"Do you want to hear the truth or a lie?" Victor asked.
"What do you think?!" Hermione rolled her eyes. Why would she want to hear a lie? It would just be a waste of time.
"Oh, you want to hear the lie first, is that it?" Victor pretended not to hear her, looking completely serious.
"No, you misheard me, I want to…" Hermione, in her naivety, thought Victor hadn't heard her correctly and tried to explain, but he immediately cut her off.
"The lie is, after repeated requests from Dumbledore, I've agreed to stop using magic randomly at Hogwarts!"
"..."
So it really was a lie! Not just Hermione, but every other student who heard Victor's statement was instantly silent. In just one week, Victor had used magic in the school more than all the first and second-year students combined.
For instance, in the library, he would use magic to pull a book off a shelf and into his hand when Madam Pince wasn't looking.
Another time, when a staircase started to randomly change, Victor would pull out his wand and forcibly drag the moving stairs back into place, which seemed to have made the staircases less likely to move on their own now.
He also found an empty plot of land outside the Forbidden Forest and started a garden, planting all sorts of vegetables and fruits.
Now, every day, there were students who would go there to watch, and the garden tools, like hoes, shovels, and watering cans, were all magically tending to the sprouting plants for him.
And similar incidents were countless.
Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick had both spoken to Victor, telling him that he was seriously breaking school rules. But Victor was completely unfazed by their reprimands. He would calmly pull out a copy of Hogwarts: A History that he had prepared beforehand and start a "debate" with the two professors that was impossible to refute.
According to the first rule of Hogwarts, students were not allowed to use magic in the corridors. But Victor would point out that every time he used magic, it was never in a corridor. He would take off or cast a spell in the courtyard, on the lawn outside the castle, in the library, or on a staircase he didn't like.
The portraits and ghosts of Hogwarts could all testify to this. Furthermore, there was no rule in the Hogwarts code that forbade students from growing vegetables on school grounds. Professor Dumbledore had only said that students were not allowed in the Forbidden Forest, and his garden was not in the Forbidden Forest!
After several futile attempts at persuasion, Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick eventually gave up on Victor. They felt there was no need to get angry with a student at their age, especially since he hadn't technically broken any rules.
As a result, the students of Hogwarts had become accustomed to seeing someone flying around different parts of the school. Because of this, Hermione and the others would have been more likely to believe that the Weasley twins would stop their pranks than they were to believe Victor would stop using magic around the school.
"Tell me the truth!"
Seeing Victor's antics, Hermione grabbed a book and threw it at him, but it stopped a hand's length away.
"Calm down, it wouldn't be good if you hit a student!" Victor moved the floating book aside. "The truth is, I don't know what that old busybody wanted with me. It seems he just wanted to chat."
"Just chat?!" Hermione was skeptical. And what was with the nickname, "old busybody"? She had seen Professor McGonagall take Victor away, and if Dumbledore just wanted to chat, he could have just had a student deliver a message. She didn't believe for a second that the Headmaster, who had so many things to do, would simply call Victor in for a chat.
"What did you talk about?" Hermione asked curiously.
"At first, the old busybody just asked me who taught me magic, but then we somehow started talking about Voldemort!"
"Voldemort…" Hermione looked confused. "Who is that?"
As soon as she finished speaking, there was a series of clattering sounds as forks and knives were dropped on plates. Because Hermione hadn't lowered her voice, some of the students from wizarding families nearby had heard the name "Voldemort" and instantly looked terrified. They immediately pushed their plates away and put some distance between themselves and Hermione.
"What are you all doing? I was just asking about Vol…"
"Shhh! Shhh!!" The students who had backed away quickly put their index fingers to their lips, signaling for Hermione not to say the name.
"This…" Hermione looked at Victor for help.
Victor saw the look in her eyes and remembered that Hermione had only just entered the wizarding world. Coupled with the fact that Voldemort's name was practically a taboo, she had no idea who he was.
