Disclaimer: I don't own anything. This is not meant to infringe upon copyrights.
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In the following days, Fred and George continued to come over frequently to refine the first product in their skiving candy series, Ton-Tongue Toffee.
However, Kyle found the process too tedious and chose to stay in his room reading instead of joining them.
This behavior left Fred and George speechless, as they saw Percy's shadow in Kyle.
But they couldn't say anything.
After all, Kyle was now their landlord and an important partner, and only here could they confidently and boldly research their inventions.
Of course, they wouldn't truly remain completely silent.
After being rejected once, George drawled, "Fred, I think we should order a batch of Fireworks right now to celebrate Kyle becoming a prefect early."
"Then we'll have to celebrate for four years," Fred said in the same tone. "After all, you have to be a prefect in your fifth year at Hogwarts, and he's only a second."
"Right, maybe six," George raised an eyebrow. "Don't forget about the head boy."
"Yeah, that's right...tsk tsk, six years of Fireworks, that's a huge expense."
The two chatted back and forth, their tone and expressions exactly like a certain Potions professor; anyone who didn't know better would think there were two Snapes standing at the door.
Kyle didn't say anything, silently giving them the middle finger before turning his gaze back to his desk.
There lay a stack of parchment covered in writing.
The contents of the parchment were copied from the forbidden section.
Kyle remembered it was a book about alchemy, titled *Magical Products: Alteration and Fusion*.
He hadn't been particularly interested in the book initially; after copying it, he'd left it there and hadn't looked at it for a long time.
But now it was different.
Helping the Weasley brothers research the skiving candy was just a bit of entertainment after finishing his homework; what he really wanted to know now was Horcruxes.
Kyle flipped through the parchment page by page, paying particular attention to the section on integrating magic into ordinary objects.
After all, this was the only information he could find that was somewhat related to Horcruxes.
Although the connection was a bit far-fetched, and Kyle didn't know if Horcruxes were related to alchemy, learning more couldn't hurt.
They were both related to fusion anyway, so what if there were some connections?
Souls and magic were quite different, but it wasn't impossible.
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He hadn't thought much of it before, but when Kyle started reading seriously, he found the book's content extremely obscure.
To fully understand it, Kyle ordered many books on alchemy from Diagon Alley via owl, starting to teach himself the subject from scratch.
Alchemy is indeed an expensive hoarding subject; even the most basic books cost at least ten Galleons, making it even more expensive than Lockhart's. Kyle spent a considerable amount of Galleons on this alone.
He studied like this for almost a month.
One evening a month later, Kyle sat at his desk as usual, but this time, he wasn't reading anything. Instead, he took out a wand and tried to control the toffee in front of him, making it slowly float up.
Ottery St. Catchpole was a wizarding village, where magic was practically useless, and the Ministry of Magic would have a hard time tracing his actions.
However, for safety's sake, Kyle only took out his wand at night, when the Ministry of Magic was closed, which was the busiest time.
Furthermore, he wasn't using his own wand, but rather the rat witch's.
After finding the wand, he immediately put it in his robe pocket without handing it over to Professor McGonagall or anyone from the Ministry of Magic.
Although the Aurors did ask him about the wand, it seemed more like a formality; Kyle simply claimed he hadn't seen it, and they left.
Perhaps in their eyes, the Forbidden Forest was so vast that losing a wand was perfectly normal—maybe some small animal had snatched it.
In the end, the wand became Kyle's trophy.
It wasn't very handy to use, feeling strangely awkward, like eating noodles with a spoon.
But you can't expect too much from something you found for free.
Under Kyle's control, the toffee began to peel away layer by layer, and after about five minutes, the whole candy had become thin, almost translucent "candy wrappers."
The wrappers were incredibly thin; if you looked closely, you could see different patterns on each one.
Kyle took out another small bottle containing a light blue swelling potion and waved his wand again.
Two drops of the potion floated out of the bottle, spreading and splitting in mid-air into countless thin, almost imperceptible lines that perfectly aligned with the patterns on the candy wrappers.
Then, the new wrappers began to coalesce towards the center, transforming back into a complete toffee.
This was Kyle's harvest over the past month: changing the form of matter and then fusing them together.
It was somewhat like the enchanting process in a game.
But unlike traditional alchemy, which directly embeds enchanted gems into weapons, Kyle's method was like crushing the gems and recasting them into the weapon.
The complexity increased exponentially, which explained why it was placed in the forbidden section.
Kyle picked up the toffee and examined it closely under the light… It looked just like ordinary candy, without any difference.
Breaking it open revealed no issues; it seemed to be just an ordinary toffee.
"Should I test the effect on someone?" Kyle muttered to himself.
This was his first time making something like this, and he was really unsure of himself, not even sure if it was a success. The best way was to find someone to test it.
Kyle considered potential test subjects.
Fred and George were the most suitable; they would probably be happy to try, but Kyle immediately ruled them out.
He wasn't learning this to perfect a product for the twins.
Besides, if they knew he could perfectly blend toffee and swelling potion, he wouldn't be able to do anything else this summer.
Ron was a good candidate…obedient, easy to fool, easy to coax, and convenient for shifting blame.
Potter, the savior who enrolled this year, was also good. He'd been in his comfort zone for years and didn't know how treacherous people in the wizarding world could be; this was a good opportunity to teach him a lesson. Kyle had put a lot of thought into it.
Both of them were suitable; who should he choose?
Kyle was a little conflicted.
[End of the chapter]