Alice carefully set Galle Nicholas's final letter aside and cracked open his manuscript.
[A lot of wizards treat the soul like it's some sacred relic and call any research on it "evil."]
[I call BS. The guy who put me on the right magical path—let's call him A—said love is the greatest magic in the world, capable of insane power.]
[I don't disagree, but here's my take: the source of magical power is the soul.]
[The body's just a shell. It's the soul doing the heavy lifting with magic.]
[That's why I ran a ton of experiments on souls.]
[They break down into three chunks.]
[Part one: sucking up other people's soul juice to beef yourself up—pages 1 to 400.]
[Part two: bulking up your own soul to crank your magic to eleven—pages 400 to 600. I'll also explain why I think Tom's whole philosophy is trash.]
[Part three: wild guesses about soul power. Could be totally wrong, so don't sweat it.]
Alice flipped to part one. Five minutes in, she knew this wasn't gonna work.
Nicholas's notes were cryptic as hell and way outside Hogwarts' curriculum. If she tried practicing any of this on school grounds, the professors would sniff it out in a heartbeat.
Plan B: over the next few days, she'd copy the whole manuscript into the soul space inside the Myriad Soul Banner. Then she could study it there without prying eyes.
No time like the present. Manifesting the manuscript in the banner wasn't easy—she had to read every word to pull it off. So Alice, in ghost mode, camped out in the library until past five.
---
The next morning
Pansy Parkinson stared at Alice like she'd grown a second head.
Alice looked… weird. Her face was bright and rested, but her vibe screamed "I just pulled an all-nighter."
"Alice, what the heck happened to you last night?"
Alice shook her head. "Had this dream I was locked in a room, forced to read super dense books all night."
Millicent gasped like it was a horror movie. "That sounds nightmarish!"
"What's on the schedule today?" Alice asked, brain still foggy. She'd underestimated how brutal Nicholas's manuscript was—even just reading and memorizing without thinking had wiped her out.
But she wasn't mad about it. The deeper she got, the more she saw why Dumbledore had been so impressed with Nicholas. The guy was a genius.
If she'd breezed through a lifetime of genius-level work, she'd lose respect for magic altogether. Easy would mean magic wasn't worth it.
The tougher it was? The more pumped she got. She loved the mental sparring.
Her dormmates had no clue what was going on in her head. Millicent checked the timetable. "Charms with Ravenclaw."
"Ugh, why am I pure-blood and still think Professor Flitwick is impossible?" Pansy groaned.
Every kid in the hall nodded. Charms class was basically Flitwick dropping knowledge bombs while everyone scrambled to keep up.
The only ones who could actually talk back were Alice and a handful of Ravenclaws—but even they were just book-smart. When it came to doing the spells, Alice left them in the dust.
Millicent went to link arms with Alice out of habit, but Alice smoothly dodged.
Millicent threw on an over-the-top pout. "Alice, you won't even let me hold your arm now?"
"Just… not big on touching," Alice said with an awkward smile.
"Fine. Guess I still rank below Hermione Granger in your book." Millicent shrugged.
Thanks to Alice, the Slytherin girls all knew Hermione—and actually got along with her pretty well. Hermione hung out with them sometimes because of Alice.
The only one who couldn't stand Hermione? Pansy.
Not even because of pure-blood nonsense anymore. Hermione just hadn't forgiven Pansy for that duel with Alice.
On the way to class, Pansy pulled Alice aside for a whisper.
"Alice… can I borrow some money?"
Alice's eyebrow shot up. The Parkinsons were old pure-blood money—way richer than the Weasleys, even if not Malfoy-level. Pansy shouldn't be begging for galleons.
Pansy looked mortified. Alice's silence made it worse.
"Why?" Alice asked.
Pansy's face went scarlet. "Never mind! Forget I said anything—sorry!"
She practically bolted.
Alice watched her go, then caught Millicent watching them. She waved Millicent over.
"You know something, don't you?"
Millicent nodded, looking uneasy.
"Spill. Everything."
Millicent glanced around—no Pansy in sight.
"Your duel with Pansy? It's all over Hogwarts. Kids wrote home about it like it was the funniest thing ever."
"So the Parkinsons found out she got wrecked. And those two lines you dropped at the end—your whole 'this is what Slytherin should be' speech? That spread through every pure-blood family."
"The Parkinsons decided she shamed the family name. And someone told them you two patched things up."
"They didn't kick her out, but they cut her off completely. Keep sending Howlers calling her useless."
Alice growled, "Marcus Flint."
Millicent blinked. "What?"
"I said—Marcus Flint told her family. This isn't the first time he's pulled this crap."