No matter how fun Care of Magical Creatures was, the class was only held once a week.
In fact, that was true for the majority of Hogwarts classes, not just Magical Creatures.
In other words, a student could attend every single one of their required classes for the year at least once within a single week.
And today, exactly one week after the start of the term, we were about to attend our final new class.
It was traditionally the most popular class at Hogwarts.
So popular, in fact, that it had gone through the highest number of professors.
The Defence Against the Dark Arts class.
"Alright, I wonder if everyone's here."
As I was admiring the dragon fossil hanging from the ceiling, a voice called out from the professor's desk.
The man standing at the front of the class wrote his name in large letters on the blackboard.
*Remus J. Lupin.*
With a refreshing smile, he spoke.
"Now then, that's my name."
From our group—that is, me, Harry, Hermione, and Ron—who were all clustered together as usual, a whisper emerged.
"It really was Mr. Lupin."
"Mr. Lupin?"
"He's a friend of my father's."
Lupin clearly heard the whispering, but instead of scolding the students for not paying attention, he simply looked at Harry with a gentle smile.
It was only for a moment. Reminding himself that he was here not to see his friend's son but to teach as a Hogwarts professor, Lupin clapped his hands together.
"As you all know, Defence Against the Dark Arts isn't simply a subject about dealing with Dark wizards. It's a place to learn how to handle all sorts of imaginable evils: dark magic, magical disasters, magical creatures, artifacts, and so on."
He added, "Personally, I think the name of this subject should be changed."
A few soft chuckles rippled through the students at Lupin's joke.
Lupin shrugged and continued.
"Alright, on that note, I apologize for jumping right into the material on our first day, but I've brought something very interesting instead. Yes, everyone, please stand up! Form a single line right here!"
As the students murmured and shuffled into a line, Lupin grunted and strained as he dragged something out from his office.
It was a wardrobe.
A very old, unadorned wardrobe that looked as if it could fall apart at any moment.
After moving the wardrobe with great effort, which seemed a feat for his thin, frail-looking frame, Lupin wiped his brow and asked, "Now, it should be obvious this is no ordinary wardrobe. There's something quite terrifying inside. Would anyone like to guess what it is?"
Beside me, Hermione muttered, "Something terrifying?" before confidently raising her hand.
Lupin smiled and pointed at her.
"Yes, the young lady there. Would you like to give it a try?"
Hermione stood up with a confident smile and enunciated clearly.
"That wardrobe definitely contains a Boggart."
Lupin's smile turned intrigued.
"And on what grounds do you base that answer?"
"Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces like wardrobes or the spaces under beds. Places where their existence can't be confirmed until they're observed by someone. And... you said it was 'something terrifying,' and there's no better way to describe a Boggart than that."
Lupin chuckled heartily.
"Excellent. A perfect explanation. Five points to Gryffindor. Yes, just as this student explained, there is a Boggart inside. For those of you who are curious about what a Boggart is, please open your textbooks to page 47."
The classroom filled with the rustling of pages as students began to murmur amongst themselves.
Harry and I, of course, already knew what a Boggart was, so we didn't open our books. Hermione, however, flipped through her textbook despite already knowing, while Ron did so because he genuinely didn't know.
A Boggart is a magical creature that manifests one's inner fears.
It's a creature that frightens its target by transforming into the very thing they fear most.
Of course, like most magic that interferes with the mind, it was a rather trivial creature that would flounder and self-destruct if you simply maintained a strong Occlumency shield. The slight difficulty was that any wizard capable of using Occlumency could also easily dispose of a Boggart without it.
However, using Occlumency in class and causing the Boggart to self-destruct would be a nuisance, as it would destroy the teaching material. I decided against it.
Harry quietly asked me, "Master. Is it okay for your Boggart to appear?"
I let out a small laugh at his concern. I supposed it would be startling if a 13-year-old kid saw a Boggart and some unimaginable monster suddenly popped out.
But there was no need for such worries. I already knew what I feared most.
