it, and, moreover, he supports it. And he knows that this “Heir” doesn’t like Muggle-borns. It would be logical that the Heir was in Slytherin, but this is too, too obvious and simple.”

“They are not stupid there, Mione. Well, not all. On Slytherin, there are many offspring of more or less influential and wealthy families or striving for it. I mean that it’s so stupid to substitute, write about the Heir, bewitch the cat. Petty and more like an act of distraction.”

“I also thought so, although I really want to act simply. Blame the Slytherins.”

“As I said, a distraction. You can also think of the twins, but this is not their handwriting. They leave an indication of themselves…”

“Like some killers from books.”

I nodded. “I bet the Heir, or at least the one who bewitched the cat, has nothing to do with Slytherin. I mean, to the House.”

“I understood.”

We were silent for a couple of minutes.

“Eh …” Hermione sighed, lifting herself off the floor. “Another story where the butler turns out to be the killer.”

I could not resist and laughed.

“You think it’s Filch?”

“Noooo! This is too much even for Hogwarts!” Hermione laughed, and we went to the living room. Perhaps I should take a shower.