"Five points from Ravenclaw!" a voice barked, cutting through the lingering snickers of the crowd.
Allen didn't even need to turn around to recognize that particular brand of self-important officiousness. Percy Weasley, looking more like a middle-aged bureaucrat than a teenage student, pushed his way through the cluster of first-years. His prefect badge was polished to a mirror finish, catching the pink glitter falling from the ceiling.
"No magic in the corridors, Harris," Percy said, his face a mask of stern disapproval. "I'm going to have to report this. You can't just go around silencing school staff—even if they are... temporary staff."
Allen turned slowly, a look of bored indifference on his face. "Keep the points, Weasley. I've brought in over twenty today during my morning sessions. Think of this as a tax on my sanity. If it stops that creature from screeching in my ear, it's a bargain."
Percy's jaw tightened. He looked genuinely frustrated, like a man who had prepared a long lecture and had it dismissed in a single sentence. Allen noticed the way Percy's eyes lingered on him—there was a sharp, biting edge to his gaze that went beyond simple rule-following.
Allen frowned as he watched the Gryffindor prefect march away. Why was Percy even here on the fourth floor? His own classes were on the other side of the castle, and the library was still a floor away. It was as if he'd been lying in wait.
Hostility, Allen realized. The guy actually has a grudge against me.
It was baffling. Allen was on good terms with Ron—well, as good as anyone could be with a boy who spent half his time chasing Harry Potter into girls' bathrooms and the other half trying not to explode his own wand. Whatever was eating at Percy clearly wasn't about family loyalty. If Percy kept poking the dragon, Allen decided, he'd have to find a way to make sure the "debt" was repaid with interest.
The rest of the day was a grueling exercise in patience. Even the teachers were on edge. Professor Snape, seemingly fueled by a personal hatred for the color pink, had assigned a double-length essay on Hair-Raising Potions.
"The efficacy of rat tails in stimulating follicles," Allen scribbled, his quill scratching rhythmically against the parchment. He couldn't help but think of Abernathy, the American Ministry official he'd encountered. The man was as bald as a kneazle's backside.
Why didn't he just brew a Hair-Raising Potion? Allen wondered. Unless he's suffering from a magical burn that scars the very essence of the scalp. Or maybe he's just too cheap to buy the ingredients.
He finished the essay with a flourish, his hand cramping slightly. He stood up, intending to find a quiet corner of the library to read about advanced defensive wards, away from the pink-tinted madness of the Great Hall.
But peace was an illusion.
A discordant, screeching sound echoed from the hallway outside the library. It sounded like a recorder being played by someone with no fingers, followed by a chorus of high-pitched, uneven voices.
The students in the library, usually terrified of making a sound, dropped their quills in unison. Curiosity won out over the fear of Madam Pince's wrath. Everyone scrambled toward the doors.
Allen stayed back for a moment, his stomach sinking. He remembered the dwarf he'd silenced earlier. The look in that dwarf's eyes hadn't been one of defeat—it had been a promise of total war.
He stepped into the corridor, and the wall of sound hit him.
"Ah, Allen!" the lead dwarf screamed, his voice cracking on the high note. "Ah, my ideal lover! Ah, my heart's desire! Let us try to hold tight: This charming and wonderful time!"
The dwarf with the recorder blew a note so sharp it felt like a needle in Allen's eardrums. The group began to sway in a terrifying, synchronized dance.
"You are my sun, you are my light!" they continued, gaining volume as more students crowded the balcony. "In my heart, you are Hogwarts' brightest star! Ah, Allen, I can no longer forget you... that charming, sea-blue gaze!"
Allen felt the blood drain from his face. He reached for his wand, ready to vanish them all into the Forbidden Forest, but a whirlwind of black robes and righteous fury beat him to it.
"NO! NO! NO!"
Madam Pince, the librarian, charged out of the double doors like a Valkyrie. She wasn't carrying a wand; she was wielding a massive, industrial-strength feather duster like a morning star.
"ABSOLUTELY NO NOISE AT THE LIBRARY DOOR!" she shrieked, her voice drowning out even the dwarves.
She swung the duster with terrifying precision, knocking the golden wings right off the lead dwarf's back. The 'Cupids' didn't stand their ground. Faced with the woman who could silence a hundred teenagers with a single glare, they turned and fled, leaving a trail of glitter and broken harp strings in their wake.
"Thank you, Madam Pince," Allen said, his voice a bit shaky. "Truly. And I'm sorry... it seems I was the target of that... performance."
