The first-ever Hogwarts Parkour Competition ended with Scabbers being rescued and returned to Ron, and Mrs. Norris failing her hunt.
Ron and Filch are now officially at odds.
After his pet's close call, Ron was in the Gryffindor common room, ranting to Harry and Hermione about how much he despised Filch. Meanwhile, Filch had his sights set on Ron's rat, viewing it as a tasty snack for his precious cat, Mrs. Norris. He swore he'd help her get that treat one way or another.
The first club activity, disrupted by this chaos, ended on a bit of a sour note. After the wild chase that swept through Hogwarts, no one was in the mood to keep going, so the event fizzled out.
Leon, however, was quite pleased with Mrs. Norris's performance. Back in the Chamber of Secrets, he instructed Kreacher to double the potion mixed into her cat food.
Another hectic week passed, and Leon finally had time to dive into the book he'd nicked from the Restricted Section of the library a few days earlier. It was a hefty tome with a black-and-silver cover, so thick it could double as a doorstop, and it had no title. When opened, it let out a bone-chilling scream that could make your hair stand on end.
Leon had disguised himself as Lockhart to smuggle the book out right under Snape's nose—a move that, in hindsight, was absolutely worth it. Inside, he found exactly what he needed: a solution for his wand-core arm issue.
The book was a grim collection of curses, potions, and magical rituals designed to torment. No wonder it screamed like that. One ritual in particular caught his eye—it involved swapping a victim's organs with objects like wood or stone. The poor soul would watch their heart, lungs, or kidneys get yanked out and replaced, suffering unimaginable psychological terror while enduring excruciating physical pain from missing organs. No blood, no incisions, just a slow, drawn-out death that maximized suffering. Brutal and twisted didn't even begin to cover it.
The illustrations alone were enough to give you nightmares, and the case studies were downright horrific. One example described a victim whose entire skin was replaced with papyrus, screaming for three days and nights before finally dying. Leon snapped the book shut, needing a moment to shake off the chills. "That's messed up," he muttered.
Suddenly, Grindelwald and Voldemort seemed like downright cuddly blokes in comparison. Were dark wizards back then this depraved? Even Herpo the Foul, the guy who invented Horcruxes by slicing up his soul, felt like small potatoes. Maybe that's why his peers mocked him, calling him "Baby Herpo" instead of "Herpo the Foul."
Once he'd calmed down, Leon focused on the ritual. Honestly, using it for torture was a waste of its potential. This was a spell that could save lives—essentially a painless, bloodless organ transplant. Swap out a failing organ for a healthy one. Sure, there were risks, like tissue compatibility or rejection, but if you were just replacing a bone? Practically foolproof. Worst case, the swap fails, and you regrow the bone with Skele-Gro.
The catch? The materials for the ritual were insanely rare. The key component was a magical gemstone at least the size of a fist. These days, the biggest ones on the market were barely egg-sized, and the mines had long dried up. Each gem used was one less in the world, which explained why ritual magic had fallen out of favor.
Luckily, Leon wasn't sweating it. He had two fist-sized magical gemstones, pried off the Chamber of Secrets' door on his first visit. With the hardest part sorted, the rest of the materials could probably be scrounged up with a trip to Hagrid for some "borrowing."
With progress on fixing his wand-core issue, Leon was in high spirits. Feeling unstoppable, he decided to test whether devouring the soul of an Acromantula had given him any new abilities. Because, let's be honest, Leon really wanted to be Spider-Man. Swinging between buildings, shooting webs with a thwip? That sounded like a blast.
He mimicked Spider-Man's iconic hand gesture, aiming his wrist at the wall and shouting, "Web shoot! Shoot, shoot, shoot!" He was sweating from the effort, but nothing happened. Was the Acromantula's soul too weak to grant new skills? Or…
Wait a second. Leon froze as a memory hit him. During his fight with the Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest, the web didn't come from its spinnerets—it came from its mouth.
Leon groaned. "Seriously?" So, even if he could pull off Spider-Man, he'd be the gross kind who spits webs everywhere? Still, a surprise spit-web could be a sneaky trump card in a pinch. He decided to lean into it. Extra skills never hurt.
He started practicing again. "Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!" Finally, he managed to spit out a web. But when he saw the result—a round, net-like blob splattered on the floor—he was speechless. Apparently, Acromantulas didn't shoot proper webs like smaller spiders. They didn't weave traps and wait for prey; they relied on brute strength and venom. Their webs were more like pre-formed dome-shaped nets, used to build nests for their colonies.
Leon recalled the Acromantula in the Forbidden Forest spitting a net that snagged Tom's wings mid-flight, sending him crashing. Even multiple Cleaning Charms couldn't fully remove the sticky, tough, stretchy web—it took high heat or specific solvents to break it down. Since Hogwarts didn't exactly have a chemistry lab, and burning it would've turned Tom into roast sparrow, Leon had to pluck a layer of feathers off the poor bird to free him. That's why Tom was looking a bit bald these days—not from overzealous Cleaning Charms, as Leon had fibbed to him.
The Acromantula's web could be a solid way to restrain an opponent. It wasn't lethal, but it was unexpected. Who'd expect their enemy to spit a web and tie them up? The downside? It was not a cool move. Leon's combat style was starting to feel like a problem. While others were out there flinging Killing Curses or conjuring Fiendfyre, he was stuck glaring like a Basilisk and spitting webs like a discount Spider-Man. Talk about a blow to his reputation.
He resolved to practice Fiendfyre more—those flames looked awesome. Plus, he needed to hunt down some cooler magical creatures to snag better abilities. Devouring the Basilisk's soul had already helped him counter the Leonring effects of Voldemort's soul fragment, which hadn't fed on his negative emotions lately. To keep that progress going, Leon eyed the Acromantula colony in the Forbidden Forest. Hundreds of them—plenty of late-night snacks to keep him powered up.
His only worry? After absorbing the Basilisk's soul, he hadn't developed its venom ability. Acromantulas had venom too. If he kept stacking these souls, would he end up with venom so potent he'd poison himself just by swallowing? That'd be just his luck.