The morning after the forest felt completely normal.
Edward sat at the Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall.
He ate a warm bowl of porridge.
He looked up at the staff table.
Professor Quirrell’s chair sat empty.
The students whispered.
They passed rumors back and forth.
Some said Quirrell caught a bad cold.
Others said a vampire finally tracked him down.
Edward simply ate his breakfast.
He knew exactly why the teacher was absent.
A punch to the stomach with Zoldyck strength required a few days in bed.
Later that afternoon, Edward walked into the library.
He saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione sitting at a heavy wooden table in the corner.
Piles of thick, dusty books surrounded them.
Hermione looked deeply frustrated.
Ron rested his head on the table, looking entirely defeated.
“Still looking?” Edward asked, walking past them.
“We have checked a hundred books,” Harry sighed, leaning back in his chair.
“We cannot find a single mention of Nicolas Flamel anywhere.” “You will find him eventually,” Edward said casually.
“Just keep reading.” He left them to their search.
He found his own quiet table near a window.
He sat down and pulled out his homework, perfectly happy to let them solve the puzzle on their own.
A few days passed.
December arrived.
On the first morning of the month, Edward woke up early.
The dorm room was dark.
The fire in the hearth burned low.
He lay in his bed and called for the system.
“Roll,” Edward whispered.
The glowing wheel spun in the dark air.
Ten orbs popped out and hovered above his blankets.
He had seven bronze orbs, two silver orbs, and one gold orb.
“Open bronze,” Edward said.
The brown orbs popped.
A TIN OF BREATH MINTS.
A WOODEN SPOON.
A PLAIN GREY BEANIE.
A POCKET COMB.
A RUBBER BALL.
A PAIR OF SHOELACES.
A BAG OF GLASS MARBLES.
Edward shook his head.
The bronze tier remained useless.
He threw the trash into a dark corner of his hidden space.
He kept the grey beanie to wear outside in the snow.
“Open silver,” he commanded.
The two grey orbs shattered.
5,000 POUNDS.
Fresh paper cash.
A SELF-HEATING TRAVEL MUG.
A metal cup that keeps any drink perfectly hot forever.
“Very nice,” Edward said.
He liked the mug.
It would be perfect for cold nights in the castle.
He looked at the single gold orb.
It glowed brightly in the shadows of his bed curtains.
“Open gold,” Edward said.
The gold orb broke apart.
A thin book with a blue leather cover dropped onto his bed.
GOLD REWARD: CRAFTING MANUAL – GALE-FORCE READING GLASSES (FAIRY TAIL).
Item Description: A detailed instruction book.
It teaches the user how to forge and enchant Gale-Force Reading Glasses.
These magical glasses allow the wearer to read books at an incredible, superhuman speed.
Edward picked up the book.
He opened the cover.
The pages were filled with strange symbols and crafting instructions.
The magic from this book belonged to a different world.
It made Edward think.
If he wanted to build his own items and tools in the future, he needed to understand how wizards in this world built things.
A week later, Professor Quirrell returned to the Great Hall.
Edward watched him walk to the staff table.
Quirrell looked terrible.
His skin was pale and waxy.
His hands shook when he reached for his goblet.
He looked incredibly weak.
Edward drank his tea.
He watched Quirrell closely.
Without the healing power of the unicorn blood, whatever lived on the back of Quirrell’s head was slowly draining his life away.
Quirrell was breaking down.
I will need to deal with him eventually, Edward thought.
Once and for all.
That night, Edward went up to the seventh floor.
He paced in front of the blank wall three times.
The wooden door appeared.
He stepped into the Room of Requirement.
He strapped his heavy weights to his wrists and ankles.
He set them to the highest setting.
He started his workout.
He pushed his body hard.
He ran on the track until his legs felt like lead.
He punched the heavy wooden dummy until his knuckles bruised.
He flipped, jumped, and dodged imaginary attacks.
He moved faster and faster, forcing his muscles to adapt to the brutal strain.
He fell to the floor.
He lay on his back, gasping for air.
Sweat soaked his shirt.
A blue screen popped up in the air.
KILLUA ZOLDYCK TEMPLATE SYNCHRONIZATION INCREASED.
CURRENT SYNCHRONIZATION: 35%.
AURA NODES UNLOCKED.
Edward stopped breathing heavily.
He sat up.
He closed his eyes.
He focused on his body.
He felt it.
It did not feel like the magic from his wand.
It felt much deeper.
It felt like a warm, rushing river sitting just beneath his skin.
It was pure life energy.
It flowed from his chest, moving down his arms and legs.
Suddenly, the warmth started to leak out.
He felt the energy bleeding away into the air around him, leaving him feeling cold and tired.
Edward remembered his training manual.
This was his aura escaping through his newly opened nodes.
He needed to hold it in.
He needed to use Ten.
He sat cross-legged on the floor.
He breathed in slowly.
He closed his mind to the room around him.
He pictured the flowing energy.
He imagined a thick, heavy blanket wrapping around his shoulders.
