By the next day, Ron was in much worse shape. His wound had started to fester, and his entire hand had turned an ugly green.
When Charlie, Anthony, and Hector arrived at the hospital wing, they found Madam Pomfrey in the middle of cleaning out the infection.
"How's it going? Does it hurt?" Anthony asked.
Ron shook his head. He looked at Anthony and Hector with a slightly surprised expression, like he hadn't expected them to visit.
"It's fine. Thanks to Charlie telling me yesterday that the bite was venomous. If we'd waited until today to deal with it, who knows what would've happened."
"Madam Pomfrey says if the wound doesn't get any worse by tomorrow, I can go."
"That's good. Looking at you like this, I don't think I'll be visiting that hut anytime soon."
"Not unless you've got Hagrid's build," Hector said with a laugh beside him.
The "hut" obviously meant Hagrid's place, and the "build" obviously meant Hagrid's massive frame.
It was true. Only someone with Hagrid's size could realistically keep Norbert as a pet right now.
"I saw Hagrid's hands. Norbert's teeth can already break his skin. The venom just doesn't seem to affect him at all."
"You noticed that?" Anthony looked at Hector, surprised.
"Observation. Sharp eyes, my friend." Hector tapped the corner of his eye smugly.
Before they could say anything else, Madam Pomfrey came over. "Alright, visiting hours are over. You can't keep disturbing the patient."
The three of them nodded and said goodbye to Ron before leaving the hospital wing.
Out in the corridor, they ran into Harry and Hermione, who had also come to visit.
Hermione was carrying a book and a notebook, muttering under her breath, "It's already this late in the term. Even if he's in the hospital wing, he can't fall behind on revision."
Harry looked a little helpless. He'd tried to tell her not to put so much pressure on an injured Ron, but there was no changing Hermione's mind.
When they saw Charlie and the others, Harry and Hermione stopped outside the hospital wing door and chatted for a few minutes.
Charlie wasn't particularly talkative. To be honest, every casual conversation lately seemed to circle back to Hagrid and the dragon. He was getting tired of it.
Right now, all they could do was wait for Norbert to become too much to handle. There wasn't anything else to do.
On top of that, he had his own problems to worry about—like Malfoy.
Charlie glanced left and right down the corridor and sighed. "If that guy's still following me, I'm guessing he's not just using the Disillusionment Charm. He's probably staying completely silent too."
Harry looked confused. "What's 'completely silent'?"
"It's a charm that cancels out any sound you make," Hermione explained to him.
"There's a spell like that?" Harry's eyes lit up. He immediately wanted to learn it.
Of course, the thought only lasted a second.
"We can talk about it later if there's time. If I come up with any ideas about the dragon, I'll let you know.
I probably won't be going back to Hagrid's hut for a while."
Harry and Hermione both nodded. They understood what Charlie was worried about.
Having a pair of eyes watching you from the shadows wasn't a pleasant feeling.
After saying goodbye to Harry and Hermione, the three of them headed upstairs. Anthony asked, "So the Room of Requirement's been exposed. What are you going to do now?"
"Buy a suitcase."
Charlie gave a small smile, his tone light. "Don't worry. I've been sick of walking down from the tower and then climbing all the way up to the eighth floor every day. As for the club—"
Anthony waved a hand dismissively. "That's not urgent."
At this point, the club was more symbolic than anything. Besides being bigger and letting them practice spells without holding back, the Room of Requirement wasn't that different from their own dorm. After all, it was still just the three of them.
Hector glanced at Charlie. "By the way, I always thought you'd bring Harry and Hermione into the club right away."
"No rush. Some things need the right moment."
"That's true," Hector nodded.
"Honestly, if we had to give the club an official purpose, it'd be chocolate, right?"
"I guess you could say that?" Charlie said with an uncertain smile.
"So when we invite new people in the future, maybe we should start from the chocolate angle?"
"Good idea," Anthony's eyes lit up.
When they reached the third floor, Charlie said goodbye. "I'm going to the fifth floor to look up some books. You two head back first."
He needed books on the Undetectable Extension Charm and alchemy.
