“You're already going back, huh?” Sol's mother looked at him with longing in her eyes. Sol and his family were in King's Cross Station on Platform 9 and ¾. They were here to see Sol away. Easter vacation was over and it was time for him to return to Hogwarts. Any mother would prefer to keep their children close to them. And she was no different.

Sol nodded, “You’ve studied in Hogwarts too. It’s not like you don’t know how these things go.”

“Can you not let me be a little sad that my son is leaving again?”

“No. And don’t worry, I’m coming back for summer vacation, no?”

She kissed his forehead, “Fine. Don’t get into too much trouble.”

“I won't.” He looked over at his father who was holding Faye in his arms. His father nodded at him. That one nod told him everything his father wanted to say.

“Okay then, I'm going.” Sol picked up his luggage and started walking off.

From behind his mother said, “Aren't you forgetting something?”

“Huh?” Sol turned around and saw his mother pointing towards Faye.

“Oh, right.” Sol began walking towards Faye and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She gleefully laughed. Sol waved at her and began walking off again. From behind, Faye spread her arms in front of her and tried to grab at Sol's retreating figure but to no avail. Her expression expressed her unwillingness to part and she made cooing and crying noises expressing her distress at Sol leaving.

Aside from making new spells and studying, Sol mainly played and got close to his sister during this holiday. And as such, Faye had come to like Sol quite much and Sol achieved his goal of getting closer to her. Faye’s attitude towards Sol had taken a complete turn from how she viewed him when he first came home.

Sol turned around and waved them goodbye. In response, his mother as father did the same. He then climbed aboard the Hogwarts Express and searched for a compartment. He went through the cars and found Cormac sitting in one of them.

“Hey there!” Sol opened the compartment and greeted him.

“Oh, you’re here!”

“Only Kate's not here, eh?”

“Yep!” Cormac nodded.

“So what did you do this Easter?”

“Not much. Just lazed around. You?”

“Same. Did nothing but play with my sister.”

As they talked and joked around for a while, Katie joined them and the Hogwarts Express left the station.

Katie and Cormac talked among themselves and Sol looked out the window to appreciate the lush green scenery. After a while, the blue sky above became overcast with grey clouds. After a while, the soft pitter-patter of the rain could be heard above their heads. The rhythmic sound of the rain lulled Sol to sleep.

A Few Weeks Later

Sol was in front of the room. This time he was trying out something that had slipped his mind. He walked back and forth in front of the entrance of the room there times while thinking about what he wanted. Soon enough, a huge set of doors appeared on the wall and opened. As he walked through them, the doors closed behind him.

Inside was a plethora of musical instruments. Pianos, tubas, trumpets, cymbals, you name it. Though most of them were damaged, it was nothing Reparo couldn’t fix. Sol walked through the piles and heaps of instruments and finally stopped in front of a grey-brown piano. On a closer inspection, it was a black piano but the decades of accumulated dust had made it seem as though it was grey-brown. Sol used the Hot Air charm and Aguamenti to clean the dust and dirt off the surface of the piano and clean it up. Once clean, a beautiful carving of flowers revealed itself. The flowers bloomed on vines that were carved all over the body of the piano. He walked around the back of the piano and saw a hole the size of a grapefruit. He used Reparo and quickly sealed the hole. He used Aguamenti and with his masterful control of the spell- cleaned the gaps between the keys, and using Hot Air charm, he dried it off to not damage the wood. The back of the piano shook a bit which caught Sol's eyes. Sol used Mana Eyes and saw small beings shifting around in panic. They had a fat body and long thin tails. Sol narrowed his eyes as he felt a headache come up.

Plague Rats...

