The Rat's Nightmare

"Fear Descend!" Evan waved his wand over Scabbers' head.

"Squeak! Squeak squeak... Squeak squeak squeak..."

As the spell took effect, the grey rat's eyes, previously shut tight, bulged open in terror, and it let out piercing, shrill screams.

With a powerful kick of its paws against the table, the rat tumbled off the edge and began to chaotically scurry around the room, knocking over cups and decorations in a frenzy.

Evan, seeing the potent results, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out that the Fearful Curse worked on the opposite principle of a Patronus Charm, which required the caster to recall happy memories. The Fearful Curse, on the other hand, required the caster to project a horrifying thought or memory into the victim's mind.

It was like an inverted Legilimency spell, but with a horrific twist...

When casting the spell on Scabbers, Evan had imagined a scenario where the rat was being chased by a menacing black dog.

Perhaps because Scabbers was asleep when the spell was cast, the power of the Fearful Curse merged with the dream, resulting in a much stronger effect than Evan had anticipated.

While Evan was still pleased with his successful casting, Harry and Ron, alerted by the noise, burst into the room.

Confronted with the chaotic dormitory, Harry almost thought he had walked into the wrong place. Just as he was about to ask what happened, Ron spotted the darting grey rat...

"Oh no! Scabbers... Scabbers! What's wrong with you? Scabbers..." Ron cried out in despair, rushing into the room and diving onto Neville's bed, trying to catch the grey rat that had just scampered past.

But Scabbers, terrified by Evan's spell and mistaking Ron for the nightmare's black dog, zipped through a gap and under the bed, making it a wild chase for Ron.

"Evan, what happened here?" Harry asked, looking at Evan who was still standing by the table.

"I was just practicing some spells," Evan shrugged, then added with a hint of guilt, "Just like you see. There might have been a slight... mishap."

Harry glanced over at Ron, who was now covered in dust under the table, still coming up empty-handed, and sighed, realizing the 'slight' mishap was anything but.

"Looks like we might be chasing a rat all night."

Fortunately, the situation didn't turn out as bad as Harry had expected.

After some commotion, Evan remembered he was a wizard and seized the opportunity to use the Levitation Charm to lift Scabbers, who was attempting to hide under a book, floating both rat and book into the air, and thus the farce was finally settled.

For the next few days, Ron sulked, and Evan, feeling responsible, couldn't help but apologize profusely, even buying some extra jelly beans for Scabbers as a peace offering. With Harry's mediation, Ron eventually let the matter of Scabbers go.

Worth mentioning, Hermione openly mocked Ron for valuing a rat over friends, leading to a row between them, almost driving Ron to the brink of madness.

Ron became increasingly protective of Scabbers, even taking him to classes, always suspecting someone was out to get his rat.

Evan, meanwhile, continued his routine of class-library-dorm life, reviewing basic textbooks and managing just enough to earn another Study Prodigy Experience Card. With the accumulated effort over the days, Evan's spell proficiency had significantly improved.

This led to higher grades from the professors during class!

Except for Professor Binns, who always gave average marks, Evan received excellent records in other classes, particularly in Charms and Transfiguration, since he had successfully advanced to level two in both the Levitation and Transfiguration spells.

One time, he even transfigured a wooden plank faster than Hermione, leaving Harry and Ron dumbfounded.

But advancing further wouldn't be so easy, as each new level required double the proficiency of the last.

Aside from studying, Evan also sought the Room of Requirement, a place to test spell power in the future, as practicing in the Gryffindor common room was always inconvenient.

Unfortunately, after so many years since reading the original story, Evan could hardly remember its location, only that it was across from a tapestry, leading to several fruitless days of searching.

It wasn't until the second Friday, when Harry received an invitation from Hagrid, that Evan's routine was disrupted.

Of course, with good news came bad news.

The bad news was that on Friday, they had to endure two Potions classes with the Slytherins.

"If only we could skip this morning's class. Professor Snape, the Potions master, is the Slytherin's Head of House. George told me to be careful..."

In the corridor, Ron and Evan talked about the gossip they'd heard from the Weasley twins, all the while feeding jelly beans to Scabbers perched on Ron's hand.

"Surely not? Professor McGonagall is also a Head of House, and I've never seen her show favoritism," Hermione interjected, unable to resist countering.

"It's not just me who thinks so... Lots of older Gryffindors say the same!" Ron scoffed at Hermione's argument, turning to Harry and Evan.

"You guys feel the same, right? Professor Snape always looks so sinister. There's even a rumor that he used to be a dark wizard..."

Ron lowered his voice significantly when he mentioned the rumor, cautious not to be overheard.

"That's impossible. Dumbledore would never allow a dark wizard to teach here," Harry shook his head.

Although Snape had seemed to take an instant dislike to him at the start-of-term feast, all the professors he'd met so far were quite decent.

Snape couldn't be all bad...

Hermione nodded in agreement, prompting Ron to turn to Evan for support.

Evan, who had been playfully teasing Scabbers with a jelly bean, looked up at the others after hearing their conversation.

"I don't know if Snape has it in for Gryffindor, but he definitely has it in for us."

Evan felt a bit downcast, realizing that getting an 'Outstanding' from Snape was probably out of the question.

After all, love me, love my dog, and the reverse was also true. Snape giving him a poor evaluation wouldn't be a surprise.

Harry looked puzzled by Evan's gaze, not understanding what he meant.

"Do you mean Professor Snape dislikes Harry?" Hermione furrowed her brows, deducing Evan's thought from his previous look at Harry.

Internally, Evan commended Hermione's quick thinking but knew he couldn't speak the whole truth, so he shook his head and said, "It's just a suspicion. Don't you think Snape's gaze towards Harry is always a bit off?"