Friday morning arrived with a palpable sense of dread for the first-year Gryffindors. Their first class of the day was double Potions, down in the dungeons, with the Slytherins. After the events of the previous day, the tension between the two houses was thicker than any potion fumes.
"Settle down," Snape's voice cut through the low chatter like a knife. He swept into the room, his black robes billowing, and his gaze immediately found Harry and Adam. "Today you will be attempting to brew a Cure for Boils. Again. The instructions are on the blackboard. You may begin."
As always, Adam and Hermione paired up, their movements precise and synchronized. Harry and Ron formed their usual chaotic partnership, and Neville was paired with Seamus Finnigan. Across the room, Draco Malfoy was with Goyle, and Daphne Greengrass was stuck with a sneering Pansy Parkinson.
While Adam and Hermione worked in perfect harmony, a different kind of conflict was brewing on the other side of the room.
"Enjoying your last few days at Hogwarts, Potter?" Malfoy whispered loudly, a malicious grin on his face. "I hear the detentions this year are particularly unpleasant."
"Shove off, Malfoy," Harry retorted, roughly chopping his horned slugs. "At least I'm not a coward who has to throw things and run away."
The insult hit its mark. Malfoy's face flushed. "You'll pay for that—"
A dark shape loomed over their table. "Is there a problem, Mr. Malfoy?" Snape asked in his silkiest voice.
"No, Professor," Malfoy said sweetly. "Potter was just distracting me."
Snape's head snapped towards Harry. "Disturbing another student, Potter?" He flicked the back of Harry's head with a sharp finger. "Ten points from Gryffindor. Pay attention to your own pathetic potion."
Harry went red with fury but wisely said nothing.
Meanwhile, at Daphne's table, a different disaster was unfolding. "Honestly, Pansy, that's far too much!" Daphne hissed, pointing at a mound of powdered bicorn horn.
"It'll make it stronger, won't it?" Pansy shrugged dismissively.
From the next table, Hermione saw the mistake and gasped quietly. "Daphne, be careful," she whispered urgently across the aisle. "That's way too much of a primary binding agent! According to Moste Potente Potions, if the ratio is off by that much, the mixture will hyper-coagulate. You'll have a cauldron full of stone in about five minutes!"
Daphne's face went pale with frustration as she saw her potion begin to thicken into a grey sludge. "I'm aware, Granger," she hissed, though her eyes betrayed her panic.
"She's right about the consequence," a calm voice whispered from Hermione's side. It was Adam. He was looking at Daphne's cauldron with an analytical eye. "But you can still save it. Add three drops of Flobberworm mucus now. It will act as a lubricant at the molecular level and prevent the horn from binding. Stir anti-clockwise seven times to re-stabilize the mixture."
Daphne looked from Hermione's panicked, academic warning to Adam's calm, confident instruction. Her pride in her potion-making won out over any house rivalry. With a quick, decisive movement, she added the mucus and stirred with the precise motion Adam described, watching in relief as the sludge thinned and returned to a more acceptable, if slightly off-colour, greyish-blue.
Just then, Adam saw Neville and Seamus about to add their porcupine quills to their still-bubbling cauldron. Acting quickly, he "accidentally" knocked a heavy brass weight off their table. It hit the stone floor with a loud CLANG. As Snape's head whipped in his direction, Adam caught Neville's eye and gave a sharp, almost imperceptible shake of his head, gesturing down towards the flame. Neville's eyes widened in realization. He quickly lifted the cauldron off the fire before adding the quills.
At the end of the lesson, Snape swept through the room. He stopped at Daphne's table, peering into the cauldron.
"Mediocre, Parkinson," he drawled. "However, Greengrass... your remedial additions to counteract your partner's incompetence show a glimmer of competence. The potion is functional, if not elegant. Five points to Slytherin for your quick thinking."
Daphne gave a small, proud nod.
Finally, he arrived at Adam and Hermione's table. He stared into their flawless, pink potion, unable to find a single thing wrong. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
"...Not bad," he muttered, and swept away without awarding them a single point. For Adam and Hermione, it was a victory.
In the Great Hall for lunch, the mood was lighter.
"I can't believe he flicked your head!" Ron said to Harry, still outraged. "And took ten points! Malfoy was the one who started it!"
"It's Snape, what did you expect?" Harry grumbled, rubbing the back of his head.
Neville came over to their side of the table, his face beaming. "Thanks, Adam. For the... you know." He mimed a loud noise. Adam just smiled and nodded. Across the hall, he saw Daphne Greengrass sitting with her friends. She caught his eye for a second and gave a brief, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment before turning back to her conversation. A silent truce, it seemed.
The afternoon brought Transfiguration. The task was the same as before: turn a matchstick into a needle. Adam could feel Professor McGonagall's eyes on him and Harry for the entire lesson. Her gaze wasn't angry anymore, but it was intensely analytical, as if she were trying to solve a complex puzzle. Hermione, to her great relief and satisfaction, was the first to achieve a perfect, sharp silver needle, earning a rare, genuine smile from their Head of House.