Seeing my smile, Harry seemed to shed his concern and nodded.
"Alright, let's have you come up one by one and face your fears! Don't forget, the charm is 'Riddikulus'!"
The first to step forward was Ron.
Tense with anticipation, Ron opened the wardrobe door, and what jumped out was… a spider.
The only problem was, it was a talking spider.
When the spider opened its mouth, the voice that came out was a complete mismatch: the booming cry of Professor Trelawney.
[Ron Weasley, how dare you ignore the prophecy!]
It seemed he'd gotten fixated on prophecies recently. Perhaps Hermione's disappearance right before his eyes had been a greater shock than I thought.
Ron, his face pale, thrust his wand forward and shouted.
"Ri-Riddikulus!"
*Poof!*
Seeing the spider, now doing a crab dance on its eight legs after being hit by the spell, Ron broke into a much more relaxed smile. But was that really an improvement? That dance looked even more bizarre.
The next one up was Hermione.
She nervously opened the wardrobe door, and what emerged was… wait. Why am I coming out of there?
The fake Aisen looked at Hermione, his face a cold mask as he stared down at her dispassionately.
[Hermione. It seems your aptitude is far too lacking. You can't even cast a simple spell like this. I'm sorry, but your feelings…]
"RIDDIKULUS!"
Hermione, her face the color of a beetroot, shrieked the spell like a scream.
Struck by the charm, the fake Aisen was instantly changed into a Santa Claus costume, complete with a fake white beard, and began to spin around, dancing with a wide grin.
"Pfft."
I heard Harry next to me fail to stifle a laugh.
A sharp jab to his side quieted him, but soft giggles were already echoing throughout the classroom. For heaven's sake.
I quietly interrogated Hermione as she returned with a flushed face.
"Hey, why did I show up as your greatest fear? Am I scary?"
"I-I don't know! You idiot."
And with that, she put some distance between us. Was I really that frightening to her? I felt a little hurt.
For some reason, Harry shot me a fed-up look, but he quickly turned away when I glared back.
"Alright, next up is Harry!"
At Lupin's call, Harry strode forward confidently.
Even though Harry was the one facing the Boggart, Lupin seemed even more nervous, swallowing hard.
Was he worried about what Harry's Boggart might be?
Lupin looked ready to leap in front of Harry at a moment's notice, but his preparations were rendered moot as Harry flung the wardrobe door open without a hint of hesitation.
"...?"
And what was inside the wardrobe was a single, pristine white hat.
For Lupin, who had been expecting Voldemort or, at the very least, a dangerous creature like a Basilisk, this couldn't have been more anticlimactic.
Harry, however, upon seeing the hat, let out a piercing scream.
"Aaaaaah! That damned hat! Riddikulus!"
Struck by the spell, the magical apprentice's hat turned black, transforming into the Sorting Hat, and immediately began to sing its strange song. (TN: The text distinguishes between a generic "magical training hat" and the specific "Sorting Hat" it becomes.)
The only one in the room who understood the situation, I had to swallow my laughter.
"Alright, next is... Neville Longbottom."
Lupin's voice was hesitant. Perhaps because Harry's turn had passed without incident, he seemed slightly relieved.
Then, Neville nervously opened the wardrobe door.
A cackling laugh, one that Harry and I knew all too well, echoed thunderously through the classroom.
"Kyahahaha! You foolish, idiotic boy, what could you possibly do?"
Bursting out of the wardrobe was a witch with disheveled black hair. It was none other than Bellatrix Lestrange.
Seeing her, Neville's hands trembled so badly he couldn't even say the spell properly.
"Ri-ri-ricul-Riddi!"
Lupin rushed forward and stood between Bellatrix and Neville. The Boggart flinched for a moment before shifting into the shape of a full moon.
"Riddikulus."
After confirming the Boggart was flying away like a deflating balloon, Lupin immediately turned to check on Neville.
"My boy, my boy. Snap out of it. Are you alright? Here, have a piece of chocolate."
