[Three Silver Chests detected.]
[Confirm opening?]
Yes.
Open them, Black replied silently.
[Opening first Silver Chest.]
[Perfect Recall acquired.]
[Memory greatly enhanced.]
Black stopped chewing.
As the final notification faded, a sensation like a splash of cold water swept through his mind.
The clutter cleared, leaving everything startlingly sharp.
He could already feel the difference.
Take Hermione.
He had only just met her, yet when he thought back to their encounter, he could see it as clearly as though she were still standing in front of him.
Her clothes, her appearance—even the tiny blemishes on her face were perfectly distinct.
He reached further back.
Things he had forgotten years ago returned in an instant.
Even his previous life was clear.
Better still, this sudden wealth of memories caused no headache or dizziness.
They weren’t all clamouring for his attention at once.
Each appeared only when he wanted to recall it.
There was no danger of his head bursting from the sheer quantity.
Such a useful ability from a single Silver Chest.
And he still had two left.
Black took another bite of cake and eagerly told the system to open the second.
[Exceptional Aptitude for Learning acquired.]
[Comprehension greatly enhanced.]
Aptitude for learning?
Comprehension?
Wasn’t that rather similar to Perfect Recall?
Before he could finish the thought, a faint electrical tingle passed through his head.
Then he understood.
The two abilities didn’t overlap.
They complemented each other beautifully.
Perfect Recall gave him an extraordinary memory.
Exceptional Aptitude for Learning gave him the ability to understand what he remembered.
However difficult a subject might be, he could grasp it with very little explanation.
Learning would be far easier.
Black finished his cake in two excited bites.
Both rewards from Hermione’s chests had been related to academic ability.
That seemed rather fitting.
Perhaps the contents of a chest were connected to the person who had produced it.
A little way along the counter, the shopkeeper paused in his packing to glance at the boy, who kept grinning to himself.
Black was too pleased to care.
Hermione really is a treasure.
Quite literally, in this case.
She produced chests at a remarkable rate, and the rewards so far had been excellent.
Open the third one!
The system obliged.
[Reward obtained: Basic Transfiguration Mastery ×1.]
[A book has been added.]
Black’s smile vanished.
A book?
Not that there was anything wrong with books, but compared with the first two rewards, that seemed a little—
Knowledge poured into his mind.
His eyes widened.
In an instant, he had mastered everything contained in Basic Transfiguration Mastery.
He could feel how much his understanding had improved.
Until now, he had been practising magic using whatever he remembered from his previous life.
Transfiguration had proved particularly troublesome: he hadn’t had a definite incantation to work from, so he’d been forced to puzzle things out for himself.
Progress had been slow.
Whenever he encountered something he couldn’t understand, there had been no teacher to ask.
He’d simply had to set it aside.
Now the foundations were there.
Problems that had baffled him suddenly made perfect sense.
He wanted to try it immediately.
All he needed was somewhere with no one around.
Black looked at the shopkeeper, who was still packing cakes, his forehead damp with sweat.
He couldn’t wait much longer.
‘Could you deliver these to Marian Orphanage for me?
I don’t think I’ll be able to carry them all.’
‘Of course.’
The boy had bought every cake in the shop.
Even if delivery hadn’t been an option before, it certainly was now.
Besides, a child could hardly be expected to carry an order that size.
‘I’ll take them round in my van,’ the shopkeeper added.
Black thanked him and hurried out.
Somewhere quiet.
Somewhere he could properly test his Transfiguration.
‘Why did I just assume he was buying me a cake?’
Hermione let out a muffled groan.
‘And why did he have to say it?
He’d already realised I’d misunderstood.
Did he have to point it out in front of everyone?’
She was crouched beneath a small tree in a secluded patch of undergrowth beside the road, curled in on herself and muttering.
It had been such a tiny misunderstanding.
Then the boy had made it so much worse that she’d had to find somewhere to recover.
‘Right, Hermione.
Stop thinking about it.’
She took a breath.
‘Forget it.
Right now.’
Another breath.
‘He’s a Muggle.
Soon you’ll probably never see him again.
So pull yourself together.’
She tried very hard to put the whole encounter out of her mind.
Then she looked down at the strawberry cake in her hand.
‘How am I supposed to forget it?’
She stared miserably at it.
She wanted to throw it away.
It did seem a waste of cake, though.
A heavy thud interrupted her deliberations.
Something had hit the ground nearby, accompanied by a startled cry.
A vaguely familiar cry.
For the moment, Hermione forgot her embarrassment.
She peered through the bushes towards the sound.
It hadn’t come from very far away.
There was already something of Gryffindor in her.
Faced with a strange noise, she didn’t retreat to the road.
Instead, she began edging towards it.