Thanks to his "bathroom escape," Lupin successfully dodged the time slot for signing the magical contract. After a bit of small talk, he stayed behind at the Romanian dragon reserve while Kasen and the others began preparing to return to England.
"Bye then, see you at the start of term," Lupin said, leaning against the side of the plane.
"It won't take that long—we've still got to go watch the Quidditch World Cup, remember?" Sirius stuck his head out and reminded him.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't forget… though I wonder if the director will tear me apart when I ask for leave." Lupin chuckled helplessly.
"If he tears you apart, does that mean you won't come?"
"Actually, I've already prepared a whole barrel of dittany—it should be enough to glue me back together." Lupin joked.
"Then that's fine. If you go back on your word that day, we really will have to bring our wands and come drag you out," Kasen added.
"Relax, I won't."
With Lupin's assurance, Kasen leisurely started up the plane's engine. Gusts of wind spread out from around the rising aircraft as it slowly lifted into the sky.
"Goodbye!"
The trip back to England was much quieter than the route from England to the Netherlands… and then Italy. Although, strictly speaking, they weren't supposed to return this early—the original plan had been to tour half of Europe.
"What a pity, my holiday plans…" Kasen sighed and grumbled.
Harry muttered curses against the Brotherhood in sync, while Sirius—sitting in the back seat because they were worried he'd cause trouble—remained silent.
"Kasenhis, can't you really make me a hidden blade too?"
Kasen's mouth twitched. "Unfortunately, no."
"Really?"
"Really. I'm landing soon. After this, hurry up and get lost… and when you're done buying the house, remember to call me."
"…Fine."
After the three of them had a meal cooked specially by the Hogwarts house-elves, Harry and Sirius returned to the Muggle world at Privet Drive.
For Harry, being with his godfather made him happy no matter where they were, while Sirius was already calculating how best to flaunt his wealth and buy an entire house on Privet Drive.
This time, Kasen did not return to Baker Street.
After all, he had his own little upgrade plans to work on, and those magical experiments were not convenient to conduct in the Muggle world—especially since his neighbour was a detective with a very strong sense of curiosity, which made things even more inconvenient.
Although the detective already knew about seventy to eighty percent of his secrets, Kasenhis didn't really care if the man discovered magic as well. Still, the feeling was like writing a novel or drawing while a familiar person sat nearby, staring at your screen without pause.
It gave him a bizarre sense of shame.
After returning to Hogwarts, Kasenhis first wandered around the castle inside and out, then delivered the souvenirs he had brought back from Italy to Hagrid and Filch.
As for Dumbledore… who knew what he was up to.
Maybe he'd gone to meet Grindelwald.
On the surface, Grindelwald was supposed to be under strict control at Hogwarts, but in truth, Kasenhis hadn't seen him around the castle much at all the previous term.
"…Everyone's busy, I suppose." Kasenhis sighed, returning to his office, and once again pulled out that trident.
Peeling off the strange layer of magic on it wasn't all that difficult for him. All he had to do was grind it down with a whetstone and then copy the patterns into an Enchantment Book.
As for the magic in the Enchantment Book… just roll it around on an anvil a few times, and eventually he'd manage to retranslate it into runes. The real challenge was applying this kind of magic.
After all, while he now had Ender Teleportation—practically the highest mobility in the wizarding world—using such extraordinary movement only to play the role of a mobile turret felt like a terrible waste.
And, as always, the problem with turret-style wide-area magic was that while it worked fine against groups, it was hard to take down a top-tier wizard at the very pinnacle of the magical world in a short span of time.
That was the common weakness of every AoE wizard. All the more reason he was eager for the chance to change class into an "assassin mage."
As for how to switch classes…
Alchemy, you know.
Kasenhis took off his shirt, pulled out a small diamond sword, casually ran it through some flames, then took a deep breath and aimed it at his forearm.
Squelch!
........
That evening, after finishing a private meal prepared by the house-elves, Dumbledore strolled out of the castle intending to take a walk around the Black Lake—when suddenly, more than half the lake was bathed in a bright orange-yellow glow.
He looked up, only to see that the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows of the Alchemy Office were radiating waves of warm light.
"So soon back already…" Dumbledore murmured, instinctively trying to Apparate—no use.
"Ah… pity these old bones of mine." He sighed, forced to settle for the next best thing: Apparating to the office doorway.
After rowing across the water to the work area, he caught a faint, strange whiff of blood in the air.
Dumbledore frowned.
He hadn't sensed any strong magical surges, so he didn't suspect Kasenhis of experimenting with some new bizarre spell on himself again.
Which left only one possibility.
"Kasenhis, are you injured?"
As he spoke, he slowly walked toward the corner, where the strange clanging sounds were still coming from.
"What are you doing?" Dumbledore asked. But the moment he got closer, his head felt like it exploded, spinning as he shouted again, "What are you doing!"
Kasenhis was wearing nothing but his underclothes… at most, a coat thrown over his shoulders.
His whole body was covered in markings scrawled with a marker, and both his arms were already bloodied.
Along the outside of his forearm was a long silver scar, nearly the length of the whole arm, and another ran along the inside of his wrist.
"Me? Alchemy experiments," Kasenhis replied matter-of-factly, glancing at Dumbledore before extending his arm.
Swish!
In an instant, a gleaming silver wrist-blade shot out from his wrist, shimmering faintly with purple magic.
"Not just this—there's more." The silver line along his forearm flashed, and in the next moment, two enormous mantis-like blades sprang out, gleaming silver alloy that pulsed with violet light.
"..."
Dumbledore's expression darkened to the extreme, yet he could only sigh and begin to lecture earnestly: "...Before I returned, Hogwarts had only you, Hagrid, and Filch. Do you have any idea—if something happened to you, not even St. Mungo's could save you?"
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