Perhaps it was the same setup Dumbledore had used before, but the two stone gargoyles standing guard outside his office seemed to recognize Kane. Even the professors needed a password to enter the Headmaster's office, but he didn't.
Knock, knock, knock...
After a moment's thought, Kane decided to knock anyway.
The door opened on its own almost immediately, and Dumbledore sat smiling in his chair. "Let me guess—you've run into a little problem with your magic?"
Kane raised an eyebrow. With just a thought, he released all the magical shadow energy from his body, letting it dissipate outward before drawing it back in.
"Sorry to disappoint you. I figured it out the same day."
"Truly excellent. So what brings you here, then?"
"What did you mean by that speech in the Great Hall? Nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak? Those four words?" Kane asked.
Dumbledore spread his hands with an innocent expression.
"Every year, I just say a few random words, and then plenty of young witches and wizards help me explain what those words truly mean. But the truth is, I don't even know I've given them all that hidden meaning. It's just for fun."
Kane looked at Dumbledore with a smile. He was already regretting coming here. He could've been back in the dorm having a pillow fight with Harry and Ron instead.
"What a waste of time," Kane said quietly, turning to leave.
Dumbledore sat in his chair, looking helpless. "I just said it off the cuff. Did you really expect me to come up with some profound, mysterious explanation on the spot?"
On the way back to the dormitory, a cat's meow suddenly sounded behind Kane. He turned around and saw Filch carrying a lamp.
"Mm..." Filch looked at the young wizard in front of him, who clearly had a close relationship with the Headmaster, and slowly said, "It's past curfew now, but seeing as this is your first offense, don't let it happen again."
"Thank you, sir." Kane quickened his pace and left the corridor, soon returning to his dormitory.
There weren't many young wizards in this year's class. Gryffindor, for example, only had six boys total. Kane, Harry, and Ron shared one dorm, while another housed Neville, Seamus Finnigan, and Dean Thomas.
By now, Harry and Ron had mostly finished their fight. The pillows that had been fluffy and firm were now limp and lifeless, completely worn out.
At the moment, the two of them were using a small cauldron in the dorm to boil spaghetti.
"Wow, smells great! Is there any for me?" Kane hurried over, hoping to get a share.
"Of course, but you two need to get your own forks," Ron said, stirring the spaghetti while sending Kane and Harry to fetch forks.
By the time the two returned with forks in hand, they found Ron already clutching the cauldron by himself, slurping up noodles.
"???" Kane and Harry both stared at the scene in shock. "So?"
"Yeah, it's all gone," Ron said, slurping up another mouthful of noodles.
Kane laughed helplessly and tapped Ron with his finger. "You!"
The next moment, shadows immediately grabbed Ron's limbs, making him stop his assault on what should have been Kane's share of spaghetti.
After the second round of chaos ended, the three finally settled down. Ron and Harry exchanged a look, and finally Harry cleared his throat. "Ahem, Kane, you said you were going to ask Dumbledore about something. What was it?"
"Just about those four words in his opening speech. The nitwit and oddment thing," Kane said casually.
"So what did that speech actually mean?" Harry immediately became interested.
"I bet it's some kind of really advanced spell!" Ron's eyes lit up, too.
"He said he didn't think that much about it. They're just four completely useless words, but every year there are bored young wizards like us who study his randomly made-up opening speech."
Harry and Ron both fell silent. That explanation didn't match up at all with a legendary wizard like Dumbledore.
"Mm... I don't believe it," Harry said, shaking his head.
"Maybe Dumbledore didn't tell you the truth? Maybe it's some strange protective spell that would stop working if he told you about it?" Ron continued to speculate.
"Well, I don't know. Maybe tomorrow you two can go ask him yourselves?" Kane said, sitting up on his bed. Then something suddenly occurred to him: other people needed a password to visit Dumbledore's office, didn't they?
Whatever. They might not even go.
But contrary to his expectations, Harry and Ron nodded in unison. "We'll go!"
"Good luck to you both."
Kane scratched his head somewhat helplessly. Maybe Dumbledore would be kind enough to let them in. None of this mattered much to him now anyway.
The most important thing right now was to get his campfire out again before midnight arrived.
After all this time, his campfire had naturally leveled up. It had shrunk from a fire pit big enough to roast a whole chicken down to a small light source that could sit on his bedside table.
He and Harry had made this miniature campfire using cobblestones they'd pried up from the pavement in Diagon Alley.
Ron glanced at Kane's bedside table with its burning flame...
"Uh... Kane, your bedside table looks like it's running a fever," Ron said quietly.
Before Kane could explain, Harry jumped in to answer this odd question. "That's his night light. Our Mr. Kane Heath here is afraid of the dark."
Kane's face flushed red. This was clearly a rule from The Constant; how could it be called being afraid of the dark?
"It's okay, Kane. If you're really scared, we can keep the lights on at night. Ron and I will just use our bed curtains," Ron said very understandingly. In this regard, he was much better than the humanized Harry.
Kane remembered the first time Harry stayed under the same roof with him, when he'd routinely set up his campfire. What had Harry done then?
For some reason, Harry had thought that leaving the Dursleys meant Kane was a homeless street kid, not that he was living comfortably at Hogwarts.
Speaking of which, Dumbledore wouldn't let something slip tomorrow, would he? Probably not. Dumbledore was such a reliable person.
With that thought, Kane lay in bed with a blissful expression and fell into a deep sleep.
As for his remaining question—how to turn the frog's properties from The Constant into a spell...
Tomorrow's first class was Charms. If there was anything he didn't understand, he'd just ask the professor. Having a teacher and not asking questions, just puzzling it out alone, that would be stupid.
And so, Hogwarts arrived at its second day.
Kane felt his sanity had dropped a bit more. Honestly, he really didn't want to use that garland. A grown boy wearing that thing, if people saw him, it'd be downright weird.
But to avoid being chased all over Hogwarts by shadow creatures...
What misery!
"So, can you please take that thing off your head? Everyone in the Great Hall is staring at you," Harry said, somewhat embarrassed.
"In a bit, I'll make one for each of you, too. Then you can keep me company," Kane said while eating his oatmeal porridge.
"Uh, I don't think that's necessary."
"Me neither."
"Um... maybe I could keep you company?" Neville, sitting one seat away from Kane with Harry between them, suddenly said quietly.