Even though he already had experience making small expandable storage items, scaling a space up enough to fit a person—enough to sustain life—was completely different.
Once a space got large enough, all kinds of problems appeared: air circulation, structural stability, anchoring gravity direction, and so on. One issue after another waiting to be solved.
The research kept him busy until evening.
After Madam Pince kicked him out of the library, he didn't head straight back to the common room.
Should he go to the kitchens for something to eat, or just go back to the dorm?
Oh, right. He should go to the Room of Requirement and find a secondhand suitcase.
Out of habit, his penny-pinching side surfaced for a second—then he immediately rejected the idea.
No. He'd already made money. He could afford to treat himself better than that.
Buy a new one.
Besides, he shouldn't be casually using the Room of Requirement anymore anyway.
The Room of Requirement wasn't exactly a secret, but it also wasn't something everyone knew about—especially the version full of junk.
If the person following him spread the word and made the Room of Requirement common knowledge, then Quirrell might get the idea to move the diadem somewhere else.
That would be a problem.
After everything with Malfoy and Hagrid, Charlie had become even more careful about changing the timeline.
The diadem couldn't be allowed to go anywhere.
So first priority: buy a new suitcase.
Second priority: figure out a way to flush out whoever was following him.
With that in mind, he went back to the dorm and found Anthony.
Through him, Charlie got the name of a shop in Diagon Alley that sold household goods and sent an owl to order a proper travel suitcase.
One week later.
Breakfast time. Harry was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, updating Charlie on how Norbert was doing.
Ron had zero interest in visiting the dragon anymore, and Hermione was buried in revision, so Harry was the only one still going.
"Even without counting his tail and wings, he's already as big as Fang now."
"Hagrid's started feeding him crates of dead rats. Seriously, Charlie, you have no idea how bad that box smelled last night."
"And if you listen carefully at night, you can hear him roaring. I could hear it from the dorm."
"Also, Fang's tail is wrapped in white bandages. I'm pretty sure Norbert bit it."
"Mm-hmm." Charlie nodded while shoveling food into his mouth.
Once he was full, he grabbed a napkin, wiped his mouth, and finally said, "What about that idea we gave you the other day?"
The other day, Charlie had casually mentioned that if they could find a proper place for a dragon to live, maybe Hagrid would be willing to let go.
The second the words left his mouth, Harry had thought of Ron's older brother—also named Charlie—who worked at a dragon sanctuary in Romania.
They'd settled on the idea quickly, but the biggest problem remained: Hagrid didn't want to let go.
"I told Hagrid, but he… he doesn't want to. He keeps saying Norbert doesn't have a mother and the other dragons would bully him.
I didn't dare say anything else. You should've seen his eyes. They were all red."
As he spoke, Harry looked at Charlie expectantly—the same way he had in the hospital wing when they'd said that if it came down to it, Charlie would play the bad guy.
After all, Charlie had been the one to chase off the original person who was supposed to fill that role.
"I do want to do something. That's what I said at the beginning," Charlie said, looking reluctant. "But you know I've been followed by someone using the Disillusionment Charm lately.
If I go to Hagrid's hut too often, they'll definitely—"
"I've got a way," Harry suddenly cut in, leaning closer and lowering his voice. "I've got an Invisibility Cloak. I can lend it to you."
Charlie put on an appropriately surprised expression, then nodded. "Perfect. Can you give it to me at lunch?
I'll check it out. If everything looks good tonight, I'll find a time to go over."
Harry visibly relaxed, looking relieved and excited. "It's a deal, then."
He got up immediately and hurried back to the Gryffindor table to quietly share the good news with Hermione and Ron.
At midday, Harry arrived with a package. In Charlie's opinion, it was basically just an old T-shirt wrapped around something.
"You couldn't find a normal bag?" Charlie asked with a laugh, shaking his head.
Harry just gave an embarrassed smile.
Once he had the Invisibility Cloak, Charlie went straight back to the dorm and then to the club room.
He pulled the bundle out of the club's expandable bag, unwrapped it, and revealed a silvery, fluid-looking fabric that shimmered like moonlight.
