CHAPTER 53: THE STUDY ROOM ACTIVITY

Random facts:

There are 7 years of Hogwarts, 7 core subjects, 7 total floors, 7 times Slytherin won the house cup, 7 Weasley siblings, 7 obstacles to the Philosopher's stone, 7 entities were attacked by the basilisk, 7 hidden passages on the Marauder's map, 7 players in a Quidditch team, 7 Potters, 7 horcruxes, 7 books. Rowling was obsessed with the number 7 apparently.

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In his study room, Ed was sitting on his desk, doing some sort of paperwork that is stacking in front of him. He looked annoyed and tired, but he continued to do it anyway, he looked at the stack of papers as if it was his responsibility.

Ed ruffled his own hair, frustrated about something, "This is fucking torture man, Roger really has no mercy." He grunted.

Since he came back wounded, Roger and Anna berated him for it, they made him do meaningless chores for petty revenge of worrying them, and their latest 'chores' was to do their paperwork for the company. The papers mostly consists of constructions and investments reports, Ed read it one by one, and made notes on the information he just got from the papers, and after that, he have to give the notes to Roger for him to study.

Suddenly, a knocking sound can be heard from the window. Ed looked at the source of the noise and saw that it was an owl with a letter. It was Ophelia, she looked like she was taken care of since he gave her to Hermione, and Ed smiled at the sight of his old pet.

Ed stood up from the desk and opened the window, letting the owl in.

"Hello Ophelia, are you well?" Ed spoke to the owl softly, gently stroking her feathers.

The owl just cooed, but she looked annoyed at the sight of Ed, looking away from his face.

"I know you're mad at me for giving you to Hermione, but you'll be more useful with her." Ed reasoned with the owl, "I rarely send letters, and besides, I can use the Patronus charm to send voice messages, so you'll just be slacking around if you're with me."

The owl once again just cooed, I mean it's a normal owl, what did you expect? The owl however, dropped the letter in front of Ed, earning his attention.

"I believe this is from Hermione." Ed nodded, "Well, you must be tired, flying across the ocean… you can stay here for a while, let me get some food for you."

Ed then opened his desk drawer, and retrieved of what looks like owl food, he grabbed a handful and gave it to Ophelia.

While the owl was eating, Ed sat down on the desk again, he noticed that the letter has some wet patches in the parchment, but then his nostrils picked up a familiar scent, it was Hermione's perfume, her woody yet sweet scent was in the letter, Ed put it all together and concluded that she intentionally sprayed her perfume on the letter. "Little minx." Ed mumbled in amusement.

Ed then opened the letter to read its content. Ed spread out the letter, revealing the phrases of the letter, and read it:

"

Dear Ed,

How have you been? Are you all right? Does your wound still hurt? Please have plenty of rest, I can't help but worry about your conditions when I am in France.

Speaking of France, it's wonderful here, we talked to our relatives, and as I said, we made some excuses to them, which they believed thankfully. After that, we went sightseeing all around the city of Dijon, it was wonderful! The library here is quite complete, and the people here were nice.

Then Fleur came to pick us up. she, her sister, and her parents brought us across France, seeing all kinds of monuments and historical place, Fleur and I talked a bit, and she's quite an interesting girl, her sister is also really cute, I really wish you were here right now, I always feels like something is missing while you're not here.

Anyway, I want to talk 'business', you know Sirius has escaped, and the dementors are going to swarm Hogwarts when we go there for school, so please do something about it, I don't want Dementors trying to suck my soul while I was studying.

By the way, I won't go straight to Leaky Cauldron after we go home, I'll go to your home first, so wait for me there okay? Until then, stay safe, please.

Love,

Hermione

"

Ed sighed at the letter, he read about the library part and chuckled, 'This bookworm…' he thought in amusement. He then read the rest of the letter and shook his head in surrender, 'why does it feel like she's ignoring my plea to stay as friends? Dropping hints like this…'

Ed just dropped the letter to the desk and took out a parchment and a quill. He wrote a reply for Hermione saying that he's all right, telling what he's doing over the summer which is mostly doing chores for Roger and Anna, he then wrote that for the Sirius stuff, he can't do anything about it, he can search for the man and gave him to the ministry, but that would mean that Fudge will immediately execute him by using the dementors, so he told her to just bear with it once she's at Hogwarts, and then he warned Hermione that he knows what she's doing, dropping hints and flirting, he told her to not do it when she arrived at his home as it's for her own good.

Ed then wrapped the letter, stood up, and gave it to Ophelia,

"Send it to Hermione will you?" he asked the owl, which the owl just cooed.

Ed then tied the letter to Ophelia and send her on her ways. Leaving Ed alone in the study room once again.

The boy sighed, looking at the departing owl, he sat on the desk again and scratch his head.

"This is fucking boring…" he whispered to himself, but then, a sudden knock from the door snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Ed? it's me." A voice of a boy spoke behind the door.

"Richard?" Ed asked while standing up to open the door, and lo and behold, it's really Richard, his best friend.

"What are you doing here?" Ed looked at Richard strangely.

"What? I can't visit you now? Even though Hermione has her own room in this house?" Richard countered, teasing Ed.

Ed shook his head in amusement, "Fine, come in." Ed made way for Richard. The Ravenclaw then entered the room, putting his things on the corner.

Richard then eyed Ed, his eyes have bags, he looked tired and pale, making Richard narrowed his eyes. "The hell happened to you?"

"What?" Ed questioned in confusion.

"You look like you haven't slept in days…"

"Oh, that." Ed said, "I got nightmares lately, hard to sleep…" he continued, "Anyway, moving on."

"What do you want to do?" Ed asked, "I still have a ton of work to do, Roger and Anna has been treating me like a dog to order this summer…"

Richard chuckled, "Well, it's your fault, you went missing for almost two weeks, and you came home with a hole in your shoulder and stomach."