"Yes, yes. I'm fine."
Seeing Neville gasping for breath, Lupin announced, "Everyone, I'm afraid we'll have to stop the class here. I'll take Neville to the hospital wing. I'll see you all next lesson."
And just like that, the class ended anticlimactically. A mixture of disappointed groans and happy cheers that class was over filled the air.
"Well then, should we all head to lunch? Aisen, what are you doing? Let's go!"
"Huh? Ah, I'll be out in a bit. I have something to take care of."
Ron urged me on, but I didn't move.
Though puzzled, the trio—Harry, Hermione, and Ron—listened to me, nodded, and headed out the door.
After all the students had left the classroom.
*Creeak!*
The sound of the old wooden door closing echoed.
I waited until I was sure all traces of the students were gone from outside the door, then quietly opened the wardrobe containing the Boggart.
*Whoosh!*
The sound of the Boggart changing shape.
And what came out of the wardrobe was...
I confirmed what it was and silently closed the door.
Then, with a bitter smile, I left the classroom.
...And in the classroom Aisen had just left, Hermione, who had been holding her breath behind the curtains, tiptoed out.
*
How could Hermione, who had just left the classroom, have been hiding in that spot without even Aisen noticing? The answer was the power of the Time-Turner.
An hour later, by turning back time.
Even while eating with Harry and Ron in the Great Hall, Hermione couldn't focus. Her mind was consumed with what Aisen had stayed behind in that classroom to do.
Her overactive mind soon deduced a plausible reason for Aisen's actions, and her brilliant brain produced the correct answer.
'He's definitely going to look at his own Boggart!'
What was the thing Aisen feared most? What if it was something that seemed trivial to others? If so, maybe she could protect him!
Then Aisen would thank her, and then Hermione would...
Hermione shook her head violently, trying to dispel the fantasy.
So, how could she find out what Aisen's Boggart was?
As Hermione schemed for the first time in her life, her unnecessarily clever brain once again provided the solution.
'Right, the Time-Turner!'
A Time-Turner changes the user's place in time, but not their place in space.
That meant if she used the Time-Turner in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom an hour in the future, she could infiltrate the classroom in the past as if appearing from thin air, leaving no trace.
This was, of course, a clear violation of Professor McGonagall's stern warning to "never use it for personal purposes," but nothing could stop Hermione, a Gryffindor who was nothing if not bold when she set her mind to something.
'Finding out what my friend fears most isn't an *entirely* personal reason, is it?'
After a moment of self-justification that even she didn't believe, Hermione successfully snuck into the empty Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom and gave the Time-Turner a single turn.
What she saw was herself and her friends saying goodbye to Aisen and closing the classroom door behind them.
Aisen waited until everyone was completely gone, then clicked open the wardrobe door.
And what appeared from within was none other than...
Aisen.
It was a name Hermione didn't know, but it was Aisen Knightly, not Aisen Potter.
His appearance was identical, like looking in a mirror.
The sight of Aisen facing the Boggart was a perfect decalcomania.
The only difference was that Aisen's silver-blue hair, normally concealed by magic, was fully visible on the Boggart.
Brushing back his blue hair, 'Aisen' spoke.
[Oh dear. I've made a mistake.]
He wore his usual mischievous smile, but it was filled not with playfulness, but with malice.
A smile that made one feel an overwhelming urge to break something.
After watching it silently for a moment, Aisen closed the wardrobe door.
[What do you think you're doing? Open it! Now!]
A pounding sound came from the wardrobe as the Boggart tried to force the door open, but Aisen had already re-established his mental barriers with Occlumency.
No longer able to read his mind, the Boggart lost its form inside the wardrobe, and the pounding ceased.
Aisen murmured quietly.
"Then and now, the only thing I fear is myself."
And with that, Aisen put the equipment back in its place, opened the door, and left the classroom.
Hermione, who had been watching the entire scene from behind the curtains while holding her breath, was finally able to exhale.
***