Elias dragged himself into the Great Hall at lunch, the weight of a sleepless night pressing against the back of his eyes.
He’d barely sat down before Hermione materialized across from him, her expression already halfway to a storm.
“They’re utterly impossible!” She didn’t bother with a greeting.
“Last night, they actually agreed to Malfoy’s midnight duel. And then they stood me up. I nearly got caught because of them. Honestly, if it weren’t for me, Gryffindor would have lost so many points. I’ve earned back more than they’ve managed to lose, and they don’t even seem to care.”
Elias let the words wash over him while his mind caught up.
Midnight duel.
Malfoy.
Harry and Ron.
The same two idiots whose little adventure had sent him scrambling through a secret passage, half-dressed and clutching a mirror that definitely wasn’t his.
He still couldn’t decide whether to thank them or hex them into next week.
That mirror had been something else entirely.
Hermione kept going, her voice tight with indignation.
She mentioned the third-floor corridor, the locked door, the three-headed dog—then skipped right past the monster itself to focus on the real horror: getting caught out of bed and expelled.
Priorities.
“It’s not that serious, Hermione.” Elias cut in before she could work herself into a full lecture.
“At worst, a few points docked and a detention. I saw at least ten people wandering the castle last night. Probably more I missed.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“How do you know? Wait—you were out after curfew too?”
“No. I stayed up late studying. The Slytherin common room isn’t exactly kind to eyesight.” He kept his voice light, but the lie sat flat between them.
Hermione’s lips pressed thin.
She didn’t believe him, but she let it slide.
“Breaking the rules is still wrong.”
Elias tilted his head, a ghost of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
“Didn’t you break the rules too? You just didn’t get caught.”
“That’s not the same—”
“What I mean is, minor things like being out after curfew don’t bother the school unless you get caught. Why worry about it?” He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice.
“The real question isn’t whether someone breaks a rule. It’s whether they take responsibility afterward. Whether they earn back the points they cost. If Harry and Ron don’t care about the House Cup, and they don’t respect the effort you put in to fix their mess, then you can tear into them all you want. They won’t have a leg to stand on.”
He paused, then added, almost casually, “Besides, a year ago you threw a bottle of ink in someone’s face because you overheard them talking about me. I don’t remember you being such a paragon of rule-following then.”
Hermione’s cheeks flushed.
She turned her head away, muttering something about a school for magic and extenuating circumstances.
But when she looked back, the irritation had faded into something sharper.
Concern.
“Are you… in a bad mood?”
Elias blinked.
“Is it that obvious?”
She rarely saw him anything less than composed.
The fact that she’d noticed at all meant he was slipping worse than he’d thought.
He needed to see Madam Pomfrey.
A dose of Elixir to Induce Euphoria would stabilize things long enough to push his Lust stat back up.
He’d figure out the rest from there.
He reached across the table and pressed his hand over hers—just for a moment, just enough pressure to ground them both.
Hermione didn’t answer.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his chest, a brief, exhausted gesture that lasted barely three seconds before she pulled back.
The Great Hall was too public for anything more.
“Hogwarts has only expelled two students in the last century,” Elias said, rising.
“There’s a book in the library. I’ve seen it. You can look for it.”
He left without waiting for a reply.
Hermione stared at her plate, face still warm, a small involuntary smile tugging at her lips.
Her mood had lifted despite herself.
She ate quickly, head down, and slipped out of the Hall not long after.
She still wanted to ask him what was wrong.
Madam Pomfrey examined him over the rims of her spectacles with the kind of look that made Elias feel like he’d been caught stealing from the potions stores.
Which, technically, he was about to request permission to do.
The conversation was short and uncomfortable.
She handed over a small vial of pale golden liquid—freshly brewed, she noted, as if that made it safer—but refused to give him more.
“Too much potion isn’t good for you,” she said, her voice carrying the weight of decades of dealing with foolish children.
“Side effects include excessive singing and a rather unfortunate nasal drip. You’ve got years before your O.W.L.s, dear. These are for stressed fifth- and seventh-years in the second term. First-years don’t need Euphoria Elixir.”
Elias thanked her, pocketed the vial, and walked out composing a letter to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary in his head.
He’d brew his own stash.
The Room of Requirement gave him a spell practice chamber with high ceilings and targets that reformed after every hit.
Elias downed the potion in one swallow.
The effect hit like a wave of warm honey.
A ridiculous, overwhelming happiness flooded through him, so intense he had to fight the urge to burst into song.
He laughed instead—a short, surprised sound—and then he was moving, wand slashing through the air, spells flying faster than thought.
Lumos.
Incendio.
Flipendo.
He summoned his Patronus and sent it arcing across the room, a silver blur that smashed through conjured targets.
He cast until his arm ached and his voice went hoarse, the sheer pleasure of it as satisfying as a child with unlimited ammunition and no one to tell him no.
[Lust +1]
The notification flickered at the edge of his awareness, but he was too busy enjoying himself to care.
This was the secret weapon he’d concocted last night: weaponized joy to force the numbers up.
By the time the potion’s effects faded—fifteen minutes, maybe less; Madam Pomfrey had definitely diluted it—his Lust had climbed five points, and half a dozen spells felt sharper in his mind.
Proficiency gains came easier when he wasn’t fighting his own mood.
Then the euphoria drained away, and the world settled back into its usual grey.
Increasing Lust became difficult again.
Elias leaned against the wall, breathing hard, and let the analysis run.
The higher a Sin climbed above baseline, the easier it was to push it further—and the harder to bring it down.
Sloth was the prime example.
The lower a Sin sank, the more stubborn it became in both directions.
There simply wasn’t much room left to fall.
Envy had been that way from the start.
Now Lust was joining it.
[Sloth +1]
That wasn’t good.
It meant lowering Sloth would take sustained, deliberate effort.
He hadn’t seen the sun rise properly in nearly two months.
If he didn’t get some sunlight soon, he’d start rattling with calcium deficiency.
He wondered if there was a spell that could reduce laziness directly.
Stupefy, maybe?
Render someone unconscious and too lazy to wake up?
That had potential.
If he could incorporate Original Sin into spell effects, the applications would expand dramatically.
He already knew the Patronus Charm with Elysium required a high Sin value—Sloth conveniently met that threshold.
But Stupefy wasn’t the only option.
Confringo could incapacitate an enemy just as thoroughly.
What did it matter if they were stunned by an explosion or a charm?
Focusing solely on knocking people unconscious felt unnecessarily narrow.
A thought surfaced, sharp and electric.
What about Lumos?
If enemies became too lazy to cast spells after being dazzled by a bright enough light—if Sloth could be woven into the very act of illumination—then a simple first-year spell might render him untouchable.
ORIGINAL SIN STATUS
Pride [95/120]
Wrath [66/120]
Sloth [113/120]
Greed [90/120]
Envy [30/120]
Gluttony [52/120]
Lust [27/120]
The implications hung in the air, dangerous and exhilarating, a notion that demanded further refinement.
Bless your hearts y’all, ten chapters.
Free.
Sitting right there on [P] like a fresh baked pie on the windowsill.
All you gotta do is show up, folks.
I do declare it don’t get much better than that