Adam, feeling McGonagall's scrutiny, focused intently. He managed the transfiguration on his third try, the wood of the matchstick turning a dull grey and sharpening to a fine point. It was a clean, simple transformation, and he was careful not to be flashy, but he knew she had seen his effortless wandwork. He was under a microscope, and his story about a 'fluke' first flight was clearly not holding up well.
By the time the Transfiguration lesson ended, the warm afternoon sun was streaming through the high windows, dust motes floating lazily in the golden light. The rest of the Gryffindors spilled into the corridor with a mix of chatter and sighs of relief—Friday meant the weekend was almost here.
But Adam felt the tension in his shoulders hadn't left. Between Snape's pointed looks, Malfoy's running mouth, and McGonagall's studying gaze, he could feel the threads of attention tightening around him from all sides.
The evening feast was lively, but Adam found it strangely stifling tonight. Laughter and clinking cutlery echoed under the enchanted ceiling, the smell of roast chicken and fresh bread rolling over the tables in warm waves. Hermione was explaining to Harry, in exhaustive detail, how she had mentally rearranged the potion instructions for efficiency. Ron was already halfway through his third helping of treacle tart, and Neville had taken to miming a dramatic "cauldron explosion" for Seamus's benefit.
Adam smiled politely at all of it but found himself scanning the hall almost unconsciously—faces turning toward him more than they used to, eyes lingering a moment too long before flicking away. Fame, even the small kind, was a strange thing. His gaze drifted toward the Slytherin table. Daphne Greengrass was speaking to Tracey Davis, head tilted in quiet conversation, but at one point her eyes slid toward him, just briefly. Not a smile this time—something more thoughtful.
When the desserts vanished from the table, the students began to file out. Adam joined his friends on the walk back up to Gryffindor Tower. His original, impulsive thought to head straight for the forest had cooled. His rational mind took over again. No, he thought, the plan was to go late. Stick to the plan. Less risk, more chance of success.
They spent the next few hours in the common room. The atmosphere was cozy and relaxed. Harry and Ron were engrossed in a noisy game of Exploding Snap, while Hermione had her nose buried in a book. Adam sat with them, pretending to do his own reading, but his mind was elsewhere. He was watching the clock, listening to the sounds of the castle settling down, and waiting patiently for his opportunity.
One by one, the other students headed up to their dormitories. Finally, the four of them were the last ones left. With a final, massive yawn, Ron declared he was knackered and headed up, with Harry and Neville following soon after. After a quiet "Goodnight" to Adam, Hermione also went up the girls' staircase.
Adam waited another half hour in the silent common room, staring into the dying embers of the fire, before he finally stood up and went to his own dormitory. He found his friends already fast asleep.
The time was right! It was time for the adventure!
In the quiet darkness of the dormitory, Adam slipped out from under his covers, his movements silent and practiced in the moonlit dark. He quietly pulled on his robes, his heart beginning to pound with a mixture of fear and excitement.
He crept out of the dorm and through the now-empty common room. He slipped out of the portrait hole and began his tense journey through the dark, silent corridors of the castle. His senses were heightened, catching the distant hoot of an owl and the faint rustling of a tapestry in a draft. Each shadow seemed to conceal a hidden threat, amplifying the mysterious atmosphere that surrounded him.
Finally, he reached the heavy oak doors of the entrance hall. He pushed them open and stepped outside. The September evening was crisp and cool, the grounds awash in the silvery light of a half-moon. The first stars were already glimmering overhead. He pulled his cloak tighter around himself and moved down the sloping lawn toward the shadowed treeline of the Forbidden Forest.
The dark, tangled trees loomed over him, their branches like skeletal fingers against the night sky. He knew the forest was dangerous, but he had to take the risk. He had to find the hidden entrance.
Following the glowing green circle on the System map that only he could see, he arrived at what looked like an ancient, gigantic oak tree. It wasn't eerie, but it still made his heart pound as he looked up at its massive form. The map showed that the entrance to the secret space was at the bottom of the trunk. Just like the last time, the entrance was completely invisible to the naked eye, but Adam knew the System's map was not going to be wrong.
"That's probably the reason why people went missing whenever secret spaces appeared," Adam whispered to himself.
"They probably didn't even know how they reached that space."
He looked at the location where the map was showing the entrance and thought, "I guess it's time to explore another world."
The last secret space had been a completely different environment, so he looked forward to discovering what this one held. He wasn't afraid; the System had designated this space as a low-level threat, well within his capabilities now that he had learned more magic.
Still, he took one last moment to be cautious, checking his inventory for the food and weapons he might need if he ran out of magic, before taking a deep breath and walking straight into what looked like the solid trunk of the ancient tree.