What was this? A case of Lord Ye professing to love dragons, only to be terrified when a real one showed up?
Back in the dormitory, Charlie rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on as he looked at Villie sitting quietly on his desk.
"What are you thinking about?" the girl in the painting asked.
"I'm wondering... if a painter in the wizarding world decides a portrait isn't good enough, do they just destroy it?"
"For any artist, if a piece isn't up to standard, they either scrap it or shove it into a dark corner."
"So, for someone like you—a creation who has actually developed consciousness—what does that mean?"
"And furthermore, how does it feel knowing the artist who literally created you just handed you off to me?"
Charlie fired off the questions rapidly. Villie blinked, clearly caught off guard, before slowly shaking her head. She didn't answer a single one.
"I do not know," she said softly.
"Fair enough. So, is there anywhere specific you'd like to go? I could hang you up somewhere around the castle."
She shook her head again.
Charlie let out a long sigh and slapped his knees. "Alright, then. If you don't know what you want yet, you can just hang out here for now."
"Thank you," Villie nodded.
With that, she froze, becoming as still as a perfectly ordinary oil painting.
There was still some time before dinner was served in the Great Hall. Charlie popped another piece of moon-lightning chocolate into his mouth—specifically, the new batch with the pure moon-dew center.
He hadn't lowered the dosage. The previous day, eating two drops of pure lightning essence had pushed his brain into physical overload. Today, his primary goal was to test if the moon-dew core could mitigate that exact backlash.
Chocolate consumed, he seized the window of heightened focus to tackle his History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts homework.
Time blurred, moving both agonizingly slow and incredibly fast. He finished both assignments in record time.
No nosebleed. No headache. No sudden crash of exhaustion.
Aside from slightly dry eyes from staring at parchment for too long, there were zero physical side effects from the chocolate.
Looks like using the moon-dew core to offset the backlash actually works.
He quickly jotted down the results of his new test in his notebook. Stretching, he stood up, getting ready to head down to the Great Hall for dinner.
Click-clack-click.
The dormitory door swung open, and Anthony poked his head inside.
"Bloody hell, you actually are in here."
He pushed the door open all the way and walked in, followed closely by Hector.
"What are you doing?"
Hector walked over and spotted the rolled-up parchment on Charlie's desk.
"Doing homework?! What? You absolute tosser! You betrayed us!"
"You traitor. And to think, we actually brought you food when we didn't see you in the Great Hall."
Putting on a look of profound, agonizing betrayal, Anthony slammed a small takeaway box down on Charlie's desk.
"You brought me food? Wait, what time is it?"
"Dinner's basically over. If you went down now, you'd be lucky to scrape the bottom of the soup tureen," Anthony said.
"We finished eating, hung around downstairs chatting for a bit, and when you still hadn't showed up, we figured we'd grab you something," Hector explained.
"Sorry, mates. I completely lost track of time. I was just planning on doing a quick bit of writing before heading down."
"Don't worry about it," Anthony waved it off casually.
Then, both boys noticed the portrait sitting on Charlie's desk.
"What on earth is that? Where'd you nick it from?"
"Didn't peg you for an art collector, Charlie," Hector added.
"Someone gave it to me." Charlie quickly summarized the bizarre encounter from that afternoon.
"But why would she just give it to you? Just because you watched her paint? Magical portraits are insanely expensive."
"My gran commissioned one of herself a while back, cost her dozens of Galleons."
"I don't know. Guess she just liked my face," Charlie said, casually brushing his hair out of his eyes.
He had zero intention of explaining the artist's "Lord Ye's Dragon" panic attack. After all, Miss Villie was sitting right there listening to them.
Even though she remained perfectly still and silent, Charlie guaranteed she wasn't just zoning out. She was listening to every single word.
"Fair enough. Might be," Anthony shrugged. He was never one to get bogged down in the details.
Charlie opened the box. Inside was a small but varied assortment of pan-seared fish, eggs, pumpkin pasties, and a few other bits.
He polished it all off, feeling comfortably full, and pushed the box aside.
Taking advantage of the post-meal lull, he tore off a scrap of parchment, scribbled "Please help clear this away, thank you House-Elves", and slipped it under the empty container.
Meanwhile, thoroughly motivated by Charlie's "betrayal," Anthony and Hector sat down to tackle their own homework. Not wanting to disturb them, Charlie slipped out and headed down to the common room.
About an hour later, the two boys emerged from the dormitory and found Charlie sitting at a small table.
He was currently reading The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
According to the lore from his past life, these wizarding fairy tales actually hid genuine historical truths.
The Deathly Hallows, for instance, were undeniably real.
Charlie was intensely curious if there were any other fascinating, historically significant secrets buried in the other stories.
Though, given his current level of magical education, he doubted he'd be able to decipher anything genuinely useful right now.
"What are you guys planning on doing this weekend?" Anthony asked, pulling up a chair.
They only had one class on Friday: Herbology.
Because Herbology required hands-on participation in planting and cultivating, it was scheduled three times a week. However, the lessons themselves were relatively short and laid-back.
"I'm planning on sleeping in tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll probably try to find an empty room somewhere to practice spells."
"Honestly, I don't think there are any fun spells worth practicing right now," Anthony said, scratching his head. "And for the record, that is definitely not just me being lazy."
"Right. Though it probably would have sounded more convincing if you hadn't explicitly said that," Hector laughed.
"I need to write a letter to my parents first," Hector added. "They don't have an owl, so they can't exactly send me anything."
"Hogwarts is brilliant. I really should have written back to them sooner."
"Speaking of which, I need to write a letter home too."
"Speaking of which, I need to write a letter to—"
Charlie started, before abruptly cutting himself off.
"Wait, hang on. If I want to bulk-order raw, unmagical chocolate... who exactly do I write to?"
He looked straight at Anthony. The socially connected boy would undoubtedly know more about this than anyone else.
"You could try writing to the shops in Diagon Alley and asking around, but I honestly wouldn't count on it," Anthony replied. "You have to understand, mate—in our world, if something doesn't have at least a bit of magic in it, it generally doesn't sell."
Charlie recalled his trip to the sweet shops in Diagon Alley. He couldn't remember seeing any plain, ordinary chocolate.
Then again, his attention had been completely monopolized by the bizarre magical sweets at the time. It was entirely possible he'd just overlooked a small, dusty shelf of normal chocolate in the corner.
Regardless, firing off a few letters was his best bet for now.
"By the way, where exactly are you planning on practicing spells?" Hector asked.
Charlie thought for a second. His mind instantly flashed to Voldemort hiding the lost diadem of Ravenclaw in that massive, sprawling mountain of junk.
The sudden visualization felt like a glaring reminder: If you find something genuinely good, don't hoard it like some massive, world-ending secret.