"...Well, it's more or less what I expected. Harry made it to now in one piece," Dumbledore said dryly, trying to justify himself.
The conversation ended with Dumbledore escaping back to his office, unable to bear the weird stares from the others.
"What about you two? Want me to send Bruce over to you?" Kasenhis looked at Sirius and casually forced Bruce's number onto him.
"My office isn't that big," Lupin shook his head and walked off toward his own office.
"...Is he mad at me?" Sirius asked.
"If you're that curious, you can transform into Bruce and go ask him yourself," Kasenhis replied, then returned to his own office. He started studying the plain-looking ring in his hand—the very one that had let Sirius hide undetected under a monocle all this time.
But the ring wasn't really anything particularly ingenious. It simply emitted a moderate-sized field that wrapped around Sirius, and then renamed that field.
So what Kasenhis's monocle actually saw wasn't Sirius himself, but the field projected by the ring.
That's the basic principle. As for how the ring actually emitted that field, he hadn't figured it out yet.
But stuff ? Not exactly hard… and also ridiculously simple.
Grindstone—you know the deal!
Back then, it all started when he ground magical symbols off an Ender Pearl using a grindstone and applied them to himself, which granted him the ability to teleport.
Now, naturally, he could try grinding the magical symbols from this ring. If he could also emit a force field, wouldn't he be able to teleport others with him, just like a phoenix or Apparition?
Even if the teleportation process was a bit painful, who could resist such a cool way of traveling?
After all, no matter how painful it was, it still beat squishing someone into a pipe or yanking them by a hook in the belly button.
Soon, with Kasenhis holding the ring in one hand and cranking the grindstone with the other, a whole piece of parchment was nearly filled with magic symbols.
These symbols still needed to be broken down and reorganized into the most basic elements, then copied into the Enchanting Book, and only after that could they be applied to a human.
Today happened to be light on activity—no classes all afternoon, and none of the little wizards had come by to chat idly—perfect conditions for Kasenhis to work in peace.
Especially since even Sirius wasn't around right now. Normally, he had to endure the sound of Sirius bouncing around like mad, and he simply didn't have the mental bandwidth to reason with a dog.
But today was different—Sirius had been successfully adopted by Lupin... even if Lupin hadn't exactly agreed.
Still, just thinking about how shameless Sirius was in dog form, Kasenhis figured: that doghouse upstairs? Lupin's moving it out whether he wants to or not!
Just as Kasenhis was thinking that, Sirius crawled in through the doggy door, butt wiggling behind him.
"Here to move the doghouse? Don't forget to clean the dead corners while you're at it," Kasenhis said without even looking up.
Sirius transformed back into human form. "He didn't agree to let me stay in his office."
"He didn't agree, so you just don't go? Are you even a Gryffindor?" Kasenhis asked in disbelief.
"Well, I can't force myself in, can I? What if he doesn't feed me?" Sirius said pitifully, sitting down on the sofa.
"Then... when you were a dog before, we didn't just share a room, we shared a blanket. But now you want me to share a room with a grown man..." Kasenhis, for once, set down his quill and glanced up at Sirius. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭•𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢•𝓷𝓮𝓽
"Hehehe~ That's fine, just keep treating me like Bruce… I'm off to sail the boat now, bye!" Sirius quickly transformed back into a dog and dashed toward an empty boat.
"Sirius Black! Come fucking back!"
Sirius trotted back on all fours.
"I can't just let you freeload here, right? Shouldn't you do something?" Kasenhis asked, pointing to the finished Enchanting Book resting on the edge of his desk.
Sirius swallowed hard. He'd long known that this Alchemy professor was obsessed with all kinds of alchemical experiments—possibly even human alchemy—but he really hadn't expected that one day he would become...
"I'll make you a gardener's utility pack. Whenever you've got time, go to the botany zone and do some gardening," Kasenhis said, pointing at the nearby blocky grove of trees.
"'Huh' what?" Kasenhis asked.
"Didn't you mean for me to be your alchemical experiment subject? Or maybe your enchanting experiment subject?" Sirius asked.
"Hay hey hey! Those things are dangerous. I'm not so deranged that I'd start experimenting on humans," Kasenhis replied, placing the Enchanting Book onto the enchanting table. As the book floated up, a streak of purple magic quickly shot into his body.
The process was so fast that even Sirius didn't react in time. For a moment, he was dazed—he touched his forehead, pinched his arm, wondering if he had a fever or was just dreaming.
Because right before his eyes, the Alchemy professor had literally just said that experiments were too dangerous to be done on people—and the very next second, he had gone and tested it on himself...
So, experiments are dangerous, but doing them directly on yourself isn't?
As a sliver of reason returned to him, Sirius looked at Kasenhis—who was now collapsed on the ground—and immediately ran toward the boat.
If he could just get Lupin or Dumbledore here fast enough, maybe this poor Alchemy professor could still be saved.
Just as he was about to reach the boat, he felt a sharp pain in his tail—but he ignored it and leapt onboard...
Soon after, Lupin, having received Sirius's intel, felt like the sky was falling.
His whole reason for taking the Defense Against the Dark Arts post this term was mostly so he could keep an eye on Kasenhis when not teaching—or maybe it was the other way around, keeping an eye on Kasenhis while occasionally teaching.
And yet, all those times he'd casually wandered into the Alchemy office, Kasenhis had been as calm and silent as the stone gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office.
But today—after leaving for one afternoon—he'd immediately gifted Lupin with a heart attack surprise.
"You go find Dumbledore! I'll take Kasenhis to the hospital wing!"
Lupin shouted, then pushed open the door and ran toward the Alchemy office.
But as soon as he opened the door, he saw Kasenhis standing there like nothing had happened—completely fine—with something black and furry in his hand.
"Kekeke~ Oh! Lupin! You see this!? I just developed a kind of force-field magic. This field lets me use Ender magic to do anything within its range."
"For example, I tried to use Ender magic just now to teleport Sirius back here... Unfortunately, he was running a bit too fast. Of course, it's lucky he was—otherwise, what I'd be holding right now would be half a dog." Kasenhis explained flatly, holding up a severed piece of a furry black rope..
"Is that..? Sirius's dog tail...?"
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