Pince turned her glare on him, though it lacked its usual lethality. "It has nothing to do with you, Mr. Harris. I simply will not tolerate the violation of the silence. Now," she barked at the lingering students, "are you here to study or are you here to be sheep?"
The crowd evaporated instantly. Allen, however, didn't stay. The way the girls were giggling and whispering "Hogwarts' brightest star" under their breath made him want to crawl into a hole.
He tried to take the long way back to Ravenclaw Tower, sneaking through the tapestry shortcuts. But the dwarves were persistent. They were like bloodhounds with harps.
A group of four cornered him near the moving staircases. They didn't even bother with the music this time; they just lunged, trying to grab his robes to force him to listen to the rest of the 'musical tributes.'
Allen moved like a shadow. His physical training over the summer had made him faster and more coordinated than any dwarf. He ducked a lunge, stepped to the side, and hooked his foot behind the lead dwarf's ankle.
Clatter.
As two more tried to flank him, he used their own momentum against them, tripping them into a pile of tangled limbs and fake wings.
"Enough!" one of the dwarves snarled, his face red with effort. "You're going to hear this if we have to tie you down!"
They scrambled up and began to belt out a new verse, their voices echoing through the stone corridor:
"His eyes are as blue as the sea, His hair shines like Galleons, sparkling and lovely! I wish he were mine, he's truly handsome, He is Hogwarts' score-controller—Allen!"
The shame was now a physical weight. Allen could see several Ravenclaw girls watching from the landing above, clutching their books to their faces to hide their laughter.
"That's it," Allen whispered.
He didn't silence them this time. He drew his wand and, with a series of lightning-fast movements, hit each one with a full-body bind. One by one, the dwarves froze, falling over like stiff wooden planks.
He wasn't done. He conjured a length of magical rope and tied them together, one after another, until he had a literal human centipede of grumpy, golden-winged dwarves. He grabbed the end of the rope and began to drag them down the hallway. He didn't care if their heads bumped the floor; he had reached his limit.
He marched straight toward Gilderoy Lockhart's office, the dwarves sliding behind him like a train of very angry luggage.
As he approached, he noticed the office door was slightly ajar. He stopped, his hand poised to knock, when a voice from inside made him freeze.
"Gilderoy, how do you explain this? Look at the ink! Look at the date!"
It was Daisy. Her voice was trembling, pitched high with a frantic, desperate kind of anger. It was the sound of someone trying very hard not to scream. She was talking so fast the words were blurring together, a torrent of accusations that seemed to pour out of her like water from a broken dam.
Allen stepped into the doorway.
The scene was worse than he'd imagined. Daisy was wearing the expensive magic robe Allen had given her—the one she usually saved for special occasions. Her eyes were red-rimmed and watery, and she was gripping Lockhart's sleeve so hard her knuckles were white.
Lockhart was standing there, his wand in his hand, looking like a man who had accidentally stepped into a cage with a very small, very angry dragon.
"Daisy? What are you doing here?" Allen's voice was cold, his anger at the dwarves instantly shifting toward the man in the pink robes. "What exactly is your relationship with the Professor?"
Daisy jumped, her eyes darting to her brother. She looked caught, a flicker of guilt crossing her face before it was replaced by fresh defiance. "Gilderoy invited me, Allen! He's... he's my boyfriend."
Lockhart's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "I'm not! I didn't! Daisy, darling, don't say such things! When did I ever agree to that?"
Daisy's face went from pale to a dangerous shade of crimson. "You're not? You didn't? You're calling me a liar?" Her voice erupted, echoing off the walls of the office. "Who sent me those letters for six months? Who told me I was the only one who truly understood the 'man behind the books'? Who asked me to meet him during the winter break? Were those all lies?"
Lockhart shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his hair in a nearby mirror out of pure habit. "Well, that... that was just standard fan correspondence! I write to many lovely witches! We only had a few meals, Daisy. It was purely professional admiration!"
"A fan?" Daisy's voice broke. She looked like she was about to collapse. "How many 'fans' do you give special permission to enter the Hogwarts grounds? How many 'fans' do you tell that you can't wait to see them under the moonlight?"
Lockhart looked at Allen, then back at the distraught girl, and let out a long, theatrical sigh. "Alright, alright!" he said, his voice dripping with forced martyrdom. "If it makes you feel better... I am naturally very moved by your deep, deep affection for me. But we must be realistic, Daisy..."