"How'd you know that?" Ed questioned, a bit surprised at how Richard knew.

"Hermione of course." Richard answered, "She sent the letter about you to Daphne, and Daphne told me."

Ed sighed in annoyance, "That bookworm…" Ed then walked to a shelf, and picked up a book, which he then give to Richard.

Richard shot Ed a questioning look, "What's this?"

Ed shrugged, "Well, seeing that I can't entertain you besides chatting, I figured you want to study some rare knowledge." Ed explained.

Richard then looked at the title of the book and read it, 'The Basics of Alchemy'

"Alchemy?"

Ed hummed, "You learn that, if you're finished, I'll give you a book about enchanting, maybe you can develop a new magic using the knowledge, who knows…"

As soon as Richard heard 'develop a new magic', he was sold to the idea instantly.

"All right, I'll try to learn it." He said while sitting in a spare chair nearby.

Ed then sat on the desk as well, continuing to work on the paperwork.

"How's Hermione by the way?" Richard questioned suddenly, continuing their conversation.

"Fine, she just sent me a letter a couple minutes ago." Says Ed while handing over the letter to Richard.

Richard took the letter and commented, "What's that smell?"

"Hermione's perfume." Ed casually informed, "She intentionally sprayed it to the letter."

Richard laughed in amusement as Ed says that "Well, looks like someone fell hard."

"We told our feelings to each other before she went to France." Ed continued, surprising Richard, "Well, I told her about our feelings to be honest."

Richard hummed, snapping from his surprised looks, "I sensed a 'but' here."

"You know my family rules Richard." Ed said weakly.

"The one about you can only have one relationship?"

Ed nodded, "I told her to be just friends for now, it's too early, we're still young and full of hormones, so I gave her the time to choose and think."

"That's bizarre coming from you two." Richard teased.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ed raised his eyebrow.

"Nothing, it's just that the two of you were practically inseparable, in my opinion it's better to just get this over with and make her your partner."

Ed sighed, "I told you Richard, we're still teenagers, our minds are clouded with new feelings and sensations, it's not good to choose now, give it a few more years and we'll see."

"Well, something tells me you're going to break that way of thinking this year." Richard commented casually, but Ed didn't say anything further, instead, he changed the topic.

"Anyway, what electives did you pick?" Ed asked Richard.

"Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, you?"

"Divination and Ancient Runes." Ed answered.

"Hold on…" Richard spoke, "Isn't that on the same time?"

Ed hummed, "I ask Professor McGonagall so that I can alternate between the two classes, she agreed, so it's fine I guess." Ed explained, "How about Daphne?"

"Same as me." Richard said, earning a snicker from Ed, "What?" the Ravenclaw questioned why Ed was snickering.

"Nothing." Ed answered.

Richard eyed Ed suspiciously, but shrugged, "How about Hermione then?"

"Dunno, never ask." Ed said, earning a sigh from Richard.

Then, the Ravenclaw continued to read the letter, but then frowned when he stumbled on the Sirius bit.

"Is there really going to be dementors in school this year?" Richard questioned while frowning, not liking the idea of dementors running around the grounds of Hogwarts.

Ed hummed, "It's because Sirius is targeting someone in the castle."

"Who is it?"

"Well, the ministry assumed it was Harry Potter, but it's not." Ed said, then continued to explain Sirius's back story, enlightening the boy. At first, Richard was surprised at how incompetent and careless the ministry is, but then he remembered that the ministry were sending dementors to a school, so he quickly wasn't surprised anymore.

Richard sighed, "Can you do something about this?"

"I have a plan." Ed said, "To be honest, I kind of regret that I didn't do this last year, but I was so busy back then, so I have to do it on this year."

"Well, if you have a plan, be quick, I don't want dementors sucking my soul while I was studying."

"Funny, Hermione said the same thing in the letter." Ed hummed.

"Really?" Richard asked, then went back to reading, "Huh… she's like my twin sister."

"But less bossy and annoying." Ed added.

Richard chuckled, "I suppose you're right.", Richard finished reading the letter, and continued on reading the book about alchemy. He occasionally asked questions about it, and Ed graciously answered all of them. Richard was quite enthusiastic on learning Alchemy, although he just read the book once, he remembered a lot, thanks to his photographic memory. The two then continued to chat about random things and Ed eventually finished his work.

After he submitted the work to Roger, Ed went back to Richard to teach him in terms of the practical knowledge.

"We're doing it here?" Richard said, "how about the trace magic?"

"It's fine, I set up an anti-trace ward around my room, so any magic won't be detected in here." Ed explained, "Took a lot of work, but it's worth it."

"Damn, okay then." Richard commented.

Both of them then practiced alchemy, Ed taught him quickly because Richard was a fast learner, he just didn't have any resources to study magic as he was a muggle born. Eventually both of them stop, and as dementors will roam around the school, Ed had an idea to test Richard on the Patronus charm.

"Can you conjure a Patronus?" Ed asked Richard.

Richard shook his head, "I learned it theoretically from your notes back then, but I haven't try it."

"Try it then, it'll be useful next term." Ed informed, which Richard just nodded.

Richard then wave his wand, and shout the incantation, "Expecto Patronum!"

A silver light suddenly burst out of Richard's wand, it was slowly forming into something, some kind of bird, and a raven flew around the small room, spreading joy in the room.

"Wow, first try and already a corporeal one, nice." Ed commented, which Richard just stood proudly.

Richard then look at the time, and saw that it was almost evening, "Well, I got to come home, otherwise my parents will gut me, see you at school Ed." He said while patting Ed's back, leaving the boy alone in the study room.

"Back to experimenting I guess…" Ed mumbled to himself.