These rats were had sickly grey or dark-green fur. As their name implies, they cause plagues and disease with just a bite or scratch. And no, Black Death was not caused by them. It was caused by an artificial potion created by someone who had their lover stolen by the king of England at that time. Sadly, he ended infecting himself as well. What made these rats especially troublesome is their resistance to Incendio, Diffindo, and Glacio. Though they were vulnerable to the Red Spark charm, it would be useless in this situation. A single target spell wouldn’t be able to kill the rats inside the piano whose number was reaching a hundred. If Sol had opened the back of the piano using the Red Spark charm in mind, he would've undeniably failed in killing all of them. Which would lead to these rats escaping and most probably causing plagues within the school if they happened to escape this room.

Using Frigidus Ignus or similar spells on them when they're still in the piano would not work and could even cause irreparable damage to the piano. As Sol stared at the piano trying to come up with a plan to get rid of the rats, he remembered his sleeping potion. He smiled and left the room. He descended from the seventh floor to the Gryffindor Common Room. As he walked inside, he was greeted by the students talking, playing chess, and having fun. As he was walking around, Katie approached him.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“Fixing a piano,” he replied briefly.

Her eyes glittered, “Ooh~ is it going to be done today?!”

He shook his head, “The restoration is going to take a while. I can finish it but I won’t be able to play it today.”

“I want to be there when you do.”

Sol smiled, “Sure.”

With that, he walked off. He headed into the boys' sleeping quarters and grabbed his potions' satchel which was enlarged with an Extended Space charm. He reached a hand inside and took out a vial full of white opaque liquid. This was the final version of the Sleep potion. It took less time to come into effect than the previous one. He had no qualms using this as he had another one. Placing the potion inside, he again walked off to the room. Once inside again, he headed straight for the piano which was in the same place as last time. He then made a small hole on top of the piano. He shook the vial and the potion inside bubbled. He uncorked the vial and poured the contents through the hole before sealing the whole thing. After a while, a white mist came out of the keys and wafted up. He waited a few minutes and opened the cover of the piano.

Inside was a mass of rats. Many, many rats. They were piled over each other. They had sickly grey fur which indicated that they were Plague Rats. Using Wingardium Leviosa, he took the rats out of the piano and placed them on the floor. He felt repulsed looking at the heap of rats. He thought of using their poison to create hemotoxin but quickly abandoned that thought. He didn't want the power of plague coursing through his blood. Even if he could control it, it was a low-level poison that was not refined well enough. Even with the most masterful control, it would create a horrendous smell and cause people discomfort. This was why most people avoided low-level Poison mages. The entirety of the Poison guild was an oddball until they got annihilated because they poisoned the wrong people. Even if Sol wanted to create hemotoxin, he would use the venom of a Basilisk. It had the highest level of poison in this world. And it could kill people in seconds unlike the venom of the Plague Rats which could only cause disease. Even if it was a particularly dangerous disease, people still had a chance to survive. But that was not the case for Basilisk venom.

Back to the rats, Sol looked at the pile of rats and waved his wand at it. Soon, pale-blue flames shot out of the tip of his wand and covered the rats. Soon they froze and turned the pile of rats into a block of ice. He used Wingardium Leviosa to lift the block and walked off with it. He looked around and saw a brown piano high up on a pile. It would teeter from time to time but never fall. He sat the block down in front of the pile. And then he again used Wingardium Leviosa but this time on the piano. The piano floated off the pile and was currently floating 15 meters off the ground. He positioned the piano above the block. He then made a downward swiping motion with his wand and cast Oppugno. The piano started falling with an incredible speed. Sol remembered last second and cast the Impervious charm on himself as the piano came crashing down. The block and piano collided and pieces of ice, wood, and gore exploded out. There was also an explosion of dust which caused Sol to cover his eyes. After a while when everything settled, Sol opened his eyes and saw a deformity made of wood, ice, and rat parts in front of him. A smell of rotten blood assaulted his nose. It would’ve passed off as a piece of modern art if it didn’t look or smell so horrendous. He used Mana Eyes but couldn’t sense any life signs. Nodding with satisfaction, he headed back to fix the piano.

There was only a week left until the end-of-term exams start.