"Look, if you want to fish, why not go to the Black Lake instead of tormenting the Niffler here?"
In the common room, Kanna watched Kyle teasing Jerry with a twig and a red stone, and said irritably:
"Can't you just give it that piece of junk stone?"
"This isn't just some junk stone, it's a magic stone!" Kyle corrected her.
"Yeah, right, a 'magically created stone'..." Kanna pursed her lips, "I saw you smash it last night — it's just an ordinary pebble. Is this how you always trick the Niffler?"
"Don't say it like that." Kyle retorted, "This is just a form of entertainment. Look how happy it is."
Kanna raised an eyebrow as she glanced at Jerry, who was jumping up and down on its short legs. She couldn't understand how Kyle saw this as happiness.
It looked so anxious it might start speaking human language any moment!
Kanna sighed, taking out a gold Galleon and waving it in front of the little creature to attract its attention.
The Niffler, which normally froze at the sight of gold Galleons, didn't even glance her way. It continued to stare fixedly at the red stone in Kyle's hand.
Not giving up, Kanna took out a second Galleon, but it still didn't work.
"Save your effort. My stone is much shinier than your Galleons." Kyle grabbed Jerry by the scruff of its neck and tossed it back into its box, "Besides, you've already given it fifteen Galleons in the past few days... I must remind you, Nifflers really can't be used as wallets."
"Mind your own business!" Kanna's face reddened with embarrassment and anger, "And those Galleons are for him, you can't secretly take them away!"
"Ahem... I'm not that kind of person." Kyle's face stiffened, "But anyway, shouldn't you be having tutoring with Professor Snape right now? Why are you still in the common room?"
"I passed Professor Snape's test yesterday by successfully brewing the Draught of Living Death... so the tutoring is over."
"So you're free now?" Kyle took out a chessboard and placed it on the table, "Want to play a game of Wizard's Chess?"
"Alright..." Kanna nodded.
She didn't have many friends at Hogwarts, and both Cho and her roommates had gone home. Since she had nothing else to do, passing time with chess seemed like a decent option.
"But just so you know, I'm pretty average at chess, so don't complain about... wait, is this Wizard's Chess?" Kanna froze as she was about to set up the pieces.
Instead of the standard chess pieces she expected, she saw different magical creatures.
The front row featured a line of Nifflers, with trolls, hippogriffs, occamies, three-headed dogs, and dragons positioned behind them.
"Well, I finished my homework and had some free time, so I made a few small modifications." Kyle explained, "I just slightly changed their appearance — nothing difficult."
Kanna looked up at him with a deadpan expression.
Finished homework and had free time? Who says that? She had spent ten full days catching up on classes and still had extra homework!
How could Kyle say this to her face? Did he have no conscience?
"Why are you looking at me like that? You're playing black so you go first." Kyle urged.
Kanna glared at him before turning her attention back to the board.
By now, the "magical creatures" had already taken their positions, and she quickly figured out which pieces they represented.
✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✭✭
The two played three games in the common room, after which Kyle wanted to leave.
What Kanna had said earlier was completely false — she wasn't average at chess... she was terrible. If she had merely played poorly, that would have been fine, as beating a novice occasionally can be fun.
But the real problem was that she took forever to make each move. Matches that should have taken five minutes ended up dragging on for half an hour.
In the end, Kyle had completely lost interest in chess and felt that sitting there was pure torture. He wanted to escape. He'd do anything rather than play another game with Kanna, even rewrite all his homework from scratch.
But she wouldn't let him go, forcing him to play until noon.
To avoid her, after lunch, Kyle quickly left the castle and spent the afternoon at Hagrid's hut.
There he also met Harry and Ron. According to Ron, Harry had been having nightmares lately, and they had come to see if Hagrid had any solution to this problem.
"So why don't you go to the hospital wing to see Madam Pomfrey?" Kyle asked, confused.
He really couldn't understand their logic. In his view, the only way Hagrid could solve nightmares would be to knock Harry out with a punch.
Or were first-years just this unorthodox these days?
"I... I don't want to go to the hospital wing..." Harry said quietly.
He certainly knew that Madam Pomfrey at the hospital wing was more professional than Hagrid, but he worried that if he went there, she would ask about the content of his nightmares.
For certain reasons, he didn't want too many people to know about this.
"I'm sorry, Harry, I can't help you." Hagrid said as he poured them tea and offered rock cakes, "Kyle is right, you should go directly to the hospital wing. I went there when I couldn't sleep, and Madam Pomfrey solved it in just a minute. The potions don't taste great though, so be prepared for that."
"...Alright." Harry's disappointment was evident.
Despite Hagrid's advice, Harry still had no intention of visiting the hospital wing. He hoped that once classes resumed and his schedule filled up, the nightmares would simply fade away.
With this thought in mind, Harry picked up a rock cake and began nibbling on it slowly.
"If you really don't want to go to the hospital wing, I have another solution you could try." Kyle produced a vial of potion and placed it on the table.
"What's that?" Ron asked curiously.
"Draught of Living Death, the same one Hagrid drank." Kyle explained, "Just a small sip will put you into a deep sleep. You wouldn't wake up even if a dragon were dancing beside you."
Harry picked up the vial and asked skeptically, "This will stop me from having nightmares?"
"It should." Kyle nodded, "You could try it first. With just a tiny sip, you'll probably sleep for about an hour — not long enough to affect your sleep tonight. But one thing — its effects are strong, so you'd better wait until you get back to your dormitory... uh."
Before Kyle could finish his warning, Harry had already opened the cap and taken a sip of the potion.
"What did you just say?"
"Nothing, it doesn't matter now." Kyle turned to Ron and said, "Get ready, Potter probably won't be able to walk back to the dormitory by himself."
As if on cue, Harry's head slowly drooped and he slumped sideways in his chair, completely motionless.
✭✭✭
T/N: Hey! Liked what you read? Support your friendly neighborhood translator on Patreon! Think of it as buying me a coffee... or ten!
For just $1.50 (that's less than your daily meme budget), get extra chapters! Want more? $2 gets you bonus content, $5 unlocks premium stories, and $10 makes you my hero (and gets you everything I have, including earlier acess to new books)! You can have access to almost 15 books!
That's it and happy reading! (-‿◦)
https://www.patreon.com/collection/1305453