“Oh for fuck’s sake! Not this again!” Sol cursed inwardly. He traversed the eerily quiet castle halls of the school. His satchel was full of potions and his destination was the Vault in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts Library.

Sneaking forward, he could feel two groups stalking him. While he had no problem getting stalked by the strange students he noticed two days ago, getting stalked by Harry and his gang was a completely different story. A frustrating story.

He didn’t know if the two groups were aware of one another. He guessed that Harry and his friends were under Harry’s invisibility cloak and the students from ‘R’ were trained enough to avoid detection. But for now, he had to keep ‘R’ on his back but lose Harry’s group.

“And wouldn’t you know it? I have just the plan.” He grinned; he was going to use the almost exact same move as before.

Swiftly turning a corner, he left their line of sight for a brief moment.

“We’re going to lose him,” Harry quietly hissed.

“How dare he!?” Hermione’s brows scrunched up. Was Sol thinking of using the same ploy as before?

The trio turned the corner and Harry was momentum halted because both Ron and Hermione stopped behind him.

“Look,” Hermione gestured at the ground. There was a thin layer of ice on the ground. “He did the same thing.”

“Let’s just jump over it,” Harry shrugged it off.

“Wait, stop! Just ahead of the ice,” Ron held both of them by their sleeves. They turned to look where Ron was looking. Just beyond where the ice ended, the floor was coated in a slippery sheen. They wouldn’t have seen it if not for the soft moonlight from the waning moon.

“Slippery jinx…” Hermione hissed in a low voice. “No wait!” she looked at the others with a wide-eyed look.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

“He didn’t intend to stop us with the ice or the slippery charm.”

“Ah,” Ron was hit with a wave of realization, “it was just a way for him to stall us. While we were wary about his traps, our stopping brought him enough time to slip away.”

“That was so easy…” Hermione sulked. It irked her that she fell for such an obvious ploy.

“Can’t we just stop…?” Ron pinched the bridge of his nose, “It’s become bloody obvious that we won’t be able to catch him.”

“But we need to mate, mate,” Harry shook his head. “There’s no two ways about it.”

“Yeah, we just need to prepare better.” A fire had been lit in Hermione. She had forgotten about her original objective and was obsessed with catching Sol.

“It really helps that this castle is enormous. People can’t even guess where you’re going!” Having ditched the three nuisances, Sol was in a good mood. The library was still a bit further away and it didn’t help that there were fifteen other rooms along the way.

Swiftly walking through the shadows, Sol finally reached the library. Just like he found the previous years, Madam Pince was at her desk reading. However, he already knew that she really was reading and not secretly keeping an eye out for intruders.

Just like he had done numerous times before, he adeptly snuck past Madam Pince and in front of the flimsy door to the Restricted Section. For something as dangerous as the Restricted Section, it was a bit careless for it to be only guarded by a simple latch.

“I guess that’s all the security it needs since the students are somehow extremely obedient to the school rules. And the only one that breaks the rules regularly is me. Even Fred and George’s pranks rarely break school rules. Quite an unrealistic depiction of a school to be honest-” he undid the latch and went into the room. “-you’d think there’d be an incident every other day.”

He looked around the Restricted Section. If a vault was hidden here, it would be behind one of these bookshelves. And he was right! One of the bookshelves had a hollow space behind it.

The books on the shelves were bound by chains. So, Sol didn’t have to worry about them causing problems when he began moving the bookshelf. As it was too heavy, he could only slightly move one side of it to create a wide enough gap to squeeze in. Once he was done, he peered through the gap in the bookshelf and saw that behind was a hidden hallway that was pitch-black.

Squeezing in, he walked into the narrow hallway. The entire hallway was only as narrow as his wingspan. After a while, his eyes adjusted. The ceiling was high, even higher than the ceiling of the library. The darkness made it seem as though the hallway would never end. Despite not being one-twentieth the cold of the Vault of Ice, the hallway still had an eerie chill emanating from its end.

The youth walked quite a bit forward and stopped. “But first…” he turned around and smiled, his canine teeth showing. He should give the paparazzi a warm welcome.

Two figures walked inside the hallway behind the bookcase. No. 241 and 376 had just seen their target walk inside. Madam Rakepick had already given them all the information and entrusted this mission to them. Having been groomed by ‘R’ for more than a decade, they were ready to prove their worth. Just imagining Madam Rakepick’s praise made No. 241 feel euphoric.