He willed the escaping energy to stop, turn around, and wrap around his body.
The bleeding stopped.
Edward opened his eyes.
He looked at his hands.
A very faint, clear, shimmering light surrounded his skin.
It looked like heat rising off a road on a sunny day.
He held his aura close to his body.
It felt incredibly warm.
It felt safe.
The exhaustion from his heavy workout vanished completely.
His body felt light and full of power.
He wanted to try one more thing.
He focused on the nodes in his skin.
He pushed the warm blanket of energy completely back inside.
He shut the nodes tight.
The shimmering light vanished.
The warmth hid itself away.
This was Zetsu.
He felt his presence disappear entirely.
Paired with his silent footsteps, he was now completely undetectable.
He could walk right past a person, and they would never feel him there.
Edward smiled.
He stood up, wrapped his aura back around him in a protective layer, and walked out of the room.
The winter term ended.
The Christmas holidays began.
Most of the students packed their trunks.
They took the carriages down to the train station to go home.
In the Hufflepuff basement, Justin, Ernie, Wayne, and Zacharias all packed their bags.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me, Ed?” Justin asked, snapping his trunk shut.
“My parents would not mind.” “I am sure, Justin,” Edward smiled.
“Thank you.
But I want to stay here.
The castle is quiet.
I plan to catch up on some reading.” The boys said their goodbyes and left.
Edward had the entire round dorm room to himself.
A few days before Christmas, Edward walked through the Entrance Hall.
He stopped and watched the main doors.
Hagrid walked in.
He dragged twelve massive fir trees behind him.
Hagrid was covered from head to toe in thick white snow.
He looked exactly like a giant yeti carrying a forest.
“Need a hand, Hagrid?” Edward called out.
“No, thank you, Edward!” Hagrid boomed happily, shaking the snow from his heavy coat.
“Just getting the hall ready!” With the castle mostly empty, Edward trained very hard every morning.
He ran laps around the freezing lake.
He did thousands of pushups in the snow.
He burned a massive amount of energy.
He quickly found a solution to his hunger.
There was a large painting of a fruit bowl in the basement, just down the hall from his common room.
He reached out and tickled the large green pear in the painting.
The pear giggled and turned into a brass door handle.
Edward pulled the door open and stepped into the Hogwarts kitchens.
Dozens of friendly house-elves worked there.
They loved visitors.
After every morning workout, the elves happily cooked him a massive, steaming breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, and toast, allowing him to eat the portions of three grown men in peace.
He spent his afternoons in the library.
He found a comfortable chair in the back.
He put on his gold-rimmed Scholar’s Glasses.
He pulled out heavy books on Ancient Runes and Arithmancy.
He read about the building blocks of magic.
He wanted to learn how to carve runes and bind enchantments to metal and wood.
He wanted to craft his own magical items in the future.
He read very fast.
Madam Pince, the strict librarian, walked past his table constantly.
She glared at him with sharp eyes.
Edward turned the thick pages of a heavy book every three seconds.
She thought he was just flipping through the pages and not respecting the books.
She had no idea the gold-rimmed glasses pushed every single word perfectly into his memory.
Christmas morning arrived.
Edward woke up in his quiet room.
He sat up and looked at the foot of his bed.
A small pile of presents sat there.
Edward smiled.
He opened the packages.
Justin sent him a large box of peppermint toads.
Ernie sent a box of fudge.
Hermione sent a small book about famous magical events.
Harry and Ron sent a large tin of chocolate cauldrons.
Edward had already sent his gifts the day before.
He gave them all sweets and practical items from his storage space.
He put his warm grey beanie on his head and walked upstairs to find Harry and Ron.
He found them in an empty corridor near the Great Hall.
They both wore thick, lumpy sweaters with letters knitted on the front.
Ron’s sweater was maroon.
Harry’s was green.
“Merry Christmas!” Edward called out.
“Merry Christmas, Ed!” Harry said happily.
Ron held up a small, silver coin.
He looked completely fascinated by it.
“Look at this, Ed.
Harry’s aunt and uncle sent him a fifty pence coin for Christmas.
What kind of money is this?
The shape is weird.” “It is Muggle money,” Edward explained smoothly.
“It buys you a small candy bar, or maybe a cheap soda.
It is not worth much.” “Fascinating,” Ron whispered, putting the coin in his pocket.
Harry looked around the empty hallway.
He stepped closer to Edward.
“Ed, come in here,” Harry whispered, pointing to an empty classroom.
“I need to show you something.” They walked into the classroom.
Harry pulled a strange, silvery cloth out of his pocket.
It felt like water woven into fabric.
“Someone sent me this,” Harry said.
“It was my dad’s.” Harry threw the cloak over his shoulders.
His body instantly vanished.
Only his head floated in the air.
He pulled the hood up, and he disappeared completely.
“An Invisibility Cloak,” Edward said, genuinely impressed.
“That is a very rare item.” “Can you tell where I am?” Harry’s voice echoed from an empty corner of the room.
Edward closed his eyes.
He pushed his senses out into the room, using his Observation Haki.