"Hmm… let's put it this way: just think of him as a terrorist leader whose mind is filled with extremely bloody thoughts all the time, okay?" Victor didn't want Hermione to know too much. It wouldn't do her any good, and it would likely stir up the Gryffindor lion's curiosity within her.
However, Hermione didn't seem to appreciate Victor's intention. She was staring at him with a very unique look, and she grabbed his hands, which were busy eating.
"Tell! Me! Now!" Hermione said, enunciating each word.
"Pfft!" Victor couldn't help but laugh at her angry expression. He managed to suppress his laughter. "That look on your face is exactly the same as Fiona's when she's hungry!"
"Fiona?"
"My owl."
"..."
Hermione immediately picked up another book nearby and threw it, but it still didn't touch Victor. After a moment of playful banter, Victor gently patted Hermione's head.
"Alright, that's enough. I'm not going to tell you about Voldemort. The bottom line is, it's not something you should know about right now."
"But if you really want to know, don't go around asking people about it. They'll think you're mad."
With that, Victor packed up twenty sausages and thirty chicken legs from the table and leisurely walked out of the Great Hall. Just as he was leaving, Hermione slowly floated down from the air. She angrily watched Victor disappear, fixed her messy hair, and sat there fuming.
Meanwhile, after leaving the Great Hall, Victor took off from the lawn outside and flew straight to the Ravenclaw Tower. He opened the common room window and pulled back the curtains as he normally would, intending to go back to the common room to read a book and have a cup of hot cocoa.
But as soon as he entered, he saw at least two dozen Ravenclaws staring at mirrors in front of them, occasionally whispering to each other. The whole scene was bizarre.
Victor's gut told him that this strange scene was likely his fault. So, with the mindset of not disturbing the students, Victor planned to quietly fly back out the window and just go to his dorm.
But he had no such luck.
He had just turned around when someone who heard the window open grabbed him. Penelope was clutching the back of his robes. "Victor, you're finally back!"
Victor broke out in a cold sweat. Penelope's words were a clear indication that he was the reason for the weirdness in the Ravenclaw common room. Victor stiffly turned his head, his mouth twitching. "G-good evening, Penelope…"
At that moment, the other Ravenclaws in the common room noticed Victor's return and all rushed toward him.
"Dreyar, we've been waiting for you!"
"Quick, explain to us what you meant by 'another pair of eyes'!"
"Yeah! Yeah!"
"..."
Victor was completely bewildered by the chattering of the students, and their chaotic voices were giving him a headache. He quickly yelled, "Stop! Stop! Quiet!!"
"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" The students immediately fell silent, looking at each other, and Penelope began to explain what had happened.
It turned out that after Victor had spoken with Penelope about how to fly with the Levitation Charm, she had been spending all her free time in the common room or her dorm, just staring at a mirror. At first, the other Ravenclaws didn't think much of Penelope's strange behavior, as the house was full of people doing weird things all the time. But this afternoon, things took a turn.
The Ravenclaw prefect, Ivanna Blanchard, returned from class and saw her successor squatting there staring at a mirror again. She was curious and asked, "Penelope, I've seen you staring into a mirror for a few days now. What are you doing?"
"Oh, nothing. I just heard Victor say that we have another pair of eyes that we've overlooked. Once we find them, we can fly with the Levitation Charm," Penelope explained, still looking at the mirror. "I've been looking for days, but I still can't figure out what he meant. But I know he's right, because I feel like the answer is right in front of me, I just can't grasp it."
"You mean Victor Dreyar?" Ivanna asked, sitting down next to Penelope. "Tell me exactly what he said." Ivanna was clearly intrigued by what Penelope had said.
Penelope then told Ivanna almost exactly what Victor had said. While they were talking, another Ravenclaw walked into the common room. He walked in and saw two beautiful girls sitting in front of a mirror, and he wanted to go over and talk to them, but as he got closer, he was drawn into their conversation about flying.
And just like that, the news spread like wildfire. The whole afternoon, half of Ravenclaw House was involved in a discussion about how to fly with the Levitation Charm, and some of them were even skipping dinner to stare into mirrors in the common room.