“Do you see Balor?” 376 hissed; bringing 241 back to reality.

“Can’t. Field of view decreased. Need time.”

“Balor must have entered the Vault at the end. He must’ve used the broken wand by now!”

241 nodded mechanically, “Boggarts, numerous. Fighting- unwise.”

“Then we let him tire out handling those filth. Proceed cautiously!”

“Understood.” No. 376 led and No. 241 was behind him as the rearguard. A perfect two-man formation in this narrow hallway. As they walked, the narrow hallway instilled a sense of claustrophobia. However, such petty fears could not affect the perfectly groomed members of ‘R’.

They had already walked more than halfway. As he was about to open his mouth and speak, No. 241 was filled with an immense sense of foreboding. Beads of sweat started to form on his forehead. He marveled at the Vault of Fear's powers.

In the pitch darkness, a large hand suddenly appeared and covered his mouth. Before he could make a single sound, a pointy object was placed on his back.

“Petrificus Totalus,” the chant was said in a quiet whisper. A devil’s whisper. His legs and arms locked to his body and he fell backward stiffly.

Sol laid the stiff 241 on the ground and quickly aimed his wand at 376 who was in the middle of turning around. Another Petrificus Totalus sent him crashing to the ground. They were covered by a blue hue as an indication of the spell taking effect which quickly faded away.

“Fuck,” he cursed quietly and massaged his arms. “These bastards walk too slowly!”

He had climbed up to the ceiling, waiting for them[1]. But it took them five whole minutes to pass him. His arms started hurting and he was considering if he was just going to throw stealth out the window. Fortunately, he still clung to his last shred of rationality.

Looking at the statuesque figures of the two lying there, he got to work. He dug around their robe and took away their wands. He took a rope out of his satchel and bound their hands and feet tight.

“Damn, this looks kinky as fuck…” Sol lamented his choice of knots; however, this was the most secure way he knew how. He came close and opened their mouth and poked around in their mouths. He took out two small fake teeth from each of their mouths. He covered their eyes before pointing his wand at each of their tongues and chanting silently, “Spongify.”

Now, that he was done with everything, it was time to get answers. He pointed his wand at them and chanted, “Finite Incantatum.”

They were again dyed with a red hue as the effects of the previous spell lost effect. 241 and 376 regained control of their limbs. 376 lay still and glared at Sol while 241 struggled and flailed about wildly.

“How about you-” Sol kicked 241 in the gut who curled up from the pain, “-be still for a second?” 241 just looked up at Sol and began inhaling deeply.

Sol sighed inwardly and quickly pointed his wand at 241, “Silencio!” An invisible wave spread over 241’s body. As he opened his mouth wide, he could hear his vocal cords vibrate but no sound came out. Sol kicked his stomach once again.

He then looked down at 376 who was still silent, “Hey man, I used Silencio on your feisty friend over there but I don’t think I used it on you. Why don’t you tell me about ‘R’?”

“You won’t get a word out of me,” 376 still had that defiant and unyielding gaze.

“Ooh, I like those eyes of yours!” Sol grinned. “I just want to know two things- one, why didn’t you act like you didn’t know what I’m talking about? It would make sense if you used your identity as a student to act like you were just following me out of curiosity. Two, now that I took out your poison-filled teeth, how are you not going to tell me what I want? Don’t tell me you still have other ways to kill yourselves?”

“One,-” 376 began speaking whilst 241 still thrashed around in the background, “-the info we have on you states that you’re highly intelligent, with the Headmaster’s information, you’re likely certain who we are. So, pretending stubbornly will only make me look like a clown. And two,-” he smirked ominously, “-even if the poison’s gone, I still have ways to kill myself! For R!” He stuck out his tongue and bit down hard. But to his horror, his tongue wasn’t bit off as he imagined. Instead, it deformed from the force like someone pressing down slime and returned to its original form when took his teeth off it.

He frantically bit down repeatedly only for the same thing to happen again and again. He looked up at Sol with a wild gaze, “What the bloody hell did you do?”

Instead of an answer, all he got was a gaze filled with mockery and disdain as though Sol was looking at the silly antics of a clown. He walked close and kneeled down. He grabbed the hair on his head and made 376 look him in the eye.

“Shall we get to the Q & A?” He paused and smiled evilly before adding, “Don’t worry, I have an easy way to get you to cooperate.”

Sol winked, “Crucio.”