He felt the shift in the air.
He heard the very faint sound of Harry’s shoes on the stone.
He heard the air entering Harry’s lungs.
“You are standing near the teacher’s desk,” Edward said with his eyes closed.
He pointed right at the empty space.
“Now you are walking toward the chalkboard.” Harry pulled the hood down, revealing his shocked face exactly where Edward pointed.
“How did you do that?” Harry asked.
“I didn’t make a sound!” “I have very good ears,” Edward smiled.
“The cloak hides your body, but it does not hide the sound you make.
You need to step lighter if you want to be a true ghost.” They walked down to the Great Hall for the Christmas feast.
The hall looked amazing.
Twelve Christmas trees lined the walls.
The feast was massive.
Large, flaming puddings sat on silver platters.
Dumbledore sat at the staff table, wearing a flowered bonnet instead of his normal pointed hat.
They pulled magical wizard crackers that exploded like cannons, blasting out live mice and rear-admiral hats.
They laughed and ate until they were full.
After lunch, Edward walked out the heavy front doors for some fresh air.
The grounds were covered in deep snow.
He looked toward the courtyard.
Fred and George Weasley stood behind a tall snowbank.
Professor Quirrell walked across the courtyard, shivering in his cloak.
Fred flicked his wand.
A snowball bounced right off the back of Quirrell’s purple turban.
Quirrell flinched.
George flicked his wand, hitting the turban with a second snowball.
The twins laughed harder, ducked behind the snowbank, and ran away toward the Gryffindor tower.
Quirrell stood in the snow.
He looked around, saw no one, and let out a long sigh of relief.
He lowered his shoulders and turned to walk away.
Edward stood in the shadows near the heavy oak doors.
He chuckled.
He reached down and scooped up a pile of snow.
He packed it tightly together, making a perfectly round, hard snowball.
He pulled his arm back.
He threw the snowball with his perfect aim.
The snowball flew straight across the long courtyard.
Thwack.
It hit the exact center of Quirrell’s purple turban with a heavy, solid smack.
Quirrell stumbled forward.
He waved his arms wildly.
His boots slipped on the icy stones, and he fell flat on his face in the deep snow.
He scrambled up in a panic, looking wildly across the empty courtyard.
He saw absolutely nothing.
He let out a frightened squeak and practically ran back into the castle.
Edward leaned against the cold stone wall and laughed quietly.
The Christmas holiday was very enjoyable.
However, the peaceful holiday did not last.
Two days later, Edward sat in the library reading a book on metal carving.
Harry walked over to his table.
Harry looked terrible.
He looked pale, tired, and deeply distracted.
“Ed,” Harry whispered.
“I found something.
An old mirror.
It shows you what you want most.
I saw my parents.
I am going back tonight.
You should come see it.” Edward looked at Harry’s tired eyes.
He closed his book.
He knew exactly what this was.
“Alright,” Edward said quietly.
“I will come with you.” That night, Edward slipped out of his warm bed.
He used Zetsu to hide his presence.
He walked silently to the fourth floor and slipped into an empty classroom.
Harry sat on the floor, staring into a massive, gold-framed mirror.
The words Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi were carved into the top.
Harry stared blankly at the glass, lost in a trance.
Edward walked up behind him.
He did not look at the mirror yet.
He put a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry jumped, pulling his Invisibility Cloak tight.
“You look awful, Harry,” Edward said softly.
“How long have you been sitting here?” “I don’t know,” Harry whispered.
He pointed at the glass.
“Look, Ed.
Look at them.” Edward stepped forward.
He stood in front of the Mirror of Erised.
He looked at the smooth glass.
The reflection shimmered.
The empty classroom vanished from the mirror.
Edward saw himself.
He looked older, maybe in his late twenties.
He had family and friends around him with a huge house in the background.
It was just a simple, peaceful, ordinary life.
“What do you see?” Harry asked eagerly.
“Do you see your family?” Edward shook his head.
He looked away from the glass.
He looked down at Harry.
“I see my future self with family and friends,” Edward said simply.
“Harry,” Edward said, crouching down next to him.
“This mirror does not show the future.
It does not show ghosts.
It just shows you what you wish you had.
For me, I want a huge family I never had.
For you, it is your family.” Harry looked back at the mirror.
He looked terribly sad.
“It feels real,” Harry whispered.
“It is not real,” Edward said firmly.
“You can sit here and stare at them forever, but it won’t bring them back to life.
You are just starving yourself.
You will forget to live the life you actually have right now.” Harry stayed quiet.
He stared at his parents for a long minute.
Then, very slowly, he nodded.
“You are right,” Harry mumbled.
He pulled his eyes away from the glass.
He stood up and wrapped the Invisibility Cloak around himself.
“Let’s go back to sleep.” “Good idea,” Edward said.
They walked out of the classroom together.
From the dark shadows near the doorway, Albus Dumbledore stepped out silently.
He watched the two boys leave.
He had planned to talk to Harry himself, but he smiled gently.
The young Hufflepuff boy had already done the job for him.