"Charlie, what's that?" Fiona asked, floating above a bright red strawberry.
"Invisibility Cloak," Charlie answered. Then he shook his head. "Fiona, perfect timing. I need your help with something."
The little sprite flew over and landed on Charlie's palm, raising both hands excitedly. "Charlie asks, Fiona delivers!"
"Someone's been following me. I need you to stay behind me.
At the right moment, I'll try to make him drop whatever spell he's using. What I need you to do is get a clear look at his face."
This was how Charlie planned to catch the follower. The only people who could turn invisible weren't just the ones using Disillusionment Charms or Invisibility Cloaks.
There was also Fiona—an existence that didn't belong to this world at all.
Charlie laid out his entire plan to Fiona in detail, telling her exactly what to do and how to do it.
Dinner time. The Great Hall.
After eating, Charlie made an excuse and left Anthony and Hector behind.
He started wandering aimlessly through the corridors outside the Great Hall.
The biggest difference between spells and alchemical items was that a spell needed constant energy input to maintain an effect for a long time.
In simple terms, it drained mental energy, spiritual energy, and magical power.
Alchemical items didn't have that problem.
Behind Charlie, Fiona kept flying through the air, checking every spot he passed.
She looked into corridors he'd just walked through, rooms he'd passed, flower beds—any place where someone could hide. She checked them all thoroughly.
Sometimes she even went back and checked the same spot two or three times.
This went on for half an hour, and it looked like it was going to continue.
Fiona didn't seem tired. She just kept flying over the places Charlie had walked.
Behind armor—no one!
Around the corner—no one!
At the staircase landing—no one!
Every time she checked a spot, she hummed a little tune she'd made up.
"Phew—"
Suddenly, just as Fiona was about to fly to the next spot, she heard a strange sound behind her—from the staircase landing she'd just checked.
She whipped her head around.
The gray stone where the stairs met the wall was twisting and distorting. The color peeled away rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, a brown-haired boy around five-foot-seven stood there.
He had a square face with freckles and some stubble, wearing Slytherin robes. He looked annoyed.
"This lunatic. How much longer is he going to keep wandering around here?" he muttered to himself.
At that same moment, Charlie turned his gaze away from a tree sprouting new leaves outside the corridor window and kept walking.
Seeing that, the boy at the staircase landing quickly pulled out his wand and pointed it at himself. "Disillusionment—"
"It's him!" Fiona clenched her little fists and punched the air.
Finally caught you. How dare you follow Charlie!
She flew straight to Charlie's shoulder and told him what she'd just seen.
"Oh, finally," Charlie said with a small smile.
Memorizing spells, strolling around, looking at flowers and trees… it had been novel at first, but doing it for too long was getting annoying.
No need to keep it up now.
"Charlie, what do we do now? Beat him up?" Fiona asked eagerly, rubbing her tiny fists together like she couldn't wait.
Charlie shook his head. "No need to worry about him. We're done for today. By the way, do you want to come with me to the next place?"
"Where?" Fiona asked, looking a little disappointed as she relaxed her fists.
"To see the thing you've been hearing us talk about in the dorm all the time."
"Dragon!"
Fiona was smart. She figured it out immediately.
After all, Anthony and Charlie talked about Hagrid's dragon pretty openly in the dorm.
She just hadn't gone to see it yet.
"Yeah! Yeah!"
The little sprite clapped her hands, then looked a little nervous. "Charlie, should I hide inside your clothes?"
"If you're worried, of course you can." Charlie nodded as Fiona flew into his collar.
She grabbed the edge with both tiny hands and poked her head out.
"What about the bad guy following you?"
"Don't worry about him. It's not time to deal with him yet." Charlie smiled and headed toward the second floor.
On the second floor, the moment he turned the corner, his hand at his waist gave a quick tug. The Invisibility Cloak appeared and covered his entire body.
Instantly, the entire second-floor corridor went quiet.
A minute later, at the staircase landing, a rough voice muttered in confusion into the empty corridor.
"Hmm? Where'd he go?"